Pushing those depressing thoughts aside, I resumed my work, quickly emptying the boxes and neatly lining the magazines up on their appropriate racks. I had to pause a few times to help customers, but had it all finished within half an hour. After disposing of the empty boxes out back, I resumed my place at the front counter. I perched on the wooden stool matching the varnished kiosk Dad had built by hand and glanced back at the newspaper.
Flipping it to the employment section, I began perusing the listings. There wasn’t much. Wellhollow Springs was such a small town, and most of the local businesses were family owned. I circled a few waitressing and cashier positions, but didn’t really feel a pull toward any of them.
Spotting an ad requesting a summertime babysitter for two young kids, I paused. It promised good pay and daytime hours, both of which appealed to me. Picking up the receiver for McGuire’s landline, I quickly dialed the number.
A man’s voice answered on the third ring. “This is Ezra Wu.”
“Hello, Mr. Wu,” I replied, using my most pleasant voice. “My name is Bellamy, and I just saw your ad in the paper for a summer babysitter. I was wondering if the position was still open.”
“It is,” he replied, his voice sharp and clear. “If you are interested in coming for an interview, I can see you tomorrow morning at ten.”
“I’d be glad to come.”
“Great,” Ezra replied. “Let me give you the address.”
I quickly reached for a pen, yanking and tearing off a bit of receipt paper from the register. While writing down the address, I furrowed my brow. This couldn’t be right. Yet, when I read it back to Ezra, he assured me it was correct.
Baldwin House.
The mansion on the hill overlooking Wellhollow Springs, where the wealthy and mysterious Baldwin family lived. Why these people needed a babysitter was beyond me. I always assumed rich people had live-in nannies.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Bellamy,” Ezra said before ending the call.
Hanging up the phone, I stared down at the address and pursed my lips. The Baldwins were practically royalty, being the richest family in town. Their property development company owned, and had built, most of the town and its surrounding housing developments.
Baldwin House had been shrouded in mystery ever since the family’s eldest son, Tate, had vanished. He’d been a student at my school back then—popular, smart, athletic, handsome. No one knew why he’d gone missing, and the rumors had grown more outrageous in the two years since. Around the same time that he disappeared, his parents had gated off the property and stopped accepting visitors. Their annual Halloween masquerade party had faded into obscurity, and only family, staff, and a close circle of friends were ever allowed to step foot over the threshold.
It seemed odd to me that the Baldwins would want to hire a babysitter, given how reclusive they’d all become. Despite the fact that I was usually pretty levelheaded, I couldn’t help letting my imagination run away with me.
A lot of people said Tate had gotten sick, and many even whispered he’d been disfigured in some sort of accident. Some claimed the house was haunted, others that the entire family were a bunch of psycho ax murderers.
“As long as they pay me and don’t try to murder and eat me, I don’t care what their secrets are,” I muttered out loud, laughing at myself for entertaining the rumors for even a second.
I had just dropped spaghetti noodles into a pot of boiling water when Dad came stomping in, his heavy tread echoing against the floorboards.
“Spaghetti’s almost done,” I called out, bending over to check on the garlic bread baking in the oven.
Without responding, he continued back to his room, the sound of him walking eventually fading away. With a frown, I lowered the heat on my sauce and left the kitchen, peering down the hall after him. The door to his bedroom hung open, the light casting a yellowish square against the opposite wall.
He’d stayed behind after closing to finish the books and balance out the register, urging me to go home ahead of him. Because we lived in the housing area closest to town, he often chose to walk to save on gas, and today had been one of those days. I usually worried about him walking home alone at night, because I never knew what might happen.
Edging slowly down the hall, I held my breath, listening for any sound. He murmured under his breath, and it sounded as if he were rifling through a drawer in search of something. My hands began to shake, and I clenched them into fists to still them as I reached the doorway.
He sat hunched over his desk, the pencil in his hand moving rapidly over a sheet of paper. The muttering had stopped, but he didn’t lift his head… not even when I called out to him.
“Dad?”
He continued his task, tremors causing his shoulders to spasm and jerk as if he were being shaken from the inside.
I could hear the worry in my own voice when I tried again. “Dad, are you okay?”
Still no answer. Glancing at the wall behind his desk, I found a familiar sight. Several sheets of paper lined the white space, held up by thumbtacks. They were drawings of people—but these people didn’t look human.
Ghosts, he called them. They looked half-mangled—some of them sporting gaping wounds in their faces or holes through their midsections. One looked as if an animal of some kind had
