The Spite House(53)

They waited until she was by herself to talk to her this time. She didn’t even have Miss Happy with her. Even though Mom wasn’t there, Stacy knew that she’d call it “unsanitary” to bring her doll with her to the bathroom, so she left Miss Happy in bed with her sister.

Dess had said to wake her up if she needed to use the bathroom, but it was only around the corner from their bedroom. Miss Lafonda showed it to them the first night. And Stacy knew Dess was tired, she’d seen her yawning all day. So she slid out of bed and out of the large room they shared, found the bathroom on her own, and was on her way back when one of the invisible people said, We need your help.

More than she wished Dess, Mom, or Dad were with her when it happened, she wished Pa-Pa Fred were there. He knew how to be scarier than scary things. She remembered the last time he came to see them in Maryland. He walked her to the store, but when she wanted to cross the street to get away from the neighbor’s new, big, angry dog, he told her, “No.” The dog bared its teeth, growled, and barked as they walked past the black metal fence that kept it in its yard. It looked like it could slip its head between two of the vertical fence posts and get close enough to bite them, but Pa-Pa Fred told her it couldn’t. “Even if it could, I wouldn’t let it. Watch this,” he said.

Then, still holding her hand, he stooped low and close to the fence, to get face-to-face with the dog. It kept barking and snarling for a few seconds, then got quieter the longer Pa-Pa Fred stared at it. At first, Stacy thought he was making friends with the dog. Then he grunted and quickly gnashed at it, like he meant to be the one to break through the fence and start biting. The dog whimpered and ran away from him. For a second, Pa-Pa Fred looked happy in a way that made Stacy want to run, too. His smile was wider than she’d ever seen, and she noticed how white and large his teeth were. He looked like someone who was only supposed to come out at night, who lived near woods you were supposed to never walk through.

Then he turned to her and was himself again. “See? Nothing to be afraid of. You could’ve done that.”

Stacy shook her head. “I’m not big like you.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it. What have I told you? You can do anything you want, you just have to make it happen.”

Maybe the problem, now, was that she didn’t really want the invisible people to stop talking. She felt they were trying to tell her something important. It was the way they spoke, like someone was trying to pull them away or shut a door on them before they could get the words out. And they were asking for help.

Please. We just need you to remember.

They weren’t like that awful dog that acted like it would chew through metal to get at her. They weren’t mad, and she couldn’t even see them. That made them different from normal strangers she knew better than to talk to. How dangerous could they be if they weren’t really there?

We’re no danger at all. We’re just asking for help.

Yes, yes. We only need you to tell us how you—

Shhhh. Careful. Don’t scare her.

Too late, she realized giving them a chance to say anything was a mistake. If they could say anything that might scare her, they had to be bad, or at least they couldn’t be too good.

She put her hands over her ears, but still heard them. They were so much louder tonight than they were the last time she was here. They whispered so quietly before that she couldn’t understand them. Now they sounded like they were right next to her. How could that be? Was it because of what happened in the skinny house? That was the only thing she could think of. Being inside that horrible house made it easier for the ghosts here to talk to her, or easier for her to hear them. Either way, she hated it. She wanted to get away. She wanted to go home.

Remember the water, one of them hurried to tell her as she ran back to the room. The others joined in, saying the same thing over and over. As much as she didn’t want to hear them anymore, she was just as curious to know what they meant.

Remember the water.

That felt like something she needed to do. Maybe it’d be an answer for why things had been so strange lately. Why she hadn’t seen or spoken to Mom for so long. Something must have happened to explain that, and also why they had run away from home. Something really bad that Dess and Dad weren’t telling her.

Her hand was on the doorknob. She could open the door, go back into the bedroom, and wake up Dess. Then the people she couldn’t see would leave her alone, or Dess would make them leave her alone, like she had with that boy and girl in the skinny house. But what would happen after that? Things would keep being strange. Mom would keep being gone and Dad and Dess would keep saying Mom would be with them soon, even though it was already too late to be soon.

She closed her eyes and saw the water. She could smell and taste it. She felt herself floating in it. She couldn’t remember everything about it, but she knew that Mom was still with them the last time Stacy was in the water like that. It had been a fun day. A surprise. And now she remembered it was also the last time they were all together.

After that, she thought there had been a car ride, but that was fuzzy to her. The next thing she clearly remembered was walking down a street. Walking home.

Something happened when they went to the water that day. She had to find out what.

Yes, one of the people told her.

There’s water here, another said. Do you know how to get there?