The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street Read online

  Nina nods. “I really should have looked into her legend sooner.”

  “No kidding,” I retort.

  She gives me a side-eye. “No, I’m serious. This stuff is fascinating.” Angling her screen so that Andrew and I can see, she taps her index finger on a blurry white image. “This is the travel blog of some old woman who visited a bunch of haunted locations in the Midwest last year. This photo was taken at Graceland.”

  I squint at the white blur, confused. “Is that fog?”

  Andrew scrunches up his face, then shakes his head at me. “I think it’s a headstone. See the edges of it there in the background?”

  I do see the edges. Problem is, the white blur is transparent. Like something is hovering in front of the grave. My skin crawls. “Nina . . . what does the blog say that is?”

  Nina purses her lips, confirming my fear. Whoever took that picture says it was a ghost. Inez’s ghost.

  “No way,” Andrew breathes out, smashing his face impossibly close to the screen. “It’s probably just some sort of camera malfunction. That stuff happens all the time, right?”

  “Not really,” Nina answers. She flips a few pages in her notebook and pauses on the one titled “Graceland Trip.” “Remember how I wrote down the names of all the graves around Inez’s? Well, I even copied down the ones several feet away.”

  “Why?” I ask. My heart beats wildly, so loudly I’m afraid the librarian might come over and ask me to leave because she can hear it.

  Nina rolls her shoulders. “I thought we might need them, and I was right. If you look at this picture closely”—she uses the cursor to make the image bigger—“there! See it?”

  “ ‘Frank Philmer.’ ” Andrew reads the name on the grave. “Who in the heck is Frank Philmer?”

  Nina waves her hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter who Frank Philmer is! What matters is that the picture of this ghostly thing was taken very close to Inez’s grave. Three headstones down, to be exact.”

  I scan the names on her notebook paper, impressed. Sure enough, she wrote down everything she observed this morning, down to the shape of the headstones. “So you think that is an actual picture of Inez’s ghost?”

  “I think it could be. Listen to this.” Nina turns the screen back toward herself enough to whisper-read aloud. “ ‘As soon as the apparition appeared, I heard a wailing. The soft wailing of a young girl. I felt her icy breath on my neck as I stood there, paralyzed with fear. Had it not been for the storm that blew in and ended my visit to Graceland, I might have passed out cold among the headstones.’ ”

  The soft wailing of a young girl. Icy breath on her neck. Storm. My eyes drift back to the blurry white spot in the picture. The white blur was Inez. It had to be.

  31

  THE SUN IS LOWER IN the sky, blinding us as we open the doors of the library to step out. I shield my eyes, struggling to see anything in the piercing light. “I guess the weather cleared up. How long were we in there, anyway?”

  “About an hour, and no kidding. This is crazy,” Nina says, stumbling over a crack in the sidewalk. “One minute it looks like a tornado is coming and the next, it’s clear and beautiful. It even feels warmer out here, don’t you think?”

  Andrew looks at me and nods. “Think it’s because she’s happier?”

  I’m about to ask who when I realize that would be a dumb question. Of course he means Inez. I think on it for a minute. Maybe she is happier. Maybe that’s why the weather is so nice now. Or maybe we’re both completely crazy for thinking a ghost can control the weather.

  “Hey—you didn’t see anything online about music boxes when you were researching Inez, did you?” I ask Nina.

  “Music boxes? No. Why?”

  “No reason,” I answer, disappointed. I tell myself that the second I have some time alone, I’m going to dig the drawings out from where I hid them and figure out what they mean. The I. B. on the back is making me crazy. It can’t be initials because—hello, Inez Clarke. So what is it?

  Nina slides her camera over her forehead again and starts surveying the area. Andrew just shakes his head.

  “What are you doing now? Filming the outside of the library?” I laugh. Nina sure does have a lot going on in that brain of hers.

  “Hey—after what we saw in your room, I want to document everything. At the cemetery, I didn’t have my camera, and think how much I probably missed.”

  “Hey! What are you guys doing here?” Richie interrupts, pulling up on his bike. He’s smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “Don’t tell me you’re still digging around on that ghost crap. It’s been two hours!”

