Other than the muted voices coming from upstairs, the house was absolutely silent.
“Something's coming through from the other side,” Winnie whispered. “I read about this on that ghost website.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and chattered her teeth. “Something powerful is coming through.”
At their feet, Teddy made a sound halfway between a growl and a whimper. Both girls shushed him at once, and he dipped his head obediently. He understood perfectly and would guard them silently. Unless a skateboarder showed up. Then he would do his mouth-foaming impression of a rabid raccoon. But for now he was quietly bristling and sniffing the air.
Winnie held her fingertips to her open mouth, looking exactly like an expressive single frame in a comic book.
“What?” Piper kept looking around but seeing nothing. “Do you see George? Is he here?”
Winnie didn't answer. Piper grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. Finally, Winnie snapped out of her fugue and croaked out, “I don't see anything, but the air feels thick. Like ozone. Do you think he's up there, watching those two in his old bed? Do you think they, uh, summoned him?”
Something moved at the edge of Piper's vision. It was the visual equivalent of radio static, like an indoor cloud, or a swarm of tiny insects.
Piper turned away from Winnie and called out softly, “George? Is that you?”
The shimmering, cloudy apparition suddenly moved like it had purpose. It shifted to an arched doorway, then down the stairs that lead to the lowest floor of the split-level home.
Piper had to follow. She felt it. Knew it. Was this reality? She was so tired, and the world felt soft and dreamlike. She was neither sleeping nor awake.
Without a word to her best friend, Piper followed the cloud down the dark stairs. With each passing second, the shape of the cloud became more person-like, as tall and wide as a human. Focusing on the mass hurt her eyes. If she let her eyes become unfocused, the form was paradoxically easier to see.
The basement floor was dark, the location of walls and furniture barely discernible in the thin light from the streetlamps. Piper dreamily followed the swirling cloud until it came to a standstill near the foot of the stairs. Even through her shoes, Piper felt a chill coming from the floor, from where George's body had been found, where he'd taken his final breaths. His blood must have ruined the carpet. There was now a rectangular patch of bare concrete where carpet had been removed.
The room was so cold now, and buzzing mist seemed to hum, like a swarm of angry hornets.
“It's okay,” Piper said soothingly, though she didn't know why. The instinct to stay calm, to speak reassuring phrases to the apparition, must have come from someone other than Piper. More words fell from her mouth with no forethought. “Everything's going to be okay,” she said. “I'm here now. What do you want to show me?”
The buzzing changed pitch, like a musical note being bent synthetically. Piper was dimly aware of Winnie and Teddy behind her, and of both of them making soft noises to indicate they'd much rather be elsewhere. She ignored them. The apparition had a message for her.
“I'm here with you,” Piper said. “You're safe now. Show me.”
The flitting bits of light and shadow coalesced partially, showing a face and an arm extending from the cloud. The face was a blur, and then it wasn't.
What happened next would be difficult for Piper to remember and almost impossible to explain.
Behind her, Winnie watched helplessly as her best friend fell deeper into a trance.
Teddy was so frightened, he released his bladder on the concrete floor and cried to go home.
Piper's body began to shake and convulse.
Winnie caught her friend and tried to wake her from her state.
Piper was there, but she wasn't. Her body was stiff, her face twisted up in pain.
There wasn't a sound to be heard other than Teddy whimpering, but inside Piper's head, there was a scream that filled her until she was bursting with screaming like an overfilled tank of pain. The agony and fury howled through Piper, through every cell in her body, until her bones were howling and her teeth were howling and everything was howling, and she was as hollow as a drum, nothing more than a vessel for a sonic windstorm with no beginning and no end.
Chapter 13
Day 9
Saturday, November 5th, 4:10 p.m.
Residence of Piper Chen
Piper tried not to let the black hole in her memory bother her as she got ready for her Saturday-night date in the dog park with Otis Plummer.
