The Vanishing Game (10 page)

The first of these three had been Angry Beth, the oldest girl in the foster home. I couldn't even guess how many times I'd tried to talk to her, ending up having one-sided conversations I was never sure she even listened to. She was like a simmering tea kettle on the verge of shrieking, and she desperately wanted to hurt someone. We were all relieved when she finally decided to start hurting herself instead of us.

Corner Boy, the one I'd feared the most, had been forgotten until yesterday. Thinking about it now, I admitted there were lots of reasons to try and forget him. And the child I'd been most afraid for had been seven-year-old Dixon, a beautiful but damaged little boy who followed me around like a lost puppy. One of these three, I knew, was dead. The other two had vanished from my life on the wretched, snowy evening when I ran away.

Noah and I climbed the steps and crossed to the front door, which was still ajar after last night's chase. He went inside and I followed. My eyes and ears searched for any sign of the cockroach kids. Walking past the ashes of their dead fire, Noah paused to glance at it. By the time we reached the cellar door my mouth was dry.

“It sure smells in here,” he said, meaning the smoke.

“I know. Want me to carry the screwdriver for you, since you've got that big flashlight?”

“No. You'll end up holding it like a weapon. I don't want you to panic and stab me in the butt.”

I scowled at his back and made a rude comment, but secretly I knew he had a point after what happened the last time I was walking behind him with a sharp tool.

“You said it's down here, right?”

“Yes.”

He opened the door and turned on the flashlight, which did a much better job of lighting the steps than my little LED had.

“Noah,” I whispered, creeping down the stairs after him, “it might be a little late to bring this up, but there's something down here. It bit me on the arm.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“I mean it. I'm not making this up!”

By now we had reached the bottom steps. “Since you're being such a wimp, Jocey, let's look around first.”

“No, that's okay …”

Ignoring me, Noah walked through the cellar and shone his flashlight beam across every inch. He even unveiled the fake Christmas tree with its few remaining ornaments and a broken candy cane. Next he headed to the loamy graveyard, where Dixon had been sure the corpses of bad kids were buried. A minute later he returned with a bored expression.

“There's nothing dangerous down here, unless you count the poisonous mushrooms growing in the dirt back there.”

“Okay.” I tried to look self-assured but wished I'd never
told him about the now-absent cellar beast. I turned to Jack's hiding place below the stairs. “Under here.”

I climbed beneath the steps and asked for the screwdriver. This time he handed it to me. I pointed at the boxed-in bottom step, and Noah shone the light on it. This revealed something my little LED hadn't: fresh hammer marks. Although the piece of wood that made up the facing had many old marks on it from when Jack had opened and closed it years ago, there were also fresh scrapes. Noah didn't seem to notice, but it gave me a little bit of hope as I used the screwdriver to pry it open.

Finally the board came off, and he aimed the light inside so I could see. “Look, Noah!” I reached in and pulled out Jack's beat-up metal lockbox. “I told you!”

“Uh-huh.”

I suddenly became aware of how close he was crouched behind me in the tight space under the stairs, and I felt even more flustered. Why, I asked myself, was I getting nervous just because he was kneeling so near, even if his breath did stir the strands of hair resting against my cheek? At least he wasn't the cellar monster.

“So you found an old container. That doesn't prove anything.”

He backed away and we both came out, studying the locked box. We were about to head up the steps when a noise stopped us. From somewhere overhead came a crazed howl that lasted for several seconds, followed by the sound of someone walking around.

A hiss of irritation threaded its way through me. “Not again!”

“What do you mean?”

“Turn off the light!”

He did and we were plunged into darkness, but that didn't stop Noah. He grabbed my arm and whispered, “Come on. Let's go see what's going on.”

I thought about Georgie and his creepy friends. Georgie was dead, but I figured the others were still plenty dangerous. “I don't think we should.”

We were halfway up the stairs when we heard the door ahead of us slam and a lock turn, accompanied by a long sob. We were trapped in the cellar. Fear rose in me, worse than acid, and I wanted to scream but my throat closed up. Little croaking sounds emerged that would've been humiliating if I hadn't been too terrified to care.

Breaking away from Noah's grasp, I surged past him and up the stairs, fumbling for the knob. I started to pound on the door but the sudden light from Noah's flashlight stopped me. He turned me around to face him, and in the illumination of the beam his features looked elongated, reminding me of his vampire phase.

“Stop panicking.”

“We're trapped down here! They locked the door!”

“I know. Slow your breathing or you're going to hyperventilate.”

He reached down and took the screwdriver. “Hold the flashlight.”

I took it from him and did my best to keep it steady,
embarrassed by the tremors that shook my hands. As he worked I strained my ears for any sound, but whoever had wailed and locked the door was silent now. I just hoped they weren't waiting on the other side with more evil plans.

Noah finished taking the knob apart in record time. I was impressed. “Why didn't you ever teach me that?”

“I didn't figure it out until after you left.”

He opened the door, shining his light into the next room. No one was there. We didn't hear any voices, but there was the sound of a door closing and we both looked into the kitchen.

