The air was suddenly still inside the house, although it continued to rattle the window glass from outside.
“Are there any candles?” Katie asked.
“I have a flashlight,” I said, getting up from the floor. “But it’s upstairs on my dresser.”
“We better get it and clean up this mess.”
Sally was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. I could just make her out. She was holding something in her lap. I ruffled her hair. “You okay, kid?”
Sally nodded. “Winky doesn’t like the thunder,” she said, holding up her bunny.
I waited, keeping Sally company while Katie went up to get the flashlight.
The beam of it blinded me as Katie came back down the stairs. She shone the light around the living room. “What a mess,” she said. “We’ll be up all night trying to clean this up.” She shot me a baffled look. “I don’t understand what you were trying to do, opening all those windows in the middle of a rainstorm.”
“I know you won’t believe me, Katie, but this house really is haunted. I didn’t open the windows. It was the ghost, Bobby.”
“No,” cried Sally loudly. “It wasn’t Bobby. He wanted you to fix it. That’s why I came into your room!”
My heart sank. If not Bobby, then it was the other ghost—the old witch with the skeleton hands and the glowing eyes.
But if Bobby’s ghost wanted me to stop the old witch, then they weren’t doing their haunting together.
And if they weren’t together then what I had feared last night was probably true. Bobby and the old witch were fighting some great battle—and we were caught right in the middle.
15
The next day Katie convinced me to go play baseball with my friends.
“Maybe the windows really weren’t your fault,” she said. “Maybe you were sleepwalking. Or something.”
We’d been up half the night sopping up water and using Katie’s hair dryer on the chair cushions and rugs. I really needed a break.
“Go ahead,” Katie said. “I’ll look out for Sally.”
Maybe it was safe for me to leave, now that it was daytime. The really bad stuff happened at night, right?
“Go on,” Katie said, giving me a weary smile. “Hit a home run. Hit two home runs.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I will.”
So I took off for the ball field with Steve and Lucy, and once the house was out of sight, it was like a great weight lifted from my shoulders.
All I could think about was how great it was to swing the bat and hit that little white ball.
Steve was pitching, of course. But this time I got the better of him.
“Batter, batter, no batter,” he chanted, going into his windup.
The ball came flying out over the plate, going about a hundred miles an hour.
I gritted my teeth and swung as hard as I could.
And I hit that ball so sweet and clean I could hardly feel it. It felt like the bat was glowing in my hands. And the ball was flying back so fast that Steve had to duck out of the way.
The ball kept going. Rising and rising, heading deep into the outfield.
Lucy tried to run it down. She ran to the deepest part of center field and jumped just as it went over her head.
She reached up, trying for the ball, but it was too high.
Home run to deep center! I’d never hit the ball so far in my life!
I razzed Steve as I did a slow trot around the bases. He just shook his head and threw his glove on the ground.
“Fastball down the middle,” he moaned. “That’s my best pitch.”
Lucy came running in from the outfield and slapped me ten. “Aw right! Way to go! Nice hit!”
“He must have got lucky,” Steve complained. “Nobody can hit my fastball.”
“Get used to it,” Lucy said with a grin.
Steve moaned and groaned all the way back from the ball field, but by the time we got to his house he was grinning and shaking his head. “I guess I better learn to throw a spitter,” he said.
Lucy and Steve both went home for lunch, which left me alone for the first time that day.
That’s when it hit me. I’d been selfish, going off to play ball with my buds. While I was out having a good time, my little sister was left alone with a baby-sitter who didn’t have a clue.
I started walking faster, heading for the house on Cherry Street.
The minute I stepped into the shadow of the tall whispery pines, an icy chill ran down my spine.
I was suddenly cold. Very cold.
As if the house was breathing in my warmth as it pulled me closer. As if the house was feeding off me, drinking in the energy I brought it from outside.
The house was growing stronger while I grew weaker.
“Don’t be a meathead,” I said out loud, kicking at the pine needles under my feet. “You’re not even in the house yet, how could it hurt you?”
Hurrying along, I tried thinking about how cool it had been to hit that home run off a great pitcher like Steve, but the house seemed to snatch at my thoughts and unravel them.
The old house was watching me and practically splitting its sides laughing. I could almost hear it taunting me, saying “Jay-sonnnnnnn. I know something you don’t know.”
My feet, shuffling the dry pine needles, began moving faster.
The house had been waiting for me to leave. It had wanted me to go play ball.
“This is really, really stupid,” I muttered to myself.
But my feet picked up the pace anyway. By the time I reached the back porch, I was running full blast.
I stopped a second to catch my breath. Wouldn’t want Katie to think I didn’t trust her to watch Sally for a couple hours.
I opened the kitchen door and went inside, expecting to find Katie and Sally just sitting down to lunch.
Nobody there.
The breakfast dishes were still on the table.
“Sally! Katie!” I called out.
No answer. Maybe they’d gone for a walk. Down to
