“I’m not big on spreading rumors.”
“So Forester really had nothing to do with Masrell’s fire?”
Bach looked at me, taking on the preternatural stillness firestarters could manage in a human body. His gaze jumped down to my hand, then back to my face. “He didn’t. Neither did I. And I thought you gave up hunting, after the last one.”
“Yeah, well.” I swallowed against a dry throat. “One person is already dead. I have to do something until my mom gets back.”
Bach gave me a look I couldn’t decipher and went back to his sundae. Artemis had shuffled closer to us, watching the filming with her face screwed up. Artemis usually looked like she was two steps from having a frustrated meltdown, but this was from worry, not anger.
When the DMW crew finished with the shots away from the building, they came in close.
“Could we borrow this spot?” the producer asked in a saccharine way that clearly meant move your asses. Bach wedged his spoon in his mouth and we stepped to the nearest empty table. The other three members of DMW went back to the van while Tad stood where Bach and I had been. The producer then motioned Artemis over. She jumped and hurried past us.
“Keep it short,” the producer told Tad. “But make sure it’s usable.”
Tad waved a hand. “I know the drill.” He turned to Artemis. “What’s your name again?”
“Artemis Wake.”
“What—seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Are you out of a comic book or something? That name is ridiculous.”
Artemis bristled.
“Tad,” the producer said.
“Okay, look,” Tad said. “There’s no introduction. We do that in post. I’m going to start asking you questions.”
Tad turned to the camera. Artemis patted her hair down and smoothed her expression. She had to know how red her cheeks were.
“Artemis, what can you tell us about the ghosts of Addamsville?” Tad’s voice resonated over the patio.
Artemis didn’t look at the camera even once, bless her heart. “We’ve had ghost stories as long as we’ve been a town. Ghosts built this place—ghosts keep it alive now. Most of the stories are meant to scare people, but when you dig into the history, the truth behind the myth is often sad, or even something completely normal that got twisted over time. What’s interesting, though, is that most of the stories are about white townspeople, when there’s an admittedly scant but still documented history of slavery and abuse of native peoples—”
She lost Tad at “white townspeople.” He let her go on for a bit until she finally registered his expression and her voice died off.
“Great,” Tad said flatly. He paused for a moment. “What’s it like to live in such a deeply haunted town?”
“Like living anywhere else. It has its history. I think of myself as a historian—we have just as much to learn from our ghost stories as we do from artifacts and old journals. Addamsville is a good place for that.”
Still no life in Tad Thompson.
“You’ve conducted investigations into locations here yourself?”
“Oh yes. I camped overnight in Maple Hills once.” Artemis had been to a lot of places, but she’d managed to keep this answer to something a general audience would find interesting. Points for Artemis!
“Could you tell us the story behind Maple Hills?”
“It was part of the Firestarter Murders,” Artemis said. “Twenty-eight years ago, an arsonist burned down several houses in town, the old town hall, and one of the cabins in Maple Hills. It was during the off-season, and the only people inside were two local teenagers, Michelle Garrington and Elton Holly. The campground was closed off after that. The burned cabin is only a foundation now, but there are stories that say you can sometimes hear a girl and boy talking quietly to each other nearby. Or, late at night, moans and screams coming from the campground. The police have also gotten calls from residents on the far side of the lake who say they saw what appeared to be a very large fire in the woods, where the cabins are.”
Tad leaned in, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand at his chin, contemplative.
“What did you experience while you were there?”
“Not much.”
Tad stared at her. Artemis cleared her throat.
“A few orbs,” she said. “And a dark feeling? Like I was being watched.”
Tad nodded his head seriously. Waited a few seconds. Looked at the producer.
“Sure,” the producer said.
Tad broke his pose. “Awesome, thanks.” He slapped Artemis on the shoulder. She watched him walk away with the cameraman and sound guys and the producer, her mouth hanging open and her face beet red.
