And she was still here.
Something had awakened her. I remembered the story—my casual mention of Megan. Was that all it took? Did I remind the sleeping ghost of her murderous past? Did I wake her up and somehow instill a need to finish what she started?
The end of chapter four said that in most cases, avenging or solving a mystery or murder would cause the ghosts to move on. But there was no crime to solve— Megan escaped. Shara died. Not the kind of case that takes a lot of detective work.
I set that book down and picked up Walter Sawamura’s, the one from the library. This one was definitely intended for adults. I glanced over the chapter names: “Identifying a Spirit”; “Symptoms of Hostility”; “Seeking Professional Help”; “Practical Concerns of Living with Spirits”; “Anchor Objects: The Ties that Bind.” I stopped at that one. I’d never heard of an anchor object. I turned to that chapter and began to read.
According to Mr. Sawamura, some ghosts and spirits find themselves attached to a physical object. The object is kind of like an anchor holding a boat in place—the boat can drift, but it can’t go too far from the anchor. Often, all their power is tied to this object, making it a “power center.” The power center is a strong supernatural force in and of itself, but by destroying it, you could free the spirit and force it to pass along to another plane, wherever it would have gone if it hadn’t been trapped.
Was the necklace Shara’s power center? Was it evil?
Of all the possibilities I’d considered, I hadn’t even thought of that.
I mean, from the very beginning, the first night in the house, I believed it was on my side. Protecting me. Comforting me.
How could something that made a person feel so safe be so bad?
And Megan—she wore hers all day, every day, and nothing had happened to her.
It didn’t make sense.
My T-shirt and sweater were no match for the wind. Cool air sliced right through them and covered my skin in goose bumps.
I rang the doorbell again, and took a step backward off the stoop.
Mary wasn’t home.
I went back home and stood in the kitchen like a watchdog, looking out the front window. A half hour later, Mary pulled into her driveway. I ran to catch her as she went inside.
“Hello, Alexis,” she said, shooting me a weary glance.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to ask any more about my house.”
“Oh good,” she sighed. “Well, come in, come in; you’ll freeze out here.”
The living room was about four hundred degrees. I took off my sweater and draped it over a chair as Mary tightened a knitted shawl over her shoulders.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“I just need your help for a school project,” I said. “You’ve lived in Surrey your whole life, haven’t you?”
She smiled and nodded. “Born and raised.”
“Good,” I said, unfolding the print of Kasey’s lists. I chose one at random. “So do you know the . . . Pittman family?”
“Oh, the Pittmans,” she said, nodding slowly. “That was old Mr. Pittman with the butcher shop. Of course, he was long dead even when I was a girl, but the shop was around until the 1960s.”
“Um,” I said, studying the names, “and who was Cora Pittman . . . Billings?”
“Mrs. Billings. That’s right, she was a Pittman, wasn’t she? She was a bit of a tragic figure. Her husband was killed in an automobile accident when I was very young. And it was quite sad, because she’d had a daughter who died of cancer. But there was another daughter, Jessie Billings, who married Phillip Martin, the lawyer. Their daughter Rosemary was in my class at school.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked, a little in awe. She was like an encyclopedia.
“Well,” Mary said. “Think about your friends; you know all about their families, don’t you?”
Um, not quite. I shook my head.
“Oh,” Mary said. She shifted self-consciously. “I mean, goodness, Alexis, we didn’t have television back then. We just went around and visited. It was what we did for fun.” She laughed. “I can’t tell you what I ate for dinner last night, but I know the names of all the men who were in the chamber of commerce with my father.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Who are your people?”
“Let’s see,” she said, scratching her forehead and rocking absently in her chair. “My mother was a Schmidt. My father was a Ridge—”
“Ridge?” I interrupted. That was familiar. I searched the list of names. “John Ridge?”
“Why no, he was Benedict Ridge. John Ridge was his brother.”
“And Ivy Coleman was his mother?”
She looked surprised. “Yes—how do you know that?”
“Are you related to the librarian?”
“Delores Oliver?” She rocked a little faster. “Good heavens, Alexis, what do you have there? Yes, we’re cousins, but we never spoke. Her father didn’t like the family. He was very religious and she didn’t approve of my grandfather’s fondness for whiskey. . . . I suppose it’s silly that I don’t just go say hello to her.”
My head was spinning.
“I have a picture of my grandmother,” Mary said. “Would you like to see it?”
“Sure,” I said absently, thinking I’d gotten all I was going to get out of Mary.
She shuffled away and shuffled back a minute later with an ancient black-and-white photo in her hands. It was so old the white parts had a silvery cast to them. She handed it gently to me.
“See? Second from the left,” she said.
The photo was a group of young girls lined up in their Sunday best and staring at the camera with solemn faces.
I flipped the photo over and saw a list of names:
Mildred Shore
Ivy Coleman
Patience O’Neil
Molly Saint
Cora Pittman
Mercy Bainbridge
Ann Patrick
Lucy Schmidt
“Patience O’Neil,” Mary said, lowering herself back into her chair. “She became a Michaelson. That’s your mother’s family.”
