The Dead End (2 page)

“Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!” Casey yelled as she came in the door.

The smell of frying meat greeted her. In the tiny entranceway, Casey threw down her backpack and slipped off her sneakers, then headed into the kitchen.

Both her parents were crowded into the narrow space. “Hi, sweetie,” said her mother, who was tearing up lettuce for a salad. “Go ahead and wash up. Dinner is almost ready.”

Casey squeezed between them to get to the kitchen sink. As she rubbed soap over her hands, she studied her parents, looking for some clue to their big news. Her mother was still dressed in her
office clothes, a tan skirt, white blouse, and pumps, her long black hair twisted up in a clip.

She looks tired,
Casey thought. But after scrutinizing her mother’s face, Casey decided she looked no more tired than usual.

Casey turned her attention to her dad, who was flipping chops in a pan on the stove. She thought she detected some new flecks of gray in his ginger-colored hair, but she couldn’t say for sure.

When they were all seated around the table, Casey’s dad served up pork chops and salad, while Casey’s mom poured iced tea. Finally, Casey couldn’t take it any longer.

“So what’s the big news?” she asked.

Her parents glanced at each other with secretive smiles. Casey’s mother gave a little nod as if to say,
You tell her.

“We bought a house!” Casey’s father said, beaming.

“A house?” Casey’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Nobody in Manhattan lived in houses, except for extremely rich people, which the Slaters definitely weren’t. “You mean a new apartment?” she asked.

Her dad laughed. “No, Casey. A summerhouse. In New Hampshire. A place where we can really get away from it all.”

A house, so that was all. Casey sighed in relief. “So that’s where we’re going for vacation?” she asked, cutting into her pork chop.

“Even better,” her mother replied. “We’re going to spend the whole summer there.”

“The whole summer?” Casey abruptly put down her knife.

Her mother nodded. “We’ll leave the day after school gets out and come back in August.”

As the words sank in, Casey felt a cold pit in her stomach. All her beautiful summer plans seemed to dissolve before her eyes.

“This cannot be happening,” she murmured. Casey closed her eyes and clenched her hands into tight fists, digging her fingernails into her palms. Whenever she had a nightmare, this was how she woke herself up. The sharp pinch of her nails always jarred her back into reality. Now she squeezed until there were half-moon circles in her skin, but when she opened her eyes, she hadn’t moved. She was
still sitting at the dinner table. Her parents were both looking at her.

“Casey, are you listening?” her father asked.

Casey let her hands fall to her sides. It was no use. This wasn’t a bad dream.

“It’s a beautiful old house,” her dad went on, “just a few miles from a lake where we can go fishing and picnicking…. Maybe I’ll even get a boat!” He smiled to himself at the thought.

Fishing?
Casey stared at him. The closest her dad had ever come to fishing was opening a can of sardines. She waited for him to say he was kidding, but he was lost in his daydream and didn’t seem to notice.

Casey turned to her mother.
“Where
is this house exactly?”

“The town of Stillness. Stillness, New Hampshire — doesn’t that sound peaceful? Just wait till you see the place, Casey,” her mother replied. “It’s a great big old farmhouse with a porch swing. We’ll sit out there and drink lemonade and listen to the birds.” Her eyes glazed over dreamily.

Casey looked back and forth between her
starry-eyed parents. “But what about your jobs? You can’t just leave them!”

“Dad decided not to teach summer school this year,” said her mother. “And I’m taking a leave of absence. I have a lot of vacation saved up, and I’ve worked it out so I can take a few weeks of unpaid leave.”

“The house needs some work,” her father added. “Fixing it up is going to be our full-time job this summer.”

Casey stared at her dinner without really seeing it. “I can’t believe you bought a house — a whole entire
house
— without telling me.”

“We wanted to surprise you,” her father said. “We’ve always wanted a house in the country. We just never thought we’d be able to afford it. We couldn’t believe the asking price on this one, and then the sellers accepted our offer so quickly — it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

“You’ll see, sweetie. You’ll love it there. Remember how much you enjoyed that time we stayed at the lake in upstate New York?” her mother added.

“That was a
week.
Not a
whole summer.”
Casey couldn’t let her parents do this to her. Not after everything she and Jillian had planned. There had to be a way out of this!

“I could stay here,” Casey said suddenly, thinking out loud. “I could stay with Jillian, while you go to New Hampshire.”

Her parents were frowning before she’d even finished the sentence. “Of course you can’t stay here, Casey. Don’t be silly,” said her mom. “We could never ask the Mortons to look after you all summer.”

