The Ghost of Graylock (24 page)

B
UT THEN HE STOOD THERE
. There wasn’t enough light to see Andy’s face, but his crooked posture showed confusion. “I saw you come in here, Bree,” he said.

That wasn’t us
, Neil thought.
You were chasing your dead stepdaughter.

After several seconds, Andy snorted. He entered the room, his boots heavy on the wood floor. “Ain’t too many places to hide in here. You two might as well come out.” He took another step. The building creaked.

Neil held his breath as Bree dug her fingers into his arm. If they stood now, would they have time to work the window open and smash apart the rest of the wood frame?

Andy’s eyes would soon adjust, and then he’d see them. Crouched in the corner, Neil and Bree were sitting ducks.

Hoping his sister would follow his lead, Neil leaned forward, gathering the strength to stand, to reveal himself. But then, a tiny silver light flickered in the center of the room, and Neil’s brain felt as if it turned off. He watched in awe as the light expanded, filling the darkness with a dim glow, until a shape had formed. A whitish silhouette. A girl.

A voice filled the room, sounding at once both distant and close — an echo from a world next to our own.
“Daddy …,”
said Rebecca.
“Why?”
She lifted her arms toward Andy as if calling him into her embrace.

And then she was gone.

Andy stood frozen halfway across the room. In the dim light that spilled into the room outside, Neil could make out the old man’s gaping mouth. “Becks?” he said, his voice high and quavering. “Is that you?” He glanced all around the room, as if she might still be near, listening. “H-how?” he added, as his eyes fell on the mantelpiece. And then to the floor beside it. His expression changed quickly from awe to surprise … to anger. He shuddered, shivering off the memory of his stepdaughter as if it were no more than a large cobweb he’d accidentally walked through.
“You.”
He was looking right at them now.

Neil stood slowly. “Leave us alone!” he shouted.

Andy came closer. The hook swung at his side. “How did you do that?” he said. “How did you make her voice?”

“We didn’t do anything to you,” said Bree, coming up beside her brother. “And neither did Rebecca.”

Andy glowered, his brow growing even darker. “You don’t know anything about her. About us.”

“We know plenty. More than most people in this town,” said Neil.

“Too bad for you.” Andy raised his hand, clutching the fireplace poker like a baseball bat. Then he dashed toward them, his boots shaking the floor dangerously.

Neil turned toward the window. “Bree! Go.” He watched as she lifted her foot to kick out what was left of the broken window frame. Just as the wood shattered, something caught his shirt collar. Andy’s hook! He felt a ripping pain light his neck ablaze.

The world tipped upside down.

Bree screamed, a siren sound of panic.

Neil landed on his back and briefly glimpsed the ceiling high above him. An immense pressure squeezed at his back, and when he tried to catch air into his lungs, nothing came. He couldn’t breathe. Wide-eyed, he struggled to roll over and dislodge the hook from his collar.

Andy lay sprawled out behind him, his leg stuck into the floor. Dazed but determined, Andy reached out for the poker, capturing the handle once more in his fist. He pushed himself away from the floor — a sad but satisfied look in his eyes.

“Neil!” Bree cried. “Get up!”

Neil managed to inhale a minuscule amount of breath. He tried to move, but he felt as though all strength had left his body.

Andy was kneeling now, pulling his leg from the ragged gap. He raised the poker.

Neil closed his eyes. His mind went blank for an instant before filling with noise — his own voice crying,
“No, no, no, no, no!”

A great cracking sound interrupted his plea. The entire building seemed to shake. The floor tilted. Neil slid forward toward Andy, who’d lost his balance, wobbling sideways.

Neil reached out, searching for something to hold as the floor disintegrated beneath him.

“N
EIL
!” B
REE SCREAMED
.

Dangling on the edge of a new precipice, Neil grasped a piece of solid planking. He glanced up to find his sister perched safely on the edge of the broken windowsill. On his right, a few feet away, Andy clung to splintered remnants of the ballroom floor. The iron poker slipped out of his grasp and tumbled into the darkness below, landing after several seconds with a splash in the flooded basement.

