“Ellis,” Abby read. “And that house is ten-fourteen. We must be close.”
“I don’t know if I’m excited or about to puke on myself,” Jordan whispered as they crossed the street. The rain had stopped hours ago, leaving the pavement slick and shining. They left behind the wan glow of the streetlamp and plunged back into darkness. It was late enough that most houses sat quiet, all their lights turned off.
Dan walked more quickly without meaning to, half jogging as they traveled down the street. At precisely the midway point of the block, he stopped, watching as Abby’s phone lit up the mailbox at the edge of the lawn.
“This is it,” she said. “No cars in the driveway. No lights. What do you guys think?”
“What did you think we would do? Ring the doorbell?” Jordan muttered. “Come on, let’s find a back window and hope they don’t have an attack dog.”
“It looks abandoned,” Dan added.
“And creepy. Yuck.”
Jordan had a point. The Victorian house had seen better days. Paint peeled in long shavings, stuck to the clapboards by the damp. Three stories high, the house pushed to the limits of the property, too much building for too little land. It had been dark green once, or maybe blue.
Dan refused to look up at the windows, convinced he would see the pale, bleeding boy staring back at him.
The second they set foot on the side porch, the boards creaked. The trio shuffled along slowly, each of them trying to minimize the noise as they neared the back of the house. Jordan stuck his head out and peered around the corner.
“Looks clear,” he said, “and I don’t hear anything or anyone. I should be able to get us inside.” And with that, he pulled a small tool out of his pocket—not a lockpick, but a kind of flat, wide trowel.
“Why am I not surprised?” Dan murmured, smirking.
“Good for windows,” Jordan whispered. “I had to use this baby a few times at home.”
He slipped the edge of the tool into the sill, sliding it into the rotting gap. With a few pumps of his elbow, the window rattled and then Dan heard a faint popping noise.
“No alarms. I still don’t hear anything. . . .” Jordan lifted the window a few inches, waited, and then pushed it the rest of the way up. “After you.”
“You’re too kind,” Abby said with a sarcastic chuckle. At least she seemed to be stone-cold sober again. Dan knelt and made a cradle of both hands so she could climb up safely. He boosted her in and then followed. When Jordan landed next to him, they lowered the window and softly closed it. Dan took out his cell phone to light the way.
“Don’t flip the light switches,” he told them. “We don’t want to alert the neighbors.”
He swept the phone screen around the room, revealing a kitchen that could have been a museum for a bygone era. Dan shivered, remembering the same musty, untouched chill from Brookline’s lower levels, as if the air hadn’t been breathed in decades. It looked as if nothing here had been touched in years, but strangely, it seemed clean, or at least organized.
“Someone is taking care of this place,” he observed, going to the sink on his left. He tried the hot water handle, and the pipes groaned and chugged before releasing a thin spout of orange goop. It ran clear after a second and he turned it off. “Water is still on, so someone is paying bills on this place.”
Jordan’s and Abby’s cell phone lights bounced around the kitchen. Dishes were stacked next to the sink; a teacup on the counter still had a film of ancient tea in the bottom.
“Look at this!” It was Abby, whispering excitedly from the next room, a spacious dining room with a chandelier and a stopped grandfather clock. “Newspapers, hundreds of them, and tons of mail. What is all this stuff?”
Dan followed the sound of her voice, joining them in the dining room.
“Mailbags,” Jordan said, knocking one with the toe of his boot. “They don’t look like they’ve been opened or even touched in years. Look at that dust.”
Abby had already begun to pick through the stray letters stacked on the dining room table. Gingerly, she peeled open one of the unsealed envelopes. “This one is from 1968. This one, too. And this one. These are from the year after.” She sorted through the envelopes more quickly, slightly breathless. “They look like local addresses, but there are dozens of different recipients here.”
“Who would bother collecting this junk?” Jordan asked, going to stand behind Abby and read over her shoulder.
