If we entered the house and it looked exactly the same as it did in my dream, then I could be certain that it wasn’t just a dream.
It had to be something else.
Maybe a memory.
Maybe something I didn’t quite understand.
But if the entrance looked completely different, then it was all in my head. I was pretty sure option two would prove to be the correct one.
The outside being identical was one thing. I had passed by Ash House numerous times over the years, and I had probably memorized the house and turned it into a nightmare. That I knew details you couldn’t see except up close could also be explained: perhaps I saw it once while glancing at a picture of Ash House. Around the time of the fire, several pictures of the house were published in the local newspapers, and I had dug through the old gazettes for more information.
But I hadn’t seen any pictures from the inside of the house, at least not that I could remember. If the inside was exactly as I imagined it… Then something else was going on.
“Faye?” Emlyn poked me in the side.
“Huh?” I blinked. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“You were a million miles away.” Emlyn shook her head. “I said we ought to get going before we all lose our nerves listening to Austin’s ghost stories.”
We were standing right in front of the house.
I hadn’t realized we had crossed the last twenty-or-so meters, and my breath choked in my throat seeing how close we were. The door loomed in front of us, the left side swaying slightly in the wind. I narrowed my eyes but couldn’t see anything beyond the creaks in the wood, just darkness.
With a sigh, I set my backpack down and dug up the flashlights, handing one to both of my friends and keeping one for myself. I also dug up my camera, and then hoisted the backpack on my shoulder again.
This was it. I would finally figure out if it was all in my head, or if my dreams were real. I wasn’t sure which option I preferred.
My heart hammered in my chest, and the blood gushed in my ears.
Emlyn put a hand on my arm. “Are you ready?”
“To you the honors,” Austin said, scratching his neck. He was still as white as a sheet, but at least he hadn’t run back screaming.
I swallowed hard, balling my hands into fists. Now or never, Faye. Taking a deep breath, I climbed the two stone stairs leading to the house. My hand lingered in front of the door, trembling slightly.
Get a grip, Faye, I told myself. Dream or no dream, Ash House is just a house.
Bracing myself, I pushed open the front door, and walked straight into my nightmare.
Chapter 2
Everything inside Ash House was exactly as I had dreamt it was.
Shocked, I stood frozen in the doorway, unable to move an inch.
The grand staircase decorated with red carpet—the color was difficult to see because of the layers of dust, but it was red, all right. The exact same wooden wardrobe. The couch flanked by the grandfather clock.
The time on the clock. I had to see the time.
The need to see the exact time on the clock was what caused me to break free from the freezing spell that seeing the inside of the house had cast on me. Suddenly, my limbs could move again, and I strode straight toward the grandfather clock.
“Faye, you okay?” Emlyn walked in after me, followed by Austin. “Faye?”
I couldn’t answer them. My throat was dry, and my vocal cords refused to work. All my senses were focused on one thing and one thing only: getting to that clock. An assassin could’ve launched himself at me, or a specter could’ve flown straight me, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
The closer I came, the more I could make out the timing on the clock.
5:13.
Exactly as I had dreamt about.
“What is it?” Austin asked, grabbing my arm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I had indeed seen a ghost, but not a phantom like the ones that appeared in books and TV series. A ghost of this house, a memory of it imprinted in my brain. How else could I have remembered the exact layout of the entrance, and the timing on the grandfather clock?
The only problem was that I had never been here before… At least not that I recalled.
“It’s okay.” I yanked my arm free from Austin’s grip.
I usually told my friends everything, but for some reason I hadn’t told them the real reason why I wanted to visit Ash House. Every time I wanted to bring it up, it was like an invisible barrier stopped me from telling them. Not that I physically couldn’t tell them, I was pretty sure I could form the words if I wanted to, but a mental blockage that told me it would be better if I didn’t tell them the truth.
Emlyn would probably think I was crazy, and Austin would’ve flat-out refused to set foot inside Ash House if he knew I had been dreaming about the mansion. Persuading him to come here had already been a Herculean task, I didn’t want to make it worse by adding to his whole ghost theory.
“Let’s explore,” I told them, still refusing to share my real reasons for being here.
Despite my persistent dreams, I had been pretty confident it was all in my mind, and that the entrance would look vastly different from what I imagined. Now I found out it didn’t, I wondered what other memories about this place were haunting the attics of my mind and could resurface now I had set
