Then, suddenly, noise.
Other children.
People to play with.
Girls who are lonely like us.
And we don’t have to wait anymore.
• • •
I came back to myself, gasping, the voices still echoing in my head. High, sweet voices. Little-girl voices.
Rebecca and Octavia.
“The twins!” Olivia called out next to me, and even though the roots had stopped pulling, they were still holding tight to me.
Olivia, however, had somehow wiggled free, and she sat on the ground, breathing hard, her hands dirty and shaking as she brought them up to push her hair off her face. “Felix wasn’t a Wrexhall,” she breathed. “They were. He married their sister and took their name—”
“And probably murdered the rest of them, yeah,” I panted back, still struggling. “And now they’re seriously angry little-girl ghosts inside a killer tree, so yay, mystery solved, now get me out of here.”
Shaking herself slightly, Liv got back up on her knees and reached for my hand.
And then the roots yanked again, harder this time, and I actually screamed.
“Garrett’s bag!” I yelled at Liv.
Who knew if he’d actually brought anything that would help, but it seemed like it was worth a try, and when the ground beneath us began to shake, I added, “And hurry!”
Liv didn’t have to be told twice. She snatched up the bag from where I’d dropped it and unzipped it, dumping the contents on the ground in a clinking mess. She tossed aside three plastic bottles, her hands moving frantically over the pile.
And then she gave a cry and hefted a small hatchet.
Garrett was clearly hardcore.
I swallowed hard, still kicking at the root holding me, as Liv moved back over to my side.
As I stared up at her, standing over me with a hatchet in her hand, I was suddenly very glad that we had become friends this summer. Otherwise, Olivia Anne Willingham coming after me with a weapon would’ve been almost as scary as a killer tree wrapping around me.
“Do it, Liv!” I shouted as she stared down at me, her face white in the glow from the flashlight, her chest heaving, she was breathing so hard.
“What if I cut you?” she replied, but then the root yanked on me again, and I screamed, my fingers digging into the dirt.
That was clearly what decided it for Liv.
The hatchet came down, and I squeezed my eyes shut, half expecting to feel the bite of metal on my skin. I loved Olivia, and she was my friend, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to forgive her if she chopped my foot off.
There was a thunk and a shriek, but it didn’t come from me, and then the pressure was suddenly off my ankle.
My eyes flew open to see the root lying in two pieces on the dirt floor, Olivia still standing over me, her eyes huge, the hatchet raised.
I held up both my hands. “No more chopping!” I yelled, and then scrambled to my feet just in case she panicked and thought I was still being held.
My ankle was bruised and aching, but I hobbled over to the pile of stuff Liv had dumped out of Garrett’s bag. In addition to the hatchet, he’d brought a disposable camera, some rope, and . . .
I picked up one of the plastic bottles, reading the label.“Hedge Hammer?” It was herbicide, a plant killer, and he’d brought three bottles of it.
Garrett might have chickened out, but at least he’d come prepared before that.
Except that we weren’t dealing with a killer tree after all—not exactly—but ghosts inside the tree.
Was it still worth a shot?
I remembered how Rebecca and Octavia had felt in my head, that anger and frustration at the unfairness of it all.
Their spirits trapped in the tree where they’d died. If we killed the tree, would that release them?
Grabbing another one of the bottles, I tossed it to Liv. “Here!” I yelled, even as she ducked out of the way as the roots on the ceiling writhed and reached.
Liv caught the bottle, then frowned at it. “Plant killer?”
“Their spirits are trapped inside the tree, and the tree is growing inside the house,” I told her. “It can’t hurt!”
For a second, I actually thought Liv was going to argue with me that she didn’t want to kill any plants.
Then one of the roots touched her hair, and with a shriek, Liv whirled around and started splashing Hedge Hammer like it was her job.
I did the same, pouring out the other two bottles onto the floor, which was still rolling and cracking like there was a minor earthquake going on.
When the last bottle was empty, I tossed it, grabbing my bag with one hand and Liv’s hand with the other, pulling her toward the stairs and out of the cellar.
CHAPTER 34
OLIVIA
We ran down the hill, arms at our sides, our breath sawing in and out of our lungs. My backpack flopped heavily against my back, and I was going so fast that the distant, sane part of my brain begged me to slow down before I tripped and rolled all the way down to our bikes.
But the other part—the part that knew it had escaped something super dangerous—begged me to keep going as fast as I could.
There was a grunt from behind me, and I didn’t even have time to slow down or turn around before Ruby was careening into me. We went down on the grass hard, the breath leaving my lungs in a painful whoosh.
Something stung my knee, and I felt my elbow collide with something soft. Given Ruby’s sudden cry, I figured it had been her stomach. For a moment, there was just the grass, the occasional collision, and the taste of my own sweat in my mouth as we rolled halfway down the hill.
And then I managed to dig my heels in and stop falling, Ruby coming to a stop around the same time.
We lay there in the grass, panting up at the starry sky.
“Ow,” Ruby said weakly, and I pushed up onto my elbows to look over at her.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She was flat on her back, her arms spread wide, her eyes squeezed shut.
