by Heidi Lang
For Lyn and Bruce, the best mother-in-law and father-in-law in the world. Thank you for welcoming me into your home and your lives, and for reading everything I write with such enthusiasm.
—H. L.
And for Nick and Ember. Your patience and support were exactly what I needed to make this book happen.
—K. B.
PROLOGUE { LATE JUNE }
Jasmine clung to the edges of the hall. They were less likely to creak, and in this old house she needed all the help she could get. The weight of her flashlight was nice and comforting, but she kept the light off so no one would see her, even though the shadows here were so dark someone could be sitting in the middle of one and she wouldn’t notice them unless they tripped her.
She crept into the living room, quietly searching behind the television stand and under the couch. She even felt around the cushions. No one was there.
Her brother, Jake, always forced her to be It first, just because she was the youngest. It wasn’t fair, but if she complained, the others might not let her play anymore. And she loved playing hide-and-seek. She and Jake had been playing every night this summer with their cousin and the neighbor next door. She’d gotten pretty good at it; even though she wasn’t as fast as the others, she was definitely sneakier. So far she’d managed to tag everyone except their neighbor Stephanie.
But that was about to change.
Jasmine stood in the middle of the room and listened.
Creak. Creak. Creaaak.
She smiled and snuck toward the source of the noise: their front door, hanging slightly ajar. The wood had warped from the humidity of the summer, so it wouldn’t shut all the way now unless you slammed it. Which meant someone—Stephanie—had snuck outside.
It wasn’t technically cheating. They were allowed to hide in the yard, but yesterday Jasmine had noticed Stephanie crouching where the edge of the yard met the forest out back, in that space they kept arguing was out-of-bounds.
Jasmine pushed the door open wider and slipped outside into the cool night air.
She stood alone on the porch of her family’s old colonial house, which sat right at the edge of the Watchful Woods. Night bled across the sky like ink, transforming the forest into tangled tree limbs and disturbing shadows.
Jasmine shivered. Normally she could hear peepers, bugs, and bats, but everything had gone still tonight, like the rest of the world was waiting for her to make the first move.
She stepped off the porch and walked silently toward the woods in search of Stephanie, her eyes darting left and right, tracing the shapes of trees, the rusted remains of the fort her mom had built for her and Jake when they were little, the long curving driveway…
There. Something moved at the edge of the forest, a darker shadow. It paused beneath the tree line, then slunk deeper into the woods.
Jasmine looked at those trees all clustered together, the space beneath them super creepy, then glanced back at her nice, safe house. She could head inside and tag Jake or Teresa. She didn’t have to go out there.
But then Stephanie would win. Again. And it wasn’t fair. It was definitely her turn to be It for once.
Jasmine crept into the woods. A few feet in and she could barely see, the dying light from the sky blotted out by tangled branches overhead. She hunched her shoulders and kept going, leaves crunching underfoot no matter how carefully she tried to walk.
Long minutes passed with no sign of Stephanie. Jasmine glanced over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the house anymore. She hesitated, then noticed something gleaming white just ahead, a spot of brightness in all the gloom. Jasmine eased her way closer, squinting, until she made out Stephanie’s long blond hair. Got you, she thought triumphantly.
Stephanie didn’t move, even though she had to have heard Jasmine coming.
Jasmine paused a few feet away, unease prickling up and down her back. She clicked the flashlight on like a spotlight, illuminating Stephanie bent forward, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking like she was crying. “Stephanie? Are you—”
Stephanie spun, one pale, grasping hand catching Jasmine by the wrist, another latching around her upper arm, yanking her close so fast Jasmine didn’t have time to resist. Her fingers were still clenched around the flashlight, its beam bathing Stephanie’s face, and the numbness of horror spilled through her.
Jasmine barely felt Stephanie’s too-tight grip, or the wet from the grass seeping through her shoes, or anything. She couldn’t feel anything.
Stephanie’s mouth moved, open and shut, open and shut, almost like she was gnawing on an invisible bone. And her eyes… oh, her eyes…
Where her eyes should have been, there was nothing. Nothing but two deep pits full of night.
Jasmine made a low animal sound deep in her throat. She wanted to scream, but her voice had shriveled away to nothing.
Stephanie leaned in closer, and now Jasmine could see how filthy her face was, streaked with mud and crisscrossed with angry red welts, like she’d been running headlong through the branches. “Eyes,” Stephanie rasped, right beside Jasmine’s ear. “He said I have lovely eyes. Lovely, lovely eyes.” She released Jasmine as abruptly as she’d caught her.
Jasmine scrambled away, slipping in the damp grass. She knew she should stay, should somehow help Stephanie, but fear pulled Jasmine, sprinting, back to the safety of the house.
The front door stood wide open, but Jasmine barely noticed as she raced through it, running down the hall and into the dining room. And then stopped.
Her brother cowered under the table, his knees drawn to his chest. He had his cell phone out, the light of the screen turning his face a pallid, sinister blue, his eyes dark pockets of shadow.
“Jake?”
He looked up, and Jasmine’s flashlight reflected off the whites of his eyes. She wanted to sob in relief. For a second, she’d been picturing Jake with empty eye sockets just like Stephanie, and she’d been so afraid.