“But it’s not fair!” Casey said. She hardly ever talked back to her parents, but this was simply too much to bear. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I already had plans for this summer?”

“Plans?” her father scoffed. “For heaven’s sake, Casey, you’re twelve years old.”

“I’ll be thirteen in August,” Casey shot back. “And I did have plans. Jillian and I were going to do all kinds of stuff this summer — which I could have told you about if you’d bothered to ask!”

“Jillian can come up and visit you,” Mrs. Slater said reasonably. “It’s not that far from New York.”

“I don’t
want
Jillian to come visit me,” Casey said, her voice rising. “I want to stay here!”

“Casey, that’s
enough,”
her father said sternly. “We’re not talking about this any more until you calm down. Now, finish your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” Scraping her chair back, Casey stood up and stalked to her room, slamming the door behind her. It didn’t do much good. Casey’s bedroom was right next to the kitchen. She heard her dad ask her mom to pass the salad, and the clink of their silverware against their plates. They might as well have been in the same room.

Casey flopped onto her bed, and stared up at the ceiling. She could hear people walking across the floor in the apartment above them. In just a few weeks, she would be in a new room in a house in New Hampshire. Casey tried to imagine it, but all she could picture was the hotel room where they’d stayed by the lake upstate. The carpet had smelled funny, and the toilet had run all night.

Either way, it’s still going to be the awesomest summer ever.
… Jillian’s words rang in Casey’s ears. She thought about all their plans — the party, the beach,
their first-ever boyfriends. None of that could happen now. This was supposed to be the best summer of Casey’s life.

And now it was ruined. All because her parents had to go and buy some stupid house.

With a sigh, Casey picked up her cell phone and dialed Jillian to give her the bad news.

Casey slouched far down in the front seat of the car. Her thumbs flew as she tapped out a message on her cell phone keypad.

911! kidnapped by evil parents. headed 4 nh. send help!

Jillian’s reply came back a moment later. can’t. lotfcnabchbcurg!

Huh?
Casey thought. Usually she could guess Jillian’s crazy text abbreviations, but this one was beyond her. ??? she typed.

lying on the floor curled in a ball crying hysterically b/c u r gone! Jillian wrote back.

Casey smiled and typed a quick reply. But when she pressed
SEND
the message wouldn’t go through.
Casey squinted at the screen and groaned. “I lost the signal.”

Her mother glanced over from the driver’s seat. “Honey, put that thing away,” she said unsympathetically. “You’re missing the beautiful scenery.”

Casey snapped her phone shut and stared gloomily out the window.
What beautiful scenery?
she thought. There was nothing but trees and more trees. It had been like that for miles.

They passed some cows grazing in a field. Casey eyed them apprehensively. She hoped there weren’t any animals where they were headed. Animals were unpredictable. Even the pigeons in New York freaked Casey out a little.

They had left New York late that morning, Casey and her mother driving in their little sedan, while Casey’s father followed behind in a rented van. Her parents said the house was furnished, but they’d still managed to fill an entire van with things they’d need for the summer: sheets and towels, pots and pans, the stereo and television, tools, toiletries, kitchen appliances, bikes, and at the last minute, a giant inflatable inner tube her father had picked up at the store.

During the first few hours of the trip, Casey recognized towns they’d visited on day trips out of the city. But after they turned off the interstate, the landscape became unfamiliar. The cities and rest stops had given way to green rolling hills and patches of dense forest. It had been several miles since they’d gone through a village. The last building Casey had seen was an abandoned gas station with the ominous sign
MILES FROM NOWHERE.

Casey’s mother drove with the windows rolled down and her hair whipping in the breeze. When a song she liked came on the radio, she turned up the volume and sang along. Finally, Casey put on her headphones and cranked up her favorite band, No Tomorrow. The gloomy music matched her mood perfectly.

Casey had listened to almost the whole album when they came to a T in the road. A sign pointing to the left read
STILLNESS: 1.5 MILES.
Casey’s mother turned right.

Casey pulled off her headphones. “The sign said Stillness is that way,” she said, pointing behind them.

“The house is just outside town,” her mother
replied. “Our turnoff should be somewhere around here.”

A moment later, she turned onto a narrow lane marked Drury Road.
More like
Dreary
Road,
Casey thought, eyeing the shadowy woods that spread out on either side of it.

After a short distance, the pavement ended, and they continued on dirt. Here and there, mailboxes sprouted along the side of the road like tall mushrooms. Casey could see the houses they belonged to hidden back among the trees. She glanced at the side mirror. The van had fallen out of sight.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” she asked her mom.

