“I’m done with this,” she said to a reporter over the phone. “I don’t care what anyone else does. I’m out of here. I’m going somewhere warm. Ghosts are bullshit. Indiana is bullshit. This whole thing was Tad’s idea anyway, and he’s a demon now. I’m getting my money, and then I’m out of here.”
That morning I sat outside Happy Hal’s with half of Addamsville, watching a swarm of police, firefighters, and reporters mill up and down Handack and Valleywine. Everyone from Addamsville knew it was me and my car in the videos, but they watched me now with wide-eyed wariness. They didn’t know what I was, but at least now they were aware of it.
Dad was perched over me like a watchful hawk. Aunt Greta was there, vouching for my whereabouts and fighting off as many of the rumors as she could. So were Sadie and Grim, on the opposite side of the table. Hal was arguing with his dad about opening the shop. Mads had escaped her parents to swoop in and rescue Lorelei from hers; Buster was being led out of the crowd, bellowing his head off, by Officer Norm. Pastor Keller was standing where the town council ghosts had once been, decked out in full religious regalia and gripping his moth-eaten Bible in both hands. To pray the evil away, I guess.
Like the town council ghosts, all of Bach’s corrupted spirits had disappeared after last night. So had Masrell, after we put Ludwig back through his entrance.
Next to me, Artemis said quietly, “I feel like we should have told the DMW crew what happened to Tad. What if they wonder about it for the rest of their lives?”
“If they wanted the truth, they would have asked,” I said. “They know who to talk to. But they didn’t, and they’re still getting their money. So let’s leave them that way, huh? Leave them happy with their money.”
“Don’t you think knowing the truth might make them happy?”
“Hell no. You don’t go looking for the truth to be happy. You go looking so that you know.”
Clusters of ghosts drifted amongst the onlookers. A girl in a floral dress watched Chief Rivera cut a path through the crowd. The ghosts that always watched Pastor Keller root through his trash for his glasses was following him around now.
Artemis said, “I think part of happiness is contentment. And knowing this, you can’t be content, because it creates so many more questions. How do ghosts exist? What does this mean about the afterlife? Who are we, that we can sense them? Ludwig was right. We don’t even know all the questions to ask yet.”
“Mysteries on mysteries,” I said.
Chief Rivera made her way up to our table. “Novaks,” she said, nodding to us. “Greta. Artemis. Mr. Grimshaw.” Sadie was pointedly holding her expression in check. “I found an interesting set of packages waiting for me at the police station this morning. The first contained several documents of dubious purpose relating to Buster Gates’s business practices. I found it interesting that this package appeared the morning after Buster reported the doors to his shop unlocked and some of his things rifled through, not to mention the Chevelle missing. I stopped by to see if it had any relation to what happened on this side of town.”
“I don’t know who would’ve done that,” Dad said, resting one hand on my shoulder and one on Artemis’s. “We were all at Greta’s last night, as my sister-in-law already explained to Officer Newall.”
“It seems,” Aunt Greta added, “that Tad Thompson had something against Zora. He could easily have made a stop at the junkyard on his way south.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rivera surveyed us from behind her aviators. “And I guess I should chalk the documents up to fiery shenanigans?”
“Hey,” I said, “at least the fiery shenanigans are over.”
She focused on me. “Are they now?”
“Forester’s gone.”
“That he is.” She took a deep breath, held it in, then let her shoulders relax. “That brings me to the second package. In it was what appeared to be the very legitimate will of Malcolm Grimshaw, the previous owner of Grimshaw House.”
We all stared at her.
“Who sent it?” Sadie asked.
“If I knew that, I’d already be questioning them,” the chief said. “Unfortunately the package was unmarked except for a very large letter B. Mr. Grimshaw, I’ll need you to come down to the station with me to talk about this document. And actually, Greta, it might be good if you come, too.”
“Happily,” Aunt Greta said.