“Woof,” I said, loud enough for her to hear me. “That was rough, eh?”
“Shut up, Zora,” she snapped.
Bach shook his head, smiling, and drank the last of his ice cream straight out of the bowl.
7
“Thieves!”
Artemis’s ranting carried across the empty parking lot.
“They come here asking for truth, but they only want what looks good and sounds edgy! Did you see the way he looked at me when I said the word history? He fell asleep standing up! They don’t even know this town, but they’re going to come in and stomp all over it like everyone else!”
I’d never in my life seen Artemis so incensed. I leaned against the Chevelle’s bumper, parked by Sadie’s Camry, where she and Grim sat on the trunk. Lorelei stood in Grim’s shadow. Hal was next to me, yawning, and Mads flipped through an app on her phone. The dead town council members had returned to their statue, and a few other ghosts wandered around the parking lot. I needed to talk to Artemis alone, but she was ranting too much.
Artemis marched back and forth, breath coming out in streams of fog.
“Yell louder,” I said. “I don’t think they heard you in Harrisburg.”
Artemis sneered at me. “Zora, for once in your life, will you think of someone other than yourself?”
I ignored the sneer. “What are you talking about? I think of other people all the time.” I counted off on my fingers. “When I’m making fun of them, when I’m keying their cars, when I’m—what’s that look for?”
Artemis spun away from me, hair trailing her like a blond curtain. “I can’t believe we’re related.”
The others didn’t laugh, either.
“They’re here for money,” Sadie said. “They’ll get their stories and go, and we’ll have a little more foot traffic for a while.”
Artemis scoffed. “For a while. We already get enough foot traffic. Tourists keep scratching up the antique wallpaper in Newman’s, trying to find the etched initials of the lost lovers who stayed in the east room. They punch holes through the rotting parts of the covered bridge to try to see the ghost of Roadspike Stevens climbing out of Black Creek. Pastor Keller even said he found a few people literally digging up graves to find out if it was true that there were no real bodies buried in the church graveyard. But all this is okay with all of you? They’re tearing our town apart piece by piece to sate their curiosity and get money, and that’s okay?”
Mads glanced up, eyebrows raised. Hal scratched at his neck. Lorelei had disappeared behind Grim, who stared absently northwest, toward Piper Mountain. Sadie took her hands away from her ears. “Of course I’m not okay with it,” she said. “But my life isn’t going to end if some wallpaper gets scratched up or a bridge has to be repaired. The gravedigging thing is . . . upsetting. But whatever the case, I have a few priorities that are higher on the list than saving this whole town. Food, for one. Health insurance. Making sure my car keeps working. Keeping this one out of juvie.” She jabbed a finger at me.
“Excuse you,” I mumbled. “I’m old enough to get sent to real prison now.”
“Arty, look,” Mads said. Artemis jerked to a halt. “If it bothers you so much, why not talk to your mom about it? She’s the one who started all this stuff. She’s the one who can do something about
it.”
It took a second for Artemis to break her wide-eyed stare at Mads, and when she spoke, it was with all the previous bluster blown out of her. “I’ve tried. It only gave her the idea to make the town more ‘interactive.’”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “She really is turning it into Conner Prairie for the Afterlife.”
“Pretty much.”
“It sucks,” Hal said, “but my dad’s gung ho for it, too. When he found out they wanted to film at the shop, he told me to put signs up in every window so our logo gets on TV. I’ll ask around and see if anyone else is unhappy with it, and maybe we can get a town assembly called. Until then I think we’re going to have to suffer.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s freezing balls out here, so I’m leaving.”
“It’s, like, fifty degrees,” I said.
“My balls accept nothing less than sixty-five,” he called back as he climbed into his Ford.
“I’m leaving, too.” Mads slipped her phone into her pocket. “See you guys at school tomorrow.”
“Bye, everyone.” Lorelei hugged Grim quickly and disappeared for the last time that night.
