The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street Read online

  For the creators of their own destinies.

  May your adventure jars always be full.

  1

  Hi Rachel,

  I can’t believe they’re making me do this. We’re in the van already and it isn’t even light outside. I begged them to change their minds, but they said Dad’s new job is important to him and that families should support each other—not make each other give up the things they love. I don’t even think they’re listening to themselves or they wouldn’t have made me give up Florida. And you. I miss you already.

  Love,

  Tessa

  Rain batters the windshield of our ancient minivan, the wipers furiously working to keep the glass clear. City lights fade to a blur in my tired eyes. We left Fort Myers on Thursday morning. Nineteen hours in a seat belt, four Twinkies, twenty-one old episodes of The Simpsons, and one cramped hotel later we finally get here . . . Chicago. The Windy City.

  My parents keep saying this place is going to be everything we ever needed but didn’t know existed. Whatever that means.

  “Our house was built in the late eighteen hundreds, you know. So of course there will be some work to do,” Dad says, loud enough so I can hear, but quiet enough not to wake my little brother, Jonah.

  Mom is nodding enthusiastically. “I know. But it’s so worth it. Think of all that original wood! And those high ceilings! It’s a dream.”

  I roll my eyes. It isn’t a dream, but there’s no telling them that.

  The car swerves violently around something in the road, and I crane my neck to see what it was. Shadows dance in the darkness stretched out in front of us. “What was that?”

  “Just a limb in the road. Everything’s fine. We’re alllllmost there,” Dad says in that voice he uses when he’s trying to lighten the mood. “You okay back there, honey?”

  I look up but can’t see his expression in the rearview mirror. I’m kinda glad. If I could see it, he’d probably look wild and excited like he always does when he talks about moving here. About his new job.

  Given that I just left behind my best friend, Rachel, a seventh-grade year that was going to be amazing, and my favorite drawing class, I’m not too interested in seeing that look right now.

  “I’m fine. Just a little nervous. We’re going to get there okay, right?” I ask as another small branch pings off our hood. Leaves are pinwheeling frantically through the air and landing on our windshield in a disgusting, wet mess.

  “Of course we are, Tess. This is just a fall thunderstorm,” Dad answers, leaning forward even more. “Nothing like hurricane season back in Florida. Remember all the times we almost evacuated?”

  I nod but stay silent. Truth is, we did almost evacuate a lot, but we never actually had to. It was warm there, too. Like the sun followed you around just to kiss the tops of your shoulders and lighten your hair. Based on the few times we’ve visited here to house-hunt, I know it feels different. Colder.

  Mom reaches back, looking for me in the darkness. I grab her hand even though I still feel angry. Deep down I know it isn’t her fault. It isn’t anyone’s. When the Chicago Symphony Orchestra comes calling with an opportunity, you answer. And my dad—the best violinist in all of Florida—was the guy they called to audition when the first chair opened up.

  I glance at Jonah, who is still sound asleep in his car seat. Both of his arms are wound tightly around Reno, the wooden ventriloquist dummy he refuses to go anywhere without. I hate the way Reno looks at me. Like he’s watching me. Beady eyes, circus clothes, and a shock of black hair glued to wood . . . ugh.

  Jonah settles deeper into his car seat and lets out a soft moan. I have no idea how he’s sleeping through this disaster, but for a minute, I wish he weren’t. Maybe if he started crying, Dad would stop the van. Maybe if he threw up, we could at least slow down a little. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  Dad sighs. “It’s taken us an hour since we hit the city limits, but according to my GPS, the house is just around this corner. This looks familiar, right, Lily?”

  “Well, it obviously looks different in the dark, but I think so,” Mom answers, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. Mom is the most positive person I know, but I think she’s just as scared about this move as me. Maybe even more.

  I get it. I have no idea how she’ll sell her paintings here or if she even can. There aren’t any tiny seaside art shops or nautical boutiques here . . . and I can’t imagine people in Chicago paying big money for pictures of seagulls and turtles and waves.

