I walked over to the row of yogurt machines, holding my cup in both hands. Picking out the right combo of flavors was crucial to the whole yogurt experience, and Yo Yo Yo had at least sixteen flavors. Looking over, I saw Liv already sitting back down, her yogurt cup in front of her, and not even filled up all that high. I couldn’t see any sprinkles or whipped cream or anything.
Frowning, I looked back at the machines, finally settling on a mix of vanilla, salted caramel, and white chocolate. That done, I loaded on a Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory amount of toppings, paid at the counter, and then sat down across from Olivia.
Sure enough, her yogurt was totally boring: their “house” flavor, which tasted like actual yogurt, a handful of strawberries, some bright green kiwi pieces, and a few bits of granola.
“That’s the saddest frozen yogurt I’ve ever seen,” I told her, and she licked her neon-orange spoon before wrinkling her nose at me.
“It’s good,” she said. “And I always get the healthy one.”
I raised my eyebrows, digging my own spoon into the sugary masterpiece I’d created. “What does that mean?”
Olivia’s face went a little pink and she ducked her head, using the tip of her spoon to cut part of the kiwi slice.
“Emma,” she said, like that explained everything.
It probably did, to her. Em used to do the same thing when she talked about Olivia sometimes, like just saying her name could conjure up all the reasons she might do or say something. Maybe that’s what it’s like when you’re a twin—you know those things about each other.
But I didn’t know, so I took a bite of yogurt and said, “Explain.”
Olivia looked up at the ceiling for a second. “Just that . . . whenever we get frozen yogurt, I get the healthy one, and Em gets the . . . well, one like that, and we share. It’s a thing.”
I thought about that for a second. “Do you want to share?” I asked, and she actually blushed a deeper red, shaking her head, her blond hair sweeping her shoulders.
“No, I was just telling you why I got this yogurt.”
“Okay,” I replied, and then we were quiet again.
Yo Yo Yo wasn’t that crowded, only one other family at a polka-dotted plastic table, and the big-screen TV on the far wall was showing the Food Network, some older lady with dark hair smiling way too much as she sliced some hard-boiled eggs.
I dug around in my yogurt some more before saying, “Does Emma ever get the healthy one, or just you?”
Olivia clearly wanted nothing more than for this conversation to end, because she practically waved me off with her spoon.
“No, just me. It’s stupid, we probably shouldn’t even do it anymore.”
I could’ve let it drop, but I felt like there was something important about this yogurt thing.
“Do you want to swap?” I said, and Liv looked up, her green eyes narrowing.
“What?”
“You can have this yogurt, and I’ll take yours. Then you can be the one who gets the awesome, rad yogurt that is prepared like yogurt was meant to be, and I can be the person who gets the sad yogurt.”
She frowned at me. “This isn’t sad yogurt.”
“It’s so sad, Liv. It’s the saddest yogurt in all the land. It makes a journal about its sad feelings and listens to sad music while crying. Sadly.”
The corners of her mouth started turning up a little bit. “Okay, you’ve made your point—”
“That yogurt writes poems about how sad it is, Liv. Its favorite color is blue because blue is the saddest color.”
She was giggling now, and after a second, she reached over and dug her spoon into my yogurt, managing to pull out a bite of cookie dough, sprinkles, and whipped cream.
Watching me, she shoved the whole thing into her mouth. “Oh, wow,” she said around a mouthful, and I laughed.
“See, that’s happy yogurt,” I told her. “Which you might not recognize, since it actually tastes like food.”
“It doesn’t taste like food,” she said, shaking her head. And then she grinned. “It tastes like joy.”
I laughed again, and we abandoned her healthy sad yogurt altogether, both of us sharing mine. Once we’d scraped the bottom of the cup, we sat there for a moment in silence, until Olivia patted the bag of books.
“Do you really think there’s anything good in here?” she asked, and I shrugged.
“It’s worth a try. And my mom said she’d take me to the library next weekend, so I’ll look there, too.”
Olivia’s spoon was empty, but she tapped it against her lips anyway, thinking. “Haunted houses aren’t exactly rare,” she mused. “Which means there has to be something somewhere that could help.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “Help?”
Dropping her spoon, Liv raised her eyebrows at me. “Well, yeah. Why else would we be doing all this research about a haunted house if we weren’t gonna, you know, de-haunt it?”
“Ohhhh, Liv,” I sighed. “Ohhhhhhlivia.” And she picked up a stray sprinkle from the table and flicked it at me.
I dodged, giggling, but still said, “We can’t fix it. We can just, you know, understand what it is. Know what we’re up against and how to best keep ourselves non-ghost-smacked for the rest of the summer. I’m not about to go full-on Ghostbuster at Live Oak House.”
“So this isn’t about helping, it’s about understanding,” she said slowly, thinking that over, and while that wasn’t exactly what I’d meant—really, this was mostly a fun distraction from cleaning that stupid place—I nodded.
“Yeah, exactly.”
She tilted her head to one side, tapping her spoon to her mouth again, then gave a sharp nod. “Okay. I like that. Like we’re not ghost hunters, but ghost researchers. Town historians, even!”
