Sure. That was it. And I’d have to fix my own lunch. No big deal.
As I opened the refrigerator door and looked inside, there was a loud thud behind me.
I whipped around. Nothing there.
Then I heard a croaking noise. Like somebody couldn’t breathe. Like they were gasping for breath.
It was coming from behind the basement door.
My heart was hammering.
“Jason!” called a strange, cracked voice from behind the basement door. “Help me! Please help me! Open the door!”
Forget it. The house was trying to trick me again. I never, ever wanted to go anywhere near that dark and haunted basement.
“No way,” I said to myself. “Don’t be a sucker.”
But my feet weren’t listening. They were taking me closer and closer to the basement door.
“Help,” begged a faint voice. “Let me out!”
BAM! A fist rattled the door.
“Jay-sssson, please let me out.”
There was something about the voice. Something familiar.
“Jaysssonnnnnn!”
I unlocked the door and yanked it open.
Katie fell out in a heap at my feet. “Thank God,” she croaked. “Water!”
I quickly got her a glass of water. She gulped it down and then sighed deeply.
“I heard a noise,” she said, getting her voice back. “A weird noise in the basement. I just went down for a second to check on it. Then the door slammed behind me. It locked from the outside, so I was trapped.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Someone must have thought it was a pretty funny joke. I’ve been calling and yelling for hours.”
“Hours?” The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “You’ve been down there for hours?”
She gulped some more water and looked around. “Where’s your sister? Isn’t she with you?”
I shook my head. “No. She didn’t answer when I called,” I said slowly.
“Come on, Jason, the joke’s over,” said Katie.
“But I couldn’t have locked you in the basement. I’ve been playing ball with my friends—you can check on that,” I said.
Slowly it dawned on Katie that I was telling the truth. “Then if Sally’s not with you, where is she?” she asked.
We ran upstairs.
As if, after all this time, speed would make any difference.
My sister’s bedroom door was closed.
“Sally!” I called.
Katie turned the knob. The door was locked.
Sally would never lock her door. She wasn’t allowed, for one thing. And that old lock didn’t even have a key.
Katie banged on the door.
“Sally! Are you in there?”
Sally didn’t answer.
16
What were we going to do? My sister was locked in her room in a house where anything could happen—and frequently did.
“Have you got a screwdriver?” asked Katie, examining the lock.
“A screwdriver?”
“Preferably a long, skinny one.”
I dashed back downstairs to my parents’ office where my dad keeps his tools. The room with its empty drafting tables and long-necked lamps looked dusty, as if no one had been there for months.
Hard to believe it was only yesterday they’d left.
On my way back upstairs I heard Katie still calling Sally through the door.
No response.
My stomach felt hollow. It had been hours since anyone had seen Sally.
Katie looked worried. “If your sister’s in there, she’s not answering,” she said, and took the screwdriver from my hand. “But why would she lock me in the cellar?”
Katie forced the door open with the screwdriver.
“Sally?” I called, stepping into the room.
There was nobody there. The room was empty.
The last time we couldn’t find Sally she’d been in the cherry tree, impossibly high up. She told us Bobby “flied” her there from the open window.
This time the window was closed. I went over and looked out. There was nobody in the tree.
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more scared.
“Well, she has to be somewhere, right?” said Katie, searching the room. She was trying to sound brave but I knew she was as worried as I was.
We looked all over the house, in every room, in all the closets, upstairs and downstairs. No Sally.
“There’s only the attic left,” I said, opening the narrow door with a feeling of dread. I didn’t like the attic.
The attic is where the fear lives.
I jerked my hand away from the door. Where had that thought come from?
“I hear something,” said Katie excitedly.
Her voice got through the cobwebs in my head.
Then I heard it, too: scampering feet and a child’s laughter.
“Sally!” I hollered, taking the steps two at a time.
I got to the top just in time to see a small foot disappear through the door into the next room.
The attic was broken up into small rooms. Some of them went off at odd angles on account of all the gables. I’d already had one weird experience up here where the little rooms formed a kind of maze and I couldn’t find my way out.
“Sally, come back,” I shouted.
Katie pushed past me and ran into the next room. But Sally kept going, keeping out of sight, giggling like it was a game.
By the time I caught up with them, I could hear an animal snarling.
It wasn’t an animal, it was my little sister. Her eyes burned into us like glowing coals.
“Keep away,” she said in a rough, weird voice.
Bobby’s voice. A voice from deep in the grave.
My spine tingled. I moved in front of Katie.
“I know it’s you, Bobby,” I said. “Let me talk to Sally.”
“I keep Sally safe,” said Sally-Bobby. She pointed at Katie. “Safe from her. Safe from witches!”
The Bobby voice was beginning to sound less raspy, more like a real kid’s voice. For some reason this made my blood run colder.
I inched closer. “Let me talk to my sister right now,” I demanded.
“I’m calling your parents,” said Katie, turning on her heel. “This is too weird for me. I give up.”
As Katie left the room, Sally-Bobby tried to dart around me but I grabbed her and held tight.
She was strong, much stronger than my little sister, but I held on.
Finally she got too tired to struggle. I picked her up and followed Katie downstairs, trying to ignore a few painful kicks in the ribs.
Katie was already on the phone with my parents. “I’m