  The car hugs the next curve as we turn slowly onto a narrow, one-way street. This is the right block. Small black wrought iron fences wrap around the trees. Parking signs jut up from the cement every few feet. A giant, metallic birdhouse-looking thingy sits on the corner. Mom says it’s art, but I think it’s horrible. Art is soft, and pastel, and shaded . . . not metallic and sharp.

  “This is the right place,” I pipe up, unable to keep the disappointment from leaking into my voice. I remember this block well enough from the two times we came to see the house. Mom and Dad drooled over it. I smiled when I felt like crying because although my parents are excited, I know they feel guilty for dragging Jonah and me here. I can see it in the looks they give each other when they think I’m not paying attention. I might miss Florida and all, but I don’t want them to feel bad. Life happens, or so the bumper stickers say.

  “Finally!” Dad breathes out. He pulls the car onto the small patch of cement they keep calling a driveway and turns it off. The headlights stay on for a few seconds longer, fixed on the wooden garage door at the bottom of the slope. I remember hearing that it leads into a parking spot in the basement. A drive-in basement.

  So. Weird.

  Dad twists around in his seat and squares his body off between Mom and me so he can talk to both of us. “Now remember, there’s just the bare bones in here right now. A few things the previous owners left in here to make our transition easier until the moving vans arrive tomorrow.”

  Mom raises an eyebrow. “You mean, a few things that were too much of a hassle for them to move out. Right, Chris?”

  Dad tosses her a wink and a grin in response. I squint through the rain, wondering exactly what was left in this place. Hopefully nothing gross.

  Mom and I toss open our doors and make a run for it while Dad grabs Jonah from his car seat. I can hear my brother screeching from my spot on the front porch. The whole neighborhood probably thinks there’s a wild animal on the loose.

  Reno’s knobby wooden knees clank together as Dad jogs through the gauzy sheets of rain. He sets Jonah down on the top step, then rakes a hand through his dripping-wet hair.

  “Well,” he says, fishing in his pocket for something. Hopefully the keys because it’s freezing out here.

  “Well,” Mom echoes, taking a tearstained Jonah by the hand. He’s clutching Reno like a life preserver. “This is it!”

  Our new house is huge. Three floors and built like Fort Knox. Apparently Chicagoans call it a graystone, which is really just a fancy name for a cement house. I run a finger over the brick, shivering at how cold and unwavering it is.

  Back in Florida, nothing was brick. Nothing was really this gray, either. We had houses that were blue, green, and even yellow.

  I let my eyes settle on one of the second-floor windows. That room is mine. Mom picked it out during the house tour, started talking crazy fast about decorations and colors and how much I’d love the view. All I saw then was an old room with warped wooden floors and cracked paint. All I see now is ugly gray brick and the dark, gaping eye of a window. It’s watching me, this house. Waiting to swallow me whole in its cobwebby corners and creaky closets.

  2

&
nbsp; I WRESTLE AROUND IN THE scratchy sheets, wrinkled from too much time in a cardboard moving box. Light is streaming in through the window and I drape an arm over my eyes, shielding them. How can they sell a house without curtains? I mean, isn’t that sort of like selling cake with no icing?

  Sitting up, I lean over the edge of my bed and groan as two of my pastels come into view. The blue and the magenta. My favorite colors in the entire set are sitting on my floor, exactly where they shouldn’t be. I glance at the open pastel box across the room. How did these colors get way over here?

  I rub my bleary eyes and collect the pastels from the floor, vaguely remembering that I had a nightmare last night. There was howling out in the hallway. Or maybe it was crying. I’m not sure now, but just thinking about it makes all the hair on my arms prickle.

  “Tess?” Mom’s voice filters through my door as I snatch the pastels up, checking to make sure their fragile tips aren’t broken.

  “Yeah?”

  “Breakfast is on the table. I have to go to the grocery store; we need actual food in here eventually,” she says with a chuckle, and I clutch my grumbly stomach. We’ve been in this place almost two full days already and I haven’t eaten anything that didn’t come out of a bag.