“Mailbags in here, too,” Dan said, moving beyond them and into the foyer. He stooped and picked up a handful of letters, blowing a thin layer of dust from them. “Same years. Sixty-eight and sixty-nine.” Shuffling through the letters, he began to notice a pattern, if a small one. He pocketed the letters with street addresses he recognized. “They’re all addressed to women. Local ones, from the looks of it. And, oh man, check this out. . . .”
Dan had come to a stack of photographs, paper-clipped to a manila envelope that had no name or address at all. The photos were all of girls (young women, really—they looked to be college-aged), and while none of the photos was exactly compromising, there was something intimate, even voyeuristic, about them that made Dan’s blood run cold.
“They look so sad,” Abby said. “What do you think—”
She fell silent, stunned by a sudden scraping noise from outside. Not just outside, but the porch and the way they had come.
Dan ducked down instinctively; the others followed him an instant later. He crawled toward them across the foyer, and they huddled together against a china cabinet near the dining room window. Even though it was dark inside and out, he could tell the difference, the flicker, when a shadow passed across the window directly above them.
“Someone is here,” Jordan breathed, then clapped a hand over his mouth.
The shadow flickered again, then stayed. Dan held his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t dare look up.
Through the window, he heard someone draw in a long, rattling breath, and then a girl’s voice sang out, high and clear.
“Daniel . . . Daniel . . . Come out and play, Daniel. . . .”
It felt like an eternity, the time between when the voice stopped and the scraping sound came again, this time receding. None of them moved, frozen in silence. Minutes crawled by, but even so, Dan held his breath until his lungs burned.
“T-Tell me you guys heard that, too,” Dan whispered. He lifted his head just a little.
“Yup,” Jordan squeaked, white-faced. “Most definitely.”
“Dan . . .” Abby shook next to him, gripping his knee. “You said you saw a little boy. That was a girl’s voice. Is there more than one ghost?”
“Jesus Christ.” Jordan leaned heavily against the cupboard. “You’re making it worse. Shut up, shut up!”
“We have to get out of here,” Abby said. “Now is not the time to get caught breaking and entering.”
“Let me look. . . .” Dan shifted onto his knees, carefully peering up and around until just the top of his head rose above the windowsill. With no streetlamps near the house, he found it hard to determine whether or not the coast was clear. But nobody waited outside the window or in the immediate, admittedly limited area Dan could see.
“I think we’re good.” He turned and led them back into the kitchen and to the window they had come in. “Do I need to do anything special to the window or will it just slide right open?”
Jordan leaned across him and pushed up under the bottom of the window. It groaned as if the edges had become too wide for its frame. He shoved harder and it finally shuddered open.
“I’d say ‘after you,’ but screw that, I’m out of here.” Jordan hoisted himself onto the kitchen counter and then out into the night. Abby followed. She turned to Dan before ducking through the open space and paused.
“What is it?”
“You know that weird feeling you get when you feel like you’re being watched?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it too,” he said. “We need to hur
ry.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than he heard a single, solitary footstep on the floor above him. The one heavy footfall sent a rippling groan through the house.
“Go,” he said urgently, waving her out the window. Dan scampered up after her and wedged himself through the window, ignoring the sharp splinter that scraped across his arm. Back out in the cold, Dan pushed the window shut and followed his friends down the porch.
Nobody needed to say anything; Jordan took off, sprinting. Dan matched his pace, glancing back over his shoulder once as they left the house behind. Paper scratched against his belly, and he touched his stomach where some of the mailbag letters were tucked into his waistband. His arm throbbed where the splinter had caught him. He clasped his hand over the ache, and his palm came away slick with blood.
When they reached the crossroads about a block from the house, Dan slowed down to a walk and pulled out the letters.
“Not a total loss,” he said, catching his breath. “At least I got some of these.”
“I took some, too,” Abby added. “Do you think anyone will notice them missing?”
Dan shrugged, frowning down at the letters in his hand.
