by Megan Atwood
For my mother, who gave me life and a love for words: Malola Atwood.
CHAPTER 1
But . . . Is It REAL?
Actually, no Halloween monsters REALLY exist,” Olive said, pushing up her glasses, then reaching over for more apple pie. “Zombies are a great example,” she went on. “Scientifically, zombies aren’t physically possible.” She piled her plate high with the pie and then added some ice cream. It wasn’t until she’d finished that she saw the whole table looking at her.
Her dad John beamed, but her other dad, David, smiled and looked down, shaking his head a little. Lizzie’s parents—Albert and Tabitha Garrison—shared a smile too. But Olive’s twin brother, Peter, and their friends Lizzie and Sarah all just looked exasperated.
“You don’t know for sure, Olive. There might be one somewhere in the world,” Sarah said, spooning a big cloud of whipped cream onto her pie. “Anyway, we’re talking about the zombie hayride, not REAL zombies.”
Olive furrowed her eyebrows. “Yeah. Because there’s no such thing as ‘real’ zombies.” She wasn’t sure why Sarah wasn’t listening to her. Sure, zombies were something she and her brother had been obsessed with for years. . . . And when they’d moved to New Amity and met Lizzie and Sarah, they’d found out they loved zombies too. AND they all got to plan a zombie hayride for a fall activity at the Garrison Orchard—not to mention a haunted barn. But that didn’t make zombies real. Surely Sarah knew that?
Lizzie continued the conversation, clearing her throat. “So, for the hayride, we can put an ad up around New Amity for people who want to be zombies. We’ll have to tell them that they’ll probably be hit by Nerf darts. And then Gloria and her friends will be the actors in the haunted barn.”
“ACTING!” Gloria, Lizzie’s teenage sister, yelled at the end of the table. Her sunglasses slipped a little down her nose as she threw her arms out, but she pushed them up and went back to reading a book called Acting the Strange and Unusual. Olive was used to Gloria yelling “Acting!” whenever anyone mentioned, well, acting. Her dad David called Gloria a “free spirit.”
A smile broke out over Lizzie’s face—a smile that Olive couldn’t help returning, even if she was still kind of smarting from Sarah’s irritation with her. Lizzie’s smiles were always contagious. Plus, Olive was super-excited about the festivities. This was the first year the Garrison Orchard would be putting on the zombie hayride and the haunted barn. And she, Peter, Lizzie, and Sarah were right in the thick of it.
It wasn’t just the four friends who were excited, either. The hayride and the haunted barn were the talk of everyone in their school. Kids were betting each other they wouldn’t go in, and Olive had even seen two kids crying because they were scared even at the mention of it. She thought that was silly. What was there to be scared of? It was just a bunch of kids Gloria’s age acting. None of it was real. Now, river parasites? THOSE were real. And something to be afraid of.
Albert said to Gloria, “Honey, why don’t you go over what you and your friends have planned?”
Gloria looked up from her book and pulled down her glasses. Then she pushed them back up her nose and sniffed. “Very well. If you insist,” she said, setting the book down. She put both hands on the table and leaned in, her voice dark and ominous. “First, the victims—”
Tabitha interrupted, “The paying guests,” but Gloria barely paused.
She went on, “—the victims will enter the barn, where darkness will envelop them. A monster greets them, his fangs dripping with blood. ‘Welcome, my delicious dinner—I mean, guests,’ he will say, and beckon them to follow him.” Olive couldn’t help it, she leaned in a little. “From there, the victims will feel their way around the barn, all the while being chased by ghosts, by vampires, by creatures of the night bent on their destruction! The first scene they come upon: a circus! Monstrous clowns ask them to come play, their smiles unnatural, their eyes wild—”
And suddenly, Lizzie cut in, something she never did. In fact, Lizzie wasn’t usually a talker, but this whole night she’d been animated and gabby. Sarah hadn’t even had to translate most of her sentences. Lizzie said, “Yes! The first room is the clown room! Then it’s the werewolf room, where a moon turns full and the actor turns into a wolf. Meanwhile, the zombies from the hayride will come through—or at least that’s what the guests will think—and start following them. The next room will be a chainsaw murderer, and then there’s a ghost school where bloody kids will answer questions about haunting, and then—”
Gloria huffed loudly. “BABIES need to wait their turns,” she said, and slammed herself backward against her chair. Lizzie’s face turned immediately regretful.