“Wow,” I said. “This is amazing.”
“Why don’t you keep it?” she offered.
“I can’t do that,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“What use do I have for it?” Mary asked, waving dismissively. “It’s a piece of your family history. You should know where you come from.”
I looked at her face, creased and lined with age. Her eye shadow had been applied with too heavy a hand; the color on her lips was two shades too bright. She looked lonely and worn out and old.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks a lot. It’s really cool.”
She smiled, pleased.
“I’d better get going,” I said. “But you’ve been really helpful.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “Now, you don’t have to be a stranger. I know you have your MTV and your e-mail Web sites, but if you ever have a little time, come by and say hello.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
She made a move to stand.
“No, stay,” I said. “I can let myself out.”
I closed the door carefully behind me and started down the sidewalk, then stopped short.
Kasey was coming across the street, carrying a tray with a little pitcher and a box of cookies.
When she saw me, she raised her eyebrows but kept walking.
“What are you doing?” I asked, grabbing her by the elbow.
She jerked away. “Being neighborly.”
“Listen to me, Kasey,” I said. “I need to talk to you about your friend.”
“Why?” she asked, her lip twisting into a sneer. “Does Megan want to ask her some questions?”
“Stop it,” I said. “Leave Megan out of this.”
She stared at me intently for a long few seconds.
“Megan is on my list,” she said, looking me up and down. “And so are you.”
“What is your list?” I asked. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“You are not meant to understand,” she replied.
Her gaze fell on me like a heavy coat weighing me down. I felt as if my feet were rooted to the ground. She turned and walked up to Mary’s door, ringing the doorbell in quick bursts.
I couldn’t even move.
But as she disappeared inside, the leaden feeling dissolved, and I dashed home and into the kitchen. I looked in the trash and found an empty packet of lemonade mix.
My heart stopped pounding quite so hard. Maybe Kasey was just going to do what I’d done—ask Mary about the names.
I went to the sink to get a glass of water, and that’s when I noticed the grains on the counter. For a second I thought they were sugar crystals, but then I flipped the light on to see that they had the faintest cloudy green tint.
I opened the cabinet under the sink.
The first thing I saw was a box of ant poison sitting slightly askew.
I poured a little into the sink.
Tiny green grains, no bigger than sand.
I didn’t bother to close the front door behind me. I tore back to Mary’s house, pounded on the door, and pulled it open without being invited. I heard Mary exclaim from the living room and found my sister pouring the second of two glasses of lemonade.
“Kasey,” I said. “Stop.”
“She’s not causing any trouble,” Mary said. “It’s really all right.”
Kasey looked at me. “You heard Mary,” she said. “I’m not causing any trouble.”
She stared straight into my eyes, but her glare didn’t seem to lock on to me the way it had outside. I didn’t get the same heavy, captive feeling.
“Go home,” I said.
Neither of us spoke. After a long few seconds, Mary cleared her throat and stood up. “Alexis, dear, I’m so glad you came back . . . You forgot your sweater.”
She hung it over my arm and then retreated, sensing that her gesture hadn’t eased the tension.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” I said. “My sister has to go home.”
Kasey cocked her head.
I took a step forward.
And Kasey took a step back.
. . . Huh.
“Go,” I said. “Now.”
Kasey took another step backward, then turned to Mary and glowered as intensely as a lion watching its prey.
I began to move closer, and Kasey took off at a full run, down the hall and out into the night.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Mary, trying to sound casual, dumping the lemonade back into the pitcher and setting everything on the tray. “She’s just way behind in her schoolwork and our parents will get really mad if she doesn’t . . .”
Mary was watching me, wide-eyed.
“Mary,” I said, turning to face her. “Do me a favor? Promise me you won’t let Kasey back in tonight. Or tomorrow. Not until I tell you it’s safe. No matter what she says.”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She pulled her shawl a little snugger over her shoulders and shuffled toward a window. She checked the lock, and then shuffled to the next window and checked that lock.
“Um . . . are you okay?” I asked.
She faced me, and I noticed a shudder in her hands and a faint quiver in her voice. “Alexis,” she said, “the last time someone looked at me like that was . . .”
My whole body went stiff with fear.
“Nineteen ninety-six,” she whispered.
I sat on my bed with the photo.
Mildred. Patience.
These girls . . . they were in my dream.
They were the ones who had chased the little girl in my story. They’d thrown rocks at her until she’d fallen from the tree.
But if these girls weren’t just minor characters in a story I’d made up . . . if they’d really existed . . .
I shifted my weight, and the books I’d stacked on the pillow tipped over. The Sawamura paperback fell open. Someone had written something on the inside cover.
Just like Megan, I thought, leaning in to read it.
SHARA C. WILEY, 989 WHITLEY STREET, SURREY CA. SEPTEMBER 20, 1996.
My breath caught in my throat.
Shara had owned that book. And the only reason she would own that book was if there were already something in the house—something evil.