Sadie and Grim slid from the Camry. “Grim’s staying over with us tonight,” Sadie said to me.
“The more the merrier.” I held a hand up. Grim gave me a high-five, then caught my hand and patted it between both of his, a monk on a mountainside offering a prayer. “Just don’t eat all my Fruity Pebbles, okay?”
“I have two boxes in my car for you,” Grim said.
“God bless you, Grimmie!”
After they’d all left, Artemis stood there looking lost.
“Why does it feel like I’m the only one insulted by those guys?” She motioned to the spot where the DMW van had parked.
“Rest assured,” I said, “I also thought Tad Thompson was a bag of dicks.”
“But you don’t care that they’re using the town?”
“Yeah, of course I do. I hate tourists. And I hate people like Tad Thompson who think we should be throwing ourselves all over him. Where are they from? LA?”
“Seattle.”
“Freaking city people think we’re poor midwest bumpkins or something. Just because I grew up sticking cicada shells to my shirt and making mud pies doesn’t mean I’m stupid. We don’t have to like what they’re doing, and we don’t have to pretend to like it.”
Artemis said nothing to this. She turned the other way, hands on her hips, scanning for something on the street. She could sense ghosts nearly as far away as I could see them.
“Is your mom really trying to get more tourists to come here?” I asked.
“It’s her one goal in life,” Artemis said. “She wants Addamsville to be the tourist capital of Indiana.”
“That’s certainly a title.”
“The whole town council has been looking for ways to extend the tourist season.”
I’d heard. The ghost of Harben Mill was now rumored to show up on clear spring nights, waiting for her boyfriend in the Denfords’ cornfields. Theater two at the Royal Six, believed to be haunted by Mr. Beverley, the building’s original owner, now mysteriously echoed with the Mary Poppins soundtrack very very early on summer mornings. Coal miners could be seen walking the frozen lake in winter. Only the last one was kind of true.
It was bad enough just in the fall. Tourists had found our trailer on the bluffs before. They thought it was a meth lab. They nosed around our property until Sadie or I came out with Dad’s wood-chopping axe and scared them off. We’d tried talking nicely before—well, Sadie had—but that just made them try to ask permission.
More tourists would come because of the George Masrell fire and Dead Men Walking. The two events happening so closely together was already state news. If we got any unluckier, it would be national news. And Addamsville was perpetually unlucky.
“Why’d you look worried earlier?” I asked. “The coal mine, Maple Hills, or Forester House?”
“I checked Maple Hills last night, and the ghosts there are calm. No firestarters there in a long time.” Artemis turned. “And I figured Forester had to give permission for them to film at his house, so he’s not planning to kill them. But I’ve never been in the coal mine. And it’s a lot closer to Masrell’s house. And you looked over at me, and I figured Masrell had told you where the firestarter was when you saw him today.”
“Yeah. Bad news.”
Artemis reached out for me, but didn’t touch me. “Zora, we have to do something. We can’t let them go in the mine if there’s a firestarter down there.”
“Yeah, I know. But they’re not going to listen to either of us if we tell them not to go in, and if we damage the mine to make it seem unsafe, then we won’t be able to get in and find that firestarter ourselves. I’m sure its entrance is down there.”
Artemis’s face lit up. “You want to—oh, Zora, that’s great! We can start hunting again! And my research—I can learn so much more if you’re there!”
I jabbed a warning finger at her chest. “This is temporary. Understand? A one-time deal. Someone has to take this thing out, and I’m the only one around to do it.”
“So when are we going? Tonight? We have to get there before them.”
“No. I can’t take the Chevelle down in the mine, and I’m not fighting another firestarter hand to hand. We’re focusing on making sure it doesn’t attack the DMW crew first.” I sat back against the Chevelle and thought. “All right. How about this. You’re upset about the filming, right? That the show is going to bring a flood of tourists that are going to ruin the town?”
