The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (11 page)

At the center of the photo, in the center of my room, surrounded by board games and stuffed animals, is the very clear, very distinct, utterly undeniable shadow of a little girl.

Before I can stop him Nolan is sprinting up the stairs.

“What are you doing?” I shout as I run after him.

“I want to get a better look!” he shouts back. He throws the door to my room open and practically leaps up onto my desk
chair. “This is where you were standing when you took the photo, right?”

I nod. “I thought I'd be able to capture the entire room from there.”

“You weren't wrong,” Nolan says appraisingly, holding the photo out in front of him.

I shake my head. “Apparently not.”

“She was right there.” He points to the center of the room.

“You're not going to forget about this in the morning, are you?”

“I'm
never
going to forget about this,” Nolan replies solemnly, stepping down from my chair. He looks around the room, blinking. “Geez. That's a lot of pink.”

“Really?” I say breathlessly, feigning surprise. “I hadn't noticed.” I pretend to look around like I'm seeing it for the first time. But when my gaze falls on my bed, I freeze, no longer worried what Nolan thinks of the pink or Dr. Hoo or my unicorn collection. Instead, I hold up my hand and point at the checkerboard.

Someone has made the next move.

CHAPTER TEN

Kat's Eyes

It's dark by the time Mom gets home,
and it's starting to—what else is new?—rain. The combination of the rain and the lower autumn temperatures creates a damp kind of cold I've never felt before, so that even when the thermometer says it's in the fifties, I shiver as though it's below freezing out. At least I'm getting more use out of all my oversized grandpa sweaters; I've been collecting them from thrift shops for years, even though Ashley correctly pointed out that I hardly needed them in Austin. I guess part of me knew I'd have a use for them eventually.

Nolan has long since left to get started on his homework. He asked whether he could take the photos with him, but I shook my head. I needed them, I insisted. I wasn't about to postpone the chance to show Mom my evidence. I lay the pictures out on the kitchen table and waited.

When Mom finally walks in I have to scramble to keep Lex from running out the front door.

“That's strange,” Mom says, and I brighten. Maybe this won't actually be that hard. Maybe she's already begun to accept that strange things are going on here.

“I know,” I agree enthusiastically. “Lex is an indoor cat. Plus, it's raining, and cats hate the rain. Wonder why he'd want to run away.”

Mom's face is wet with rainwater, and the files of papers she always carries with her are completely soaked.

“Did your umbrella break or something?” I ask, and Mom looks surprised by the question. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her umbrella, dry and folded up neatly.

“I guess I forgot I had it,” she says absently.

“How could you forget in weather like this?” I ask, but Mom doesn't answer. Instead, she shrugs off her raincoat, letting it fall on the floor. Her straight hair is twisted into a damp ponytail, and her pastel-colored scrubs are wet up to her knees. She kicks off her chunky black clogs, and they land with a thud on top of her raincoat as she makes her way into the kitchen.

I shake my head. She usually rags on
me
for leaving a trail of clothes between the front door and my room when I get home. Maybe it's just because it's so wet and she didn't want to hang it up, where it might . . . what? Dry?

I shake my head. It's the end of a long day, she's tired, and she's soaked, so dropping her coat on the floor is no big deal. Everyone gets lazy from time to time, even someone as neat and organized as Mom.

I turn on all the lights in the kitchen. I've laid the photos out on the table by the window, the one with the little girl's shadow smack in the center of the table, where she can't miss it.

“I have something to show you,” I begin.

Mom shakes her head. “Can it wait? I haven't even had anything to eat yet.”

I don't mention that I haven't had dinner either; I'd been waiting for her to get home. Instead, I say, “I'll make you something. Anything you want.” My voice comes out extra-eager. But it's not dinner I'm excited about.

“Right now I just want a hot bath and an even hotter cup of coffee.” Mom heads for the coffeemaker, her eyes half-closed.

“Coffee? At this hour?”

“Yes, Sunshine. At
this
hour. I still have work to do, and I've been exhausted all day.”

I sway backward as though I've just been shoved, away from her. I'm not sure she's ever talked to me so curtly. I remind myself that it's not her fault. She doesn't know why she was so tired all day, and I do—we were up half the night, terrified.

Mom fills her mug and heads for the table, the soaking wet papers dripping in her arms. She's about to set them down on the table—it's like she doesn't even see the photos lying there—and I shout, “No!”

Mom spins around. “What is it now?”

I shake my head, imagining my photos stained with a ring of coffee from the bottom of her mug, spattered with water from the edges of her files. They'd be useless then. She'd be able to blame the shadows on the damage.

“You could have ruined my photos,” I say, genuinely irritated. She might have destroyed them. I mean, okay, she doesn't know how important they are.

“What?” Mom says, blinking as though she's seeing them for the first time. “Oh, sorry, honey. I didn't see them.”

Okay, I know they're black and white, and I know that even
with all the lights on, this room is still pretty dim—which is pathetic, considering that it's the best-lit room in the house, with a fairly tacky chandelier hanging down above the table—but come on! I mean, there's a stack of photos there. How could she not see them?

“Mom, I know you're tired and I know you're busy, but I have something I really want to show you.” I walk over to her and take the papers from her, placing them gently on the counter behind us, where they can drip all they want without doing any harm.

“Look,” I say, pointing at the photos. “It'll only take a second.”