“Shh,” Jake hissed. “There’s something in the house.”
“What?” Fear came back, sharp and throbbing.
“We thought it was you, but it…” His voice choked off in a sob. “It went after Teresa.”
“What did?” Jasmine demanded.
“I don’t know. It… it had no eyes, Jas. It had so many teeth, but no eyes.”
No eyes… like Stephanie.
This was a nightmare. This wasn’t real. Jasmine couldn’t believe any of this was happening. But then she heard screams. Teresa’s screams. They seemed to echo all through the house, high and shrill and terrified before stopping suddenly. As if someone had just turned the sound off.
Jasmine clicked off her flashlight, listening hard. Her heart beat too loud in her ears, her breath rasping, but beneath that she thought she heard the creaking of footsteps. Behind her? Above her? It was too hard to tell in this old shifting house. She should go get help, but she didn’t want to go outside, in the dark, alone. She didn’t want to pass Stephanie. She was afraid to go, and terrified to stay.
“I’m trying to call Mom, but it’s not going through.” Jake’s whisper was too loud. Jasmine felt like he was shouting. And his phone screen was so bright. For some reason, this was the only room in the house that got cell reception, but it wasn’t always reliable even in here.
The footsteps grew louder.
Jasmine whimpered. “Close the screen, Jake.”
“I need to reach Mom.”
“We need to hide.” She could hear something at the other end of the hall, moving toward them. Closer.
Jake’s phone made a noise, and it sounded like someone picked up, the voice muted and garbled.
“Jake,” she sobbed. “We need to go.”
He put the p
hone to his ear. “Voicemail.”
“Jake!”
He looked up. “You go, Jas. Go hide. And don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”
Jasmine shook her head.
“Go!” He punched at the phone again, and she knew he wouldn’t leave this room. So she went.
She couldn’t stop crying, silent little gasps, but somehow she made it to the kitchen. She opened the cabinet doors below the sink, folded herself against the cold pipe, and pulled the doors shut.
Outside, all was silent.
And then the screams began again. Jake’s screams this time. Jasmine pressed her face into her knees and wept, and tried not to listen as they went on and on and then, abruptly, stopped.
In the sudden silence, Jasmine could hear footsteps creaking across the old wooden floor, stopping only a few feet in front of her hiding place. She tried to keep her breathing shallow, quiet, the scent of mold and bleach and that awful fake orange cleaner filling her nostrils. Her knees were crammed practically to her face, the cold pipe of the sink pressing into her back. Would it think to look under here? Jasmine was small for her age, and flexible. Most other ten-year-olds wouldn’t be able to fit.
“I know you’re in here,” the thing said.
Blood roared in Jasmine’s ears, and she bit down on her fist to keep from gasping. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited, counting slowly until the noise in her ears faded. Nothing happened.
She opened her eyes, blinking in the dim light filtering through the cabinet doors. It must have been bluffing.
Creak. Footsteps somewhere else in the house. The sound of a door opening and closing.
Jasmine relaxed, her foot bumping a bottle.
The cabinet doors flew open.
Jasmine couldn’t scream, her throat one tight knot.
“Hello, little girl.” The monster smiled, the skin of its face stretching around all those teeth like a badly made mask. “What lovely eyes you have.” And as it reached for her, Jasmine found she could scream after all.
1. RAE
{ THREE MONTHS LATER }
Rae Carter had never run away from anything in her twelve years, no matter what. She believed in always finding out the truth and facing it head-on, even when it cost her all her friends. But now, as her mom’s minivan rumbled into their new town, she realized that running away was exactly what she was doing. And it felt… okay, actually.
Although she wasn’t so sure about the place they were running to.
“ ‘Welcome to Whispering Pines,’ ” Rae read off the large sign posted at the edge of town. “ ‘Mind the goats.’ ” She frowned. “Really? Goats?”
“Goats must be important around here,” her older sister, Ava, said in that irritatingly superior tone she’d been using lately, like it was all so obvious.
“Don’t try to pretend that’s not weird,” Rae said. “Most other town signs just tell you the population.”
Ava shrugged. “I happen to like it. You like it, right, Mom?”
“It’s definitely different,” their mom said, slowing down to match the speed limit as they cruised down the main street. Twenty-seven and a half miles per hour. Rae had never seen a decimal point in a speed limit sign before, but this time she kept that to herself. Ava would probably claim she liked that, too.
Rae scowled at the back of her sister’s head. Ava was five years older than her, which hadn’t mattered all that much before. But this past year, Rae had felt each and every one of those years piling up between them.
Don’t be such a child, Rae…
Rae shook off the memory of the worst day of her life, the day she’d really needed her sister’s help and instead got a condescending lecture. If Rae was finally running away from something, it might as well be everything. She could leave her old self behind, and be someone new here. Someone who wasn’t overly focused on strange things. The kind of girl who made friends easily—and kept them—and was able to let the little things go.
But then she thought of her dad and knew she couldn’t actually abandon everything.
