“Well, they haven’t vanished,” Dad says confidently. “Moving is nuts. They probably just got put in another area of the house.”
Yeah, like that rectangle just happened to get drawn in my sketchpad.
Jonah barrels into the room, Reno clutched in his sticky-looking fingers. “Can I have a juice box?”
“Hey there, dude!” Dad sweeps Jonah up into his arms, adjusting Reno so that he doesn’t lose an eye to the dummy’s wooden nose. “Have a good day?’
“Yes. But the ghosts took Mommy’s art stuff,” Jonah says.
Dad’s face drops as he looks at Mom. Her eyes flutter closed just slightly and then reopen with a sad shake of her head. “He’s been saying that all day.”
“Did you hear noises again? Coming from my room?” I ask, my heart pounding. If something happened to my supplies, too, that’s it. I’ll walk back to Fort Myers if I have to.
Mom shakes her head. “I haven’t heard or seen anything weird. But Jonah . . . he insists that there’re ghosts. I don’t want to stifle his creativity so I just let him. Think I’m handling that okay, Chris?”
“I do,” Dad answers. “Telling him to stop will only make him say it more.”
Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe if Mom and Dad actually punished Jonah, he’d listen better. They could start by getting rid of Reno . . . .
“Oh, Tessa, I’m sorry. I’ve been so focused on me that I forgot to ask you how your day was,” Mom says, swiping a sweaty strand of hair from her forehead.
“It was fine. Don’t worry.” I sidestep Jonah and Reno, making my way toward the stairwell. The coldness from the tile seeps through my socks and I pause for a moment, wondering how many bodies are resting under this street. Under this exact floor. Too many, I decide, and scurry off to my room.
13
MY TOES ARE COLD AGAIN. The thought settles into me like a splinter, the kind you can feel but can never quite see. Half awake, I sit up and scan the darkened room. Wind is rattling the ancient windowpanes, and gnarled shadows dance along the bare walls.
Historical. Grand. Elegant. I don’t care what my parents call this house . . . . It’s scary. I remember what Rachel said when I showed her the picture of it. She mashed her lips into a tight line and tried to stay positive, but it didn’t take a genius to tell how she really felt. She thought it was old and run-down, too. And if Rachel thought that—if the girl who’d kept a smile on her face even when she got head lice in fourth grade wasn’t positive—then it couldn’t just be me.
I try not to think about what Nina said in the cafeteria yesterday—that this whole neighborhood is built on top of a graveyard. Just imagining the bodies being dug back up is terrifying. I can’t imagine how scary it was when they tried to claw to the surface on their own.
Yanking at the too-small quilt, I stretch down to cover my ice-cube toes. I’m just settling back into my pillow when I hear it.
The crying.
It starts out soft, then builds to a deafening wail that seems to be coming from the hallway.
“Jonah?” I whisper into the darkness. “J, is that you?” Maybe he got confused and can’t find Mom and Dad. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe . . .
Muffled footsteps ring through the walls, surrounding me. They sound like boots, or something with heels. Definitely not Jonah’s bare feet. I pull the quilt up to my chin, terror overpowering my need for warm toes.
Please, please go away.
I cover my ears to drown out the crying. It’s not Jonah, that sound. It’s higher-pitched, like a little girl. The footsteps stop outside my door, and my doorknob rattles. It shakes harder and harder until I can’t contain my scream any longer. It bursts from my throat and I leap out of my bed, scrambling toward the window.
A low mumbling follows me and the cold rush of air is back. It lifts the back of my pajama top and tousles my hair.
“Graceland. Graceland. Graceland.”
I stumble over a pile of boxes, falling to the floor as my legs get tangled up in the broken cardboard. Lightning flashes outside, brightening up the corner of my room and . . . Reno. His horrible wooden face is turned toward me and something wet is streaming down his pale cheeks.
Tears.