  “Okay. Dad’s here, right?” I yell back, padding across the chilly wood floor to the sketchpad that’s lying on my desk. Funny how all my clothes are still in boxes and not one permanent decoration is up, but all my art supplies have been unpacked.

  I can’t help it; I need them.

  The door slides open a crack, and Mom’s face peeks in. “Sorry, honey, I just didn’t want to yell. I’m not up for waking Jonah yet.”

  I check the clock. Eight fifteen. “Why is Jonah still asleep? He’s usually up at the butt-crack of dawn!”

  Mom shoots me a dirty look, and I shrug an apology. She’s always hated that phrase, even though Dad and I think it’s hilarious.

  “He didn’t sleep well last night. Honestly, I don’t know what to call the dreams he was having . . . night terrors, I suppose.” She looks thoughtful for a moment before continuing. “Such a brave boy for only four years old. I’m sure this move has been hard on him.”

  Night terrors. Poor guy. As annoying as he can be with that creepy little doll of his, I don’t like to think of him having bad dreams. And night terrors sound worse than bad dreams.

  “So, Dad’s here and Jonah’s in bed. Got it,” I say, edging closer to my sketchpad.

  Mom stares at me pointedly. “Tessa. You start seventh grade at your new school tomorrow. Don’t you think you need to unpack bit more? Start settling in?” She folds her arms over her chest.

  I have no interest in settling into this place. It’s dark. It smells like old people and every single corner has a spider in it. No thank you.

  “I will. I just need a few days.” And a one-way ticket back home. I miss the sound of waves and the smell of the salt hanging in the air. I miss lizards and sand between my toes. I miss Rachel.

  Rachel is the peanut butter to my jelly. The sour cream to my onion. The sugar to my lemonade. She’s my best friend, and I had to leave her behind. It’s wrong. It’s so, so wrong.

  I reach up to my collarbone and rub the small silver locket between my fingers. It’s the only thing connecting me to her now . . . the only thing we share. Rachel’s is strung on black leather instead of a chain, and the picture inside is of me; otherwise they’re identical.

  Mom crosses the space between us and pulls me in for a hug. She smells like lavender. Tilting my chin up, she smiles and the little mole to the right of her mouth winks at me.

  “This is going to get easier, honey. I promise. I’ll make a space for myself to paint here, and you’ll keep drawing. We’re artists. Creators of our own destiny!”

  Brushing the hair off my forehead, she kisses the top of my head. I wish I could believe all that, but I don’t. Not when I have to walk through the doors of a completely new school tomorrow. Make new friends and find my way down new streets.

  Mom pulls away, then hovers by my door for a minute. “There’s beauty in this place, Tess. You just have to look for it.”

  “I’ll try,” I say, mostly because I trust her. Mom and I have always seen eye to eye on things, probably because we’re both artists. She sees the world in sea-glass colors, and I love her for it.

  The door clicks shut behind her, and I grab a pair of jeans off the chair I slung them over last night. My sketchpad is open just slightly and I stop in my tracks, confused at the small blur I can see in the upper left-hand corner of the sheet. It’s grayish black, like I started something and then just barely ran the pad of my thumb over it.

  “What in the—” I start, bending closer to the page.

  I didn’t draw anything last night. I was so tired from carrying boxes all over this ginormous place that I crawled into bed without even brushing my teeth.

  I stare at the mark. It’s small and shaped like an upside-down L. Lifting the book and giving the paper a tap, I watch as the unwelcome spot becomes dust again and drifts into the air. There will still be a darkened area there, but I’ll camouflage it with shading later. Still. There’s something about that mark that bothers me. Something off.

  Shutting the pad, I pull open my desk drawer and drop it in. Mom and Dad bought me this desk specifically for art, and it has a drawer that’s wider than most. It’s deep, too, plenty deep enough to hold several boxes of pastels.

