by K. F. Breene
I straightened up and tapped Braiden’s arm. “Here we go. Question time. Look alive.”
“Now, who would like to tell me—”
“How did you know my candle was lit?” Braiden asked, his voice a little too loud.
James, the kid sitting in the row next to Braiden, looked over, his eyebrows climbing his forehead.
“Shhh.” I gave Braiden a light shove as two people raised their hands to answer Mr. Williams’s question.
“Brandon, please pay attention,” Mr. Williams said. “Ella needs this information, too.”
“It’s Braiden.” He shifted so his body was straight in his seat, facing the front corner of the room.
“Sorry, yes. Braiden. And Buffy, there are better things you could be doing than putting on lip gloss,” Mr. Williams said. “Like paying attention.”
A smattering of laughter filled the room. Buffy’s expression soured and she rammed the end of the lip gloss into the tube before shoving it into her bag.
Braiden didn’t say one more word to me throughout the rest of class, nor did he pay attention. He stared out at nothing, or looked down, studying his hands.
When the bell rang, he slid out of his seat, leaving it crooked, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. By the time I had stood, he was waiting for me.
“What’s going on?” Braiden asked.
I glanced at everyone moving toward the door with us, most giving Braiden furtive glances. Buffy’s look before she exited the classroom was downright predatory.
We’d had a few new people in the school before, but none had drawn this kind of interest. His looks, his body, and his money clearly put him on the “hot” list. I didn’t want to spoil that for him.
“Here’s the thing. You have the rare opportunity to learn from my mistakes.” James looked at us again, his speculative gaze now on Braiden. I changed up what I was going to say. “I know the ins and outs of Mr. Williams’s class.”
A frustrated look crossed Braiden’s face, but then he noticed James’s assessing stare, and his expression shifted to a savage look. Hard, intense eyes and a suddenly taut body emanated a ferociousness that no bully at this school could master.
James’s eyes widened and he ripped his gaze down to his feet. I didn’t blame him. No one would want to mess with that.
“I’m not worried about making your mistakes, Ella,” Braiden said in a low voice I could barely hear. “I just want to know what’s going on.” We reached the door, and he slowed and shifted just enough to ensure I had the doorway to myself. He hung back a little before following me, not only being a gentleman himself, but ensuring the other guys crowding around the exit did the same.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, embarrassed and not sure why.
“Did you see the woman on the sidewalk last night?” Braiden blurted.
Chapter Eight
“Oh no, don’t tell me—” Dirk swaggered forward with his blaring red hair and condescending smile. He looked down on me before slapping Braiden on the back. “She’s been filling your head with urban legends, huh?”
I held my breath. Dirk had just given Braiden a great out, assuming I played hero and went with it. Otherwise, that outburst would seal Braiden’s fate in this town as the next attention-seeking crazy person.
“She has to seem interesting in some way.” Buffy smirked, drifting to Braiden’s other side. “Little does she know it only makes her sound desperate.”
“Why are you always around?” I asked Dirk. “Every time I look up, there you are. Do you have nothing better to do?”
He spread his hands out and grinned. “Why are you always noticing where I am?”
“Your hair is like a beacon. It probably glows in the dark.”
A kid passing us in the hall coughed out a laugh.
Dirk’s face went red, and I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. “I was in the area and thought I’d drop by to see if my buddy Braiden escaped all the nerds that plague this school. Clearly he did not.”
“The poor guy has to sit with her.” Buffy popped out a hip. Her arm glanced off Braiden’s. “And now we know what she was filling his head with.”
“The woman on the sidewalk is an urban legend?” Braiden asked, his eyes tight.
“Oh no,” Dirk said sarcastically. “She’s real. Isn’t that right, Fella?”
I rolled my eyes and turned toward my next class.
“Wait, I want to hear this.” Braiden caught up to me.
“No, dude, you really don’t, trust me.” Dirk stuck by his side and Buffy hurried up to fall in on the other side. The three trailed me like a bad smell.
“Who is this woman?” Braiden persisted.
“She’s a woman that used to—”
“Okay look,” Dirk said, cutting off Buffy. “You want to know, I’ll tell ya. You know that big old house at the end of our street?”
My ears might’ve deceived me, but it seemed like Dirk put the emphasis on our, turning that simple question snobby.
“That giant old place at the end?” Braiden asked.
“Yeah. It’s vacant. Has been for decades. Back in the day it was called—”
“The turn of the century,” I cut in.
Dirk paused. “Like I said…back in the day, it was called McKinley Mansion—”
“Jiminy Christmas, Dirk, if you’re going to tell him about it, at least give him one correct fact.” I saw Scarlet waiting by her fifth-period class with her head in her book. She glanced up and saw me approaching. She was about to start forward when she recognized my entourage. Her eyes widened and she froze.
“Then why don’t you tell him, butt-munch,” Dirk spat.
I couldn’t say I blamed her for ditching me yet again.
Nate and Leo from the football team, both solid blocks of muscle on legs, sidled up. They slapped Dirk five and joined up, walking down the hall in a loose cluster. The way in front of us opened up, as if a magical force parted the sea of students.
