A twinge of sadness needles me. I don’t want to talk about Florida. I don’t want to think about it, either.
“Far away. Like, it took us nineteen hours to drive here.” It’s all I can say with the choked-up feeling I have.
“Nineteen hours,” the boy repeats thoughtfully. He taps his chin as if he’s deliberating. “Gotta be somewhere like Boston or New Mexico.”
I shake my head, a smile finding its way to my lips. “Nope and nope.”
“Utah? Colorado? South Dakota!”
I laugh. He’s firing off states so fast I can barely keep up. “Sorry, wrong direction.”
He pushes an imaginary button, one eyebrow raised as if he’s proud of himself. “Florida. My final answer is Florida.”
Well, he nailed it. And suddenly the game isn’t so fun anymore. “Yeah. Fort Myers, Florida.” I exhale, reminding myself that it isn’t his fault. He couldn’t have known that guessing correctly would depress me.
He grins and pretends to pat himself on the back, then cranes his neck to look around me. “So you just got here and you’ve already ditched your parents?”
“They’re busy unpacking and just wanted . . . well, they wanted me to get some fresh air.”
“Ah. So you’re one of those free-range kids, huh?” He looks at me expectantly, the edges of his mouth turned up into a half-smile.
Free-range kids? I wrack my brain for an idea of what this might be. Back home, we had athletes, mathletes, gamers, nerds, slackers, bullies, and everything in between. But I’ve never heard of a free-range kid. The term makes seventh graders sound suspiciously like poultry.
“Yeah, you know—that big movement to let kids walk around alone and be independent and all that. It’s kinda weird, but kinda cool at the same time. I guess my parents are like half-and-half.” He laughs loudly. “Half free-range and half ‘you’re grounded.’ ”
I giggle before I can stop myself. This guy is pretty funny.
Shrugging, I run the pad of my index finger over the outline of the house key under my sweater. “I guess I’m one hundred percent free range, then. My parents don’t seem to worry about the things most parents do.”
I force myself to stop speaking, shoot my brain a reminder that it would be an epic mistake to share my family’s secrets. If I don’t get control of myself, next thing you know, I’ll be telling him about the adventure jar.
“Anyway, I should go. Have a good game,” I add, turning to walk away.
“I’m Andrew. Andrew Martin,” the boy calls out behind me. He’s moving back toward the man he was playing soccer with, but his eyes are still on me. “Good luck in Chicago . . . um . . .”
I take a deep breath. Mom and Dad would want me to make friends here. Even if I’m never going to see this boy again, he’s nice. I should be nice.
“Tessa. My name is Tessa.”
6
AS IT TURNS OUT, NORTH Pond is pretty unbelievable. It’s nothing like I ever imagined, with docks and wild grasses and even turtles! I’ve only been sitting here for ten minutes and already two families of ducks have swum by me.
Curled up on the very end of the dock, I breathe in the smell of the water and try to make myself believe I’m sitting in the sand on the beach again. I imagine that I have a sweet lemonade in my hand and my pastels all spread out on a beach blanket. If I didn’t have goose bumps the size of raisins, I might believe it.
Running my hand over the collection of buttons on my messenger bag, I consider trying to draw. There are at least a dozen things I’ve seen here I’d love to draw, and since no one is expecting me home soon, I might as well try. The trees are perfect. The turtles are perfect. Even the water lapping against the posts of the dock I’m sitting on is perfect. I can’t believe this place is in the middle of my neighborhood. It’s like heaven.
I flip through my sketchpad to a clean sheet. My hand is shaking as I think about that first line. The line that always determines whether or not I need to erase. A cluster of lily pads in front of me would be the ideal subject . . . soft and hard at once. Deep green with the faintest hint of brown around the edges. Taking my colored pencil, a special Prismacolor one I use only for outlining, I shakily make the first of five small circles. Slowly. Steadily.
I’m about to finish the last circle when something cold and wet hits me in the nose. I wipe it off with the back of my hand and look up at the wall of gray overhead. Great. More rain. And I’m four blocks from home with no umbrella!