It was a long drop.
Deadly
, Neil thought. Dust swirled all around, and as Neil found his breath, he began to choke.

“Stay where you are,” said Bree. “I’m coming to get you.”

“D-don’t move,” Neil managed to say. “You’ll fall too.”

Andy clambered forward, struggling to pull himself from the cavity. But the floor shuddered again and he lost his grip.

“Okay,” said Bree. “Just … go slowly. Come toward me. Take my hand.”

Neil tried, but as he released his left hand, he felt himself slipping. “I can’t!” he said.

Bree glanced up. In shock, she stared over his shoulder toward the spot where Andy was struggling. Neil swiveled carefully and saw what had captured her attention. For a moment, he forgot where he was. He forgot everything.

Rebecca had returned. This time, she was no mere glimmer. She stood on the broken floor in front of her stepfather, dressed in her dirty hospital gown. Dirt caked her feet and ankles. Her dark hair hung like lake weed, draping her shoulders. Her face looked as it had in her final yearbook picture: empty, angry.

But she was no longer helpless. And she knew it. “Daddy …” Her voice was here now. It filled the room.

Andy froze. “Honey,” he responded, as if she were as alive as an apple tree in autumn. “Please. Help me.” He reached out for her, but she looked away.

Rebecca saw Neil. She saw Bree. She stared, but she did not acknowledge them. Neil’s hope that she might help him was dashed when she turned back toward her stepfather and raised one foot over his head. Neil didn’t have time to scream before she brought her heel down hard on the floor.

The wood collapsed with an ear-splitting blast. Andy screeched and slipped away into the shadows.

Neil’s head rang and he struggled to maintain his grip as his fingers slid from the wet board.

At the windowsill, Bree reached for him, her eyes filled with panic. “Hurry!” she said. Neil reached out for her, but the planking he clung to gave a final squeal and pulled away from the wall. As he fell, the last thing Neil heard was his sister’s horrified scream. Her face shrunk into nothingness, a pinpoint of terror before it disappeared altogether.

From below came a painful jolt.

Then a cold and serene darkness embraced him.

H
UDDLED ON THE WINDOWSILL
, Bree clutched at the frame as the floor disappeared, taking her brother with it. She screamed so loud, her eyes teared up. The building shook with a terrible violence, as if it were releasing years of unspent rage at having been left alone out here in these woods. Bree briefly imagined the walls crumbling, the ceiling tumbling, the possibility of her own body crushed in the coming rubble.

She didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered right now was saving Neil.

Bree turned away from the cloud of dust that had risen from the destruction and swung her legs over the jagged windowsill. Looking down, she knew the grass below was dangerously far away, but she didn’t hesitate. As she slid forward, an excruciating pain bloomed as the window’s broken glass cut through her jeans.

Then she was falling. The earth rose up quickly to meet her; she managed to roll into it. The soft ground broke her fall.

Ignoring the pain and the damp sensation in her hamstrings, she stood and kicked out a window adjacent to the one that had been boarded up. Neil was in there somewhere. She called his name, but received no answer. Hesitating only briefly, she leapt inside, splashing into the detritus, twisting her ankle by landing partially on a long wood plank.

The water shocked her. Her body buzzed with fear and hurt. When she tried to find the floor with her feet, she realized that she was nearly chest deep. She called Neil’s name again.

Pieces of the ceiling continued to rain down, some close enough to splatter her face with wet particles of plaster and splinters of wood. With no small effort, she pushed through chunks of debris that bobbed on the water’s surface.

As she searched, Bree imagined Andy’s cold hook clutching her ankle and pulling her under. She began to panic, her lungs tight, her vision slanted.

Then, miraculously it seemed, she came upon Neil’s body. Impossibly, he was sprawled out facedown on top of a table that was floating below one of the basketball hoops. His clothes were soaked, his hair a wet and matted mess. All thought left her but two words:
THANK GOD
.