I couldn’t hide a crooked smile. This was fantastic! So much easier than zigging and zagging through everyone and apologizing if I bumped into someone. A girl could get used to this setup.
“Hello? Earth to dweeb,” Buffy called.
A girl could get used to it, but clearly I wouldn’t get the chance.
I sighed as I turned into the covered outdoor walkway. “Robert McKinley built what would later be called McKinley Mansion in 1853. He spent a fortune on it, building up a home of lavish luxury this area had never seen before. It boasted grand stairwells and pricey imported wallpapers, among other things. He died young of a strange illness, leaving behind a wife and no children. The wife, Florence, inherited the entire McKinley fortune, but it was said that what she really wanted was children—”
“Dude, where’s the campfire and s’mores, right?” I recognized that as Nate’s voice, but when I glanced back, I saw my three poltergeists still keeping pace. Behind them the group of jocks had grown, and I wondered why they weren’t scurrying off to their next classes. “It would be better if she had a flashlight under her face.”
“She was always the best at telling ghost stories,” came a girl’s voice I didn’t recognize. “Remember? My mom banned her from my slumber parties.”
Ah. Buffy’s friend, Maria, once my friend, back when first graders weren’t so discerning about the social hierarchy.
“The problem is, she believed she was in them,” Buffy said. The rest started laughing.
“Shut up, I want to hear this,” Braiden admonished. The voices behind me died down.
“She took on another husband, but still no children came,” I continued. “That husband, from old money, also died early, though the cause was never known. He left her all his assets, ensuring neither she nor any children she might have would ever have to work again. Florence was up in her years at this point—at least for the time—and still childless.
“Taking matters into her own hands, she married a younger man of little fortune, h
oping his vitality would ensure her children. It was after they were together for nearly five years that all the trouble in the town started.” I slowed as I reached my class and checked the time. I had a couple minutes. I turned to face the crowd of popular kids, which had grown quite large, and noticed an additional swarm of kids following on the fringe. No matter how much they mocked me for believing, the people in this town, secret believers and skeptics alike, loved a good ghost story.
I swallowed, trying to push past the stage fright.
“Go on,” Braiden said, his eyes soft. For once, Dirk didn’t harass me. The kids around me were actually leaning forward in their eagerness for me to continue.
“One dark and stormy night, a woman was seen strolling through the middle of the street. The rain didn’t seem to touch her. The wind didn’t seem to move her clothes. Several people claimed to recognize her as Florence McKinley. The next morning, when the townspeople awoke, a child had gone missing. No locks had been tampered with; no doors had been forced. The child was simply…gone.”
“Ooh,” one of the jocks in the back said. The whole group shifted and moved, and Claud’s head poked out, his eyes wide. “Tell us what happened when they searched the mansion.”
“Shhh.” Leo elbowed him. “Let her get to it.”
“A full-scale search was put into effect. The nearby towns were searched, the empty fields and forests combed, but they couldn’t find the child anywhere. Finally, they knocked on Florence’s door. She opened her home to the search. They didn’t find any hint of a child, but there was a room dedicated to each of her dead husbands, both of them full of belongings. Eerie places, organized like the men might come home at any moment.” I held up a finger. The crowd as a whole leaned slightly forward. “The dead husbands, I mean. Not the one who was supposedly living.”
“What do you mean supposedly?” someone asked. “I don’t remember this part.”
“He wasn’t there. They couldn’t find hide nor hair of him. Florence said he’d gone out. ‘Where?’ they asked. ‘We’ve searched the whole town. We didn’t see him.’ ‘Traveling,’ she cut in. ‘He went traveling. He’ll be back shortly.’ But the days came and went, and her last husband never returned. And neither did the child. A year went by without any incident. The storms came and went, and though the townspeople continued to worry and hold their children tightly, none went missing. Until the same night, a year later. The winds howled. The rain poured down. Lightning lit the sky. On that night, a few people saw a woman who resembled Florence McKinley wandering through town. In a daze, they said. Stumbling down the middle of the street—”
“Why didn’t someone help her?” a girl I didn’t recognize said from the outskirts of the now-massive group.
“Because it was storming or something, shhhh!” Nate made a shushing gesture.
I forged on as if he were right, hoping that meant I didn’t have to answer the question, because it was a good one, and I honestly had no idea.
“And on that night, two children, ages four and ten, went missing from different homes.”
“No,” someone breathed.
I checked my watch. “I have to finish really quickly because the bell is about to ring.”
“Go, go, go!” Nate made a circular gesture with his hand.
“Yeah,” someone else agreed.
“No doors were forced. No one saw an abduction. The kids were just…gone. Well, the town looked. They searched. And they finally found their way back to the McKinley doorstep. Once more they were let in, and once more they came up empty.”
“What about the husband?” someone in the gathering crowd called out.
“‘Traveling,’ she said.” I shook my head. “‘You’ve just missed him. He is off traveling again.’”
“Yeah, right,” Nate said, and crossed his arms.