“Stay here,” he said.

“Oh, come on!”

Noah handed me the screwdriver. “Be my backup in case they come this way. Feel free to stab them in the butt.”

His fearlessness irritated me as I stood in the dining room, watching him walk off and wondering why he'd never been afraid. All of the Seale House kids had lived with varying degrees of fear, from Corner Boy's fake bravery to the quivering terror of little Dixon who came and sat on my lap at the first sign of trouble. Every one of us had been sinking in emotional quicksand, and every one of us had looked to Noah for safety.

Hazel Frey ran Seale House like a military commander. Charts ruled every task. They listed all of our rotating chores, homework shifts, what we ate for meals, and even when and how long we showered. Heaven help the kid who misread the chart or messed up. And though the social
workers praised her for such organization, I'm sure they didn't know how fast and cruel her punishments could be. To Hazel, foster parenting was an income and nothing more. I don't believe she had even a drop of kindness in her brittle soul. She put on a good show for the social workers though, since they never seemed to figure out the real reason we worked so hard at weeding the flower beds or shoveling the snow.

My mind drifted along that path as I waited in the gloom of the unlit room. Where was Noah? My eyes started to react to the strain and I closed them for a moment.

“You're a liar,” Corner Boy whispered in my ear, startling me awake. “No one believes you.”

It was a humid summer night and some of us older girls had been allowed to sleep on the covered porch at the back of the house. I'd been in such a deep sleep that it was like swimming up from the bottom of a murky pool. His breath in my face stunk. I knew he never brushed his teeth, only pretending to do it when Hazel checked the boys during their nightly ritual
.

“Get away from me.” My voice was thick with sleep
.

A sliver of moon peeked just beneath the eaves. Its rays covered the other sleeping forms in watery light but didn't dispel the shadows on Conner's face. No breeze stirred the air, and except for distant crickets the night was still
.

“You shoulda told her the truth!”

I felt confused, still hardly awake. I'd told Hazel the truth, just not the “altered truth” Conner had tried to blackmail me into saying
.

“Your boyfriend is still sleeping upstairs. So is your brother. Who's gonna stand up for you now, ugly?”

He lunged at me with his hands, his long, dirty nails digging into my face
.

My eyes flew open, my cheek stinging. Where was I? I found myself in another part of the house—not where I'd closed my eyes. A dizzying nausea welled in me; I struggled to squelch it. How had I ended up in this room? I'd been downstairs waiting for Noah to return, and my eyes seemed to close for only a second. What was happening?

Had Corner Boy's hostile ghost somehow managed to transport me, or had I fallen into a strange fit and traveled up here like a sleepwalker? Panic surged through me, and I turned around. The door was open. I stumbled toward it. At the threshold I stopped, grabbing the doorjamb to steady myself. My face felt hot with fear, and my heart was galloping away like a horse in a death race. Still, a stubborn determination took control of me. At that moment I hated Seale House as much as I feared it, and I also loathed the feeling of dread that had been my frequent companion all those years ago.

“You're not going to win!” I whispered.

If Seale House had transported me here to the second floor, then I was going to face whatever it had to dish out—bite marks and all. Forcing myself to turn back around, I studied my surroundings. At first it seemed to be an
unfamiliar room with nothing more than faded wallpaper and water-damaged furniture. These windows let in more light than the downstairs ones, but the film of soot on the glass filtered the morning rays and turned them gray. A small circular table with a warped top sat near the center of the room. Flowered chintz curtains drooped from their rods, matching the soggy overstuffed chair in the corner. Some parts of the walls were charred, and the room reeked of smoke. Turning in a slow circle, it was suddenly clear where I was. I sucked in a startled gasp. This was Hazel Frey's private room, the last place on earth I wanted to be. It was nearly as frightening as the cellar.

I thought I smelled the sweeter reek of marijuana and wondered if Hazel had been the one to start the fire by falling asleep with her toke. Why had Seale House brought me to this room that had been a forbidden place during my childhood? Then, before I could even come up with a theory, there was a creak behind me. Spinning around I saw someone standing in the hall, just outside the doorway. It was a girl with bleached yellow-white hair and eyes so darkly shadowed and lined that for a second it seemed they were empty sockets.

“This is getting old,” I said.

Her heavy eyeliner was smudged and tears had left stain marks on her cheeks, the makeup of a sad clown. I tried to guess her age and figured if she'd been friends with Georgie she might be fourteen. She looked younger, though.

“Why'd you come back?” she asked.

“For some answers.”

The girl nodded as if we were on the same page. “Who killed Georgie?”

“How would I know? Someone just showed up and started shooting.”

“I think it's your fault.”

“Everything usually is.”

“What's in the box?”

I looked down. My hands were clenching Jack's dusty metal box. I'd forgotten I was still holding it. “I don't really know, but you can't have it.”

She pulled a long chain from her pocket as she stepped through the doorway and began swinging it back and forth. Soon it was whizzing through the air in a blur, making a deadly figure eight. Staring at me, she came nearer. I, of course, backed up.

“Your face is bleeding,” she pointed out.