“Not to be a total downer,” Jordan began, “but what the hell happened back there? Am I the only one who thinks Felix tried to lead us into a trap?”
“These must be important,” Abby said, not quite answering his question. “We can read through what we took and see if there’s any mention of Brookline. If not . . . Well, we could always try going back another night.”
Dan remembered the sound of that footstep shaking the house and shivered.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to,” he murmured. “Anyway, that was only the first address. Maybe whatever Felix wanted us to find is at one of the coordinates and he just wasn’t sure which one.”
“Man, all these maybes are starting to freak me out,” Jordan said. He spun and strode defiantly out of the pool of lamplight they had stopped in, and Dan followed, clutching his hurt arm.
“Hey!”
“Watch it!”
Dan felt Abby’s hand on the arm of his sweater, tugging him back as they watched Jordan stumble under the streetlamp. Jordan was holding his chest, panting.
“God! You scared me half to death!” he cried.
“Sorry! Sorry.” It was Micah, sliding into the light with his hands raised in surrender. Dan puffed out a sigh of relief. “I didn’t mean to scare y’all, but you weren’t anywhere at the party. I’ve been looking and looking. . . .”
His eyes landed on the hand Dan had clasped tightly over his biceps.
“You okay?”
“Fine, we were—” What were they doing? Why hadn’t he bothered to concoct a convincing story in case this very scenario unfolded? He swallowed hard and forced himself to look Micah in the eye. “Just out exploring the neighborhood. The party got sort of crowded, so we went out for some air.” Dan smiled, allowing his shoulders to drop. Relax. Relax and sell it and he will never know the difference. “I think we must’ve taken a wrong turn, though. Couldn’t find our way back.”
He looked to Jordan and Abby for confirmation. They nodded in suspicious unison.
“Yes!” Abby finally blurted. “Yeah, we got lost. The party was . . . way too hot, right? So many people in that tiny little house!”
“Yeah, I found it a little stifling myself,” Micah said, reaching up to adjust his glasses. “You want me to show you guys back? I think that might be best. Not sure I’m supposed to allow y’all to wander around town in the middle of the night.”
“Allow?”
Jordan was going to give them away if he kept up the attitude.
“Oh.” Micah laughed nervously. “Not like—I mean, we’re just supposed to look after you kids is all.”
“Thanks for finding us,” Dan said quickly. He strode out ahead in the direction he hoped would lead them back to campus. Micah didn’t object, so he assumed he had chosen correctly. “It’s crazy how confusing these streets get in the dark. I bet in the daytime you can spot the campus chapel from just about anywhere.”
“That’s a fair guess.”
“But I’m sure you can find your way blindfolded now. Does it feel weird to have somewhere else feel like home? I mean when you first got here you were probably as hopeless as we are at finding your way around, but now it’s second nature.” Dan could hear his voice speeding up as he talked but did nothing to stop it.
“It surely is.”
Dan felt compelled to keep talking, not just because he wanted to prove their innocence, but because he could not handle silence right then. Silence gave the shadows and the darkness power. Silence meant he might be ambushed and taunted with his own name. The constant stream of inane chatter felt like a ward against that possibility, and even made him relax a little.
It wasn’t until they were in view of the house party and Abby tugged on his sleeve that Dan realized just how long he’d been monologuing.
“Hey, motormouth,” Jordan said when Dan slowed down to walk beside them. “You’re being the definition of suspicious.”
“I am?” Dan asked. “Crap, I suppose I am.”
“Nobody talks that fast unless they’re hiding something,” Abby added. “Unless you’re really trying to make friends? Which would be ironic, since you’re the one who said we didn’t have time to make friends.”
“Right. Yeah. I just thought . . .” They were outside the back porch now. Micah didn’t seem keen to let them out of his sight again. Abby breezed by him wearing a big, fake smile. The kitchen was much less crowded at this point.
“Wow,” Jordan muttered. “Who needs a drink?” He went to the punch bowl on the counter and scooped out a cup for himself. Cal joined Micah in the doorway, and as they talked, Cal kept looking over his shoulder at them.