“Can Lazarus come?” Grim asked, shaking as he stood from the table, even with Sadie’s hands to brace him. “I’m not very comfortable with legal issues.”
Dad jumped to Grim’s side. “All above the board, Abby, swear to God.”
“Fine,” Rivera said. Then to me and Artemis, “Don’t get into trouble, all right?”
I held a hand to my heart. “Scout’s honor.”
They disappeared. Sadie shifted around to our side of the bench and tightened her grip on her afghan. She’d been less on edge this morning, but still tense, and I hadn’t realized why until I remembered that the ghosts had all come back.
“Was it better quiet?” I asked.
“Not really,” she replied. “I’ve heard them my whole life. Without them, it felt wrong.”
“It felt wrong not seeing them, too.”
“So, let me get this straight.” She spoke quietly enough that no one nearby would hear. “You had to . . .” She mimed cutting her neck. “Does that bother you? I know you needed therapy before, but at least before it was something you could actually talk about.”
There were a lot of things that bothered me, and severing a human head was probably top of that list. It hadn’t been the same as the swift slice to sever a firestarter’s natural head. It bothered me that I could still remember the feel of the axe in my hands and the warm blood misting my face. But that I had beheaded Ludwig didn’t bother me, probably because he’d kept talking, but also because I knew cutting his head off hadn’t killed him. He was still alive out there, wherever there was, and if he could find his way back to Addamsville to search for Hildegard, he would.
“Nah,” I said. “But you’re right, I gotta get some kind of therapy for . . . everything. You should probably come with me.”
“Why? You’re old enough to take yourself.”
“I meant you should also go to therapy. She was your mom, too. And thanks to Dad, you’ve basically been a single parent for most of your twenties.”
Sadie cooled. “Oh. Well . . . yeah.”
“And we can work on the ghosts, too. Maybe together we can become two halves of a whole functioning psychic. Or”—I glanced at Artemis—“three halves.”
Artemis turned long enough to say, “Three-thirds.”
“Whatever.”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “Oh. Yay. Just the glamorous, high-paying job I’ve always wanted.”
I punched her. She kicked me with a combat boot.
Mads and Lorelei found their way over to us, causing Artemis to freeze halfway through applying fresh lip balm. Lorelei was beaming; Mads looked solemn.
“Lorelei, shouldn’t you be more upset?” I said. “Your dad got dragged off in front of the whole crowd.”
“It’s his fault anyway.” She practically radiated joy. “And Gavin told me about the will! He’s getting his house back!”
“Don’t be too optimistic,” Sadie said. “They could still say the will isn’t legitimate. Or that Forester still owns the place. Or the town will keep it as another tourist attraction.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got Aunt Greta on our side now.” It felt nice to say. “And I don’t think she’s going to need it for the tourists.”
I wasn’t entirely happy about that point—tourists would never leave Addamsville now—but if tourism was how we kept Addamsville alive, then so be it. Keeping them from destroying our buildings and our homes would be a constant, slow, grinding struggle, but it was better than facing a firestarter.
The only person who still didn’t look happy about this was Mads.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked
her.
“Midterms,” she said. “They’re next week.”
“Oh, eff.”
Artemis snorted. Mads nudged her with a leg and said, “Do you want to study for AP chem together?”
Artemis looked up at Mads. “Me? Uh—sure. Uh—when?” She fumbled for her phone. “Uh—I have tomorrow free, the next day, all weekend—”
As they compared schedules, Hal joined us. He was healing, slowly but surely. I hoped the lasting effects of the firestarters—on him and on the rest of Addamsville—wouldn’t be too bad. Or, if they were, that my friends would talk to me about it. Hal started poking around Mads and Artemis, making Artemis flush again and Mads step in to her rescue.
Sadie and I watched Pastor Keller in silence. He was preaching about how Hermit Forester and Bach would suffer retribution for what they’d done. Tourists, DMW fans, and newspeople passed him by. Only the locals stopped to listen.