“You took some photos of the house. They're great, honey. And it's so nice to see you embracing our new home like this, finally.” She bends her head to sip from her coffee mug. Maybe it's just my imagination, but from here it looks like the coffee is too hot for drinking. I don't mean that it's still steaming; I mean it looks like it's bubbling, boiling.

I shake my head as Mom swallows the coffee smoothly. I must be imagining things.

“Look,” I try again, pointing to the photo in the center. The one where the shadow is most distinct. “Look at
that
.”

Mom lifts the photo off the table and holds it up in front of her face. She narrows her eyes.

“Sunshine, your room is a mess,” she says finally.

“What?”

“Why are your games and toys scattered everywhere like that? I hope you put everything away.”

I shake my head. “Don't look at the toys. Look closer, at the center of the room.” I resist the urge to grab the photo and hold it up in front of her. Nolan didn't need me to tell him to
look closer. He thought the shadow was every bit as obvious as I did.

“What is it you want me to look at?” Mom asks, sighing impatiently. She lowers the photo out of her eye line.

I pause before answering. Maybe I should wait until tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow Mom will have had a good night's sleep and maybe the sun will be shining so that the light will be better in here and Mom will be able to see.

A clap of thunder sounds in the distance, like maybe the universe is laughing at me for thinking that it might be sunny in the morning.

“Don't you see it?” I ask, surprised at how small my voice sounds. I sound about half my age. “Don't you see the shadow in the center of the room?”

Mom shakes her head. “I don't see anything.”

I swallow a gasp, wringing my hands like an old lady who's worried about the weather. I mean, it was one thing all those nights when I heard footsteps and laughter and Mom said it was just the wind, just branches from the Douglas firs hitting the side of the house—that was Mom just being her skeptical self. But this isn't just a little cynicism. It was scary enough when she didn't
remember
what happened this morning, but right now she literally doesn't
see
the same image that Nolan and I saw in the photograph that's right in front of her.

I look up at the ceiling, wondering what the ghost is doing up on our second floor, what kinds of tricks she's played on my mother's brain to blind her like this.

“Mom—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“Please tell me this isn't more ghost nonsense.”

“It's not nonsense,” I say, still in that small voice.

“It
is
nonsense, Sunshine, and I really wish you'd cut it out.” Unlike mine, Mom's voice is anything but small. “I know you're not crazy about Ridgemont, but I am getting sick and tired of your complaining.”

“It has nothing to do with whether I like Ridgemont or not,” I say, and now my voice sounds even more like a little kid's, and in the worst possible way. I take a deep breath and try to control it. I need to sound calm, to make a compelling argument, using scientific evidence—the photos—the kind of argument that Mom will understand. “I just wanted to show you—”

“Show me what?” Mom says almost shouting and she drops the photo. It flutters down to the floor and I pick it up frantically, scared she might step on it or something, relieved that at least she didn't rip it in half before she let it go.

“Sunshine,” Mom says before I can answer. She's not exactly yelling, but she still sounds angry. She puts her mug down on the counter with such a loud bang I'm surprised it doesn't break into a thousand pieces. “I've had just about enough of this. Go to your room.”

“Go to my room?” I echo. She's literally never, not once, sent me to my room. “
Seriously?
”

“I need some peace and quiet, and it's quite clear I'm not going to get any with you around. Go to your room,” she repeats.

“Fine,” I answer. I gather up the photos—who knows what condition they'd be in in the morning if I left them down here with her—and stomp upstairs. I even slam my door behind me.

Alone in my room, I shuffle through the photos, looking at them one after the other. The shadow is still there, clear as daylight, and Mom couldn't see it. And she yelled at me—she's never yelled at me. Anytime we disagreed it always ended in a
discussion. And I mean, don't get me wrong, those conversations could get heated, but it never ended with me being sent to my room like a naughty child in a Victorian novel, banished to her room without any supper. This isn't like her. This isn't like
us.

I put the photos on my desk and turn to face my bed. The checkers game is waiting for me, so I make my next move, sliding a second checker forward, then climb into bed, careful not to disturb the game.

I turn off the lights. Lightning flashes outside again, and this time the thunder follows almost immediately; the storm is practically directly on top of us. In the flash of light I see that the ghost has already made another move: it's my turn again. I press another checker across the board and wait for another flash of lightning. The mildew smell in here is stronger than ever; maybe the rain brings it out.

Or maybe the ghost has something to do with it, I think, remembering the wet bathroom: the soaked tiles and the damp towels, the water dripping from every surface.

A few flashes of lightning go by, but the ghost doesn't make her next move. “Your turn,” I say out loud, but another flash of lightning reveals that the checkers haven't moved since my last turn. The mildew smell fades, just a little. Carefully I lower the checkerboard to the floor so I won't disturb it in my sleep. I guess she's done playing.

For now.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Home Alone

Mom is called back to the hospital
for an emergency in the middle of the night. She wakes me up to let me know she's leaving, and I consider begging her to stay, but I kind of think it won't do any good. After all, she doesn't think there's anything worth staying for. And it must be a real emergency, if she's being called back to work at this hour.

“I hope everything will be okay,” I call out to her before she leaves. She smiles at me; I guess that means our fight is over, at least for now. I have to concentrate to hear the sound of her car backing out of the driveway and turning on to the street over the thunder, wind, and rain. The thunder and lightning are simultaneous now; the storm has settled on top of us with such force that it feels like it will never stop.