“You just thought what?” Abby prompted. They stood in a close huddle in the corner by the empty chip and dip bowls.
On the counter behind the bowls was a row of candles burning away. Dan stared intently at the candle on the far right, a dark red glob that was almost completely burned down, so that all that remained was the hint of a sculpted jaw and chin.
“I just thought anything would be better than silence.” He laughed pitifully at his own explanation. “If it gets quiet, I might see that little boy again. Or hear voices. I’m sure that sounds completely stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, Dan,” Jordan said softly. “I get what you mean.”
Abby opened her mouth to respond, and judging by her furrowed brow, it wasn’t going to be in the affirmative. She didn’t get a chance to say her piece, though—Micah had broken off from Cal and was now hovering over Jordan’s shoulder.
“Hey, guys, could I steal Dan for a moment?”
“He’s all yours,” Jordan said, grinning through clenched teeth.
“Thanks.” He didn’t give Dan an opportunity to say good-bye, just took him by the arm and dragged him away. A herd of drunken students thundered in from the living room, and Abby and Jordan disappeared into the crowd.
Micah brought him to the opposite end of the kitchen, where a shadowy alcove sheltered a butler’s staircase that hardly looked wide enough for one. This didn’t bode well—what if Micah was going to report them for running off? Maybe his host wasn’t nearly as friendly and forgiving as he seemed.
“What’s up?” Dan asked neutrally.
“I wasn’t going to mention this,” Micah began, wiping at invisible sweat on his brow. “But I need you to warn your buddy Jordan about Cal. I was just talking to him, and that boy was all lit up.”
Dan mouthed the words “all lit up” with one brow lifted.
“Drunk,” Micah explained. “Point is, his behavior’s been, uh, erratic lately. This stuff with his dad . . . He’s just unpredictable right now and he doesn’t always hold his liquor well. He can be a little on the mean side when he’s sober, but drunk? Look, a word from me might not mean much to your friend, but he’d li
sten to you. It’s nothing serious, I just think it’s best if we all keep a collective eye on them.”
“Is the drinking unusual?” Dan asked, still not fully following.
Micah nodded. “Bad drinking, bad grades, bad new crowd. It’s a mite early to say ‘downward spiral,’ but it’s getting there, know what I mean?”
It was Dan’s turn to nod.
“You see it lots,” Micah continued, scratching at his goatee. “More than you might think. Lots of pressure here to do well, to perform, sometimes it’s enough to make a person crack. Then his dad . . . It’s been a lot for him to handle. When I saw your friend dancing with him tonight I just thought it might be best to warn you.”
“So if Cal is on some downward spiral, what is he doing hosting a prospie?”
Micah laughed, guffawed really, pausing a moment afterward and staring at Dan. “Well, you know how I said his dad was a big-shot alum?”
“Yeah . . .”
“His pop was the dean. The whole administration has been on eggshells around Cal since he died. Cal could probably get away with murder if he had a mind to.”
“Ha.” Dan forced out a nervous laugh. “Well . . . I’ll, um . . . I’ll tell Jordan to be careful.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Micah said, clapping Dan on the shoulder. “Thanks, man, I had a feeling you were a stand-up sort, and it’s good to know I was right.”
That night, after pulling Jordan aside to fill him in about Cal, Dan returned to Micah’s room and fell asleep without even glancing over the new clues they had collected. He collapsed into a heavy but fitful sleep, and even unconscious he knew the dreams would come, could feel them gathering on the fringes of his mind like a bank of growing storm clouds.
The dream swallowed him up whole.
He stood in the entryway to a shabby house, stamping the fresh mud off his boots. There was an umbrella in his hand and he shook the rain from it. He checked his pocket watch, a well-polished antique, and felt himself become overwhelmed by the tedium of this visit. There was so much to do. His time was so precious. Why did he waste it on these cretins and fools?