“Oh, no. I interrupted you, didn’t I?” she said, her eyes worried and scrunched. Sarah patted her shoulder. Gloria ignored her and put her headphones on, apparently done with the story.
Sarah shrugged and went on, “Anyway, after the haunting rooms, it’s a scary dentist room, and then people walk by the hayloft and it ends with a—”
And here Lizzie interrupted again, “—with a real murder scene! Or, not real, really, of course. But we’re going to have some actors up in the loft arguing, and then one of them is going to push the other one off. She’ll fall into some soft hay, but the audience won’t see the hay. And when she gets up, she’ll be like a ghost who will chase everyone out of the barn!” Lizzie made a squealing noise again and bounced in her chair. Sarah bounced too. Peter grinned. Lizzie ended with, “It won’t be a real ghost, of course.”
Olive laughed. “Well, yeah . . . because there’s no such thing as a real ghost. . . .” But she noticed no one else was laughing. In fact, they looked a little annoyed with her.
“What?” she said.
Sarah huffed. “You don’t KNOW there’s no such thing,” she said.
Before Olive could answer, Peter said, “It sounds awesome, Lizzie. We are all so excited.” Lizzie beamed. Peter threw Olive a look.
This time, Olive didn’t smile back. Why weren’t her friends listening to her? And why did they insist on saying things were real, when they KNEW they weren’t? Suddenly, she felt like one of the grown-ups instead of one of her friends.
Tabitha smiled at all of them. “Why don’t you all come tomorrow morning and help with the setup? Most of the town will be here to help, and you can ask them to put up flyers there. And maybe even finagle some volunteers!”
“DEAL!” yelled Sarah. She high-fived Lizzie on one side of her. And then Peter on the other. But she didn’t high-five Olive on the other side of Peter.
Olive wanted to believe that she didn’t because she was too far away. But she had a feeling she was making that up.
CHAPTER 2
The Curse of the Clumsy
Peter looked thoughtful. Which was kind of the way Peter always looked. But this time, he was thoughtful about something he wanted to say to Olive. She could tell. And Olive was growing impatient.
John and David walked up ahead, holding hands and pointing things out on their walk to the Garrisons’ barn. The place was a fair walk away, but their dads were charmed by the fall weather. And even though Olive was definitely chilly, she too loved the zip in the air and the crunch of the leaves.
She didn’t love the weighty silence, though. “What?” she finally asked Peter. He had grabbed her arm to let their dads get ahead so they could talk. Which was what normally happened. After all, they were twins; they always talked to each other. But the minute she’d seen his face, she’d known it wasn’t going to be a conversation where they joked around.
“Maybe you could . . . I don’t know. Lay off the whole ‘things aren’t real’ thing,” he said, looking ahead.
Olive lau
ghed. “But . . . zombies aren’t real. And neither are ghosts.”
Peter shrugged, and now Olive stopped in the middle of the road. “You don’t really believe in those sorts of things, do you?” Her voice was louder than she meant it to be. Their dads glanced back, and Peter gave her a “keep your voice down” look.
“I don’t know. I’m not saying they’re real. I’m saying I don’t know. I’ve had some interesting things happen to me, that’s all. Things that didn’t have a logical explanation. Maybe you can keep an open mind,” he said.
“But you’re asking me to pretend that something is real when it’s not! That’s not . . .” She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to say. Just that she felt like her shirt was on too tight. Or her coat was too far up her neck. Like all of a sudden things didn’t feel right. She felt like he was asking her to fit into something she didn’t fit into.
“I’m not, Olive. I’m asking you to let your friends believe what they want to believe. And to maybe think that you don’t know everything in the world,” Peter said. He walked faster, and Olive could tell he was mad. He moved ahead of her.
Turning around, he said, “Why is it so important to you that we all believe the same thing?” He kicked an acorn and watched it bounce to the side of the road.