She rubbed her cheek. A fleeting memory from the night before was coming back. She turned to her best friend, who was sitting cross-legged on Piper's bed, her attention split between her phone and helping Piper pick out an outfit.
Piper asked Winnie, “Did you slap me last night?”
Winnie looked sheepish.
Piper half gasped, half laughed, “You did! I remember you slapping my cheek!”
Winnie continued looking sheepish.
After leaving the Morrison residence the night before, Winnie had been rattled. Once they finished walking back to Piper's house, Winnie had gotten in her car and left Piper alone just long enough to pack a suitcase of her things at her apartment. She'd returned before ten o'clock and moved herself into the pool house in the backyard, where she announced she would stay indefinitely to look after Piper until she was “feeling better.”
“I'm glad your memory's coming back,” Winnie said. “You must have been exhausted and dehydrated last night. It looked like you were having a seizure.”
Piper kept rubbing her cheek. She had a vague memory of walking to the Morrison house and overhearing Simone and Robert, but nothing of what had happened after she'd gone down to the basement. She had only Winnie's recollection. Winnie had felt the chill in the air, and she didn't see any ghosts, but she did witness Piper go into a trance. This had gone on for a few minutes while Piper babbled incoherently. Then Teddy had started growling, a menacing growl like none Winnie had ever heard from the dog before. The air got even colder, and Piper had, in Winnie's words, “frozen up like an old computer running Windows.” She'd gone catatonic. Blue-screened.
Winnie had sprung into action like a hero, dragging both Piper and the growling dog out of the house. Miraculously, they escaped without alerting George's sister and editor, who were still engaged in something that sounded like tackle football up in George's childhood bedroom.
“How hard did you slap me?” Piper asked. “I'm totally bruised.” She worked her jaw. “This is worse than when I got my wisdom teeth out and didn't ice my cheeks.”
Winnie rolled her eyes. “I didn't hit you that hard.” She rocked from side to side on the bed. “Actually, the second time I slapped you, it was a bit harder.”
“You beast,” Piper said in mock horror.
“I didn't know what else to do,” Winnie said. “It was after I finally got you out of the house. You wouldn't walk. You just stood there on the sidewalk, clutching that stupid phone in your hand.”
“My phone? Was I trying to call someone?” Piper dimly recalled needing to make a call to someone, or for someone.
“Not your phone. The one you yanked out of the wall. The grubby old phone from inside the house.”
“And that's why you slapped me?”
“Not at first. You know how sometimes Teddy grabs your shoe and won't let go? And you have to offer him a new toy to bribe him into letting go of the shoe?”
“There's a world of difference between a squeaky toy and a slap across the cheek.”
Winnie shrugged. “I didn't have a squeaky toy with me.”
Flatly, Piper said, “Thanks for slapping me.”
Without irony, Winnie answered, “You're welcome.” She adjusted her feet so she was sitting in a serene yoga pose on the bed. “I wrestled that old phone from your sweaty claw-hand and tossed it into a hedge. You made this weird whimpering noise, like you wanted it back. I figured since you were so in love with
the thing, I would stick it in your purse, but then I opened your purse and it was already full of a wrapped-up dog bone.”
“The bone! From Otis!” Piper reached for her purse but found it empty.
Winnie said, “We gave it to Teddy last night. Don't you remember?”
“It's hazy. Do you think I was possessed by a ghost?”
“You were dehydrated,” Winnie said. “People can hallucinate when they're exhausted and dehydrated. I've been delirious a few times on summer days.” Winnie paused and frowned. “Honestly, I thought you were messing around, trying to put on a show so I wasn't disappointed about not getting to meet George.”
Piper got the dream-like feeling again. “It wasn't George,” she said.
Winnie rubbed her forearms and shuddered. “You're scaring me. Maybe we should take you to see a doctor, or that therapist lady. Doesn't she do hypnotherapy? She could get your memories back.”
“You mean Otis's mom? I don't think so.” Piper turned back toward her open closet. “I'm fine, really.” She sorted through her colored denim, almost believing herself. “Did I do or say anything after we got home last night?”