“They looked all through her house, but they found nothing. Not a sign of the children, or her missing husband. So they went about their lives. What else could they do? They had nothing on her. But just six months later, it happened again. The same as before. Well, now the townspeople were fed up. They went to her house with pitchforks and torches, hellbent on dragging her out—”
“You all need to get to class,” my sixth-period teacher, Miss Potters, said as she appeared in the doorway. The bell echoed through the halls. The large crowd standing in front of me all looked up in confusion.
“But we need to hear the end of the story,” Nate called out, refusing to let the now-scurrying students move him.
“They dragged her out of her home and stoned her to death in the middle of the street,” Miss Potters said with clipped words, “without a trial. And guess what? The mysterious abductions continued. Clearly someone else was responsible, but a woman was blamed, even after death. It was a black spot in our town’s history and we shouldn’t pass off tall tales as truth. Ella, you’ve been in detention for this. Many times. You should know better.”
“Oh man. They stoned her to death? That’s a bad way to go.” Nate drifted away with Leo, shaking his head. “I hadn’t heard that part.”
“Out of all I said, that’s what he chose as the takeaway?” Miss Potters mumbled.
“I apologize, Miss Potters.” Braiden stepped forward with a charming smile. “I’d heard someone mention the mansion in third period, so I asked Ella about it. She was just telling me the town’s urban legend. I think we’re all fully aware of the falseness of the story, and the injustices women have faced throughout history. It was purely for curiosity’s sake, believe me.”
“Yes, well.” Miss Potters blushed a little and adjusted her reading glasses. If any hair and makeup trends had knocked on her door in the last decade, she hadn’t bothered to answer. “Fine.” She grabbed the edge of the door and ushered me inside. “Just remember, there are two sides to every story.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Braiden said.
“And don’t believe everything you hear. Especially in regards to this town being haunted.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you want a note so you won’t be marked tardy?”
I stalled in entering the door. Since when did Miss Potters bend the rules? Braiden had allowed himself to be tardy on purpose, just like everyone else.
“That’s okay, ma’am. I have a free period. My physics credits from the summer transferred over.”
“Oh. Of course.”
I drifted into the class, thinking on what Miss Potters had said. She was certainly correct—history was peppered with false accusations, and women often got a crappy deal. But in this instance, I’d seen it with my own eyes. People like Miss Potters thought I lied about the Old Woman to get attention. They thought Alex and Janine had, too. But we’d all seen the same thing. Felt the same things. And now they were gone. It was that woman, Florence, who kept trying to will me out of my house. I’d looked up her picture, and it matched. She wanted me to follow her to the mansion.
A place from which no kid ever returned.
That wasn’t fabrication, that was really happening, whether they wanted to believe it or not. The question was: would logic overrule Braiden’s memory?
Chapter Nine
The next morning, I stared off into space at the bus stop, sleepy-eyed but relieved that I’d beaten Dirk out of the house. Nightmares had plagued me, the anxiety of this new situation with Braiden manifesting in one chase scene after another. Sometimes he caught me and dragged me to the mansion before flinging me through the front door. Other times I escaped, only to get trapped in a small cage or fall into a pit filled with murky water. And still other times he wouldn’t drag me away at all. He’d wrap those big arms around me and kiss me, his lips soft and his hands exploring.
Okay, so some of those dreams hadn’t been nightmares at all, but they’d still gotten my heart racing.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead despite the chill in the air.
“Hey.” Carla waved at me with eyebrows lifted in annoyance.
Surprised she
was acknowledging my presence, I pulled an earphone away from my ear. “Huh?”
“This is the single best day of your life. The. Single. Best. Don’t blow it.”
“What?”
“Hello?” She jabbed her finger through the air, pointing over my shoulder.
“Ella,” I heard, the voice sending shivers down my spine.
A shiny red Corvette sat by the opposite curb with Braiden’s arm hanging out of the open window. He smiled at me in greeting and I could just see the hoodie bunched up around his neck. No suit for him today. He was dressing down to match the student body. “Hey. Do you take the bus?”
I felt my face flush and tucked a strand of crimped hair behind my ear. I’d put a little extra effort into getting ready that morning in an attempt to turn my average, not-all-that-trendy appearance into something a little more exciting. “Yeah. My parents want me to buy my own car, but I don’t have a job, so…”
“Don’t admit that to him,” Carla said through her teeth. She moved up to my side and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Make up something else, quick.”
“That’s a bummer,” Braiden said, pulling his arm into the car.
“Too late. Fine. Keep him talking,” Carla advised, elbowing me forward.
“They’re trying to teach me responsibility,” I blurted.
“Oh my God, you are hopeless,” Carla said. A smile spread across Braiden’s face and Carla mumbled, “Holy smokes, he is super freaking hot.”
“How’s that going?” Braiden asked.
I shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“Good answer. That was a good one,” Carla murmured. “Now turn the conversation to wishing you could get a ride.” Carla clearly thought she was a dating guru.
“I wish I could get a ride,” said one of the guys behind me. “That’s a really nice car. I’ve never ridden in a sports car. Have you?”
I tried to glance back to see if he was talking to me, but before I could turn, Carla grabbed my arm to keep me steady. “Keep talking to him. You don’t want him to get bored and leave.”