Olive sighed and stuck her hands in her pockets, watching her feet walk along the gravel road. She didn’t know exactly why it was important to her. But it was. Really important. Because she cared about the truth. When she looked up, she noticed that she’d somehow gotten in front of Peter and had almost reached their dads.
• • •
By the time they reached the barn, Olive felt a little more settled. The barn and the orchard always made her feel better somehow.
The barn did not look haunted yet—it looked filled with people still alive, pounding nails, lifting props, yelling to each other, and generally causing chaos. To the side, Gloria and at least five of her friends stood in a circle, doing something weird with their voices. Gloria’s words carried to them: “Let the spirit of the season take hold of you—let the noises that need to come out, come out!”
Olive saw her dad John snicker, and Olive smiled too. She glanced at Peter to share a look with him, but his face had broken into a huge grin and he started walking faster to the barn. Olive followed his gaze and saw Lizzie and Sarah having a heated discussion outside the barn doors. Olive broke off from her dads with a quick wave and followed Peter toward their friends.
As she and Peter got closer, Sheriff Hadley tiptoed up behind Sarah. He saw Olive and Peter and put his finger to his lips. His red hair was sticking straight up and his hands were covered in black paint. But per usual, he had a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous smile on his face. Olive smiled and nodded.
Right then, Sarah and Lizzie noticed Peter and Olive. Sarah said, “There you are. You guys need to take a vote: Lizzie here thinks we should stick to Nerf darts to shoot at the zombies, but I think we should use paint balls because those hit harder and will look more convincing. What do you—”
But her words were cut off by a loud ROOOAARRR behind her. Sheriff Hadley’s eyes were wide and pretend-fierce, and his arms were up like a big ghoul’s, looming over Sarah. She turned around fast and screamed loudly—higher and more loudly than Olive had ever heard her yell before. But as she screamed, she threw her fist out and punched Sheriff Hadley right in the chin.
“Argh!” yelled the sheriff at the same time that Sarah yelled, “GET AWAY, MONSTER!”
Finally, Sarah seemed to realize it was the sheriff, and she said, “Oh. It’s just you.” She shook her hand. “Your chin is hard,” she said.
Meanwhile, Peter, Lizzie, and Olive dissolved in laughter.
The sheriff rubbed his chin ruefully. “I suppose this serves me right,” he said, winking at the gang.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “It sure does.”
Sheriff Hadley patted Sarah on the shoulder. “I pity any monsters that come across you, Sarah,” he said.
From across the barn, Sarah’s mom called out, “Colin, quit terrorizing the girls and finish this loft with me.” Sheriff Hadley gave them one last grin and then walked back into the barn.
The space was filled with townspeople and activity. Annabelle from Annabelle’s Antiques sat with a Victorian parasol on a hay bale and called out directions. She yelled out, “Do this well, everyone, and I’ll treat you to a poem!” Olive had heard her poems before. She would argue with the term “treat.”
Hakeem from the hardware store and Stella from Stella’s Imported Goods hammered something in the corner—what looked like a circus tent entrance—and Dinah from the diner used her cane to clear hay from a space on the floor. Aaron and Noa, from Noa’s Grocery and Bait, moved a table to the newly cleared space, while Rachel, Aaron’s wife and co-owner of Dinah’s Diner, painted something in the corner. Olive saw Dani, the town’s mayor, with her wife and Community Spirit leader, Kate; Aldo and Mariko from the farm store; and the town’s postman, Faiyaz. For a second, she smiled hugely to herself. She’d never been to a town where everyone helped out. Her dads had said the same thing—New Amity was different. She loved their new town and all the people in it.
A loud “OUCH!” wiped the smile off Olive’s face. Hakeem shook his thumb and dropped his hammer. Stella flapped around him, trying to get him a Band-Aid. Peter moved closer to Olive and said, “Lizzie says that’s the third time Hakeem’s hammered his thumb.”
Olive laughed a little. “He should really stop hammering.”
