Now You See Me ... (3 page)

“Seriously. There was nobody there. I think your camera's got a weird glitch,” Abby said as the girls made their way up the block.

Lena knew Abby was trying to make her feel better — make them
both
feel better — but part of her was still offended for the Impulse. She put her hand around it protectively before agreeing. “It
is
pretty old technology,” she admitted.

She gave the box a little pat, an apology for doubting it, then sidestepped a fire hydrant and did a quick double step to catch up to Abby. They were only a block from Saywell's Soda Fountain and her mouth was starting to water. They'd started their walk with a plan to take a picture in front of every storefront on Second Street so they could lay them
out in a row — panorama style. But since the mysterious figure had appeared, the camera had hung slack around Lena's neck. Even when Abby had mustered up a begging puppy pose in front of the pet shop, Lena hadn't risked taking another shot. She was too afraid to see what showed up in it.

“I don't know what's up with this thing,” Lena said. Even though she'd been the one to offer it up, “old technology” sounded like a weak explanation for the things that were appearing in their pictures.

The only thing Lena knew for sure was that none of these rationalizations were setting her mind at ease. As she and Abby approached Saywell's, she hoped that one of their famously cold, creamy shakes would do the trick. Maybe it would be icy enough to permanently freeze the one idea she couldn't bring herself to consider: The camera was — somehow — haunted.

The bell on the drugstore door jingled as Abby pushed it open, and Lena felt a tiny bit better just hearing the familiar chime. The corner soda fountain was one of the girls' favorite places. It had been in business practically forever, a fact that
showed in the worn tile floors, the dusty hanging lights, and the fading signs. Along the length of one side stood a clean but shabby lunch counter that faced the side street windows.

“Hiya, girls,” Mollie, their favorite waitress, greeted from behind the counter. “Looking for a little lunch?”

“You bet,” Abby replied. “It looks like we've arrived just in time.” She eyed the two empty stools at the end of the counter while she held the door for Lena. Her hand pressed against one of the posters covering the glass.

Lena started to step inside and stopped. “Look.” She pointed at the door. Beside Abby's hand was a huge announcement for an annual amateur photo contest. It was being held by the gallery in town and, according to the poster, the contest was celebrating its twentieth anniversary.

“Ooh, Lena. You should enter!” Abby said, nudging Lena in the rib with an elbow.

Lena shrugged, flattered. She loved to take pictures. And she'd gotten some nice shots with her digital and even her new Polaroid. Messing around with photos was definitely one of her favorite things
to do. But carrying a camera around and trying to snap something cool was one thing. Putting pictures in a contest where serious photographers would be competing was quite another. Besides, at the moment her new hobby had her a little spooked.

Shrugging off Abby's suggestion, Lena hurried her friend along to the stools at the end of the counter, which happened to have the best view. “What are you getting?” she asked, purposely changing the subject.

“BLT and a mint-chip shake,” Abby replied, her dark eyes twinkling. “What else would I get?”

No sooner were the girls seated than Mollie was there to take their order. “The usual today, girls?” she asked.

Lena nodded. “And a basket of fries to share.”

Mollie grinned and filled a coffee mug a couple of seats down before putting their order in.

“All right, let's see how we're doing,” Abby said, holding out her hand for the morning's photos. Lena gave her the small stack and Abby laid them out in a row, leaving out the creepy photo with the boy.

“Wow, Lena!” she crowed. “These are really good!”

Lena looked down at the photos and blushed. There was a lot of variety, a little blur, and some great composition.

“You
have
to enter that contest,” Abby encouraged. She thumped one of the squares. “I mean, I have never seen anyone who could make a Polaroid look this awesome.”

Lena scrunched her nose at the compliment. The Polaroids were coming out nicely, she had to admit. They had a muted quality that made them sort of timeless. Or maybe that was just the camera. Or Abby's retro style. Whatever it was, it was working. The shots drew attention.