His mouth is moving, clicking out “Graceland ” over and over again as the liquid streams down the wood in fat rivers. “No, no, no!” I scream as the room begins to spin around me and the familiar crackling slowly builds in my ears. A deep rumble of thunder echoes off the walls, the popping sound growing so loud that I can feel it. It’s snaking through my veins like a dark energy. An energy I can’t control . . . can’t escape.
I’m going to faint. I’m going to faint and that horrible doll is going to do something to me.
Then everything goes black.
14
“TESSA? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” A voice drifts past me somewhere in the darkness. I try to open my eyes, but they’re too heavy. “Maybe we need to call an ambulance.”
The word ambulance brings me around. I’ve always been afraid of those things. Their horrible screeching and blue and red lights that flicker through the streets. I’ve never been in one, but I figure they’re pretty scary inside.
“I’m okay,” I mumble. My lips are thick and making words with them is hard. I go to lift my head, but it won’t move. “Just gimme a minute.”
“She needs more than a minute. Lily, can you get her some water?” It’s Dad’s voice. I recognize it. Unfortunately, I also recognize that he sounds scared.
Something cold and wet sloshes over my forehead and I gasp. My eyes finally find the strength to open, revealing the bright red cheeks of my mother. “Oh, Tessa! Honey, are you okay?”
Okay? I’m not sure.
“What happened?” Dad asks. He’s standing right next to Mom, but unlike hers, his cheeks aren’t flushed. They’re pale.
I lick my lips so I can peel them apart. What I saw in my room was so awful, so terrifying, I’m not even sure I can say the words. Just thinking them makes me shiver again.
I point to the corner, where Reno was sitting.
Mom, Dad, and Jonah all follow the invisible line my finger cuts through the air. “Reno? What are you doing in here?” Jonah scampers across the room and grabs the doll. Reno’s mouth gapes open and his black eyes settle on me.
“No. Don’t bring him over here!” I shout. “Look at him! Do you see the tears?”
Jonah lifts Reno higher and I watch as Mom and Dad inspect him. Mom looks back at me, her eyes wide and startled like a rabbit’s. “What tears? Tessa, honey . . . I think you had a nightmare.”
A nightmare? No. I wasn’t asleep. I was wide awake and that doll was talking. My brain spins for a minute as I try to remember the rest of the details. The crying, the footsteps, and the door rattling. Then—“Graceland .” I don’t even know what it means, but I’m positive that’s the word Reno was whispering. I shudder and pull my covers up to my eyes. I can’t stop the tears from coming.
“Our new house is horrible. I hate it!”
Mom and Dad ease down onto my bed. Their faces are full of something I don’t like. I think it’s sadness. Maybe pity. I cry harder because I don’t think they believe me.
“He was crying! I saw him! And there were footsteps and my doorknob was rattling!” I hiccup out through my sobs. I knew that doll was bad. I knew it.
“There, there. Relax, honey. It’s going to be okay. No matter what happened, we’re all here together now.” Mom pats my leg, a smile barely brightening her pink face.
I force myself to look at Reno. The tears on his cheeks are gone now and his mouth is still. Closed. Reno always freaked me out in Florida, but he never came to life. Why now? Why in Chicago?
Suddenly, I have an idea. I sit upright and look at Jonah. “Did you hear it, Jonah?”
His messy brown hair is sticking straight up in the back and he’s got a thumb in his mouth again. He just stares at me.
“Jonah, answer me! Did you hear the crying? And the whisperin
g?”
I hold my breath as I wait for his reaction. He heard it. I’m positive he did. Jonah was the first one in this house to say there were ghosts—the first one to sense their presence. If Reno is somehow responsible for all this, surely Jonah heard him tonight, too. Right?
Mom smooths some hair off Jonah’s forehead so his eyes are visible again. Please say you heard it, too. Please say it isn’t just me losing my mind in this place.
Jonah looks straight at me and shakes his head.
15
I SPEND THE REST OF the night curled up on the oversized armchair in the corner of Mom and Dad’s room. I’m too old to be crawling into bed with them and I know this, but I couldn’t sleep in my own room. Not after all that.
As I roll over and pull the blanket up higher, Reno’s shiny wooden face crops up in my mind. I quickly try to shove it out.
