Page 2 of Atlas
“I want to see our old room, but I don’t want to go alone.” River stepped over to Nathan. The two of them had shared a room when we lived here. He gave a short nod before moving to the staircase. We all followed.
“My heart is beating so fast right now,” River whispered when we got to the second floor and began walking down the long corridor.
Mine was too, but I’d always been the leader of our group, and even though Lumi was technically older than me, I took on the same role as I had back then. “It’s going to be fine. It’s just an empty old house.”
“With lots of memories,” Nathan added. “My heart is trying to climb out of my throat. I fucking hate this.”
“It wasn’t my idea to come back here,” Lumi muttered.
Letting out a deep sigh, I spoke: “I never said it would be fun, but we need to face our fears of this place. When we leave here, this place will no longer matter to us. We’ve been here, seen it, and we can move on.”
“Speaking of moving on, am I the only one who feels like we’re not alone? It’s like someone is watching us.”
“No, I feel it too.” River reached for Lumi’s hand and looked scared.
“Now you’re just riling each other up. There’s no one here but us,” I scolded my sisters.
We had reached the end of the hallway when my brother challenged me, “How would you know? Twenty-eight people were killed because of a crazy man. If ever there was a haunted house, wouldn’t this be it?”
“No!” I shot him ayou’re not helpinglook, but he persisted:
“I’m with Lumi and River. I feel it too. There’s something in this house. What if it’s Dad and he’s still crazy? What if he tries to trip us up, so we fall down the stairs and break our necks? He was a cold-blooded killer when he lived, and if he’s the one haunting this place, I don’t think we should be here.”
“Enough!” I opened the door and walked into what had once been River’s and Nathan’s room.
“What happened to the furniture?” River asked.
“It was sold in the estate sale,” I mumbled.
River walked further into the almost empty room and touched a dresser that had been left behind. “How come you and Maximum never sold the house?”
I snorted. “And have it turned into a tourist attraction as a haunted bed and breakfast? I don’t think so.”
“But leaving it to rot like this…” Lumi didn’t finish her sentence. The way her right hand scraped at the water-damaged wallpaper said it all.
The sound of a creaking door made me look over to see Maximum opening the one leading to what had once been our father’s room.
With hesitation, Lumi and River followed and entered while Nathan stayed in the doorway.
“It’s not in there,” I told him.
“I know.” Perspiration formed on his forehead and his upper lip.
“Snakes don’t live that long, and someone would have removed it back then.”
“It’s not like I’m scared of a snake anymore.” Nathan’s words contradicted his wide eyes and shallow breathing.
“You want to see this,” Lumi called from the other room.
Giving my adoptive brother a reassuring look, I nudged Nathan into the room.
“The closet is still here.” Lumi was standing in front of the closet we had opened eleven years ago when we all decided to snoop in Conor O’Brien’s room.
We’d been shocked to find a terrarium inside with a giant yellow snake. For years, Nathan had suffered from nightmares of a yellow snake in his bed, and it turned out my sick father had been behind it.
“Is that the dead snake?” Lumi pointed but didn’t walk closer.
Maximum lifted a long gray snakeskin. “No, this is just skin that it shed. I wonder what happened to the snake and what kind it was.”