She touched his face. It was surprisingly warm. Though he was unconscious, his breath greeted the palm of her hand like a small blessing. Glancing up, she noticed the jagged hole through which he’d fallen.

Deep inside a dark part of her mind, Bree knew that something had saved him — pulled him upon the table’s surface — but she wouldn’t allow herself to imagine who or what it had been. All she knew was that they needed to get out of there, before the rest of the building came tumbling down.

Holding on to the platform that held Neil’s body aloft, Bree maneuvered several fallen boards against the wall, making a ramp upon which she dragged her brother out of the flood. Halfway to the window, the wood groaned beneath their weight. Bree scrambled faster, remembering a science-class lesson about how adrenaline gave people strength they couldn’t usually access. Grasping his forearms, she managed to drag Neil up and over the threshold.

Outside, just as she inhaled a gasp of damp night air, she turned and saw something that took that breath away: an arm sticking out from underneath a heavy support beam. The rest of the body was facedown in the water.

Andrew Curtain was not moving. Bree shuddered as she realized with certainty that he’d never move again. For a moment, a wave of guilt crashed down upon her. This was not what she’d meant to happen. But then she looked down at Neil and the guilt gave way to anger.

She clutched her brother’s limp body and pulled him farther from the building, embracing him, trying to warm him up. Shivering, she rubbed at his arms, his chest, trying to awaken whatever spark of life he had left inside him. “Please, please,” she said to anyone who might be listening.

Seconds later, Neil opened his eyes and saw his sister’s face. They both burst into tears.

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, the revelations of Andy’s crimes whipped through Hedston and the surrounding area.

Some people believed that there had always been something strange about the man — an empty look in his eye, the fact that he continued to live alone so far out in the woods. Others refused to accept that he’d been capable of hurting anyone at all — to them, he was still Andy, good friend and kind neighbor.

At the pie shop, everyone had an opinion. As strange as their niece and nephew’s story was, the aunts were certain that they were telling the truth, or at least most of it. What was most important to them, of course, was that Neil and Bree — who’d been scratched up and severely bruised — recover at their home as quickly as possible.

The police opened an investigation, discovering blood evidence near the fireplace in the Curtains’ den, exactly where Neil and Bree had said it would be. The state was able to tie the DNA sample to Alice, corroborating their story.

When the local news covered the story, Neil and Bree were able to keep the promise they’d made to Mrs. Reilly — the one about revealing the truth of Nurse Janet’s legacy. Not long afterward, her son, Nicholas, called the pie shop to apologize for harassing them. Claire and Anna had no idea who he was or what he was talking about.

Even though the specter of Nurse Janet was finally laid to rest, there was a new tale for the children of Hedston to share in the dead of night: the Legend of Rebecca Smith, the Ghost of Graylock, who, with a little help from the living, had managed to avenge her own murder from beyond the grave.

Several months after returning to New Jersey, Neil was keeping in touch with Wesley, chatting online and on the phone every now and again. To Neil’s surprise, he’d overheard Bree talking with Eric a few times, mostly about music and new bands they thought each other might like.

His mother, Linda, continued to see her doctors. At home, Neil was happy to find her beginning to act like herself again — mostly, as Linda explained, because she realized that she was actually better off without Rick, who’d taken the hint and rented an apartment in Manhattan where he could keep trying to live out that dream of his. He even had a spare room for when his kids came to visit.

His family was changing. It wasn’t easy. It never would be. But Neil understood that it was for the best.

One night in late October, while Neil, Bree, and Linda were eating dinner together, the phone rang. Neil answered. A woman introduced herself and explained that she was a producer for a television program called
Ghostly Investigators
. Neil nearly dropped the receiver.

“Hello? Mr. Cady? Are you there?”

“I, uh, I’m here,” Neil stammered. His mother and sister watched from the kitchen table. “No one’s ever called me Mr. Cady before.”

“Okay, Neil. Well, Alexi and Mark heard about your experience up in Hedston. They want to do a show about Graylock Hall. Would you and your sister be interested in speaking to them?”