They left the small downtown area behind and turned onto a tree-lined street. All of the streets here were tree-lined. They’d had plenty of trees back home in Sunnyside, California, too, but not like this. It was as if the houses and businesses of this town were battling the forest for space.
A few more turns, even more trees, and up ahead Rae spotted a moving van parked on the street in front of a rectangular white house. Her mom pulled up behind the van and cut the engine, the car filling with quiet as the three of them just sat there, staring out at their new home.
It was definitely larger than their old place but looked older, the paint a bit weathered, the bushes lining the walk slightly overgrown. Otherwise, it seemed normal enough. No goats anywhere. Rae was a little disappointed.
She glanced at her mom in the rearview mirror. Her mom wore one of those looks that meant her mind was a million miles away, her eyes wide and unfocused. It was a look she’d worn way too often this past year, ever since Rae’s dad had vanished.
Been taken, Rae corrected herself. That was one truth she couldn’t forget, not for a second. “Mom?” she asked.
No response.
“Should we go in?” Ava asked, a little louder.
Their mom gave herself a little shake and smiled. “I suppose we’d better,” she said. Of course she responded to Ava. She always did.
Rae crossed her arms, remaining in the back seat as her mom and sister got out and headed toward the house. Neither of them looked back, though, and after a minute Rae got tired of being sulky and climbed out of the car too. She took a deep breath.
The air smelled different here, like pine needles and dirt. The trees nearby had just started to change color, clumps of red and orange bursting out from behind all that green. Rae had heard that nothing beat autumn in Connecticut. So far it seemed like it was off to a slow start.
“You coming in?” Ava called, poking her head out the front door.
“Yes, yes,” Rae grumbled. But she hesitated at the bottom of the driveway. Once she went inside, that would be it. The end of the old Rae, the start of the new. She wasn’t sure if she was ready.
She looked at the moving van looming in front of her, packed full of everything from her family’s old life, and realized she didn’t really have a choice.
Movement behind the van caught her eye. Someone was walking through the yard of the house across the street. Rae glanced at the open front door behind her, then took a step away from it. She wasn’t stalling. She was investigating.
She stepped past the van so she could see the house across the street better. It sat up on a hill, its own driveway long and unpaved, and at the bottom a large square sign read, GOT A GHOST PROBLEM? NAME YOUR PRICE! in bold orange letters. Below that, written in black, it said PARANORMAL PRICE: SPECIALIZING IN EXORCISMS, TAROT READINGS, AND HOUSE CLEANSINGS, followed by a phone number.
Rae scratched her head. Maybe it was a joke?
She looked past the sign, through a thin layer of trees and up the driveway, where a boy with messy dark hair moved slowly backward through the yard. He was tall and skinny and wearing all black—probably a requirement if his family actually specialized in ghost hunting—and he was tossing handfuls of something into the grass as he walked.
“Hello?” Rae called loudly. If they were going to be neighbors, she might as well be friendly.
The boy looked up at her.
She waved.
He turned away, tossing more of whatever it was into the grass behind him and ignoring her completely.
Rae slowly lowered her hand to her side, her heart sinking. Maybe things wouldn’t be any different here for her after all.
“Don’t mind him,” a voice said behind her.
Rae whirled, coming face-to-face with a girl about her age wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt with the words “Seeking Samantha” printed on it.
“Caden Price doesn’t really like people.”
The girl tossed her long dark hair back over her shoulder. “I mean, we live on the same street, and I think he’s spoken to me once.”
“What’s he doing?” Rae asked.
“Drawing a line with salt.”
“Salt? Why?”
“I have no idea, and frankly, I’m scared to ask. But he does it a lot. Especially lately.”
“Great,” Rae muttered. She was living across from a ghost-hunting weirdo with a condiment problem.
“I’m Brandi, by the way,” the girl said. “You must be Rae, right?”
Rae’s eyes widened. How could this girl possibly know that?
“I promise I’m not some creepy stalker,” Brandi said quickly. “We just don’t get many new people here, so as soon as the moving van showed up, I had to investigate.”
“Spoken like a true stalker,” Rae said, the words slipping out. She immediately regretted them. They belonged to the old Rae, the one who had ended up friendless and alone. “I mean…”
Brandi laughed. “No, that’s fair. My mom tells me I’m too nosy for my own good. Claims it’ll get me in trouble someday.” She shrugged. “Anyhow, you’ll be in my school, good ole Dana S. Middle School. Seventh grade, right?”
Rae nodded.
“I’m a grade above you, but I like helping new students get settled in, and since you’re, like, only the second one we’ve had in a year, I can totally show you around if you want.”
“Show me around? You mean, here? Or at school?”
“Both.” Brandi grinned. She had chapped lips and a small gap between her front teeth, but somehow they made her smile look better.
Rae wanted to grin back, but embarrassingly, she could feel tears building in the back of her eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had been so nice to her. Not since her ex–best friend had cut all ties at the beginning of sixth grade. “I’d like that,” she said, turning a little away and blinking rapidly.
“Cool beans.” Brandi studied the moving van. “You probably want to get started unpacking, huh?”
“Not really,” Rae admitted. She wasn’t looking forward to going through all those boxes.