“Yes . . .”
“We screw up their filming. When those ghost-hunting shows get ‘evidence’ that turns out to be bored local teenagers, they can’t use that as proof, and it makes the town look like a fraud. Might get them out of the mine faster, and while we’re there we can keep an eye out for the firestarter. That’s what, three or four birds with one stone?”
“How did you think of that so fast?”
“I’m always thinking about ways things could go badly for me. That means constantly thinking of terrible things I could be doing. Is it risky? Sure. Do I think I can pull it off? You bet. I wouldn’t have suggested it if I couldn’t.”
“What do you plan on doing to them?”
“Uh”—I waved my hands in the air—“play tricks on them? Make them look like idiots? It happens all the time on ghost-hunting shows, right? Except we’ll do it better.”
“I am not damaging their equipment. We’ll get sued.”
“I didn’t mean damaging equipment. Jesus. I meant faking evidence but making it obvious it’s being faked. Then they can’t use the footage. No one wants to watch a ghost-hunting show where the ghosts are annoying teenagers.”
She looked like I’d kicked a kitten. “You want me to fake evidence?”
“You know all that paranormal stuff. You’d be good at it.”
She was already shaking her head. “No. Nope. As an investigator of the paranormal, I cannot—”
“Now I can’t believe we’re related. Do you have a better idea? There’s a firestarter in that mine, and if it’s there when they go in and we aren’t around to stop it, all those people are going to die. And besides—don’t you want to preserve the sanctity of investigation by making those guys look like the hacks they are? Don’t you want to show the world they can’t come into Addamsville and stomp around because they think it’s open for everyone?”
She hesitated. I knew that would work on her before she replied, before her expression even changed. I knew it because despite both our disbelief, we were related, and there was at least one thing, inherited from our mothers, that proved it.
We were Aberdeens.
“No destruction of property?” she said.
I held up a hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“No hurting people?”
“Nope.”
“What happens if we get caught?”
“I take the fall, one hundo percent.”
&nb
sp; “Even though you’re doing this to stop a firestarter?”
“Aw, that’s so sweet, you care about me.”
“If we get caught doing this together, then I’m in trouble, too. And if both of us are caught, that firestarter is going to run loose.”
She wasn’t wrong. I hated it when Artemis wasn’t wrong.
“We could get Bach to help,” I said. “Forester doesn’t want this firestarter around, either. With a third person, we’d be more efficient. And safer.”
“No. No extra people, and no Bach.” She shuddered. “Why would you even suggest that?”
“Look,” I finally said, “I am going to help you save this town. I’m going to help you get these mouth-breather tourists out of Addamsville, because I hate them as much as you do. Even if you get caught with me, you have your mom and a sterling reputation. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m the trash in this situation. I’m the disposable one. We keep people safe now, worry about the consequences later.”
She gave me another long, hard look.
I stared right back and said, “Either you come with me to help, or I go do it by myself. And you know how well that went last time.”
We squared off in the Happy Hal’s parking lot in the heart of autumn, with the dark and the ghosts. Artemis’s gaze strayed to my hand. It was my fault I’d faced the last firestarter alone, and we both knew that. It was my fault Artemis hadn’t been there to watch my back. She wasn’t the bravest girl in Addamsville, my cousin, but she had a heart.
And finally, Artemis said, “I can’t let you go by yourself.”
8
That night, against all common sense, I went out to perform my good deeds. Pruning, fixing, mending. It wasn’t to make up for the fires the town believed I’d set, like Artemis thought. If I couldn’t hunt for them, I had to do something. I couldn’t suffer the full weight of Mom’s disappointment.
Just because people knew now that I’d been going out at night didn’t mean I had to stop doing it. Who was going to be out in the freezing cold at one in the morning?
I got as far as the east side and was trying to right a tilted mailbox when headlights flooded the yard around me and hollering split the night.
Now Entering Addamsville Page 6
