Amity (5 page)

I was glad to. I counted off between each footfall:
not crazy, one, not crazy, two, not crazy, three
, pacing myself “normally” as best I could. Murray didn’t follow right away, but that didn’t surprise me. Dogs are so attuned to household dynamics; I wasn’t the alpha, and Murray’d always been Luke’s dog anyway. Luke was the one who rescued him from the pound, a fact for which it seemed the dog would be forever grateful.

Luke slapped his thigh, and Murray trudged back up the stairs. The rattling of the basement door closing behind the dog settled my jangled nerves. Somewhat.

“You stink, dog,” Luke said, smiling now. “What the hell did you get into down there?”

I wondered.

Putting aside, at least for the moment, the debate between rational and magical thinking, I only hoped the sage had done its work.

“SHE WAS SHOT IN THE HEAD!”

I sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, groping blindly at my chest, my face, my forehead. My heartbeat, like gunfire, threatened to shatter my rib cage with each desperate breath.

She was shot in the head
.

Yes, that’s what had happened. She’d been shot at close range through the back of her skull.

Of this, I was certain, though where the thought—the
knowledge
, I insisted, against all rationale—came from, I had no idea. My throat was dry, and my skin buzzed again, I noted dimly. Just who this
she
was, or where/when/why this horrific thing had happened to her … it was murky, a reflecting pool on an overcast day. But the absence of clear detail didn’t lessen the truth of what I knew.

She was shot in the head
.

Had I said those words aloud? I must not have; I hadn’t woken anyone in the house. I switched on the bedside lamp and glanced at the small digital alarm clock tucked next to the lamp.

3:14 a.m.

It was a nightmare
, I told myself, hoping that if I insisted it firmly enough, my mind would believe it to be true.
The first night in a new house. You’re disoriented. It makes perfect sense
.

It
did
. Certainly, it made more sense than the dull throb at the base of my own skull, which I gingerly rubbed. What had caused it?

(She was shot in the head.)

But
I
hadn’t been. Of course,
of course
I hadn’t.

I swept my hair back from my face and slipped out from under the covers, toes curling up as my bare feet touched the wide, wooden beams of the floor. The floor was cold, unyielding, and after a moment I realized that the air in the bedroom was, too. Never mind the dog days of summer; something about butting up against the Concord riverbank meant that nightfall carried with it a bone-drenching chill.

I shuddered, and my skull gave a slight groan of protest.

Quickly, though, I realized that the noise I heard hadn’t actually come from inside my own head. It was a low, insistent banging from the direction of the water that I could make out distantly. A beat that twisted, wrung my spine out like a wet washcloth.

(She was shot …)

The boathouse
, I decided.
The door to the boathouse must not be locked
. But when I peered out the window of the bedroom, I couldn’t see through the thick, low-hanging fog well enough to say whether or not I was right.

Of course you’re right. What else could that banging be?

There wasn’t anything else I could think of. Certainly nothing else that I
wanted
to think of.

And besides, there was Murray to consider. He was a gentle, good-natured mutt, but still protective. If there was something out there worth barking at, even a chipmunk, Murray would be barking. Barking was what dogs did.

Murray would
certainly
be barking.

He would.

Was it strange, then, that Murray
wasn’t
barking? Surely there was at
least
a chipmunk out there. Concord was the country, after all.

You’re just not used to the quiet
, I told myself.
It’s natural
.

It’s okay. New places are hard
.

Change is hard
.

“It just takes time.”

I whirled. That thought had come, impossibly, from
outside
of me. From beyond my own mind. I was certain of it.

Just as I was certain that
she’d
been shot in the head, whoever
she
was.

And, yes, Amity unnerved me from the moment we pulled up the pebbled drive;
yes
, those winking half-moon windows on the top floor were like eyes, tiny, lidless, peering
eyes
that burrowed into your core, but that was
silly
. That was
absurd
. To be unnerved, to be
afraid
, even, of a house.

A
house
.

To be afraid of Amity was insane.

It was only a
house
, built by human hands, inanimate, non-sentient. A structure, an object. Not a
being
.

I was perfectly safe in here, tucked up in the shadowed eaves, nestled in the belly of this

(beast)

house
, Amity.

(and the sage, you burned the sage)

I’d burned the sage; did that make my current dread
more
reasonable, or less? I didn’t know. I was confused, and also, half crazed from exhaustion.

I was being insane.

The window was open a crack, I realized, so I moved to nudge it closed. It jammed momentarily, then yielded with a groan, cracking down quickly enough to make me start at the unexpected clap, sharp as the snap of a wild animal’s jaw. Through the window, I thought I saw the flip of a tail—bushy and streaked a rusty, coppery shade—gliding smoothly around the corner of the boathouse.

I didn’t know of any animals with a tail like that.

You’re being crazy, Gwen
. The laugh I tried to force caught in my throat.
You are
going
crazy
.

Again
.

This house is perfectly safe
.

It was utterly absurd to think otherwise, I knew. Utterly ridiculous.

Utterly
insane
.

I PADDED TO THE BATHROOM
, cautious not to wake the rest of the family, still insisting to myself how ridiculous it was to be so violently disturbed, so unsettled by Amity.