  Nina flicks off the power button on her camera and levels a glare in his direction. “Don’t start with me, Richie. Just because Tessa here gave you an excuse to—”

  “Whoa, whoa.” I clamp a hand over her mouth to shut her up. I don’t need Nina telling Richie that I knew he was scared earlier and that’s why I encouraged him to leave. “I didn’t do anything but remind him about soccer. That’s all.”

  Richie looks from me to Nina. There’s a questioning expression on his face.

  I shrug. “I didn’t play any competitive sports back in Florida, but I figure they’re pretty serious about practices. Knucklehead here will probably have a lot to catch up on later.” I toss a thumb out toward Andrew, who shoots me a slightly offended look.

  “Yeah . . . yeah, they really are. But soccer was great today! I scored the winning goal for our team!”

  Andrew’s jaw drops. “You what? You were playing forward? I’m a forward! You’re a defender!”

  Richie puffs out his chest. “Not today. Today I got to show my stuff, since you were gone. I can’t be sure, but I think Coach was pretty impressed!”

  I can practically hear the anger vibrating off Andrew. This sucks. I didn’t expect him to skip practice today and I definitely didn’t ask him to. Now he’s missed something important because of me.

  Putting a hand on his shoulder, I try for a smile. “I’m sorry you weren’t there. It’s my fault.”

  “Not your fault, Florida,” he spits out. “It’s my own. I just wanted to help you with this. Since I never miss practices, I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Should we go talk to your coach? I could make something up, tell him my dog ran away or—” Nina starts.

  Richie cuts her off before Andrew has a chance to answer. “Number one, we don’t have a dog. Number two, Coach won’t care. Some of the kids we play with haven’t been able to go on a real vacation with their parents in years because of this team.” Richie’s eyes glint mischievously in the rapidly setting sun. “Though now that he’s found something as interesting as soccer, I’m not sure Andrew really cares.”

  With Richie’s comment, Andrew’s eyes skip to mine, and they’re so bright. So blue. I look away.

  Of course he cares. Andrew loves soccer. That’s what they keep telling me, anyway. Obviously Richie is talking about the ghost research being more interesting to Andrew than soccer. He’s not talking about me. No, that would be crazypants.

  “Well, thank you,” I whisper, unsure of what else to say. There really isn’t a way to thank him for what he’s given up. “But I don’t want you missing any more, okay? Not for this.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says, pulling out a baseball cap and putting it on. “I’ve worked my butt off on that team for three years now. A few missed practices won’t change that.”

  I shake my head at him. Andrew skipping practices makes me feel bad, but something about it also makes me feel a little special. Although I didn’t agree with my parents at first, I’m beginning to think they’re right about something: family should support each other—friends, too. No one should give up the things they love because they think they have to. Including Andrew.

  “No. No more missing practice. Promise?”

  Andrew goes silent for a minute. His face is frozen in an expression that lands somewhere between shocked and pleased. “Whatever yo
u say, Florida. But remember we still have a ton of stuff to figure out. Inez versus Amos, lightning strike, the empty case.”

  The empty case! I’d almost forgotten about that. Inez was in the box one minute and the next, poof! She’d vanished.

  “What empty case?” Richie asks.

  I start to wave him off, but the look on Andrew’s face is quietly warning for some reason. Does he want me to talk ghosts with Richie? Richie is his best friend—why doesn’t Andrew seem worried that he might get spooked again?

  “Ahhh . . . I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for it. No worries,” I say, hoping to make it sound less scary.

  “For a box that had a statue in it one minute and was totally empty the next?” Andrew asks exaggeratedly. “No way.”

  I mouth “Shut up” at him, but he just smiles at me. His lips turn up at the edges just enough to tell me he knows exactly what he’s doing.

  Richie looks thoughtful. He pushes the kickstand down on his bike and sits on the stoop. “How did it happen? Like, really fast or over some time?”

  Nina fumbles around in her bag for a moment and pulls out the journal she had at the graveyard. “I wrote the time down when we went in. I didn’t write the time down when I walked back through the gates, well . . . because of the whole storm and panic and all, but I know what time it was when I looked at my phone a couple of blocks away.”

