Page 30 of A Heart So Haunted
Every hair on my body stood on end.
“What?” I choked.
Her eyes bounced from my brow to my chin and back. “Are you okay?”
I gave a jerky nod. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. You looked sick for a second.”
“It’s just cold up here,” I said.
Wrong thing to say. Emma’s eyes narrowed this time, just enough for little alarm bells to ring. “Okay.”
I withdrew my hand from the doorknob and stood to brush off my shoulder. My sweatshirt was littered with little flecks of broken sheetrock. They peppered the floor, scattering.
“I’ll get a broom,” I said. I had already turned to head back down the stairs, my heart racing, face emptied of blood.
A door. A door that led to something.
Rationally, it could have been a closet. There wasn’t enough room for a bedroom to be there. Which was a completely logical explanation. Maybe it’d been covered before Aunt Cadence bought it, or maybe she’d covered it. Why would she waste perfectly good storage space, though?
Still, the little hairs on my arms stood at attention. A hidden room didn’t settle well in my stomach. First the light turning on by itself, and then the crying?
And what I’d heard—no, what I’d seen. Because I hadseensomething on the porch.
A hairline fissure cracked through the certainty I’d built up. What if there had been truth to Aunt Cadence’s words?
What if she hadn’t been lying?
I’d watched enough true crime and horror movies to make assumptions. A ghost haunted a place where they were tethered. Tethered to a place where they were murdered. Bodies could be hidden in walls, backyards, and attics.
Or boarded-up closets.
I needed to tell Emma. Sayer would faint from fear, and I’d be lying if I said the thought of him leaving didn’t make me anxious. There was something comforting about having them both here, so if I told either of them, it would need to be Emma, but even then, the thought of telling her about the boy made acid eat the back of my throat. She’d get excited. Do research. Tell someone. Someone would tell someone else, and then before I knew it, the house would be nearly confirmed haunted and it wouldn’t sell. It would sit on the market, collecting dust, and burning a hole in my already thin pocket.
By the time I found the broom and made it back up the stairs, Emma had Sayer’s head firmly grasped in her hands.
“You have a knot on the back of your head,” she said. Sayer made a grab for the broom, so I stepped out of reach.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Just go get an ice pack and sit down.”
“Fine.” His nostrils flared as he slipped out of Emma’s grip.
“Wait, don’t walk too fast.” She trailed after him, one careful step at a time. I waited until their voices faded down into the living room before turning back to the hole.
The broom handle grew slick in my hand. What would happen if I touched the doorknob again? Could I open it without knocking out the rest of the wall?
Would I see something again?
I set the broom down, wiped my hands on my leg. And reached back through the hole. I fumbled for the doorknob until I finally found it.
A cold sense of disappointment filled my stomach. I turned it and tugged, but the sheetrock was too close for me to get a glimpse inside. I’d need to knock the rest of it out if I wanted a better look.
That fissure of doubt grew larger, morphed into a crack in my chest.
Once Harthwait grows dark, Aunt Cadence’s voice had whispered.
The sun started to slide up the walls, closer to the ceiling. The foyer would be dark within the hour. By seven thirty, the trees would have the house blocked from most direct sunlight. We’d be in a cocoon while the sky started to streak with pinks and reds. The house itself already shrouded in night.