Mrs. Slater glanced down at the hand-drawn map in her lap. “Pretty sure,” she replied, sounding not very sure at all.

When they came to a yellow sign that read
DEAD END,
Casey was certain they would turn around. To her surprise, her mother sped up.

“This is it!” Mrs. Slater declared confidently.

They followed the lane around a curve and came out of the trees, into a wide patch of overgrown
lawn. “We’re here!” Casey’s mother sang, cutting the engine. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to stretch my legs.”

Casey barely heard her. She was staring at the house that stood before them.

When her parents had mentioned a summer home, Casey had pictured a cozy cottage tucked away among flowering rosebushes. This house was nothing like that. It was tall and narrow and set out in the open. Rows of blank windows stared out beneath a steeply sloping roof. The wood was silver with age, and the front porch railing had two broken slats, like missing teeth. A forest of tall trees pressed up close behind the property.

The house reminded Casey of old bones laid out in the grass to dry. Looking at it, a feeling of desolation swept over her. “I don’t want to go in there,” she said automatically.

“Casey, don’t be silly.” Her mother glanced up at the house. “I admit it needs a little work. But that’s the beauty of it. We can make it exactly what we want it to be.”

She opened the car door and started up to the house, her feet crunching on the gravel drive.
“Aren’t you coming?” she called back when Casey didn’t move.

Reluctantly, Casey got out of the car and followed her mother up to the porch.

“Just look at that gorgeous period detail!” Mrs. Slater exclaimed, pointing to an oval of glass set into the heavy oak front door. With a jingle of keys, she unlocked the door, and the two of them stepped inside.

It was a hot day, and the air in the house was warm and stale. As her mother bustled about, opening windows, Casey looked around. To the left of the entranceway was a large room with a brick fireplace. Most of the furniture had been covered with white sheets, like hunched and bulky Halloween ghosts. An old-fashioned wooden radio as big as a television set sat in the corner of the room. Casey walked over and twisted the knobs, but it seemed to be broken.

“The furniture is a little outdated,” said her mother, briskly whipping back a sheet to reveal an ugly green couch. “But it will do until we find something better.”

She led Casey through the next rooms, pointing out the changes she wanted to make. “We’ll paint the walls, and refinish the floors…. I think we can fit a half bath in that corner….”

Casey nodded, only half listening. The rooms were much bigger than any in their apartment. Yet, strangely, they felt close and suffocating.

“And here,” said Casey’s mother, stopping in the next doorway, “is the kitchen. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Casey’s eyes swept over the room. She didn’t see what was so great about it. There was a freestanding porcelain sink, a rough wooden table, and an ancient-looking gas stove.

“Are you supposed to cook on that thing or drive it?” Casey asked, eyeing the stove. It had almost as many doors as burners.

“It’s a Wedgewood, Casey. An
antique,”
her mother replied. “You wouldn’t believe how much those things are worth.” She looked around and sighed with satisfaction. “The real estate agent said we were lucky to find something so pristine. It’s a perfect example of simple country chic.”

Casey rolled her eyes. She could tell her mother
was quoting from one of her interior design magazines. Over the last few weeks she’d bought stacks of them. They had littered every room in their apartment, and suddenly, Mrs. Slater was full of ideas about “color palettes” and “interior solutions.”

Casey’s dad was the same. It seemed like every time she turned around he was nose-deep in a copy of
Do-It-Yourself Doorknobs
or
Learn to Hammer Like a Pro
or some other boring book. It was like both her parents had caught some disease, Casey thought. Some virus that turned them from normal people into home makeover lunatics.

Casey went over to the sink and tried the faucet. It coughed, but no water came out.

“You bought a house without
water?
We’re going to die of thirst here!” Casey said, only half joking.

“No one is going to die of thirst, Casey. It’s probably just some glitch with the pump.” Her mother sighed. “I wish you’d stop sulking and be a little open-minded. I think we’re going to have a wonderful summer here.”

Fat chance,
Casey thought. She figured if she kept sulking long enough, her parents just might take her back to the city.

From outside came the honk of a car horn. Casey and her mother went out to the porch as the van came roaring up in a cloud of dust.

Casey’s dad hopped out of the front seat. “Okay, let’s start unloading,” he said as he swung open the doors to the back. “We’ve got a lot to get done today.”

“Joe, relax,” Casey’s mom said with a laugh. “We just got here. I haven’t even finished showing Casey around.”

“There’s plenty of time for that later. I don’t want to have to pay for an extra day on this van.” Casey’s father was adamantly against paying extra for anything. “Dez, you come help me. Casey, I want you to start unloading the car.”