“Did you take those, Lena?” Mollie asked as she set their shakes down behind the row of photos. “They're terrific.”

“She totally did,” Abby confirmed, nodding emphatically. “And she really
should
enter the photo contest, don't you think?”

“Sure thing,” Mollie said, sticking her pencil behind her ear and turning to slice up a homemade berry pie.

“Come on, Lena. You know you want to.”

Lena sipped her shake. She thought maybe she
did
want to, but wasn't totally sure. Attention made her feel a little squirmy. And she was already feeling a little … weird.

“I wouldn't stand a chance,” Lena said. “Besides, taking photos is just for fun.” Or was supposed to be.

“Hey, how come you're not hogging the fries?” Abby asked when they were done with their sandwiches but still sipping milk shakes.

Lena looked at the nearly full basket. “Not that hungry, I guess.” She shrugged and took another sip. The Impulse pressed up against her ribs as she leaned toward the counter. She hadn't taken it off to eat.

“Let's head out, then.” Abby slid off her stool and left a few bills on the counter for a tip while Lena gathered the pics. “We still have a few blocks to cover, and
Vanity Fair
is going to be clamoring to get their hands on your proofs.”

“Yes, of course. How else will they be able to pick a cover?” Lena joked back. She shoved open the door to Saywell's and tried to push the strange thoughts out of her mind. The boy and the tower
were just optical tricks, nothing to worry about. She had her new-old camera — the one she had hunted for for months — and everything was right with the world. Really.

Before leaving Saywell's storefront, Abby stood in front of the red-and-white sign and dabbed a napkin to the corner of her mouth exaggeratedly.

“Nice one!” Lena caught the shot, then paused by a trash can to change film cartridges while Abby hurried ahead to scout out the next perfect site.

With the camera reloaded, Lena skipped past the door to Don's Pawnshop — and for good reason. There wasn't much to see there. A few years earlier, Lena and Abby had gone into Don's thinking it might be a fun place to unleash their thrift savvy and sniff out bargains. It had only taken a second to smell the jacked-up prices and catch a whiff of the store's “no haggle” policy. Don, or whoever it was who ran the place, overpriced everything and demanded full sticker. Not only that, the owners were totally paranoid about shoplifting, so there were video cameras everywhere and the merchandise was either behind glass or up on high shelves, creating a very unwelcoming feeling all around. Luckily, it didn't really matter, since the store was mostly stocked with
jewelry, silver, and musical instruments — nothing that Lena and Abby were into.

“Come on, girl!” Abby called from two doors down. She was in front of the hardware store, squatting in a shiny red wheelbarrow. Lena grinned and stepped up her pace so she'd get there before Abby was caught riding the merchandise.

Then something made her turn back. She lifted the Impulse to her face and pointed it at the pawnshop window. She felt a little like a puppet, without control of her limbs, just as she had in the car the day before. Without intending to, she snapped a shot of the dusty display of jewels in the window.

Weirdness.

Why in the world would she want a picture of the Don's Pawnshop window? Shaking her head in disbelief, she pulled the picture out of the bottom of the camera and shoved it in her bag. It was sure to be a waste of film.

“Lena, come on!” Abby called from up ahead.

Dropping the camera to her side, Lena hurried to catch up to her friend. She was able to get two wheelbarrow shots before the scowling owner waved them on.

Abby climbed out of the shiny garden transport with a mischievous smile. “Should we get one on the mini-tractor?” she whispered.

Lena laughed and glanced at the shop owner. “I'm not sure if we should push our —”

“Whoa. Check that out!” Abby stopped dusting off her skirt long enough to point at a slowly passing truck. The formerly blue pickup was covered with a zillion bottle caps, glued to the outside like a mosaic. “That's not something you see every day.”

Lena instinctively lifted the camera and snapped a photo just before the truck rounded a corner and rumbled out of sight. “Cool,” Lena breathed, happy to have gotten the picture. For such an old camera, the Impulse was pretty responsive.