Tad’s disappearance was a draw for the rest of America, but for Addamsville the mystery was the disappearance of Bach and Forester. Scraps of Bach’s ruined clothes had been found trailing from the football field to the edge of Black Creek Woods. Come early this morning, Sam Forester was unreachable, the Forester House abandoned, and Forester’s car still in the driveway. They had gone, like Mom five years before, and there was no knowing where they were now or if they’d ever be back. The disappearance of the Firestarter Murder ghosts meant, I hoped, that Bach had taken Sam back through his entrance.
“Death or hunting?” I said to myself.
Sadie frowned at me. “What?”
“Hypothetical situation: you can know there are answers to your questions but ignore them in order to be happy, or you can spend your life hunting them down. What do you choose?”
She thought for a minute. “I choose both.”
“You can’t have both.”
Sadie smiled, and something about it—her amusement, her resignation—made me realize I hadn’t been the only one thinking of this. “Sure you can. I would hunt, but only for so long. There are too many questions, and too many answers; if you don’t draw the line, you’ll lose yourself to it. I think it’s important to find the answers you need, but at some point you have to stop and ask yourself if you really need them.”
I followed her gaze to the hazy gray sky over Black Creek Woods. Sadie bumped me with her shoulder, then put her arm around me, shrouding me under her afghan. “We deserve to be happy,” she said.
A long moment passed while all of Addamsville moved around us. Living and dead, locals and tourists, the known and the mysterious.
Sadie gave me an obnoxious squeeze and added, “But if you want help looking for Mom first, I won’t say no.”
33
The old Victorian loomed over Grim as he waited for us on the curb. Grimshaw House’s windows reflected the gray sky and the bare trees as the wind tugged at the last of their leaves. As always, the ghosts kept their distance.
“About time!” Dad said, smacking Grim square between the shoulder blades. Grim fumbled to keep hold of his manila envelope. “How does it feel?”
Grim smiled. “Cold.”
“You have the key?” Sadie said, gathering him up in a big hug and kissing him on the cheek. “What are we waiting for?”
We followed Grim up the front walk and ascended the porch steps. Grimshaw House groaned like someone woken too early.
“There’s a lot of work that has to be done on it,” Grim said. “Mrs. Wake said she’d help out, but I told her she didn’t have to.”
“Do you think there’s really treasure buried in there?” I asked.
“That railroad fortune had to go somewhere,” Sadie said.
Grim shook his head. “I think the real treasure is that we all have a place to sleep tonight.”
“He’s a smart one, Sadie,” Dad said. “You made a good choice.”
While Grim dug around in the manila envelope, I stepped back and looked up at the face of the house, the cracked paint, the weathered siding. Even with Bach and Forester gone, it looked as empty as the day it had been built. Ghosts should have been in every window, patrolling every hallway, relaying a message through the house that there was someone new here, a new owner, a Grimshaw come back to the nest.
Maybe, like Artemis’s shoe ghost, they were just very good at hiding. It didn’t make me want to go inside any more, but that was a comfort. Maybe they would get used to me and show themselves. I could tell them this was my first time ever living in anything other than a trailer, and though I would have given almost anything to have the trailer back, I was excited about this, too.
They’d understand. They were used to it. Life in Addamsville was, after all, just a prolonged cohabitation between the living and the dead.
Grim found the key, a surprisingly shiny thing for a house so old, and slid it into the keyhole. The lock made an audible chunk sound. Legally entering the house felt a lot better than picking the back door.
The entrance opened into a dusty foyer. Thick cobwebs hung from a metal chandelier. A staircase ran up one side to a darkened second floor, and luckily there were too many footprints disturbing the dust for ours to be recognized from the night we snuck in. To the right was a parlor. To the left, a dining room. Oil paintings still hung in their frames, warped from the weather. The chill seeped through the walls, and the musty air hung stagnant. The size of the house could be felt in every inch of it.
