Sandy Engstrom felt her nerve slipping away when she was still a block away from the Conway house. All week, ever since Kim had invited her to sleep over tonight, all the stories she'd heard while she was growing up had been creeping back out of her memory. Nor had it helped that most of the other kids she knew thought she was crazy even to think about spending a night in the Conway house. Jolene Simmons hadn't even bothered to try and be polite. "You'll be lucky if you don't get killed!" she said. "Everyone knows all the Conways are crazy! That's why Father Mack's going to make sure they can't open a hotel. In fact, I hear he's planning to make them move right out of town!"

"How's he going to do that?" Sandy countered. She put on her bravest face, but knew she sounded more anxious than scornful.

"Well, if you didn't spend all your time with that Kim person, you'd know, wouldn't you?" Jolene glanced around to see who might be listening, and her voice dropped. "There's going to be a meeting on Saturday night, and Father Mack's going to make sure they don't give Mr. Conway a permit. He's going to make sure everybody from St. Ignatius is there, and everyone's going to tell your father he can't give Mr. Conway the permit."

"It's not my dad who decides," Sandy said. "It's the whole council."

Jolene groaned. "Well, whatever. It won't make any difference who decides, because everybody in town is going to talk against Mr. Conway. I mean, everybody knows all the things that have happened in that house!"

"Nobody knows anything," Sandy protested, but even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice. After the conversation with Jolene, she told her mother she'd changed her mind about the sleep-over, but her mother shook her head.

"If you don't go to Kim's Friday night, everyone will think we believe all that dreadful gossip. And that won't be good for your father at the meeting on Saturday. He intends to help Ted Conway get his permits."

And that, Sandy knew, was that. The Engstroms would put up a solid front, no matter how Sandy might feel. Sandy had almost demanded to know why what she did would make any difference, but she already knew. As long as she could remember, she'd lived by a single rule: whatever she did reflected on her father; therefore it was most important never to embarrass him in public, or contradict him. And that meant that no matter how frightened of the Conway house she might be, there was no way to cancel the sleep-over.

And, of course, it was Jared's house, too. Sandy had been very, very careful not to mention her crush on Jared to anyone, but all through the week, the thought of Jared's gorgeous blue eyes sent small, delicious shivers of excitement racing through her.

Now, though, as she turned onto Pontchartrain Street, all the fears rushed back. It's just because it's almost Halloween, she told herself, but as she glanced around at the glowing jack-o'-lanterns that grinned and leered from every porch, she felt no reassurance.

Her step slowed. She could see the house at the far end of the street, off by itself, looming against the starry sky, casting an enormous shadow in the moonlight. She felt a chill. Most of the second floor was dark, and even on the first floor, only a few lights were lit. The porch lights were on, one on each of the columns that flanked the front door, but even they looked dim, as if the house were swallowing up the light itself. Too late to go back home. Reluctantly, she stepped onto the broad porch and rang the bell. But as she waited for the door to open, she felt eyes-unseen eyes-watching her.

But that was silly! It was nothing more than the jack-o'-lanterns on the porches and the stories that had been tumbling through her mind that were spooking her. Still, the sense of someone watching remained. Cautiously, she looked around into the gathering darkness.

Was that a flicker of movement, over near the carriage house?

Sandy strained her eyes, peering into the shadows that surrounded the building, but she could see nothing.

Every shadow seemed to hold some unseen menace. Suddenly, all she wanted was to be safely inside the house. Then, just as she reached for the bell again, Kim opened the door. Relief flooding over her, Sandy quickly stepped inside.

Jake Cumberland waited in the shadows until the door closed behind Sandy Engstrom. Then he began his nightly ritual…

The first surprise came as Sandy peered into the huge entry hall. A great gleaming brass chandelier hung from the soaring ceiling, flooding the space with enough light to drive every shadow away. The floor, intricately inlaid with half a dozen different kinds of wood, looked as if it had been installed only a few days ago, instead of more than a century earlier. The space was freshly painted in a bright off-white, and she gazed in wonder at the soaring staircase at the far end of the hall.

"It's really beautiful," she said in an awed whisper, looking around in wonder. "Is it all like this?"

Kim shook her head. "It's just getting started. Some of the rooms upstairs are still really creepy."

The eager light in Sandy's eyes faded. She glanced around uneasily. "Where's Jared?" she asked.

"He's not here," Kim said. "Dad gave him enough money so he and Luke could go to the movies, and told him not to come home until at least eleven. Want to see the living room?" Concealing her disappointment at Jared's banishment to the movies, Sandy followed Kim toward the set of doors leading to the living room. As they were crossing the entry hall, Kim's parents came down the stairs.

"We'll be with Sandy's folks," Janet said, "and we should be home by ten-thirty. Molly's sound asleep, and I don't think she'll wake up. But if she does-"

"I'll give her a bottle of juice," Kim finished. She looked anxiously at her father. "You told Jared he can't bring Luke home, didn't you?"

"I told him he couldn't bring Luke home unless we were here," her father told her. "But I couldn't very well forbid him to bring his friend home at all, could I?"

Kim shrugged in reluctant acquiescence. "I guess."

"Okay. And remember, if you need anything, just call us at Sandy's house."

A minute later they were gone, and with the departure of the adults, Sandy's carefully controlled fears threatened to break free of the restraints she'd barely managed to put on them. At Kim's next words, her nerves frayed even more.

"Let's go upstairs," her friend said. "I'll show you some of the rooms."

Kim led Sandy up the stairs, but before taking her into any of the ruined rooms her father hadn't yet gotten to, she took her to her own room, which looked nothing like it had a few weeks earlier. Kim explained how her dad had stripped the rotting wallpaper away, repaired the plaster, and put on new paper in a bright flowered pattern that matched the bedspread on the huge four-poster bed as well as the curtains. A thick carpet covered the floor, and a chandelier, glittering with crystal, was suspended from a gilded medallion in the center of the ceiling.

"It's really nice." In the bright light of Kim's bedroom, Sandy's fears began to ease. "Are all the rooms like this?"

"Dad's going to make them all different," Kim said. She led her friend down the hall toward the room two doors down. But ten feet away, Sandy stopped short.

Something-some image she couldn't quite make out-seemed to have flickered in front of the door for an instant. She rubbed her arms as a chill came over her.

"I don't want to go in there," she announced.

Kim eyed her curiously, her head cocked. "It's just a room."

Sandy shook her head. "It doesn't feel right," she insisted.

"What do you mean?" Now, as she remembered the terrors she'd experienced a few nights before, her own heart began beating faster. But her terrors had been caused by nothing more than nightmares. "How does it feel?"