I open my eyes and look around, surprised to see how bright it is and that Mom and Dad’s bed is empty. The covers are all pulled up tightly and the decorative pillows are in place. What time is it?
The clock that sits on the end table reads 9:45. I fly off the armchair, tossing the quilt to the floor. Why didn’t anyone wake me up? It’s a school day! Half jogging, I brush my teeth and my hair at the same time. Then I race for a change of clothes and some shoes.
I’m just about to leave my room when I notice that the top drawer of my desk is open. Creeping toward it, I inhale sharply as I realize there’s something drawn inside the rectangle now. Something dark and curvy.
The outline of a girl. If there’s one thing I know how to do well with pastels, it’s outline, and this outline is sharp and clear. Definitely not the work of a beginner. The girl is sitting on a chair and holding a long object . . . maybe a cane or a stick. There are distinct ruffles on her sleeves and her hair is wavy. A faint smile is etched into her innocent-looking face. Underneath the outline is one word: Inez.
I drop the sketchpad and rub my eyes. Last night I was certain Reno was the cause of all my problems, but now I’m not so sure. Who is Inez and what would she have to do with my brother’s ventriloquist dummy?
The fear I’ve been feeling slowly trickles away, leaving behind something else as I look at the outline in front of me. Something I haven’t felt yet in this new city. Curiosity. What if Inez is the one I heard crying? What if the ghost is a little girl? Either way, I have to know who she is for sure. Then I need to figure out what she wants.
I smell waffles as I race down the stairs, taking two at a time. Mom is standing in the kitchen and Jonah is sitting at the table. His dark hair is hanging in his eyes and Reno is lying facedown on the table. Mom turns and her eyes are bright today. Happy. Must be nice.
“Good morning, Tessa. Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah. But why didn’t you guys get me up for school? And why is Jonah still here?”
Mom uses a bright green rubber spatula to scrape eggs out of the pan on the stove and onto a plate. “Well, the whole house was up last night. We figured you kids would be tired this morning.”
I am tired. But I’m also anxious. I want to get to school so I can tell Andrew and Nina about the new drawing. Plus, I haven’t been here that long. I can’t just go missing school for no reason.
“You guys can’t let me sleep in, Mom. This is middle school—there’s a lot of work I’ll have to make up.”
“Oh. Well, all right then. Did you want me to call your teacher and let her know why you weren’t there this morning and that it isn’t your fault?”
Taking a deep breath, I remind myself not to get angry. It’s hard, though, especially on days when I feel like my family does everything backward. “No. Please don’t call her; it won’t help. But next time wake me up!”
I head toward the table, whirling around to face Mom again as another even more disturbing thought occurs to me. “Oh, and please don’t take us on any crazy last-minute trips that will make me miss school like you and Dad did last year.”
Mom looks crestfallen. She brushes a few curls of hair out of her eyes and smiles softly. “But that was Indonesia, sweetie. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”
“I know. It was great, but I missed a week and a half of everything. Biology, math, Spanish . . . It took me forever to catch up. Andrew and Nina said the high schools are really hard to get into here and attendance is just as important as grades.”
“You’re at the beginning of your seventh-grade year, Tessa. You’ve got at least another year before you even need to start thinking about high school. And I’m sure the neighborhood one is lovely.”
“No, it’s not!” I say. “I learned that my first day here just from listening to the conversations in homeroom. The schools aren’t the same here as they were in Florida, Mom. We’ll have to plan so I can get into a good one.” I place extra emphasis on the word plan so she gets the hint.
She wrings the dish towel in her hands and stares at me. She opens her mouth a few times to speak but closes it again right away.
I blink back tears, unsure why I’m so fired up about this now. Mom and Dad have always marched to the beat of their own drum. Compared to some of the other stuff they’ve done, not waking me up this morning wasn’t really that big of a deal. She was just trying to let me get some sleep.
It’s just that it’s one more thing that makes me feel like an outsider. Different. And I don’t need any more of those than I already have.