“You said I could have your teal jeans, since they look better on me anyway.”
Piper whirled around, her face contorted with mock indignation.
With her eyes still closed and her yoga pose serene, Winnie stuck out her tongue teasingly.
* * *
Saturday night's weather was typical for November in Arizona. Room temperature. On a night like this, she didn't miss San Francisco at all. It was likely cold and damp there now, the kind of weather that crept into the marrow of your bones and wreaked havoc with your hair. Piper had inherited the same hair quirk her mother had, what they called the “whoop-te-doo.” It was a stubborn wave that made one side of her hair flip up while the other side curled under. The next day it would have reversed sides. Mrs. Chen would deny the move from the west coast to the dry heat of Arizona had been motivated by extinguishing the whoop-te-doo, but it certainly had been a factor. Since moving to the desert state, the whoop-te-doo only made appearances on the rare humid days.
Piper's black hair was pin straight and swinging when she arrived at the dog park at five minutes past five o'clock. Worries over whatever had happened at George's house the night before were pushed to the back of her mind, as muted as the idea of next Monday's homework on a Friday afternoon. The whole ghost business could wait. She was young, single, and had a date with a cute boy.
Piper had walked over with Teddy, since the park wasn't far enough from her street to bother with her bicycle, only to have to push it while walking with Otis, who probably wouldn't have brought one.
Teddy snorted and rolled around on a tidy meridian of lush grass while Piper scanned the park for Otis. She spotted him on a bench, reading a paperback. The book was the third one in the House of Hallows series. Was it the same copy that had been left on a window ledge at the funeral home? Something inside her brightened. A connection had been made; a pattern had been recognized. She got the same dopamine rush she did when her phone buzzed with a new alert about an online comment on her tiny blog.
Teddy barked hello first. Otis looked up and waved at her, smiling. She got the buzzing alert feeling again, which she found curious. This wasn't a social media website or an online game. Otis wasn't a non-playing character with clues for the next level. This was real life. A real date with a living human. The realization sent her floating outside of herself, disassociating from reality.
Was she, Piper Chen, about to promenade around the park with this sweet guy who was going to ramble on awkwardly, thinking she couldn't understand him? Or worse, would he attempt to speak Mandarin? When was she going to tell him the truth? Her worries stacked up. She had three key things to tell him, with the lie about not being able to speak English the biggest shocker. In decreasing shock value, there was the fact Otis's mother was her therapist, and then the small matter of Otis's father visiting her house with a police escort the previous day to apologize for pushing her down. It wasn't exactly standard first-date conversation material.
Teddy barked again and tugged at the leash, pulling her toward Otis, his black ears alert as he panted. The two hadn't met before—Otis had only seen Teddy through the restaurant window—but Teddy considered anyone who made eye contact and acknowledged his existence to be a potential new best friend. Plus Teddy was a clever boy. It was possible he could match the scent of Otis to the dog bone he'd been gnawing on all day, the delicious treat keeping him from his day job of hole digging.
“You showed up,” Otis said when she reached him. He'd gotten up from the bench and tucked the paperback under his right armpit. In order to shake her hand without dropping the book, he held his elbow at his side and bent the middle of his body so their hands could reach. Piper had Teddy's leash in her right hand and hadn't moved it to her left, because she'd been so busy thinking about spilling secrets that she hadn't anticipated a handshake.
They shook hands just as Teddy tugged at the leash, which rocked Otis's body, since his arm was stiffly clenching the paperback in his armpit. The two humans seemed to be doing an interpretive dance. Teddy darted around them in a circle, tightening his leash against the backs of their legs. Otis tilted forward, bumped his chin on Piper's forehead, and immediately jerked back. Stepping backward, he tripped over the taut leash—he hadn't been expecting a tripwire at ankle height—and fell backward. He reached out by reflex, snagged the strap of Piper's purse, and pulled her down on top of him.
All of this happened within three seconds.
