“Gee, thanks, buddy. Come on.” Lucas caught her by the hand. “Let’s get that cleaned up. You scared the hell out of me. If you ever do that again . . .”

She shook her head as the three of them descended the stairs. “I won’t.” She hiccupped, then paused, as though about to say something more. But rather than relating the story of how she’d cracked her head open, she went quiet. And that silence twisted Lucas up inside, because he could see it on her face.

Jeanie had definitely seen something upstairs, and she wasn’t going to tell him what.

13

VEE SPENT THE rest of the day in front of the television with a ziplock bag full of ice pressed over her right eye. Both her dad and Uncle Mark took the opportunity to introduce her to one of their favorite movies, Heathers. And while she found Christian Slater gorgeous and Winona Ryder’s style awesome enough to emulate, she just couldn’t focus.

Her head hurt, and the girl in the mirror continued to open her mouth wide, wider still, while her ratty old sweater bloomed red with blood.

Vee told herself that what she’d seen had been a figment of her imagination. It couldn’t have been real. No way. But the more she replayed in her mind what she’d seen, the more she was sure she had felt her own shirt go wet and sticky with something warm. She could swear that, when they had opened their mouths to scream, they had done so in unison because they had somehow, if only for a moment, merged into one.

That’s impossible, she told herself. Just forget it. You’re going crazy.

She grabbed her phone and texted Heidi.

What if I told you this house is haunted?

A minute later, a reply:

Haha. R U really that bored?

She closed her eyes, bit back her sudden urge to cry, and let her phone tumble between the cushions of the couch.

Twenty minutes into Heathers, Uncle Mark took a call. He left a few moments later, called back to Seattle. Vee’s dad tried to watch the movie after Uncle Mark left, but Vee could tell his mind was wandering. Eventually, he murmured about needing to check something, went into his study, and failed to return. She could hear him on the phone, discussing a meeting that was supposed to occur the next day.

When Vee’s headache grew worse, she considered telling her dad. The previous summer, she had marathoned a few seasons of House M.D., and now knew about all sorts of mysterious medical conditions. Concussions could be dangerous, which meant the chance of her dad taking her to the hospital if she did reveal her worsening headache was more than likely ninety percent. And while Vee loved Dr. House, she hated hospitals. She waited a little longer for her dad to come back. When he didn’t, she fished her phone out from beneath the cushions, turned off the TV, took a couple of Tylenol, and kept herself busy with hauling boxes up the stairs, ignoring the pain.

Because if her dad didn’t care that she was hurt, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she wasn’t important enough to worry about.

·   ·   ·

A few hours later, Vee’s dad stepped into her room. She almost told him to get out, angry that he’d ditched her for so long without making sure she hadn’t died. “We should go,” he told her, only to be derailed by the fact that she was already in bed. The last thing she wanted to do was socialize with Uncle Mark and Selma. Hugging a pillow to her chest, she gave him a weary glance.

“I don’t feel great,” she told him. “Can I just stay here?”

He approached the bed, lifted the makeshift ice pack she’d made out of a Ziploc and ice cubes off of her eye, and frowned. “You’re going to have a pretty fancy shiner, kid.”

“Great,” she murmured. “I’ll be sure to take a picture and email it to Mom.”

“That would be perfect,” he said, giving her a rueful smile. “Be sure to tell her I socked you a good one, will you?”

“Planning on it.” Turning her face back into her pillow, she could sense him vacillating between staying with her and going downstairs. After a moment, he drew the curtains over the orange sunset and left. Figures, she thought. He hasn’t even considered the hospital. For all he cares, I may as well die in my sleep. She listened to the soft tones of another phone call—her dad talking to either Selma or Mark, apologizing. Jeanie doesn’t feel too hot after taking that fall.

She considered telling him about what she had seen, if only for the attention, but her dad didn’t believe in ghosts and she didn’t want to come off as a lunatic. She already felt stupid enough about sobbing in front of Uncle Mark. The last thing she needed was her father looking at her like she’d lost her mind.

But the darker her room got, the more overwhelmed she was by a feeling she couldn’t place. It wasn’t fear, but more of a sensation that came from deep within her gut. It was like static electricity. Maybe if she moved too fast, she’d light up the room with a trail of sparks. And the air, it felt thick, hard to inhale, pushing her toward mild panic because what if it wasn’t the room, what if it really was her? What if she had a brain bleed and her lungs were on the verge of collapsing? What if she had waited too long to tell her dad she needed help and now, if she tried to get up, she’d be dead by morning?

That was the problem with House M.D. It’s why her dad had blocked WebMD on her laptop. She’s a hypochondriac, her mother had said. She’s got a new type of cancer every day of the week. It was an exaggeration. Vee knew she didn’t have cancer, especially not every day of the week. But a brain bleed was a definite possibility, and the block on her computer didn’t matter. They could freeze her out on the laptop, but not her phone.

The longer she lay on her mattress in the darkness of her new room, the more convinced she was that it wasn’t her, it was her surroundings. There was popping coming from the insides of the walls, the kind of noise that comes with settling and temperature shifts. Normal noises, she thought. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just an old house sagging on its weary bones. Except the shadows that lurked in the corners of Vee’s room seemed darker than they should have been.

She tried to keep her eyes shut, to ignore the strange feeling and forget the girl who kept flitting in and out of her memory like a dying lightbulb. The stringy blond hair. The way her eyes had rolled into the back of her head. Her pale blue skin. Her gaping mouth and the blood that soaked into her sweater, so dark it looked more black than red. And then the disembodied baby’s cry just before the scream that had come from Vee’s throat.

The reflection’s eyes had rolled forward, snapped into their rightful position, and they had stared. The fact that their gazes had met was what scared Vee the most. She’d seen something in that girl’s face that almost seemed as though the stranger in the mirror knew who Vee was.

As though the leering boy in the orchard had announced Vee’s presence and the girl had now come around to say hello.

Hours passed. She tried to sleep. But the bumps and creaks that emanated from the surrounding walls kept her eyes wide open. That, and the glass of water she’d gulped down along with her final dose of Tylenol was coming back to haunt her.

She hated the fact that she was so scared; it made her feel like a fraud. All those times she’d talked herself up to Tim, how casually she had said oh, I’m totally in when he had suggested they explore abandoned buildings during the summer—before she knew she’d be spending that time thousands of miles away. The way she had laughed along with Tim and Heidi when they had watched the Paranormal Activity movies, as though the stuff that was happening on screen wouldn’t have fazed her at all. Back then, she was sure she had the guts to deal with shadows and unexplained noises. She had convinced herself that if she was ever lucky enough to see a ghost, the last thing she would do was run. But all that bravado had been a lie. Because talking about fear was a lot different than actually facing it. The unknown was exciting until it was time to step into the void.