Liv said that so brightly that I made myself smile at her even though “town historian” was not a title I ever really wanted, thanks.
“So next thing we need to do,” I said, “is explore more of the house. Find out where that key goes.”
Nodding, Liv cleaned up a stray spot of melted yogurt with her napkin. “Explore more of the house,” she repeated. “But Mrs. Freely said it’s not all safe.”
“Mrs. Freely also said there was nothing spooky happening at the house, and we know that’s not true,” I countered. “And, I mean, if she’s telling the truth and we fall through a floor or something, at least our parents can sue, and then we can buy a boat or something.” I reached across the table to poke her with my spoon. “Bright side, Liv!”
She didn’t seem all that convinced, but she still said, “So where should we start on Monday, then?”
That was the spirit. Grinning, I reached over to her sad yogurt to scoop a stray bit of kiwi off the top. “The only place I can think where that key might fit,” I told her, and when she looked at me, confused, I leaned closer and whispered, “The attic.”
CHAPTER 16
OLIVIA
“Did you have fun?”
As I buckled my seat belt, I shrugged at Mom. I did have fun today, which was . . . kind of unexpected, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell Mom that. It wasn’t like Ruby and I were becoming friends, after all. We were like . . . coworkers, I guess. Making the best out of the summer, and now trying to figure out what was going on at Live Oak House.
That was another thing I didn’t want to get into with Mom: the weirdness of Live Oak House. The music box and the key were . . . odd, for sure. Something I couldn’t explain. But there was a part of me thinking there had to be some explanation other than “ghosts,” and an even tinier, sadder part of me that worried that this was all some kind of prank Ruby had put together.
But she’d been nice to me at the bookstore, nice at the yogurt place, and kind of fun to hang out with. It had been a long time since I’d spent time with another girl my age who wasn’t Emma. One
of the things with twins, I guess—the built-in best friend thing.
Turning off of Main Street and back toward the road that led to Chester’s Gap’s suburbs, Mom glanced over at me.
“I thought we might try to see if Em wanted to Skype in for dinner tonight. We’d have to eat a little later if we want to match up with her time at camp, but it could be fun, huh?”
“Did you run that by Em?” I asked, and Mom shook her head, signaling a left turn.
“I was going to have you ask on the . . . the phone thingie when we got home.”
I smiled at that. “Hangouts,” I corrected, and Mom gave a nod.
“Hangouts, right.”
We were quiet for a little while, and then Mom said, “I know you miss her a lot.”
I suddenly wanted to fidget in my seat, and to keep from doing that, I leaned forward, changing the radio station. “Yeah, but we talk. On the phone and stuff. It’s fine.”
Sighing, Mom reached out and covered my hand, keeping me from pushing any more buttons.
“Livvy, I know we haven’t really talked about what happened, but that’s because I was hoping you might come to me.” She smiled, cutting her eyes at me briefly before turning back to the road. “You can be tough to crack sometimes, you know that? Like . . . an oyster.”
It was such a weird image that I laughed a little. “I’m an oyster?”
Mom nodded, turning onto our street, a sprinkler spraying the side of the car as she did. Our neighbors were really serious about their yards.
“Emma is an open book with what she’s feeling. She can never really keep a secret, even though she sure does try sometimes. But you? You hold everything really close inside. And that can be good!”
We were in our driveway now, and while Mom put the car in park, she didn’t turn it off.
“It means you’re trustworthy,” she went on, “and that you . . . you put value on your feelings. But sometimes I think you could open up just a little bit more, sweetie.”
There was a squirming feeling inside my stomach, and I suddenly felt like I might cry or something. Mom was like Emma—when she felt things, she said them. I felt things, too, but when it came to talking about them, it seemed too hard. Like I had to say what I was feeling and then explain it, too, just in case what I was feeling was wrong, or—
Mom smoothed my hair down, her palm warm on the back of my head. “I only want you to know you can talk to me, Livvy. About anything.”
I looked up at her then, and I knew. I knew she knew who really took that lipstick.
That she’d probably known from the very first day. And I wanted to tell her about it then, I really did. Let the whole thing spill out, messy as it was, about how I’d done it to save Emma, but also to test her, maybe, and was that something that was okay to do? To make people who love you prove it?
But before I could say anything, my phone blooped.
Emma.
Smiling, Mom turned off the car and opened her door. “Ask her about dinner,” she said, and then she was sliding out, leaving me alone in the car.
Taking a deep breath, I answered the call, Emma’s face filling my screen immediately.
“There you are!” she said, grinning. Then she leaned in so close, her face went blurry. “Where were you?”
“I went to the bookstore,” I told her, and she leaned back, her face coming back into focus.
“Oh, yay! Did you get me anything?”
“A book of poetry all about trees,” I told her, and she scowled.
“Seriously?”
I pulled my feet up onto the edge of the car seat, resting my arms on my knees and holding the phone a little closer to my face. “No, Em, not seriously. I got you some book about a girl who dates this singer guy.”
“Whew,” Em said, leaning back. “That’s more like it.”