Glancing down, I could see the welt around her ankle. It had been red in the glare of the flashlight, but out here in the near dark, it was an angry bluish purple, and I thought again about the . . . thing wrapped around her, how close I’d come to not getting to her in time.
“Ruby?” I asked, rising all the way up and flipping around so that I was hovering over her. I went up on my knees and grabbed her shoulder. “Ruby?”
“I told you I liked ‘Rubik’s Cube’ now,” she said faintly, and then one of her eyes opened. “Also, no, I’m not okay, but I’m not dead? So I’ll settle for not okay.”
I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry, so I ended up doing some weird combination of both, a gurgly, snotty sound that would’ve been embarrassing if it had happened in front of anyone besides my best friend.
With a groan, Ruby sat up, wincing as she touched the dark band around her ankle. “That part was very not cool,” she muttered, then twisted to look over her shoulder at the house.
It sat there in the moonlight, looking a lot creepier than it had that first day, and whether that was because it was dark or because we now knew exactly what was inside of it, I wasn’t sure.
“Do you think it worked?” she asked, and I sat back on my heels, looking.
There was nothing, no sign of what had happened in the house. It sat there as still and silent as ever, just a house.
“I don’t—” I said, and before I could finish, a loud CRACK! split the air. The ground underneath us rumbled, and as I watched in horror, the earth began to open up at the base of the giant oak tree, a long split snaking from its trunk and racing downhill.
For us.
“The tree!” I yelled, and Ruby shot to her feet even though it must have hurt her ankle.
“I hate trees so much now!” she yel
led in reply, and then we were running again, stumbling and loping to the bottom of the hill, the whole ground shaking beneath us like we were in the middle of an earthquake.
“Oh man oh man oh man,” Ruby was muttering, and there were more sounds behind us, the cracking of wood, the rumbling of the earth, and underneath it all, a high-pitched sound almost like shrieking.
My foot smacked hard on the packed dirt of the road, Ruby right behind me, and only once we were off the grass did I finally stop to look back.
There was a fissure running from the base of the tree nearly to the edge of the lawn, one thick root shooting out of it, the tip sharp. Like the roots in the cellar, it moved in a snakelike way, swaying back and forth, and I honestly felt like I might throw up.
“It’s not long enough,” Ruby said next to me, her breath coming back. “It can’t catch us, it’s not long enough.”
And sure enough, the root was moving and twisting, stabbing up at the sky, but we were too far away. Still, watching it reach for us had me grabbing Ruby’s arm and pulling her back even farther until we were on the other side of the road.
It wasn’t just the oak tree’s root that was moving, though. The ground still shook, and the whole tree swayed like it was being pushed by strong winds, leaves falling off in masses, fluttering to the ground. The low rumble felt louder now, the shaking harder, and the tree groaned and shrieked, the root still straining for us as we stood there, frozen, our chests moving with the force of our breath. Ruby was still holding on to me, favoring her unhurt ankle, and her fingers gripped my wrist.
“Liv,” she said. “The house.”
But I already saw it. Like the tree, the house was starting to shake and move slightly. There was the bright, sharp sound of glass breaking, and as we watched, the windowpanes tumbled out of their frames, crashing onto the porch.
And then one of the massive columns holding up the veranda started to tilt.
“That seems not good,” Ruby said, and before I could reply, the column crashed onto its side, the veranda coming down with it.
It was all so loud that I cringed, actually putting my arm up in front of my face as a gust of wind blew over us, smelling like old wood, dust, and that same sickly-sweet smell from the cellar.
After that, everything happened really fast.
The ground around the house continued to shake and shudder even though the road where we stood was perfectly still except for the vibrations coming from up the hill.
The house was cracking and quaking, the area around where it stood shifting and sinking.
“It’s going to fall,” I said, almost wonderingly, and Ruby shot me a look even as she tried to balance on one foot, taking weight off her ankle.
“Um, yeah,” she said. “It’s already fall—”
And then anything she could’ve said was swallowed up in the loudest sound I had ever heard. It was a mix of more of that cracking, plus creaking and groaning, like the house or the earth around it was actually in pain.
The shaking got stronger, rattling my teeth, making it hard to stand up, and as Ruby and I watched, the ground opened up, tufts of grass shooting up into the air.
There was more groaning, and so much dust and debris that it was like a tornado was coming through.
The giant oak outside made a sound like thunder as it crashed to the ground, the jolt making me and Ruby both shriek and jump back so that we nearly stumbled into the tall grass lining the other side of the road.
The house sank into the ground as though a large hand underneath were pulling it down. Within a few heartbeats, all I could see was the top floor, the attic window where I’d seen that shadow. The attic where Ruby and I had been trapped. And then that was sinking beneath a lip of earth, too, and there was nothing but a giant hole and the felled oak tree.
Then, almost like an afterthought, that tree started sliding backward until it had vanished into the hole as well.
One more shudder, a deep one, like the ground itself was taking a really deep breath, and then . . .
