“Hannah also said that the man who owns the house is super nice. He travels a lot for his job, but is fantastic to his tenants.”
“If Hannah said it, then it must be true,” I mumble. Because of her job, Hannah knows more about most people than should be allowed, and happily dumps all the personal info she learns about her clients by the first round of drinks.
Mom ignores my comment, which is probably better for both of us. “By the way, I told Sylvia you’d invite her over to see the place once we unpack the boxes. Maybe you should take her out to dinner when you bring her over. Maybe a movie, too. I’ll pay.”
“Like a date?” I overly raise my brows in the hopes Mom might think before she speaks.
“Sylvia is a nice girl, and she thinks the world of you. Maybe you two could be more than friends.”
“She prefers girls.”
With a sigh, Mom drops the subject. “Ready to head in?”
Not really. “Sure.”
Mom calls Lucy, and she races up the steps of the porch that need to be sanded down and stained. A few pushes into the electronic key lock and we’re past the first door and into the foyer. We walk past the flowing staircase to another door with another electronic key lock. Mom has to check her texts to unlock this one and when she opens it, it’s like the house exhales, and not in a good way.
The air is stale, the inside dark and when we walk in, I swear it’s somehow darker. Lucy grabs on to my hand with both of hers and hides behind me. I turn on the ancient light switch with a loud thwack and a single overhead lightbulb flickers to life. The room has a dull haze now, like a slasher movie, and I’m betting Mom wishes she had done that walk-through.
“We need to open some windows,” Mom says, but there aren’t any windows in the living room as the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom line the walls. “Lucy, come with me and we’ll start in the kitchen. Sawyer, check out the bedrooms for us.”
Translation—your sister and I are heading to the room with an exit while you check the bedrooms to see if there’s a serial killer in the wings. I agree because I take care of my mom and sister, protect them, that’s my job.
I inspect the right part of the house first. The area on the other side of the stairway is walled in. That area contains a bathroom and a big bedroom, which I assume will be Mom’s. I re-enter the living room and check the small room running along the left side of the house. Maybe it was meant to be an in-home office. I then enter the bedroom with the turret and a circular window seat—something Lucy will love.
Even though the shades are drawn, rays of light peek through and highlight the copious dust particles in the air. I narrow my eyes at the rectangular-shaped object on the cushion of the window seat. I’m slow as I walk farther into the room, glancing multiple times over my shoulder as it feels as if there’s someone else in here, someone staring at me.
I pick up the stack of stapled papers on the seat, flip through it, and it’s nothing more than something that’s been printed out, but it’s wrinkled as if it’s been well read.
DIARY of EVELYN BELLAK
1918
“To Evelyn from Maidy. A Merry Xmas & a Scrumptious New Yr.”
“What’s that?” Mom says from the doorway.
“Something left behind.” I roll the paper into a tube, place it in my back pocket and open the shades. Bright, cheerful light pours into the room. “Hey, Lucy. What do you think of this room?”
She runs in, straight for the window seat, and the heaviness in my chest lessens at the sight of her smile.
“There are a few stipulations for living here,” Mom says. My stomach sinks as this is what I’m used to, the kick following the good. She walks backward into the living room, and from the look on her face whatever it is she has to tell me isn’t news she wants Lucy to hear.
I join her in the black heart of the building and cross my arms. “What?”
“We can only use the washer and dryer when the landlord isn’t, and we aren’t allowed to pester them. Not even if something goes wrong with the apartment. We have to call—never knock. The only exception is when we pay rent. We’re to hand it to them personally, and we can’t be late. And we have to do the yard work, but all the equipment we need is in the garage around back.”
Which means I’ll be doing yard work, but if that’s the worst, I can live with it. “That’s doable. Anything else?”
“Just one thing, and it’s not a big deal. Small, really.”
“What?”
“The house is haunted,” Mom rushes out, then smiles at me. “So let’s unpack.”
VERONICA
The only reason people come to live in this small town is to hide or to die.
Nazareth’s parents brought him here in seventh grade to hide. My father, on the other hand, uprooted me from our suburban, cushy, lower-middle-class, chocolate-chip-smelling home when I turned eleven for me to die.
There aren’t many of us new people in town, so I’ve always been curious which reason brought Sawyer Sutherland to this forsaken land. Is he here because he’s hiding or dying?
“It’s bad enough Sutherland is moving into your house, but now it appears he’s invading your mountain.” Leo jumps onto the crumbling brick wall that runs along the concrete porch of the old TB hospital and looks down the hill. Sure enough, Sawyer Sutherland and his band of merry friends are walking through the thick bushes and tall, green trees up the narrow path.
Leo’s right about Sutherland invading my space, but wrong on the hill being mine. Our backyard touches the property, but the hill and the sanatarium belong to the state. Leo doesn’t come here as often as I do. We spend most of our time at Jesse’s farm, but Leo’s on a countdown to college and he wants to visit all his favorite places before he leaves. The hike up the hill is killer, but the view is breathtaking.
“Fantastic.” Sarcasm in full effect. “I’m so happy he’s feeling at home.”
It’s early evening, not quite nightfall, and the sky surrounding us is full of pinks and the dark blue of evening. Behind us is the massive porch where nurses would roll out patients in their beds so they could take in the fresh air. Back in the early 1900s, thousands of people lived here as they tried to “cure” themselves of TB by taking part in a fresh-air treatment. Many lived. Many more died.
Most people in town are terrified of this building. It has been abandoned for so long that not even the windows are in place anymore, leaving gaping, dark holes for all sorts of wild animals and undesirables to wander in. It doesn’t scare me, though. To have fear for this place is to be scared of death and that is not a dread that I possess.
Leo drops to sit beside me and our legs dangle over the wall. His shoulder rubs against mine, and I’ll admit my heart skips several beats. I wish it wouldn’t, but it does.
He smells of sandalwood, and I hate how handsome he is—beautiful black skin, black curly hair that almost touches his shoulders and a smile that makes even the stone-cold people in the world feel included.
Maybe if Leo’s eyes were misplaced on his handsome face like a Picasso painting or he had an alien popping out of his forehead or slimy tentacles attached to his back, I could find a way to not like him a little too much. But there’s no alien, no tentacles, and I have feelings for Leo even though he has no idea I’ve fallen for him.