Piper's landing was softened by Otis's body. They fell face-to-face, lips nearly touching. Piper's hair fell around their heads in a veil, and time slowed. His wavy brown hair smelled wonderful, like dry, fragrant wood. His eyes were wide open with surprise, whites all the way around the irises. His nose was so triangular and pointy at the tip. She wanted to touch his nose, feel if the cartilage was soft like hers or as stiff as it looked. The corner of his mouth twitched, and something about their relative position and the smell of his skin mixed with the scent of the park's recently cut grass brought back a long-forgotten memory. Her cousin. She remembered him sitting on top of the younger and smaller Piper, just like this, but with a drop of spit dangling from his mouth. He'd been harmless, but the memory jolted her.
Suddenly horrified, Piper mutely clambered off of Otis. She pushed herself up, using what she thought was the ground but was actually Otis's stomach. He groaned as though punched—which he basically had been—and curled up right there on the ground, moaning and laughing. Teddy, as excited as ever, alternated between barking at Otis and licking his exposed skin.
When Otis finally got up, still wheezing with laughter, he apologized and said, “That scene goes in the trailer for sure.”
Piper tilted her head, eyebrows questioning. It wasn't a no-speak-English act. She really didn't understand what he meant.
“For the romantic comedy they'll make based on this,” Otis said. “The working title is When Otis Met…” He stopped laughing. “I don't even know your name. One of the people at the service yesterday said you might be Coco?” He gave her a hopeful look.
She stared into his eyes. He was taller than her, but not too tall, probably below average height for a Caucasian. And now she was distracted, looking at the tip of his nose again, thinking about pushing it like a button. What would that do? Would he restart, like a laptop?
“Is that your name?” he asked. “Coco?”
It could be, for now. That would make the title of their romantic comedy When Otis Met Coco.
Piper did enjoy a good romantic comedy movie, but if she'd learned any sort of life lesson from them, it was that people always held back their Big Secrets too long, and when they finally revealed the truth about their deception, there was always a huge disaster. Hurt feelings. A breakup. A long gap in time before a reconciliation—or, in the less-enjoyable films, no reconciliation at all, just a valuable les
son learned. And she didn't want to hurt Otis's feelings. It would be best to tell Otis the truth now, before things got out of control.
He was waiting for her answer.
No, she thought. My name is not Coco, it's Piper. I speak English. Also, your mother's my therapist, and your father bruised my shins. Long story. Hey, stop running away! Come back! Teddy, take him down.
Instead, she found herself nodding and saying, “Coco.” She cringed inside. No offense to the name, but she really wasn't a Coco.
He pointed at her. “Coco.” He pointed at himself. “Otis.” He pointed back and forth again, repeating the names.
She rolled her eyes. She wasn't from another planet. Even if she hadn't spoken English, she wouldn't have needed the First Contact-style chest pointing. But she poked his chest with her fingertip anyway. “Otis,” she repeated after him.
He grinned like a sailor discovering a new world.
She nodded at her Boston Terrier. “Teddy.”
Otis swished his pursed lips from side to side as though working out a complex math problem in his head. “What does he weigh, twenty pounds? He's pretty big for a Chihuahua.” He nodded toward the path that wound around the park and started walking.
Piper bit her tongue and skipped to catch up with him. The second-hardest part of this date was going to be letting Otis be wrong about Teddy's breed. The hardest part was going to be not tripping Otis again and pouncing on him in the grass.
Absolutely no kissing, she told herself. No kissing until the truth comes out, which will happen tonight. Maybe now? No, not now. Things are going so well, and you need this. Just smile and nod while he names off the types of trees and bushes you're walking by. Never mind that he's getting half of them wrong. Keep smiling.
Chapter 14
Otis and Piper walked Teddy around the park, each speaking their own language: English, Mandarin, and Terrier. Piper's Mandarin was rusty, to put it mildly, but she could have been making nonsense sounds and Otis would have bought it. As the date progressed, she grew more inventive with her declarations.
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