It was the quickest thing. Later, I’d wonder if I’d seen it at all, or if all the craziness of the night had gotten to me. But I could swear I saw two figures in white, hazy and faint, holding hands and standing there just at the edge of the hole where the house had been. I actually opened my mouth like I was going to call out to them.
But as quickly as they’d appeared, they vanished.
The night was suddenly quiet and still, the only sound me and Ruby nearly hyperventilating as we stared at the hill where Live Oak House used to stand.
No surprise, it was Ruby who spoke first. “So . . . I mean . . . technically we did not do that.”
The laugh started as a rumble in my chest, and then suddenly I was nearly cackling, throwing my head back as I laughed and laughed, tears running down my cheeks.
Ruby looked over at me, the most serious I’d ever seen her.
“Have you cracked?” she asked. “Did the house make you go crazy?”
Still unable to talk, I shook my head, wiping my face. I thought of the days we’d spent cleaning in there, all of our plans, my insistence that we not do anything that might damage the house.
Well, that clearly hadn’t worked out.
“We are so totally Bad Kids now,” I managed to gasp out to Ruby, and she shook her head, snorting.
“Cracked,” she muttered, then began limping down the road toward our bikes. I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to ride or not, but she climbed on with only a little grimace.
“So now what?” Ruby asked, maneuvering her bike into position.
I glanced back at the empty hill, wondering what anyone would say when they came here and found Live Oak House vanished.
“We go home,” I finally said. “And never worry about writing down how many chairs are in one room again.”
That made Ruby snort again. “This was a lot of work just to get out of summer camp.”
I laughed at that. I kind of couldn’t help it. And then we pedaled away from what used to be Live Oak House.
Neither of us looked back.
CHAPTER 35
RUBY
Walking into the rec center the next morning—okay, limping, really—was one of the weirder experiences of my life.
And since I’d almost been eaten by a tree, I figured that was saying something.
Mom was next to me, her whole body drawn up stiff, lips pursed together, and I dared a glance up at her. “Still mad?” I asked, and she looked down at me with her eyebrows raised.
“Do you really need to ask that?”
I didn’t.
So our plan to sneak back home last night had not exactly worked out. The sneaking out had been easy enough, but no one ever tells you it’s the coming back that’s the tricky part. Mom had caught me halfway through my window, and even though I’d been able to convince her that me and Liv had just decided to ride our bikes around town, I was looking at being grounded for the next decade, probably.
“I can’t believe you’d do something so reckless,” Mom went on as we made our way toward the gym. She normally just dropped me off in front, but last night’s shenanigans meant that I now had a full-time escort keeping an eye on me at all times. “I mean, I can,” Mom corrected, “but I can’t believe you got Olivia to go along with it.”
“We were fine,” I insisted, and Mom gave me a pointed look. I’d told her I’d hurt my ankle falling off my bike, and now I held up my hands, acknowledging that I wasn’t 100 percent fine. “It was one little fall—”
“And if you’d been alone, think how bad that could’ve been!” Mom said, and I had to admit that yes, she had a point there.
But honestly, Mom being mad at me—and she had plenty of reasons to be mad at me—was the least of my worries that morning. Had someone already been out to the house? Did Mrs. Freely know what had happened? And
if she did, would she suspect me and Liv had anything to do with it? What if Garrett spilled the whole thing? Ugh, I should’ve known not to trust him, I should’ve asked Susanna, she probably would’ve been a better choice. I made a decision right then and there to choose my partners in crime more carefully in the future.
We walked into the gym, and I knew immediately that what had happened at Live Oak House was not a secret.
Okay, maybe the part we played in it was, but from the way Mrs. Freely was darting around, talking to a group of really not-happy-seeming adults, it was clear that everyone knew Live Oak House was toast.
Mom walked over to the group that included Liv’s mom, and I trailed behind her, just in time to hear Mrs. Willingham ask, “What do you mean, gone?”
Mrs. Freely stood there, her hands opening and closing at her side, her eyes big. “It’s . . . gone. The entire structure collapsed in on itself. The fire department thinks it must have been a sinkhole.”
Mom folded her arms over her chest, tilting her head down. Mrs. Freely did not know that look, but I did, and it meant Mom was about to go off.
Since that going-off would not be directed at me, I have to say, I was a little excited to see what might happen.
Liv’s mom came to stand next to mine. “Apparently, they think it was some kind of sinkhole?”
Her tone made it pretty clear how she felt about that, and I realized for the first time that Liv kind of sounded like her mom.
“A sinkhole?” Mom repeated, her voice climbing up the words as her eyebrows rose.
Mrs. Freely looked nervous for the first time since I’d met her. “W-well,” she said, only stammering over the word a little, “that’s what it seems to be. Which is of course very strange given that the house has stood there for over a hundred years and there’s never been a sinkhole in town before, but—”
“How could that happen?” Mom asked, and I did my best to keep my face very still. The other kids were watching us, and I met Liv’s eyes for a second. Hers were wide, her face kind of pale, and next to her, I saw Garrett frown.