Lizzie and Sarah walked up. Sarah said, “It’s just weird. Hakeem owns a hardware store and builds things all the time. I heard him tell Stella he felt kind of fuzzy today. It’s a little creepy.”
Lizzie said, “Yeah, this barn has a . . .”
Sarah finished, “Weird feel to it.”
Peter nodded, and Olive fought the urge to groan. She said, “What do you mean, ‘weird feel’?”
Lizzie said, her eyes wide, “I don’t know. Just, something seems . . . off.”
The moment she said that, they heard a shout and saw someone roll out of the loft. Sheriff Hadley rushed to the edge and looked down. “ANA!” he yelled. He looked like he was ready to jump out of the loft right there. Sarah had already started to run to the scene. But Olive saw a long brown arm shoot up and heard a muffled, “I’m okay!” Sarah’s mom popped up and brushed hay off her clothes. Sarah reached her, and her mother put her arm around her. “Well, we know the skit will work now!” Sarah’s mom said. “Whoever plays the victim and is ‘pushed’ off will be just fine.” She looked up at Sheriff Hadley and grinned. “I would even say that was fun.”
Sarah giggled. “I want to do that!” She started picking hay off her mom’s clothes.
Her mom squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s leave that to the professional actors over there.” She pointed to Gloria and the group of her friends who had come into the barn at her yell. “At least we got the speakers and the microphones in for the play before I fell. Our actors will have the spooky music they need and the louder voices for their craft.” She winked at Peter, Lizzie, and Olive.
Another yell came from a different corner of the barn. This time it was Aaron, who was jumping up and down on one foot. Rachel had gotten up and was trying to get him to stop so she could see. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine . . . ,” he said, and put his foot down gingerly. He practiced walking a few steps. “I have no idea how that thing fell off the table! It was in the middle of it—how could it fall off and hit my foot?” Rachel patted his shoulder. “I’m sure it was a ghost,” she said, her smile mischievous. He grinned and brought her close to kiss her, and then leaned on her as he limped to a hay bale to sit down.
Lizzie whispered, “See what I mean about ‘off’? People keep getting hurt here. It’s almost like this barn is . . .”
Peter and Sarah said at the same time, “Cursed.”
Olive groaned this time. She couldn’t help herself. The too-tight feeling was
too much. “There’s NO SUCH THING AS—”
Before Olive could finish, a voice said right near her ear, “Not cursed. HAUNTED.”
Gloria had her sunglasses down and stared right into Olive’s eyes. She looked away and said, “Follow me if you want to hear the story of Verity Wentworth, the ghost of Garrison Orchard.” Then she walked out the barn doors. Lizzie, Peter, and Sarah shared an excited look, then followed her.
Olive swallowed her frustration. She could either stay in the barn by herself or follow her brother and her friends out to listen to a ghost story.
She guessed she’d be hearing the story of Verity Wentworth, then. The ghost of Garrison Orchard.
CHAPTER 3
This Doesn’t Seem Verity True
Gloria walked out of the barn and past her friends. She pulled her sunglasses down and gave them a look—a look that evidently said, “Stay here,” because they all nodded and didn’t move.
She kept walking until she got to the picnic table by the creek. The leaves on the trees had just started to turn colors, so the area was lit in yellows, oranges, and reds. The branches loomed over the table and cast shadows on it and on the ground all around it. Gloria sat on one side of the picnic table and the four of them crammed onto the other bench. Olive stole a glance at her brother and her two friends—they all leaned toward Gloria, their eyes wide. Olive sighed and shook her head.
“Babies,” Gloria started, pulling her sunglasses down her nose to look at them. “This tale I’m about to tell you will be upsetting. Possibly so upsetting to babies of your particular age that you should not hear it. Do you pledge to me that you are fit and of sound mind enough to hear this gruesome tale?”
Olive sighed again. Lizzie nodded, and so did Peter. Sarah said, “OH HECK YEAH.” Gloria looked at Olive. Then Lizzie, Peter, and Sarah all looked at her expectantly too.
“What?” Olive said loudly. “Fine, I guess. Whatever.” Peter gave her a look, but she ignored it. She didn’t know why she felt so frustrated—she just did.