Does it ever do anything but rain in this place?
Quickly holding the sheet at arm’s length, I look at the circles I just drew. They’re good. Balanced and in the same pattern that the real ones in front of me are floating in. It’s enough to work off, at least. Snatching up my bag, I shove everything back in, careful not to crinkle the drawing I just started. Yet another reason I wish Mom and Dad would just let me have a cell phone. Then I could take a picture of the scene so I don’t have to work only from memory.
Cold puddles splash under my feet as I sprint in the direction I think Shady Street is. Within a block, my sneakers are drenched and my toes are stiff with cold. Forget the cold. I need to focus on the compass. If I came southeast, I need to leave northwest . . . right?
By the time my house comes into view, my clothes are soaked through and my spirits are trampled. I’m afraid my new drawing is wet. Actually, I’m afraid the entire sketchpad might be. I fumble with the key Dad gave me, finally tossing open our front door and scrambling into the dry heat of our living room. Mom stands up from the box she’s bent over, a mask of shock on her face.
“Tessa? What on earth is going on?”
“I got rained on,” I say, swiping water from my forehead exaggeratedly.
“I can see that. But I thought you were upstairs unpacking.” Mom’s face is scrunched up into a bunch of worried lines and the color seems to be draining from it. “You . . . you were never upstairs?”
I shake my head. The way she’s looking at me is frightening, and I set my bag down on the floor. “Dad said I should go explore. He told me to visit North Pond.” I say this so she knows I had permission to leave. Not that I need it. The adventure jar waits for no one.
Mom is shaking her head. Her eyes flick to the stairwell leading up to my room and then back to me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was scared. But Mom doesn’t get scared . . . .
“Mom? Is everything okay?” I ask.
She nods and the ghost of a smile lights up her pale face. “Sure. Sure, I’m positive it’s fine. Probably just the wind or maybe a tree branch bumping around upstairs.”
“You heard something? Like sounds coming from up there?” The hairs on my arms are standing up again, and this time the ones on the back of my neck join them. I haven’t forgotten about what Jonah said—that ghosts were in the hallway last night. And I definitely haven’t forgotten about the mark on my sketchpad. The mark I didn’t make.
Mom reaches out to take Jonah’s hand. He strains against her until she lets go, then makes a mad dash to grab Reno.
“C’mon, buddy. Let’s go upstairs and make sure everything is okay in Tessa’s room. Sound good?”
The noises were coming from my room?
“Ohh-kay,” Reno’s mouth clacks out. Jonah comes close to me with him and I scoot away, desperate not to be touched by any part of his spooky little wooden body.
The stairwell is still dark, and Mom groans. “Darn lightbulbs are all such a low wattage. We’ll take care of those in time, though.”
I stare at the picture on the wall as we pass. This time it looks even darker, more somber than it did earlier. The petals on the flowers seem almost . . . wilted. Strange. I remember bright red blooms on the flowers, not dark, wrinkled ones.
The same feeling I got when I saw the mystery mark in my sketchpad comes rushing back as I squint at the painting. Like something is wrong, but I have no clue what it is. How is it that this picture could look so different now than it did a few hours ago?
“Tessa, chop-chop. I have a lot of unpacking to do, sweetie.”
“Sure. Sorry.” I jog to meet them at the top of the steps, gasping as a cold blast of air hits me square in the face.
“Ghosts!” Jonah screams. Mom screams, too, jumping nearly a foot in the air at the sound of his voice.
“Jonah! Stop that! You scared Mommy.” She brushes a mop of brown curls away from his face and smiles gently, but I notice the hand that’s still pressed to her chest. “You know even if there were ghosts, they wouldn’t want to hurt us, right?”
I sigh. Most parents would tell their children ghosts do not exist. Not mine, though. They believe in letting us make our own decisions about things like that.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Jonah,” I say, but even as the words escape my lips I’m beginning to question them. Something about this place is just . . . off. The entire upstairs is freezing, so cold I can feel the icy air in my lungs when I inhale. Even with the rain it isn’t that cold outside.