The pair moved more slowly now, thanks to milk shakes and the hour. Lena stifled a yawn. Abby rubbed the merit badges sewn to the stomach of her shirt. “I'm stuffed,” she said. “I think I might need a nap.”

A nap sounded good to Lena, too. She hadn't slept very well the night before. She kept waking up and checking to make sure the Impulse was still on her desk. She yawned again, feeling her lids growing
heavier as she watched the picture in her hand develop. When the image of the truck finally appeared, her eyes snapped open wide.

It had happened again. The boy-shadow was there — a little clearer this time — sitting in the back of the truck, staring out at them. Even in the grainy photo, the eyes in the dark face were intense and spooky. One ghostly hand hung over the tailgate of the truck, balled into a tight fist.

“Abby …” Lena said. She didn't need to say more. In an instant her friend was by her side, peering at the photo.

“Holy moley,” Abby breathed. “He's back.”

Lena looked around anxiously. She had a feeling he'd never left.

Lena rolled over. She kicked off the sheet — her last remaining cover — and flipped her pillow to the cool side. She was hot, and without looking she knew there was no possible way the big hand on her alarm clock had made it more than halfway around the dial. It was just past one
A.M.
and she hadn't gotten a lick of sleep.

She blamed the weather. By the time the girls got back from their photo session, the blazing sun had scared off the autumn breeze, and summer had reasserted its sticky hold. Lena's room was way too warm for sleeping. For a moment she toyed with the idea of turning on the light and trying to read. If she picked the right book — a really, really boring one — she might be able to knock herself out in a couple of
pages. But just the thought of light in the dark room made her feel hotter, and she didn't think she could get any hotter without melting.

She flipped her pillow again and settled into it with a sigh. She tuned out every thought, or at least tried to, and focused on the
tick, tick, tick
of the clock. After what felt like another three hours, she finally fell asleep.

Even asleep, Lena couldn't get any real rest. The moment her breathing grew regular she felt herself running down long rows of strawberries. She had no idea why she was running, she only knew she had to. She raced down an endless row, her heart thumping in her chest. She was out of breath. But there was someone behind her — someone she desperately wanted to avoid. Or perhaps something in front of her — something she desperately wanted to see.

Her feet thudded on the ground over and over until she wasn't sure if she was forcing them to keep moving or if they were forcing her. Then, all at once, the rows of berries gave way to something new.

She wasn't running any longer. She was climbing. Up, up, and up she went, getting higher and higher. The rungs of the ladder were slanted, the gaps
uncomfortably wide. She hoisted herself step-by-step, panting with the effort. Her legs burned. She could barely see. All around was fog, or haze, or blur. She ignored whatever it was and kept climbing. She had to get to the top….

Suddenly, the climbing was over. She had arrived, apparently, and was seated on a small shelf. She knew she had to be up really high, but she couldn't see through the thick white mist that surrounded her.

Lifting the camera from around her neck (had it been there a moment before?), Lena held it in front of her face. Her vision cleared, but what she saw made her want to close her eyes. She was several stories above the strawberry field, not running, not climbing, not sitting. She was falling. Falling fast.

Lena woke with her heart pounding and her back damp with sweat. Looking around her darkened room, she knew she'd been dreaming. She wasn't falling — she was safe and sound in bed. Her clock read 4:45. The camera was beside it, the viewfinder looking at her like a mechanical cyclops.

She changed her tank top, flipped her pillow (again!), and slipped back into bed. Closing her eyes, she tried to change the movie playing over in her
mind, remind herself it was just a dream. But even awake and solidly in her bed, she felt as though she were falling….

As soon as the sun was up, Lena was, too. She jumped out of bed, grabbed a frayed-hem denim skirt out of her closet, and riffled through her dresser. The pale green T-shirt that Abby had customized for her seemed as good a choice as any, and she pulled it on before slipping the Impulse strap over her head. As soon as the camera was hanging at her side, she felt dressed. A quick comb-through of her strawberry-blond hair and she was on her way.

