Page 6 of Some Kind of Haunted

He’s getting our luggage out of the trunk. I jump a foot at the sound of the trunk door slamming into the near silence of the night. Even though I know it’s coming, I jump again when the car beeps because Logan has locked it.

Without even an I thought so, he rolls my suitcase to me. Then he starts walking.

Into the shadows.

Into the dark.

Chapter Three

I hurry after him, afraid for his safety as much as my own. We can’t be doing this. We can’t be offering ourselves up to the night like this. Not here.

I don’t question why I think this, and so emphatically.

It’s no doubt because he is leading me into an alley. A dark alley in between high, tight buildings.

I stop at the mouth of the broken-bricked passageway. I can’t go any farther. What’s worse—the clock tower, the face in the window, or the stereotypical dark alley where nothing good ever befalls a woman, short skirt or otherwise? Panic is closing my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

But Logan grips my elbow and tows me along with him.

And with him is better than being eaten alive by my own fear, so I let him, even though the alleyway is dark and potent with danger. I’d rather take my chances touring about some of the less savory neighborhoods in the Bronx than do this, but Logan is pulling me along with him whether I like it or not. I see the glint of something and tell myself it’s glass, not eyes. I kick something that rustles and tell myself it’s the discarded wrapper of whatever food people here eat, not something horrible, like skin.

I tell myself it’s charming, actually, this cozy alley hemming us in and seeming to constrict around us as we move—

Bullshit, myself replies.

Then we’re on the other side, and I can breathe again. Though it’s dark here, too, I have the sense of more space than the claustrophobic shadow press of bricks and bad vibes we just emerged from.

I yank my arm away from Logan and lean heavily on the handle of my roller bag, vaguely contemplating using it as a weapon. Possibly against my twin. But before I can wield it against him, I realize that I can’t see the clock tower. The knitting shop and whatever is above it sits at the perfect angle to hide it from view.

I try not to let the rush of relief take me out at the knees, then try to focus on the house set back from the shop, across a grassy yard. The darkness in this town is thick and heavy, but there’s a big pole with a security light somewhere behind the house that gives an idea of its shape and size. And confirms that it is, in fact, a house.

But it’s tiny. So tiny I’m not sure how it’s even standing on its own.

In the dark, the yard feels like an overgrown threat. Maybe when someone lived here it was neatly manicured, but not now. I assume it’s all grass, though in the dim light it’s impossible to tell what might lurk where it grows higher.

Logan marches confidently forward to the door. He doesn’t seem to notice the little pair of glowing eyes in the grass, and this time it’s definitely eyes, not glass. My throat closes up. I’m frozen in place, watching those eyes glow, then blink, then—

I must make some kind of noise, because Logan peers back at me. He sighs heavily, as if he has borne my particular brand of paranoia all his life.

Because he has.

“It’s some kitschy garden gnome, Lex. Just looks scary because the security light is hitting it at an odd angle,” he tells me, again with that gentleness that has me hurrying to follow him up one crumbling concrete step, then another, to the small, dark porch, even though I don’t want to go into this house, or be here at all.

He puts the key into the lock and twists the knob. “Home sweet home,” he says, in what I hope is a sardonic manner.

He steps inside first, flips a switch he finds with no trouble all, and a weak light falls out from within to illuminate the yard. It also makes the darkness outside seem to choke me, so I follow him inside. Reluctantly, but quickly, I step over what looks like the watermark of a welcome mat where no mat now sits.

I’m not sure what I expect inside, but at least when I close the front door behind me I don’t feel that crawling darkness all over my skin, so that’s predisposing me to like the place.

We’re in a living room with old, worn furniture and notably colorful rugs that I immediately recognize as homemade rag rugs—something I tried my hand at during a regretful period of my textile studies. But these are surprisingly interesting, the craftsmanship impeccable.

I don’t know that everything screams grandmother, but it’s definitely a little . . . old. It smells like some kind of citrusy cleaning solution even though there’s a faint layer of dust over everything. I get the impression it was immaculately clean when someone lived here. This is time stamping itself on her belongings, not neglect.

I’m about to move to see what else the house has to offer, but I stop short right here in this cozy, if a bit cluttered, living room. Because on the mantelpiece are a clutch of photographs in a variety of mismatched frames. And the people in the pictures, for the most part, are familiar.

They’re us. Logan and me across the years, school pictures and candids and some shots I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

We might not have known about our grandmother, but she knew about us. And our father has clearly been more in touch with her over the years than he’s let on. How else would she have these?