The lights flicker softly and then come back on full strength. Mom swivels her head behind her to look at Jonah and me. “Now, don’t be nervous. It’s just a storm. We’ve had more of those back in Florida than any of these Chicagoans.”
Jonah looks at me, and in that moment, I see it. His fear. He honestly believes there is something upstairs with us, and I don’t blame him.
I kneel down in front of him and try to make myself look as relaxed as I can. “It’s okay, Jonah. I won’t let anything happen to you. Mom, either. All right?”
He nods and pops a thumb in his mouth. Something he hasn’t done in about a year now. I stand upright and take a few steps toward my room, stopping when I notice the door is open a crack.
I shut that door when I left. I know this because I remember thinking it might stop Jonah from getting into my art supplies. Now it’s open. And the air whooshing out is icy . . . not much warmer than the temperature inside our freezer.
Creeping slowly, I press on the door until it’s standing fully open. And that’s when I see them. My pastels. The blue and the magenta are sitting at the base of my bed again. Only this time, so is the sketchpad I put away this morning.
And it’s open . . . .
7
SOMEONE ONCE TOLD ME THAT part of your brain’s job is to get your body ready to either fight or run when you’re scared. I don’t think my brain is working right because I have no clue what to do. All I know is that my heart is beating so fast I feel sick.
Something is really wrong in this place. I’m suddenly very grateful for the small reading lamp on my bedside table. It’s not super-bright, but without it, we’d be in complete darkness.
“Are there ghosts in here?” Jonah asks, his bottom lip quivering with either fear or cold. I can’t tell.
“Shhh. Not now,” I answer him as I tell myself to stop being a chicken. Another cold blast of air hits me in the face and I notice that my window is wide open. The floor around it looks wet with rain. “How did that get open?” I ask no one, making a rush for it before the rain coming in damages anything.
I skid in the water, nearly falling as I struggle to pull the heavy frame closed. It slams down hard and I stand there frozen for a minute, hypnotized by the clouds that are quickly rolling in. They’re turning the gray sky outside into a deep, boiling black. Like someone used a black pastel on a slate-gray page.
“Mom?” I call out, squeezing Jonah’s hand in mine as I turn away from the window. Nothing. My heart pounds harder in my chest, so hard I’m afraid I’ll be the first twelve-year-old to have a heart attack.
“I’m in the . . .” Mom’s voice trails off and I hold my breath so I can listen for her. She sounds faraway, like she’s in the walls or something. I put an ear to the peeling paint and listen. I don’t even know all the rooms in this place yet and don’t really want to go looking for her. Still, a part of me wants her in here.
“Mommy’s hiding,” Jonah says in a singsong voice, adjusting his hand in Reno’s back. The doll’s mouth moves slowly and his head turns to face me. It looks even scarier in the barely lit room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
A rumble of thunder shakes the entire house and I scream. Lightning flashes outside, sending jagged shadows across my ceiling. It’s just a storm. It’s just a storm. We had them in Florida, I repeat to myself over and over again, desperate to make myself believe it.
“Jonah, stay right next to me,” I say. “Until Mom comes back in here, I don’t want you to wander off.”
“I won’t let Reno wander off, either,” he responds. “He doesn’t like the dark.”
Me neither. I take a shaky breath and force my feet to move. Just another couple of steps and I’ll be at the sketchpad and can see if there’s anything in it. A message. A warning. Anything.
Lightning strikes somewhere outside and a loud crack vibrates around the room. This time Jonah starts crying, and I can’t help him. I can’t do anything except stare in horror at the open sketchpad lying in front of me.
The upside-down L is back, and this time, it’s an entire rectangle. Four perfect right angles instead of one. The color is darker, too. It’s an inky black with the hint of a shadow on the inside edges. Shadows are hard to draw. Really hard. This isn’t just an accidental brush of a pastel against the sheet or some little bit of powder that got smeared on the paper. This is a real drawing. An intentional one.