From the top of the stairs she could smell simmering peaches. Her dad had started canning early to beat the heat — obviously a losing battle. Just walking into the kitchen made Lena break into a sweat.

“Mmm.” Mr. Giff mumbled a greeting through a bite of toast covered in warm, foamy jam skimmings. “Wanf smmm?” he asked with his mouth full.

It did smell good, but Lena shook her head. Her
stomach was jumping all over the place. She wanted to talk to Abby.

“I'm heading over to Abby's for breakfast,” Lena fibbed, slipping her messenger bag over her head and making her getaway before her dad asked for help. “Happy canning.” She waved, and was out the door.

The urge to run the three blocks to Abby's house was beaten down by temperature and tiredness. Lena walked as quickly as she could without breaking a sweat, trying not to let the nightmare replay in her head.

Abby was sprawled on a futon on the screened-in porch of her house on Bixby Street, wearing old-man boxer shorts and a tank top. Her skinny brown arms and legs were flung out wide, as if they were afraid to touch anything. She was awake, but barely. When she saw Lena, she held out her hand like a star trying to block photographers.

“Stop with the paparazzi!” she mumbled. “It's too early for pictures.”

Lena tried to laugh at the joke, but all she managed was a feeble smile. It
was
too early for pictures. She didn't even know why she'd worn the camera.

Well, actually, she sort of did. Ever since she'd bought the Impulse, not wearing it felt really weird. Whenever she took it off, an anxious feeling came over her, like something terrible was going to happen. And that was what she wanted to talk to Abby about.

“I think I'm being haunted,” she blurted.

In an instant Abby was wide-awake. She sat up and swung her long legs over the edge of the futon. Her dark eyes looked worried. “You think you're being what?”

“Haunted,” Lena repeated in a hoarse whisper. Now that she'd said the words, she suddenly felt a little woozy. She steadied herself against the pillar at the top of the stairs. “You know, by that boy,” she went on. “And the tower. The things that are showing up.” Lena took a deep breath, several slow steps, and climbed into the hammock that was strung across a corner of the Starlings' porch. “I think the camera is haunted, or like, a medium — one of those things ghosts use to communicate,” she finished. Wow. She wasn't really planning on saying all of that — it just kind of came out.
When did I decide I was being haunted?
she wondered with a shudder.

Lena pulled the tower picture, the one that had
started it all, out of her bag and stared at it for a long time. Abby sighed, got to her feet, and worked her way into the hammock beside her so the two of them could look at it together.

The hammock swung slowly back and forth, the fabric creaking on the hooks that held it. Lena heaved a sigh. It was a bit of a relief to have put her spooky suspicions into words, and another relief that Abby hadn't laughed. But if what she said was true, things would undoubtedly get a lot worse before they got better … if they got better at all.

“You can't get that tower out of your head, can you?” Abby finally asked. “I wish I had seen it. Or not seen it. Or whatever.”

“I wish you had seen it, too.” Lena pressed her lips together. “Or that I hadn't. Actually, I just wish I could stop thinking about it, or dreaming about it….”

“Dreaming about it?” Abby echoed.

Lena nodded. “And not good dreams.”

“Ew. Nightmares.” Abby's eyes looked genuinely worried now. She put her hand on Lena's shoulder for an instant, then took it away to pick up one of the photos. “Hey …” Abby pulled the picture closer to her face. “This is weird.”

The whole thing is weird,
Lena thought. But she leaned in to see what her friend was pointing at.

Abby's blue-painted fingernail was hovering over the letters on the water tower in the photo. “The town is ‘Phelps,' right?”

Lena nodded and looked closer, immediately seeing what Abby was talking about.

“Check it out. There are only four of the letters of the town's name in this picture: h, e, l, and p. And that spells …”

“Help,”
Lena finished. “Maybe the shadow needs our help,” she added quietly. “Maybe there's something about that tower that he wants us to know.”

