I heard startled cries from below. My mother.
“Mom! See if you can find a ladder!”
“OK!” she yelled back. “Don’t go any farther. That limb’s not strong enough to support you both.”
But Sally was too scared to act sensible. She started to cry as she reached out for my hand.
“No, Sally, stay there!”
But she wasn’t listening. She stretched out her arm, impossibly far, and leaned forward, trying to reach me. She slipped, losing her balance.
I could only watch in horror as she fell.
At first she dropped quickly, and I almost closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch.
And then a strange thing happened. One moment she was hurtling down, and the next she seemed almost to float. As if something was holding her back.
“Jason! Jason!”
My little sister was floating just beyond my reach. Turning in the air to stretch her arms out at me. I grabbed for Sally’s hand, missed, reached again, and clasped it.
Slowly she drifted gently down to nestle against my chest. And she was still holding her bunny!
I had my sister, but I was slipping. And with both hands full holding her, I couldn’t get a grip.
“Jason, I’m here,” cried Mom, leaning the ladder up against the tree trunk. “If I climb up can you hand Sally to me?”
“I think so.” I didn’t want to let go of Sally, not even to hand her to Mom. But I knew that would be safest. I might drop her trying to get her down myself.
I waited for Mom to get to the top of the ladder then crouched down to be as close as possible when I passed Sally to her.
It went off without a hitch, and once Mom and Sally were on the ground, I followed.
“How did she get up there?” Mom asked.
“Jason catched me,” said Sally, beaming at me. “He catched me when I was flying.”
Mom’s face paled. “She started to fall?”
“It was the weirdest thing. It was like time slowed down and held her up until I could grab her.”
Mom hugged Sally tight. “That happens sometimes in a real emergency. Time seems to slow down and we seem to speed up.”
“Maybe,” I said skeptically. “But how did she get into the tree? When I checked on her, her window was open, and the screen was on the floor. But the tree is so far from her window, even I couldn’t climb into it.”
Sally twisted in Mom’s arms. Her eyes were as clear as blue pools. “Bobby flied me to the tree,” she said. “It’s his favorite place. Me and Bobby and Winky like the tree.”
Her invisible friend again. He’d almost killed her this time—or was it Bobby who had saved her?
“Little children have amazing dexterity,” said Mom, shaking her head as she looked up at the tree. “We’ll probably never know how she managed it. I’ll have to remember to keep her window locked.”
“I flied, Mommy,” said Sally. “Bobby helped me to fly to Jason.”
“Sure you did, honey. But I don’t ever want you going up in that tree again. It’s too dangerous.”
Mom rose, carrying Sally.
“I flied! I flied!” Sally said, giggling as Mom carried her into the house.
Maybe I was crazy, but I believed her. Something had “flied” her to the tree. And something had saved her from falling. Maybe it was her invisible friend, the one she called Bobby.
But what kind of friend would put a little girl’s life in danger in the first place?
Unless, of course, it wanted to make her into a ghost.
24
The next week went by without anything much happening. It was as if the house had gone to sleep, or given up and accepted us.
My parents spent most of their time in the office, poring over the blueprints, or on the telephone with the contractors who were going to build the new town complex. They were so busy with the project they hardly noticed when I offered to take Sally with me wherever I went.
Because I wasn’t going to let it get my little sister.
Steve and Lucy were pretty understanding. They let me drag Sally around with us and they didn’t complain, not really. Sally kept talking about Bobby, but she said he was somewhere else.
“Bobby gone away,” she kept saying. “Gone far away.”
I believed her. I thought it was all over, that we were safe.
What a fool. I should have known better. I should have known they were waiting for a chance, a chance to make us part of the house.
A chance to make us dead, like them.
One night when I was least expecting it, I woke up abruptly out of a sound sleep.
Something had disturbed me. But what?
I sat up. A little moonlight filtered in through the window, turning everything silvery. It was late, very late.
“Jason.”
It was Sally’s voice calling. She was right outside my door and she sounded upset, frightened.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed the flashlight I always left on the night table, and flung open the door, ready to scoop my kid sister into my arms.
But it wasn’t Sally.
A tall figure stood outside my door. It was shrouded from head to foot in shapeless black. A black hood covered where the face should be.
Slowly the hood moved. It was looking right at me. Out of the hood stared a white skull. A dead white skull with deep black holes for eyes!
The skeleton’s skull jaws opened and an awful hiss emerged, pouring over me with the stench of the grave.
It tried to grab me. A sticklike arm came out of the sleeve and reached out. I ducked away but the thing knocked the flashlight out of my hand. Stiffly the thing swung toward me again, staggering into my room.
I let out a yell, dove past it into the hallway and tried to run. But the thing enveloped me with folds of material. It had me. The black stuff draped around my head, blinding me.
I smelled sour earth and mold. The smell of a dead thing.
I flailed around but I couldn’t get hold