  “You wrote the time down when you went in?” Richie asks, one eyebrow raised.

  She nods. “Yeah. I didn’t know if we’d need it, but I’m glad I did. A good researcher takes detailed notes.” Nina runs her finger down the lines on her paper, stopping abruptly. “Aha! Here it is! We walked into the lobby at nine-oh-three. And I checked my phone again at ten-oh-five.”

  “We talked to the woman in the front lobby for a bit, but then we walked to the grave site. Nina probably documented things for at least fifteen or twenty minutes while we looked at the grave and just talked,” Andrew chimes in.

  Richie nods. “I think I got it. And the weather was stormy the whole time, or no?”

  “No.” I speak up, still confused as to why Richie is suddenly playing Sherlock Holmes. “It was cloudy, but it wasn’t raining when we got there. Then it got really cold and the storm moved in.”

  “Got cold, huh?” Richie asks.

  “Really cold,” I clarify. I don’t want to scare Ritchie, but if he’s going to ask for the facts, I at least want them to be the right ones. “The woman in the lobby told us that legend claims Inez disappears from her case in lightning storms because she’s afraid of the lightning. I would have told you that’s ridiculous a week ago, but now . . .”

  Richie’s eyes move down to the book in Nina’s hand and then back to me.

  Nina folds her journal back up and crams it into her bag, then tugs on his sleeve. “Hey, we better get home. I’ll keep thinking on this, and if I come up with anything new, I’ll call you guys.”

  “Call Andrew,” I remind her. “I have that whole no-phone thing going on.”

  “Right. See you guys Monday. Sunday is supposed to be kind of chill in our house, so my parents don’t really like us to make plans,” Nina says, sliding the camera back off her forehead.

  I nod and smile. Tomorrow is supposed to be family day in my house, too. But how are we supposed to enjoy it with Inez around? I can’t stand the thought of the crackling coming back. Turning to look at Andrew, I notice he’s staring at me.

  “Hey, stop worrying, okay? It’s only one day, Florida. What can she do in twenty-four hours?” he asks, swiping a mass of shaggy blond hair away from his eyes.

  I shrug and pull my house key from under my shirt. I don’t know what she can do in twenty-four hours, but I wish I didn’t have to find out.

  Turning to walk away, I freeze in my tracks. “Wait!”

  Andrew whirls around and pulls an earbud out of his ear. “Yeah?”

  “Why’d you want me to talk about what happened in the graveyard in front of Richie? I was trying to be nice and not freak him out, you know.”

  He smiles. “I know. But he wants to help. And even though he’s got the whole coim . . . et . . . whatever, he’s really smart. Freakishly smart. He won’t tell me for sure, but I’m positive he aced all his classes last year. I figure if there’s anyone who might be able to make sense of something as crazy as what we saw, it could be him.”

  “Okay,” I say hesitantly. “But if he starts having nightmares because of that or his phobia gets any worse, I’m blaming you.” I jokingly punch the palm of my hand with my fist in an attempt to look intimidating.

  Andrew’s lips turn up into a smile as he puts the earbud back in. “I’ll keep that in mind, Woodward. See ya later.”

  32

  I OPEN THE FRONT DOOR and wait for the blast of cold air to hit me, but it doesn’t. That’s a good sign, I suppose. There’s music tinkling in the kitchen and the house feels warm . . . toasty, like those radiators are really working today.

  My eyes land on my mom’s phone and a pang of guilt hits me. I should call Rachel. I miss her, I really, really do. But the idea of having Mom lurking around, waiting for me to return her phone while I try to quietly fill Rachel in on the ghost stuff, and Cassidy, and Andrew’s freckles, is awful. I need more privacy than that.

  “Tessa?” My mom’s voice floats out from the kitchen and I follow it in, surprised to see she looks miserable. Bags hang under her normally bright eyes, and her face is splotchy.

  Oh, no. Inez has done something to my mother. Anger, red-hot like smoldering coals, takes over me, leaving me almost breathless. I’m ready to strangle this ghost with my bare hands if I have to. Before I can stop, I pound a fist on the table, startling even myself. I didn’t notice Jonah in the corner before, but he’s there. It takes less than five seconds for him to start bawling.