“It’s beautiful,” Sadie breathed.
“Why would anyone need to bury treasure beneath this place?” I said. “Look at it. It is treasure.”
Dad and Sadie went into the dining room to look at the china cabinet and the long dining table. Grim held me back and dug around in the envelope again. “I found this in the mailbox when I got here. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, but . . . well.” He pulled out a smaller envelope with Zora printed on the front in sharp handwriting. The flap was sealed, but the whole envelope was browned and crisp, like it had been tossed in an oven for a few seconds. Inside was a letter signed with a jagged B.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Grim stepped into the house.
Zora,
L was wrong. He wanted the house because he thought H hid her entrance to Addamsville there. But a house isn’t big enough to hide something like that. H is much stronger than us, and her entrance would have to be huge. L isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I think I might know the location of H’s entrance. It took even me a while to find it. I’m not positive yet, but we’ll find out once I get Sammy there. I’m telling you this because I think it might answer your question. And I’m not telling you what it is in case someone else reads this letter. The entrance is hidden for a reason.
I don’t want to get your hopes up. If you see what I did—and I know you will, eventually—you can decide for yourself if you want to check it out.
Just don’t forget, not everyone out there is as nice as me.
B
P.S. I included one answer with this letter. I made sure no one else was able to find it a long time ago. I hope it’s the first of many.
Folded in with the letter was an old black-and-white photograph of Bach, looking eighteen, standing before the entrance to the mine in its heyday. He wore a light suit with a vest beneath, and his expression was sullen. On the back of the photo was the year 1883 and the letters S. H.
Feeling strangely hollow and light, I went back to the letter.
My question. I’d asked Bach a lot over the years, but it was the obvious one, the one I would ask everyone if I thought someone could give me an answer. He had disappeared into Black Creek Woods in almost the exact same place Mom had because he thought he knew where she’d gone. Hildegard’s entrance, whatever it was—whatever it meant. Something bigger than a house, but not yet found by anyone in Addamsville. Artemis might have some ideas about that, and Sadie could ask the dead if they knew. It was a starting point, at least.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say Bach was a goo
d person. After you’ve murdered people, even in service to someone else, it’s tough to regain that title. He was trying to do good things, though, and if another crumb about Mom came out of that, I’d take it. I tucked the letter and photo back in their envelope, along with the picture of Mom and Aunt Greta I’d kept in my pocket, then hid it in my jacket..
Grim had drifted from the foyer into the parlor, for once looking like part of his surroundings. A ghost in a ghost house. Sadie and Dad had disappeared upstairs, so I followed Grim. The place was beautiful, but I didn’t want to think of the property taxes or the amount of money it’d take to fix it up. Thankfully, the house wasn’t the only thing Grim had inherited from his parents. The Grimshaws were mostly gone, but their money—some of that railroad fortune Sadie had mentioned—wasn’t.
“This place is great, Grimmie,” I said, turning back to him. “Way better in the daylight. We’re going to have to find some furniture, though. I think you should get a piano.”
Grim didn’t respond. He was busy wiping grime off the front window with his sleeve. After a few moments of futile cleaning, he gave up, unlatched the window, and gave it a sharp yank upward. The window groaned, jerked halfway open, then went the rest of the way. Grim kneeled in front of it and looked out. He’d crushed his envelope.
“Grim.”
Still no response. Grim could space out sometimes, but he almost always answered after the second prompting. I kneeled beside him. He stared to the northwest like he always did, past the houses and the shops, past the high school, past the place Mom had left the Chevelle, over the trees where Mom had found the Chevelle, where the clouds had broken and an eerie glow lit the horizon.
“What’s the matter, Grimmie?” I said. “It’s got to be a shock. Getting the house. Bach sent Rivera the will—I think Sam Forester had it this whole time. They were trying to keep ownership of it. They had this thing about ownership, how it let them see things differently—”
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