There’s no point in arguing with my dad when he gets that tone. “Yes, sir,” I said.
Steve didn’t say anything until my father was gone.
“The ’rents never understand,” he said.
“Rents?”
“Short for parents,” he explained. “Anyhow, I’d just as soon forget about that stupid garage door. Maybe it was the wind or something.”
“Maybe,” I said. But there hadn’t been any wind.
“It’s great to have a guy my own age right next door,” said Steve. “Hartsville’s OK but there’s not that many kids. How did you happen to come here?”
“My parents are architects,” I explained. “They’re designing Hartsville’s new town complex. So this isn’t a vacation for them. A real-estate agent found the house for us.”
“Spooky house,” said Steve as we walked under the tall pines. “Wouldn’t it be neat if it was really haunted?”
“Yeah, right,” I said. For some reason I didn’t feel like joking about it. As we turned toward the house, I searched the upstairs windows but didn’t say anything to Steve about whatever it was that had been watching me when we first arrived.
No way would he believe me.
“You play baseball?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Tell you what,” Steve said. “Wait here and I’ll go get my ball and glove. We can practice. I start junior high this fall and I want to be the ace pitcher.”
Steve went home to get his stuff and I ran upstairs to get my own ball and glove.
Something made me stop at the top of the stairs. I don’t know what—just a feeling. As if something was watching me. Something waiting for me to make some kind of mistake.
As if the old house itself was watching, waiting.
I shook off the feeling—don’t be a total moron, it’s only an old house—and grabbed my glove.
On the way back down the stairs I noticed a few shelves full of these little ornaments. Really fragile-looking vases and china figures and old glass bottles. Just running down the stairs made them vibrate and shake, and all of a sudden it came to me.
The place was chock-full of breakable old stuff, and my mom had made a big deal about how valuable some of it was—I knew I’d be in big trouble if stuff got broken somehow, even if I didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe that’s why I was so nervous and jumpy around the house.
Get a grip, Jason.
What I did was slow down and take the steps one at a time. Much better. Get used to the house and maybe it would get used to me.
Steve was waiting in the backyard, seeing how high he could chuck a ball straight up. Which was pretty impressive—he had a strong arm.
“Tell me if I throw too hard,” he said, whipping the ball at me.
It stung, but I said, “Don’t worry about throwing too hard. I know how to catch.”
Me and my big mouth. Steve did a full windup and threw a fastball right at my head. I caught it in the web of my glove, so it didn’t hurt that time, but he kept showing off and after about ten minutes my hand was so numb it almost didn’t hurt anymore.
“Pretend like there’s a batter at the plate,” he said. “Signal where I should throw, inside or outside, high or low.”
I signaled for a low and inside pitch, and what do you know, he did it perfectly.
I had figured Steve was just bragging about wanting to be the ace pitcher on his school team, but it turned out he was really good. A lot better than me, in fact. You had to pay attention or that fastball of his would take your head off.
I had to concentrate so hard that for a while I almost forgot about the house. That strange feeling it gave me. Then when we took a break, it was back.
We were sitting under the tree, taking it easy, when I felt it. A tingling sensation right between my shoulder blades. I tried to shake it off, like a pitcher shakes off a signal he doesn’t like.
But still I felt it, a creepy tingle moving up to the back of my neck.
This was ridiculous! It was all those stories Steve had been telling me. I kept imagining what it would be like to stumble on the old lady’s skeleton under a pile of junk in the garage. Or what if I opened a closet and there she was.
Someone called out Steve’s name.
“That’s my mom, I gotta go,” he said, getting up. “See you later, alligator.”
“In a while, crocodile,” I said right back. But my heart wasn’t in it. All I could think about was the house—that something was wrong, something that might put me and my family in danger.
After Steve was gone I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and turned to look up at the building.
It was just a house. A big, rambling house with lots of windows and shadowy places, but just a house. Its windows were just glass. I stared at the place defiantly, my eyes traveling from one blank window to another, across the first floor, back across the second, up to the attic—
My heart slammed in my chest.
A small boy was there in the attic window. Watching me. Staring down at me.
A small, skinny boy with skin as pale as death.
6
I raced for the house and yanked open the kitchen door. I ran into the study, where my parents had set up their temporary office. There was a drafting table and rolls of blueprints and a couple of jars of sharpened pencils. Mom looked up from the worktable, where she was checking figures on her desktop computer. She smiled when she saw me.
“Hey, Jay, did you have fun with your new friend?”
“Mom,” I said, catching my breath. “Did any little kids come into the house? A boy about Sally’s age?”
She shook her head no, and I bolted for the hallway and ran up to the second floor.
It took me a few moments