I turn to look at Jonah, panic flip-flopping around inside me. I know it’s crazy to think he could have done something as hard as this, but what other explanation is there?
“Did you do this?”
Jonah sniffles and stares at the paper. “Do what?”
Holding it up in front of my face, I point to the rectangle. Jonah hasn’t messed with my art supplies in months. I can’t figure out why he’d do it now. Besides, I’ve never seen him draw anything other than a stick figure. A perfectly shaded box? No way.
Stabbing a finger toward the paper, I try to breathe deeply and keep my voice calm. “This! Did you make this mark, Jonah? Tell me the truth.”
“What’s going on?” Mom appears in the doorway. She’s wearing a heavy sweatshirt now, and her face is less pale than before. “I’m sorry, guys, the power cut out while I was digging through boxes in my room for something to cover up with. I had a tough time getting back here.”
I swivel my head to the reading lamp. It was on the entire time. “The power? It didn’t go out in here.”
Mom laughs and waves me off. “Well, I don’t know how that’s possible. I was practically swimming through cardboard in the pitch black that whole time.”
I blow out a confused sigh. If the power had gone out, wouldn’t it have affected the whole house? In Florida we lost power all the time. Tropical storms and even the occasional hurricane warning would send us scurrying for our lanterns and flashlights every few months. But it was always the whole house—not just some rooms.
Mom runs a hand over my cheek. “Honey, are you okay? Did something happen?”
“I’m fine. It’s just that you said you heard noises up here and there’s this mark on my sketchpad.”
Mom holds her hand out. “Can I see it?”
I nod and pass the sketchpad over, then watch as Jonah drops to all fours and begins peering under my bed. “What are you doing, J?”
“Looking for them,” he whispers back, dragging Reno along with him as he crawls from the foot of my bed to the headboard. “Reno heard them up here, too!”
I rub at the goose bumps breaking out on my arms and try not to think about the noises or Jonah’s doll being able to hear like a human. The only thing that really matters is the mystery box on my sketchpad. “You see it, right?” I ask hesitantly.
Mom breaks into a warm smile. “I do! What amazing right angles. And the shading is wonderful! What are you going to put inside the box?”
“I didn’t make that,” I say, watching her face for the reaction I know is coming.
; Mom tips her head to the side, obviously confused. “What do you mean, you didn’t make it?”
I shake my head and look around for any other signs that someone was in my room. Missing boxes, open drawers . . . anything. Why would someone break into our new house just to draw on my sketchpad? And how would they have gotten through without Mom seeing? My skin crawls with the idea of someone slipping around in the shadows of this house.
Running a finger over the edge of my sketchpad, I shrug. “I don’t know how to explain it. But it wasn’t me and I don’t think it was Jonah, either.”
She lifts Jonah from the floor, wedging Reno under her arm. His black eyes stare at me and I look away nervously. “Well, I suppose it could have happened during the move. Was the box you packed it in filled with pastels? Any open ones?”
I look at her quizzically. Mom might not draw the same way I do, but she’s still an artist. She understands pastels and knows there is zero chance this was an accident. She’s grasping for explanations . . . . She has to be.
“No. There were no open pastels and no boxes that combined the two things. And even if they were packed together, no accident could cause this kind of shading.”
Just the thought is enough to terrify me. I sink down onto my bed and let my head drop into my hands. I don’t look up until I feel the warmth of Mom’s hand on my shoulder.
“Sweetie, we’ve had a long trip and your brain is tired. You should meditate tonight. Clear your worries!” She kisses me on the top of the head. “Who knows how this happened—maybe a friend of yours back in Florida thought that was a backup sketchpad or something.”
I don’t argue with her. I could tell her that Rachel knows me better than anyone and would never just draw in one of my good sketchpads. I could also tell her that as much as I love Rachel, she isn’t into art. She’d rather be sweating on a soccer field than sitting in front of a clean sheet of paper any day.
The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street Page 3