Looking at the neat handwriting, I thought of the whispers that first night, eight years ago . . . and how they had invited me outside to play. Wasn’t that what Kasey had said to me the other night, when she came into my room? Come play.
I’d been starting to wonder why the ghost chose Kasey and not me.
But something had reached out to me.
And I might have been lured to my death the very first night we lived here, if I hadn’t grabbed on to the necklace—which had belonged to Shara.
When we were inside Mary’s house, near my sweater—in the pocket of which I’d left the charm— Kasey wasn’t able to control me.
“Shara?” I whispered, taking the half-heart out of my pocket and holding it tightly in my fist.
Nothing happened.
But by that point I was completely, one-hundred percent sure . . .
My charm wasn’t evil. It was good.
Shara was protecting me.
But from whom?
My hands shook so badly I could hardly get the microfiche slide to sit in the negative frame. I placed the slide inside and set the timer for five minutes, then hit the EXPOSE button. The light popped on.
Only about four articles at a time shone through onto the notebook paper I’d laid flat on the enlarger, and the print was so small that I had to lean in close to read anything smaller than a headline. Nothing. I shifted the negative tray so a different set of articles was in the light. Four more duds. And another four. And then on my fourth try I found it—“WILEY DEATH HAUNTS COMMUNITY.” Ha. If only they’d known. I skimmed the text, but it was nothing new—mainly a human interest piece on the continuing concern of the neighbors, a week after the fact. But at the bottom was a featurette, a miniarticle in its own little box.
I tucked my trembling hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and leaned in close to read. “THE UNHAPPY HOME ON WHITLEY STREET,” said a line of bold text inside the box.
SURREY—It’s been less than a week since the October 15 suicide at 989 Whitley Street, but many neighbors are anxious to put the incident behind them. Most residents regard the death of young mother Shara Wiley as a tragic reminder that no matter how well you think you know your neighbors, there’s always something under the surface.
Several local residents declined to be interviewed for this story, but Francine Besser, 89, of Dennison Avenue, a resident of downtown Surrey in the late ’teens and early 1920s, recalls another tragedy that occurred in the Edwardian-erafour-bedroom house, constructed in 1897 by prominent local merchant Robert Forsythe and his wife Victoria.
Robert and Victoria. The parents from my story. It was like the final depressing piece of a puzzle.
“It was really quite something to my mother’s generation,” Mrs. Besser recalls. “Mr. Forsythe even built indoor plumbing before the city provided it— you know, Surrey was just a little country town back then. They were the wealthiest family in the county.”
Local records show that the Forsythes, in mourning over the death of their eleven-year-old daughter, Sarah,
. . . Sarah
were killed in a fire that destroyed Robert’s warehouse on the west side of town (near what is now the site of St. Viviana Church) in late 1902. Evidence found at the scene led police to conclude that the fire was a result of arson, likely committed by Mrs. Forsythe, whose madness was attributed to her grief, but may well have originated with the lead pipes used in the house’s plumbing, which may also have contributed to their daughter’s recorded behavioral and health issues.
I remembered the hazy, hypnotized feeling of the story pouring out of me, as if I were just a conduit.
; It wasn’t my story at all—it was a true story.
The house’s story.
Back in my room, I picked up the photo, studying the girls’ unsmiling faces, and noticed for the first time that the white border that rimmed the edge of the picture ended abruptly on the right side. A portion of it was missing.
I flipped it over to look at the list of names. Underneath the list was a black scribble—something had been crossed out. I leaned in closer.
Was that an S . . . ? And the second letter could have been an A. The third was an R.
. . . Sarah.
Someone had wanted to forget she ever existed. They scratched off her name and cut her out of the picture. I studied the edge of the image. Nothing was left that would indicate she’d been in the photo. . . .
Except the small elbow of an arm.
And half the face of the doll it clutched.
It was the same doll from my story, my dream.
Is that what Mr. Sawamura was talking about when he said power center?
Something Sarah had loved so much that she’d held it close even as she fell to her death . . . ?
The doll. What if it was in the house somewhere? And it was taking control of my sister? And what if it had taken control of Shara and sent her into the murderous spiral that ended in her own death?
Kasey’s list. The names. Those were the girls responsible for Sarah’s death—and their daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters.
It was a hit list.
I thought about what Kasey had been saying the other day, when I heard her talking to her dolls—She’s new. Think of what she’s been through.
So now I knew what Sarah’s power center was. I knew what she was using to force my sister to help her carry out her vengeance. . . .
I just didn’t have the faintest clue where it was.
Or how to get it away from Kasey without . . . you know . . . dying.
I FELT THE DAY’S EVENTS CAKED on my skin like a greasy film of badness. I desperately needed a shower. I was so worn out that I didn’t hang up my clothes as I took them off. I just left them on the floor next to my bed.
I let the hot water pour over me and closed my eyes in the steam. I spent a few extra minutes just standing there, pretending everything was fine. No ghosts, no guilt, no crazy sister, no breaking Carter’s heart. It was nice.