The air in the screened-in porch felt closer and hotter than ever. Gray clouds were gathering, throwing a blanket on the sky.

The creepy feeling Lena had been trying to shake settled hard around her shoulders. She wished it weren't so muggy. She wished she could crawl into Abby's abandoned bed. She wished she could hide under the covers for eternity.

“Well, I guess that's better than
beware
,” Abby breathed.

Lena laughed nervously. She supposed Abby had a point. So far it didn't seem like the boy wanted to
hurt her. But he was super-creepy in the pictures, and last night's nightmare was terrifying.

Lena could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She was trying not to panic, but …

“We need some answers,” Abby said after studying Lena's troubled face. She grabbed Lena by the hand and pulled her through the screen door and into the den, which was thankfully cooler than outside. Abby pulled an extra chair up to the desk and gently pushed Lena into it. “Time for a little research,” she announced as she slid into her own chair and switched on the family computer.

Lena smiled, grateful for her friend's action-taking nature. They waited while the machine hummed to life, then did a Google search for “Phelps water tower.”

“Not Phelps County in Nebraska, though,” Abby said with a chuckle, glancing through the listings that came up.

Lena couldn't laugh. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she was being haunted.

“Or Georgia,” Abby added, scrolling down and clicking on the only entry that looked like it might apply — a brief article about Malcolm Phelps, the
founder of Phelps, New Jersey. He'd had the tower built in 1919.

“Well, at least I know that the dang thing actually exists,” Lena breathed, feeling a tiny bit relieved. “Or existed …”

Abby tried a few more searches, but couldn't find anything to confirm whether the tower still stood or not.

“That's the Internet for you, totally incomplete,” Lena declared, parroting her father, who was a high school teacher. It was odd, because she wasn't sure if she wanted the tower to be there. On the one hand, it would mean that the camera had captured reality (a welcome change). On the other, how could she have missed something so huge and obvious?

Abby was about to start a new search when the screen went dark. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I crashed it.” She tried to reboot. Nothing. Lena checked the plugs. Everything looked fine, but the computer seemed dead.

“This thing is practically new,” Abby said, giving the monitor a gentle whack. “It's never done anything like this before.”

Lena got to her feet, and the Polaroid knocked lightly against the edge of the desk. She glanced
down, momentarily wondering if the camera had anything to do with the computer crash.

“It's cool,” Abby reassured her. “My mom is a whiz with this stuff. She'll get it up and running in no time. And we need to get out of here, anyway. You look like you've seen a gho —” She stopped herself. “Well, you've looked better,” she corrected.

Abby got up and started to put on her shoes before she noticed she was still wearing her pajamas. “Wait here,” she told her friend. “I don't want to ruin my reputation as a fashionista….”

After Abby disappeared upstairs, Lena pulled out the picture of the Phelps tower. It looked just like the one they'd seen on the Internet. Confirmation. Right? “Are you there?” she whispered to the photo. A hot breeze coming through the screen door was the only answer she got.

Abby returned dressed in a cute skirt and sandals and scarfing down a bagel. “I'm guessing there's no way we can talk your dad into a return trip to Phelps?” she half asked. “That would be the easiest way to go back and see what's really there.”

Lena shook her head. Her dad was in full jam production, so unless he ran out of fruit, it wasn't even worth asking him to step away from the stove.
He would simmer fruit and jars and measure sugar and pectin all day. By evening the kitchen would be filled with jam and they'd have pizza for dinner.

“And I'm also guessing you won't sleep again until you have proof that tower is really there?” Abby raised a brow.

Lena grimaced. Right again. She just had to know if the tower in her photo had been there when she snapped the shot … or not. If she knew that, she might be able to unravel the mystery of the boy.

“Okay. Then we need to go somewhere where we can do some real research,” Abby concluded. And without waiting for an answer, she shoved the last bite of bagel into her mouth and grabbed Lena by the hand.