I frowned at the tiny screen, wishing I could see more of where Emma was. It looked like she was sitting outside her cabin. The light was bright, and I could make out the log wall behind her.
“Did you honestly think I’d get you a book of tree poems?”
Em’s eyes darted somewhere beyond her phone, like there was someone else standing nearby, and I pulled the phone even closer, like if I did, I’d be able to see better.
“There’s no telling with you, Livvy,” she said, and one corner of her mouth kicked up, the dimple we both had appearing in her cheek.
I still had the uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t alone, and I didn’t like that, talking in front of other people. Still, I went on. “Oh, speaking of trees, there’s this crazy one at Live Oak House. Like, this massive tree trunk in the middle of—”
Emma suddenly burst out laughing and I sat back, confused. “What?”
Shaking her head, Emma covered her mouth with one hand, the phone shaking slightly. “It’s not you, Livvy, it’s just Sasha being an idiot.”
I didn’t know who Sasha was, so I gave a weak “Okay.”
Em’s eyes met mine again, and she shrugged. “It’s so hard to talk around here, and we’re about to go to archery. Can I call you later?”
You called me, I wanted to remind her. Twice.
Instead, I nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
“Thanks, Livvy! Love you!” she said, waggling her fingers.
Her face blipped out, and it was only as I was headed back into the house that I remembered I’d forgotten to ask her about dinner.
CHAPTER 17
RUBY
Sneaking into the attic was tougher than I’d thought it would be.
That Monday, Liv and I volunteered to work together, cataloging the stuff in that room we’d seen the first day with all the paintings.
I’d purposely picked the room because I’d noticed last week that while Mrs. Freely, Lee, and Leigh checked on us regularly, they sometimes forgot about the back of the house on their rotations. Hardly anyone checked on me and Garrett the same way they checked the rest of the group, and that meant that me and Liv might have some time before anyone realized we’d gone missing.
So sneaking out and toward the stairs that led to the attic wasn’t the hard part.
Liv was the hard part.
“Maybe we should skip this,” she said to me as we counted the pictures in that room. That was my idea—if Mrs. Freely asked us what had taken so long back here, we could pretend we’d misunderstood and just counted pictures instead of listing them. I thought she might actually buy it, and was pretty proud of myself for coming up with it.
But Liv was sitting on the floor under the chair rail, her legs crossed, the eraser of her pencil against her teeth. She was right by the photograph she’d spotted the first day, the one with the dark-haired twins from the early 1900s. She kept glancing over at it, and I wondered if she was thinking about Emma.
Then I wondered if I should ask her. I was still curious about why Olivia was here, and I was convinced it had something to do with Emma. But if Liv wanted to talk about it, she would, I guess.
Besides, we had a mission.
“Look, Liv,” I told her now, setting my notebook down. “We heard a magic music box, which led us to a magic key, and I would bet anything that that key fits the attic, because that’s how this kind of thing goes. And that means we owe it to ourselves to go check out the attic.”
Olivia chewed on her bottom lip, and I saw her eyes flick to the picture on the wall. I really thought she was going to chicken out again, but instead, she gave a firm nod and rose to her feet.
“Okay.”
In my house, the attic door was set up in the ceiling with a little string you had to pull to open it. But in Live Oak House, the attic had its own normal door up a high, narrow staircase at the back of the house, and we made our way there as quietly as we could. We were both holding our notebooks and pencils. I’d told her we should take them because then if we got caugh
t, we’d have plausible deniability. Grammy had taught me that term—it meant that if you had to lie about a thing, people would believe you more because you’d prepared for it. Or something. Anyway, having our notebooks seemed like a good idea.
Another good idea? The little flashlight I’d sneaked into my pocket before leaving the house that morning.
“Just . . . if we get caught . . . ,” Liv said now, and I sighed.
“What exactly are we doing that’s so bad?” I asked her as we reached the door that led to the attic steps. “We’re familiarizing ourselves with the house, seeing if there are any bits that require our attention.” I held up my notebook, shaking it at her. “Responsible.”
We crept up the stairs, the boards creaking under our feet. It was so narrow that we had to walk one at a time, Liv right behind me, and then there, at the top, was the door.
It looked heavier than the other doors in the house for some reason, thicker and stronger. There was a little window in the top, though, and light shone behind it. That made me feel better, knowing there were apparently windows inside.
I took the key out of my pocket, and it sat, heavy and cold, in my palm. There was a part of me that honestly believed the key wouldn’t fit, that this was a dumb idea of mine, or even that someone was playing a prank on us. I wasn’t sure how, but Michael and Dalton had already proven themselves to be jerks, Wesley was weird, and Garrett was . . . well, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t pretend this sort of elaborate prank wasn’t out of character for him.
But the key slid into the lock easily, and when I turned it, there was a loud clicking noise.
Olivia and I looked at each other. She had her hair down today, pushed back from her face with a blue and green plaid headband that clashed with her Camp Chrysalis shirt, and I paused, wondering if she was going to call it all off again.
She didn’t, though. In fact, she actually reached past me to push the door open on her own.