The afternoon light had begun to fade from pale white to gold, and the wind had picked up, sending whirlwinds of fallen leaves tumbling across the street. When we paused at stop signs, the leaves blew against the car and made faint scraping noises.

“We’ll go inside and look around a little,” Megan said, drumming along to the song on the radio, “and then maybe we’ll have something to work with.”

“Megan,” I said, hesitating.

She turned the radio down. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want this to sound weird, because you obviously know more about these things than I do, but my sister is seriously unpredictable right now. I don’t think we should mess with her.”

She drove on, not looking at me, not saying a word.

“It’s just that it could get…risky. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m here of my own free will,” she said. “Stop making up reasons to feel bad.”

She went on tapping lightly on the steering wheel, and I stared out the front window of the car, trying to ignore the fear that hovered over my thoughts like an approaching storm. Megan and I had reached a delicate balance—and I didn’t want to upset that balance by second-guessing her.

Neither of us said a word as she turned onto Whitley Street.

We parked across the street from my house. After turning the engine off, Megan gazed silently out the window, not moving, not even to take off her seat belt. The air in the car seemed to settle, and the only sounds were our breathing and the scratching and skittering of the leaves outside.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She sat straight up, her body rigid with stillness, like a tiger crouching in the grass. The sudden change in her behavior frightened me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

I didn’t even notice her hand move, but her seat belt clicked and went flying in violent release, scaring me out of my skin. I gave a shriek, which seemed to wake her up. Her lips pulled tight in a grim little line, revealing tension she didn’t want me to see. It was suddenly as if the house, and whatever was inside of it, were more than she’d bargained for.

But if she wasn’t going to admit it, I wasn’t going to challenge her. “Ready?”

She gulped in a breath of air and nodded resolutely. “Let’s go.”

The car doors unlocked with a soft click, and we stepped out onto the road. The wind hurried by us, moaning softly. The perfect fall day was cooling into a chilly twilight, and the sky seemed to glow soft brown. I shivered involuntarily.

Megan grabbed her bag from the trunk and faced the house.

“The dress?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Leave it for now.”

I closed the trunk. The noise seemed to get lost in the wind.

We must have looked like a solemn little procession, staring up at the house as we crossed the street and went up the front walk. I volunteered for the front position, and Megan followed a few steps behind me.

The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open and hesitated for half a second before going inside.

“Is she here?” Megan whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Wow,” Megan said. I turned to see what she was looking at, but she was just studying the foyer. I tried to see it the way she was, the high ceiling plastered with

cherubs and angels, the leaded-glass window over the front door, the sweeping staircase opening up in front of us, the ornate handrail with its carved roses and vines….

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

As I reached the top of the steps and listened for sounds from Kasey’s room, I began to relax; although, as I learned earlier, it didn’t have to sound like she was home to mean she was. The door was open. I edged closer and sighed with relief; the room was empty. Even if Kasey was home, she definitely wasn’t in her bedroom.

Megan came more slowly up the stairs, looking back at the foyer and peering down the hall.

“I feel like I’ve seen this place before,” she said.

“There’s one in every scary movie,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you want to see my sister’s room?”

I went alone into Kasey’s room while Megan hovered a few feet behind me. The longer we were in the house, the quieter and more withdrawn she seemed to get.

Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary. I turned around to leave, but Megan wasn’t there. She’d wandered down the hall and stood just at the top of the stairs, studying the wallpaper, dragging her fingertips across it.

“Hey,” I said. “Maybe we should go outside for a minute.”

She turned to look at me, but instead of answering, she went ghostly white and seemed to freeze in place, staring over my shoulder down the hallway.

Not a good sign.

“Megan?”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t even move. I took a step toward her. “Wait,” she said. An order.

I obeyed. Too afraid even to move my head and follow her gaze behind me, I stared at her, trying to read her expression.

Nothing. Her face was blank.

“Sarah,” she said. “Sarah.”

“…Megan?”

“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”

“Megan, what are you saying?”

After a moment she seemed to wake up. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head furiously, but the name wouldn’t stop coming out of her mouth. Her whole body was stiff, her muscles so tense that the tendons showed in her arms.

“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah—”

“Megan!” I cried. “Quit it!”

But she couldn’t. It was like me, in the basement, with the story.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Megan! Stop it!”

She stopped, blinking a few times. Finally her gaze settled on me, and her glazed eyes seemed to clear.

“What happened here?” Megan gasped.

“Why do you keep saying that name?”

“In this house,” Megan said. “Something happened in this house.”

She collapsed.

Down the hall, Kasey’s door slammed shut all by itself.

Megan had fallen gracefully into a little heap in the corner. I knelt at her side and felt her wrist for a pulse. It was there—weak, but there.

“Come on,” I said, shaking her shoulder gently. “Wake up.”

Megan stirred; her eyelids fluttered open and then slid shut as if they were weighted. Her lips moved in an attempt to speak.

“Megan, come on, wake up. We have to get out of here.”

I grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her up to a sitting position.

She blinked. “Let’s go,” she whispered, color flooding her pale cheeks.

I helped her to her feet, and as we went down the

steps, her hand gripped the banister as if it were a life preserver.

“What just happened?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“I’ll tell you outside,” I said, holding her by the arm as we crossed the foyer and hurried out of the house.

While Megan rested against the side of her car, my eyes searched the house, looking for any strange light or movement—Kasey’s face in a window….But there was nothing.

After a minute, Megan raised her head and looked at me.

“I’m okay,” she said, trying the words out.

I didn’t ask if she was sure, but our eyes met, and hers darted away.

“I am” she insisted. I waited for her to climb into the driver’s seat before I walked around to the passenger side.

Once we were safely in the car, she gripped the steering wheel in her hands and tightened her fists until the skin over her knuckles was white. She took a long, deep breath in and held it.

“Who’s Sarah?” I asked. The name seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

“What?”

“Sarah. You just kept saying that name…Don’t you remember?”

“No,” she said. “I really don’t. All I remember is feeling something evil.”

She leaned back against the seat, staring intently at the steering wheel.

“You know how I keep saying I’m doing this for me…?” She hugged herself tightly. “Ever since I was a little girl, whenever I was around people—fortune-tellers, psychics—they’re all afraid of me.”