Can’t they see that?
I take a deep breath and prepare to say the words that are sitting on the tip of my tongue. “I’ll never fit in here unless you do things the way normal parents do.”
“Normal?” Mom asks. Her voice cracks a little and I know I’ve hurt her feelings. I swallow hard. I really didn’t mean to.
“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” I mumble. Taking a few steps toward the table, I pause by the mess of wooden arms and legs that make up Reno. He’s sprawled out strangely, and the way his joints are bent, they look broken. I reach a shaky hand out and touch the thick black hair on his head.
“Don’t!” Jonah snaps, and I jump back. My heart hammers in my chest as he scoops Reno up and clutches him to his front. “Reno is still scared of you after last night!”
“Scared of me? Are you kidding, Jonah? I hate that creepy little—”
“Tessa!” Mom barks, interrupting me.
I’m so frustrated that I could grab that stupid doll and toss it out the window. I might, if I weren’t so scared of it. Besides, Mom is glaring at me like I’m a rattlesnake and I know better than to keep talking.
“Sorry.” I groan. I know it isn’t Jonah’s fault and I shouldn’t be yelling at him, but part of me still feels angry. I’m just not sure who I’m angry at. Maybe it’s him for liking that stupid doll. Maybe it’s Mom and Dad for buying it for him. Couldn’t they just have gotten him some Transformers or something like everyone else? Do they always have to stand out so much?
Mom sets a plate down in front of me and sighs. The smile she wore when I first came down is gone; now that she’s standing beside me, I notice the faint bags under her eyes.
“I really am sorry. It was just a bad night.” I try to sound sincere. The last person I want to make sad about this is Mom. She left all her painting behind, too. She lost her clients, her ocean . . . her everything. I don’t want to make her feel worse. “And coming here where everything is so different is a little . . .”
“Overwhelming?” She pulls out a chair at the table and sits down. Then she nudges the plate in front of me closer.
There’s no way I can eat.
“I know this is hard, Tessa,” Mom says, draping a reassuring arm around my shoulders. “But your father and I . . . we’re here for you. Anything you need, we’re here.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know how hard it is. You can’t. They aren’t bothering you.”
“Who?”
The ghosts.
“No one,” I answer with a huff, and jump up, leaving behind the wa
ffle and egg to get cold. I have to get to school. If I have any chance of figuring out who Inez is, and what Graceland is, and why that awful doll of Jonah’s is tormenting me, I need to get to Nina. Fast.
16
Hi Rachel!
I’m sorry I haven’t written you every day like I promised I would. There’s just so much going on! I have good news and bad news. My house is officially haunted. That’s obviously the bad news. The good news is that I’m actually making friends. Their names are Andrew, Nina, and Richie. Andrew is hilarious. You would really like him. And he plays soccer! Seriously, Nina tells me he’s as crazy about it as you are. She’s really nice and is super-smart about things like Chicago history and legends. And Richie is . . . well, he’s a really good eater! JK, he’s nice, too. I just hope this ghost stuff isn’t too much weird for them, you know? I could really use some friends here—especially since I don’t have you with me.
Love,
Tessa
The paper is smooth under my fingers. And completely blank, which I love. I slide my pastel downward to make a slate-gray streak that stops at the bottom edge of my sketchpad. It’s perfect, so I do it again on the other side. Four more times and I’m staring at the outline of the three lockers sitting across from me.
They’re cold and hard. Like everything else here. Well, everything except for North Pond. There, the sun was warm. The air smelled good and the water reminded me of Florida. It wasn’t big, but it was something.
I pull myself upright, groaning. My back is to the wall and my butt is starting to go numb. I should be picking Nina’s brain right now. Finding out what’s going on in my house and what else she knows. Instead, I’m here, squished into a corner and hiding from the truth.
Maybe I’m afraid of what Nina will say. She could tell me something I haven’t thought of yet. Something I don’t want to know. An hour ago I couldn’t wait to get here to tell her about the new drawing, and now I just want to forget about it.
The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street Page 6