  The vibrations of Dad’s violin begin to ring through my walls, and I can’t help but smile. Even though it brought us here and has ruined everything I was looking forward to, I still love that sound. It reminds me of sunset nights, of grouper on the grill, and of cold iced tea.

  It reminds me of home.

  3

  THEY SAY THE FIRST STEP to any good pastel is to create a solid outline. But it’s really not that easy. Drawing that first line is scary when the paper staring back up at you is so stark. So white and empty. It’s hard to make that first stroke across it, no matter if it’s light or dark, because you’re always afraid of messing it up.

  I would have agonized over drawing that stupid upside-down L. No way did I do it and forget. Besides, I don’t even have a subject chosen to draw.

  Flipping the light on in the bathroom, I scowl. I’m already on edge because of the mystery mark I found in my sketchpad this morning, and the idea of getting ready in this bathroom isn’t helping. Somehow it looks darker than it did when I was brushing my teeth last night. Creepier. Dingy black-and-white tile dots the floor, and a chipped bathtub that stands on four feet is perched in the corner. There’s only one sink instead of the double we had in Florida, and a murky brown line rings the inside of it.

  How long has it been since someone cleaned this place?

  “Yuck,” I mutter, searching the empty room for a stack of towels. With my luck they aren’t unpacked yet and I’ll have to dry my face on my shirt. Mystery brown lines. No curtains. No towels. I feel like I’m on one of those reality shows where people try to survive the elements. And in today’s episode, Tessa Woodward will attempt to survive a nasty bathroom!

  I settle for cupping water in my hands and splashing it over my face, careful to keep my hair out of the sink and away from the brown line. Swiping off the extra drops with the palm of my hand, I look in the mirror. My cheeks are flushed and I definitely look more awake. Better than nothing.

  I’m just turning around to head downstairs when the round bulbs above the vanity begin to hum. One at a time, they start to flicker on and off. On and off. On and off.

  Weird. I remember Dad mentioning the leftover furniture and the leak we have to get fixed under the kitchen sink, but I don’t remember him saying anything about electrical problems in this place.

  A deep crackling sound echoes off the bare walls and my arms break out in goose bumps. Within seconds, it’s all around me, like it’s somehow leaking into the room from an invisible crack. I turn a full circle to see if I can figure out whe
re it’s coming from, freezing in my tracks as all four of the lightbulbs go dim, leaving me in near-darkness.

  Aaaand, that’s my cue. I head for the door, grab the doorknob and turn, but nothing happens. It won’t budge. As I scan the metal plate around the knob, my hand begins shaking. There’s no lock on this door. So why won’t it turn?

  “Mom?” I shout through the door, gasping as the lights dim even further. It’s dark enough that I can barely make out the shadow of my own hand in front of me as I wrench at the door, kicking and clawing at the warped wood in an attempt to free myself. The crackling gets louder, filling my ears with something that sounds like terrifying raw electricity.

  “Mom!”

  I finally slide down onto the floor and cover my ears. The sound is so loud that it feels like it’s going through my skin and into my body. I blink at the darkness but see nothing. I’m not sure if I want to see something at this point.

  A sharp pain catches me in the ribs. I scream and scamper away from the door and into the opposite corner of the bathroom. Whatever has trapped me in this bathroom is definitely attacking. The lights flip on and my mom’s face appears. Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear anything. Nothing but the crackling, that is.

  She reaches out and gently removes my hands from my ears. The noise stops.

  “Tessa? Oh, honey, what happened?” she says, pulling me in close. I feel her arms wrapping around me and lay my head against her chest, telling myself to calm down and stop being such a baby. “Did I hit you when I opened the door?”

  “The lights,” I sputter out. “They were flickering and there was this sound—”

  “Those lights?” Mom asks, cutting me off. She’s pointing to the bulbs over the sink.

  I nod. “Yeah, they almost went all the way out. All four of them! And the noise was loud—like a hissing and crackling sound.” I look around at the walls but see nothing other than uneven color and a mess of cracked paint. No gaping holes where crackling creatures tried to force their way in. “I don’t know where it was coming from, though.”