Dragging her feet, Casey walked over to their Honda and popped open the trunk. It was jammed full of suitcases and bags of things that hadn’t made it into the van. She selected the lightest thing she could find — a four-pack of toilet paper — and made a big show of carrying it to the house.

Her dad was wrestling a heavy-looking box. He paused long enough to snap, “Casey, quit messing around.”

Apparently, Dad lost his sense of humor somewhere on the drive from New York,
Casey thought with a sigh. She trudged back to the car, took out a duffel bag, and lugged it up the porch stairs.

Inside the door, she looked around, wondering where to put it. She was about to take it into the living room, when she heard something overhead. Casey stopped and listened. It sounded like something rolling across the floor.

“Mom?” Casey called, puzzled. She hadn’t seen her mother go into the house ahead of her.

“Out here!” Mrs. Slater stuck her head around the side of the moving truck. “What is it?”

“Er … nothing,” Casey called back.

She looked up toward the ceiling. It was silent now. Setting the duffel bag down against the wall, Casey headed for the stairs, which were off the kitchen.

The staircase was narrow and steep. As she climbed, the wooden steps groaned beneath her feet as if they weren’t used to being walked on.

Upstairs it was even hotter. A narrow hallway led from the back of the house to the front, where a tiny sealed window overlooked the front lawn. Casey felt
a sudden urge to rush down the stairs and back out into the fresh air. Instead, she pushed open the door to the first room.

It was a small bedroom, furnished simply with a single bed, a wooden chair, and a small dresser with a mirror on top. The walls were covered with fern-patterned paper. There was nothing in it that could have made the sound she’d heard.

Something she’d mistaken for a dust ball suddenly moved across the floor.
Ugh, a spider!
Casey thought with a shiver of disgust. Quickly, she backed out of the room.

The next door led to a simple bathroom with a claw-foot tub. There was nothing in there that could have made the noise either.

Finally, she came to the door of the front bedroom. Casey pushed it open and gasped.

There was someone in the room, a dark figure haloed in light. The thought that flashed through Casey’s mind was that she’d seen a dark angel.

As Casey scrambled backward, the figure did, too. Suddenly, she realized she was looking at her own reflection in a mirror above the dressing table.
Sunlight streaming in from the window behind her had given the impression of a halo.

She slowly stepped toward the mirror, and her foot brushed something and sent it skittering across the floor. She bent down to pick it up. It was a marble made of swirled green-and-white glass.

Casey turned the marble over in her hands. It felt solid and heavy. She was sure this was what she had heard rolling across the floor.

But where did it come from?
Casey wondered.

As she puzzled over this, Casey caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her wide mouth was turned down at the corners; her dark bangs fell over her furrowed brow. Casey’s big brown eyes stared back at her, startled and uncertain.

Casey tucked the marble into her pocket. As she turned to leave, something about the mirror caught her eye. She looked closer. The glass was covered in dust. Scratched into the dust, as if someone had traced a finger through it, were two words.

GET OUT

Casey’s heart began to thud. Somebody had been in the house!

From downstairs came a loud thud that made Casey jump.

She hurried to the top of the stairs. What she saw made her heart skip a beat. Her father was sprawled in the entranceway. A large box lay on its side next to him. “Dad!” she cried.

At that moment, Casey’s mother came hurrying through the front door. When she saw Casey’s father lying on the ground, she gasped. “Joe, what happened? Are you okay?”

Mr. Slater sat up and grimaced. He pointed at the duffel bag Casey had carried in. “Casey left a bag right in front of the door. I tripped over it and just about broke my neck.”

“I didn’t leave it in front of the door,” Casey said. She clearly remembered placing the bag against the wall, where it would be out of the way.

Her father scowled, obviously not believing her. “You need to start helping out here,” he growled. “We’ve got enough to do without you getting in the way.”

The tension Casey had felt since they had arrived at the house suddenly burst like a dam. Tears of frustration flooded her eyes. Why was she getting
blamed, when it was clear that her dad was the one who’d been clumsy? “Help out here? I don’t even want to
be
here!” she exclaimed.

Her dad’s face darkened. “Casey —”

Casey’s mother put a hand on his arm and gave him a let-me-handle-this look. “Honey, I’m going to drive into town and get something for dinner,” she said, turning to Casey. “Why don’t you come with me while Dad finishes unloading the van? You want to see what Stillness is like, don’t you?”

What I
want
is to go home,
Casey thought furiously. But where was home? Their apartment had already been sublet for the summer. This was Casey’s home — at least for the next three months.

“Okay.” With a resigned sigh, Casey went downstairs and followed her mother out to the car.