The Spite House(26)

Her mom used to read to her and liked to tell her that books were full of “secrets and wonders.” Having a whole library inside your house was something Mom would have really liked, she thought. She wondered if Mom would get to come live with them again now that they were going to have a real place to stay. Dad announced they would move into the skinny house during the dinner Miss Houghton and Miss Lafonda cooked for them. That made Stacy happy, but she’d be happier if Mom were going to join them. She still didn’t understand why Mom wasn’t with them, and whenever she brought it up, Dess and Dad just said, “She just can’t be around us now, but maybe later.”

If Dess was awake now, though, Stacy wouldn’t ask her about Mom again. She didn’t want to ask her questions about the library anymore, either. Now she just wanted to know if her sister could also hear people talking even though they weren’t really there.

Miss Lafonda told her that the two ladies had the giant house all to themselves, which made it a lot different from the other places they had been staying in. In the motels, Stacy had often heard people talking, laughing, crying, or sometimes shouting through the walls, and even heard voices that sounded like they could be in the same room as her. Sometimes they sounded like real, normal people, but other times they were echoey and whispery.

This was different. She heard a group of people talking here, and she couldn’t pick out exactly what they were saying since they were talking over each other, talking fast like they were excited. One moment they seemed to be upstairs on the third floor, and then a little later like they were down on the first, and sometimes it sounded like they were going from room to room, a little bit lost. But even though she couldn’t pick out their words, she could hear the echo and the weird softness that still felt ugly in her.

From a couple of the books about haunted places and scary legends she liked to read—the ones Mom stopped letting her check out from the library because they gave Stacy strange dreams, and inspired drawings that made Mom look worried—Stacy was sure that she heard ghosts. That was what ghosts sounded like according to the books, far away and whispery, but still harsh. Listening to the voices didn’t bother her that much as long as they didn’t come close, and even then, she knew she had Dess and Dad to protect her. What bugged her was not really knowing what any of it was. Mom would have told her it was just her imagination, and Dad would have said it was “Just the wind,” or “Just air flowing.” They had to be wrong, but they were older and had done things that she hadn’t yet, so maybe they knew better.

She tried to wake Dess up one more time, yawning as she did, and when it didn’t work, she knew it was time to stop thinking about those strange voices, who they might belong to and what they were talking about, or anything else that would keep her up. It had been an amazing day—they had met new, nice people and she was spending the night in a castle like a princess—and tomorrow they would go to the new house. The skinny house. Dad said she would even have her own room there. The sooner she went to sleep, the sooner tomorrow would come, and she wanted that more than she wanted to stay awake listening.

She shut her eyes, thought of how she didn’t want to open them again until it was the morning, and was asleep within a minute.





CHAPTER 10



Eric



The movers brought furniture to the third-floor bedrooms after yesterday’s walk-through. They placed an armoire in Dess’s room, and a small purple wardrobe in the corner of Stacy’s room, beside the twin bed that was made up with white and pink covers and pillows, as well as two white stuffed bears wearing pink bow ties.

Stacy’s face lit up when she entered her room. “This is mine?”

“All yours,” Eric said.

“I have my own room again!”

Eric pictured Stacy’s empty room back in Maryland. The memory pushed a knot into his throat, and he had to clear it before saying, “Your very own room. Just like before we moved.”

Stacy squealed as she ran to her bed—a short sprint in such a small space—and jumped onto it.

Two of the movers hung back near the stairs, along with Dana. One of the men rocked side to side like an inverted pendulum and hummed softly. The other, arms crossed over his chest, shuffled forward then backward and looked around the room like he couldn’t remember where he had left something. Next to them, Dana looked like a statue. “Thanks again,” Eric said.

They just smiled at him but looked to Dana for apparent confirmation that they were done. She nodded at them and they left in a noticeable hurry.

Eric glanced back to see Stacy holding Miss Happy in one hand and pulling Dess along with her other hand, giving her big sister a tour of her tiny room. Dess glanced at her father, a question reflecting curiosity more than concern on her face. She must have also noticed how fidgety the movers were, how they had rushed out of the house.

Eric said to Dana, “Can we go over one last thing, if you don’t mind?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

Dess read her cue and told Stacy she wanted to show her the bigger room and led her there, where she couldn’t eavesdrop. Eric stepped into the stairwell with Dana and partially closed the door to Stacy’s room, leaving it ajar in case the girls called for him.

“Those guys are true believers, huh?” he said.

Dana laughed. “There’s a reason we have to bring people in from out of town to stay here.”