  I walk over and give him a hug. “I’m sorry buddy, I’m just mad.”

  He swipes at his runny nose with his sleeve. Gross. Then he reaches under the table and pulls out Reno. His mouth moves ever so slightly and I swear he’s staring at me.

  Turning back to Mom, I take a deep breath and try to remind myself that I’m not alone. I’m safe. I glance back at Reno’s eyes, noticing that they’re still fixed on me. The doll is not after me. The doll is not after me. The doll is not after me.

  Mom puts her hands on my shoulders. “Tessa, you look kinda rough. Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. What happened while I was gone?”

  She looks around the room and sighs loudly. “Nothing specific. It’s just that I finally got through every last box in the garage and the supplies aren’t in there. I don’t know where they could have gone.”

  “Oh! I found them!” I practically scream. “They were stacked up next to my bed earlier today.” My eyes cut a path to our kitchen counter. The same counter I left the note on before I went to the library with Andrew and Nina.

  It’s empty.

  “I left you a note over there, telling you that I found them and that they were in my room. You didn’t see it?”

  Mom follows the line of my finger and stares at the empty counter. “I’ve been here all day and I never saw a note. Was it tiny? I mean, could it have blown off and onto the floor when someone walked by?”

  My stomach sinks. “It was a piece of used sketch paper.”

  Mom’s mouth turns downward. “That’s heavy paper. And too big to just vanish.” She turns to look at Jonah. “Honey, did you see the paper?”

  Jonah lifts Reno into a sitting position. His creepy wooden mouth opens into a silent scream and then suddenly clamps back shut, the wood-on-wood sound echoing through the kitchen and making me jump. Moving Reno closer to his ear, my little brother acts like he’s listening. Like the doll is telling him something.

  Suddenly, Jonah’s eyes go big. “I didn’t see it. But I think Reno did . . .”

  Mom looks at me, then back at Jonah. She takes a few steps toward him and playfully ruffles his hair. “Well, ok
ay, sweetie. Did he tell you if he might have touched it?”

  Reno’s head slowly swivels toward Mom. Jonah mumbles something under his breath and then the doll’s head snaps in my direction until his beady eyes are resting on me again. I look away, unable to control the shivers building inside me.

  “Reno didn’t touch it, but the ghost did,” Jonah says, a sinister little smile touching his lips.

  I back away from Reno. Terror sweeps through me like a tidal wave, and it takes all my energy not to grab one of our kitchen knives and take it to that doll right here and now. I look to Mom for help, my palms going completely clammy.

  Instead of screaming, or dousing Reno with gasoline so we can torch him, Mom just chuckles. “I see. Well, if your little buddy there sees the ghost again, could you have him give it a message for Mommy?”

  A message? Is my mom crazy?

  Jonah looks at me and clutches Reno to his chest. “But Tessa said there are no ghosts. Right, Tessa?”

  Once upon a time, I believed ghosts didn’t exist. I was so sure of it that I told my little brother there was no such thing. But now . . . I know I was wrong. Inez exists, and she’s not going to stop messing with me, my house, or my family until I figure out exactly what she wants.

  If Andrew were here, I’d tell him how wrong he was. I haven’t even made it one hour out of twenty-four and already I’m dying to leave.

  * * *

  I pass Mom the box I found in my room, happy to see her smiling again. “This is it. Just make sure everything is there.” Because an angry, unpredictable ghost moved them, I think.

  Mom pulls me into a hug. “I will, and thank you so much, honey. But I forgot to ask—how did it get into your room to begin with?”

  How do I answer that? I could tell her that I believe we’re being haunted and that I’m terrified, but all that would do is upset her. Ruin all her hopes of getting us settled in and happy in our new home. Or worse, she might think I’m making it up—that I want her to hate our house as much as I do. No, I won’t do that to her. Especially since I’m so close to figuring out what Inez wants and how to stop her. If things get worse, I’ll tell Mom and Dad. Until then, Inez is my problem to deal with.