By a
house
.

Never mind the electric charge snaking down my spine, an insistent, greedy sensation I hadn’t felt since …

(go away, crazy)

… well, it was better not to dwell on such things.

I slipped through the bathroom door, turned the light on, squinting against the sour, yellow-green glow it gave off. The pedestal sink stood solid and sturdy. I grasped either side of the basin in my trembling hands.

It was crazy to be so thrown, so unnerved by the house. It was.

But, despite that knowledge, I couldn’t shake the sensation that somehow I wasn’t alone in Amity.

Yes, my parents were sleeping just down the hall. And Luke’s bedroom was right through the bathroom door. Murray was undoubtedly curled at the foot of Luke’s bed, though what that dog would do in the face of an intruder, I couldn’t imagine. He wasn’t exactly trained in home security. That was never the point of a family pet, not for our family. I was the only Hall with a habit of feeling … insecure.

(She was shot in the head.)

The thought flickered again. I swallowed, and pushed it out of my mind.

My parents. Luke. Murray. They were here with me. I wasn’t
alone
.

Of
course
, I wasn’t alone in Amity.

But that knowledge offered little comfort. Whatever that feeling was, that
foreboding
 … slithering over me like a high-voltage second skin …

Wherever it came from, it had nothing to do with an actual, physical presence in the house. It was more like a thundercloud, or the thick, static charge that the air takes on just before a summer storm. I couldn’t explain it, not rationally. But I couldn’t deny it, either. It was a voice, a whisper. But from the inside, from within my bones.

The mirror over the sink was ornate, but scratched in some places—it had been here when we arrived, and looked to be as old as the house—and it was covered in a fine layer of dust. I cleared a patch of the glass with the cuff of my pajama top, peering into the streaked surface at my reflection. Bruise-colored shadows tinged the hollows underneath my eyes.

The person in the mirror did not look particularly well.

The overhead light wavered, flickering gray for a moment,

(old house, faulty wiring, go AWAY, crazy)

and when it glowed yellow-green again, a wave of nausea overtook me, nearly knocking me off my feet.

In the reflection of the mirror, I wasn’t alone.

THE GHOSTED GIRL PERCHED BEHIND ME IN THE MIRROR
was young, about my age.

Her stare was blank, but forceful just the same. Her hair, reddish, was pulled back from her forehead severely, but even in the dusty mirror, I could see that it was dark and wet, stained and matted at her temples. A trickle of something—
blood
? Yes, I thought that it was blood—curved around the back of her neck, over one shoulder.

She reached up a hand to the mirror’s edge. To me. When she drew her arm back to her side, five small rust-brown smudges appeared in the mirror, like a handprint. A handprint nearly the size of my own.

I screamed.

“GWEN.”

I flinched, and opened my mouth to shriek again.

But before I could make a sound, a hand clapped over my mouth. I could smell the woodsy, spicy half-life of the soap that Luke always used. But even as I recognized my brother, a bright, blazing flash burst, scattering white confetti before my eyes.

I heard a shattering, snapping noise. When my vision cleared, the girl from the mirror was gone. It was just Luke and me, peering out. But now a jagged crack ran through the glass, a diagonal slash that rushed from the top of my brother’s reflection’s jugular to the bottom of my own.

I read his face easily. He wore the look that begged me not to fall apart, not to unravel, to just-please-God not shatter like the mirror had.

“It’s a little creepy here,” he admitted, putting a hand on my shoulder. “But come on, Gwen. You’re stronger now. You have to be.

“If you lose it,

(again)

“… If you lose it, I mean. You know how Mom and Dad will be.”

I nodded. I knew. He took his hand from my mouth.

Now the only faces reflected in the mirror were mine and Luke’s, which should have been comforting. But the angry fault line fractured our images so they sat ever-so-slightly askew in a way that was still unnerving. I tasted panic in my mouth like warm syrup, powerful and sweet.

“I saw an animal outside. It startled me.” It was the only version of the truth I could use.

“We’re in the country, Gwen,” he said. “Get used to it.” When his lips met in the mirror, they didn’t line up.

“You two.” Our mother’s voice floated toward us, muffled and drowsy. “Did something break out there?”

Luke’s eyes met mine in the mirror, high enough above the crack that his gaze was steady.

“I startled Gwen in the bathroom,” he called. “And she dropped …” He fumbled. “The mirror broke. Sorry.”

“As long as you’re both okay.” Mom’s voice was low; she wouldn’t remember this conversation come morning. Luckily.

“It’s fine, we’re fine.” My voice warbled only slightly. “Good night.”

“ ’Night.” Her voice unwound, she slid backward into sleep again.

I turned to face Luke so I wouldn’t have to look at, to think about the broken mirror. “It’s fine,” I said again, hoping I sounded more convincing. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Luke tugged at the hem of his T-shirt. “It’s …” He sighed. “Whatever, Gwen. I’m glad it’s nothing.” He cast his eyes toward the crack in the mirror, then away again, lightning
quick. “Just … I don’t know, just splash some cold water on your face and get back to bed.”

I told him I would. It was a fine idea.

Certainly better than any I had of my own.

ALONE AGAIN IN THE BATHROOM
, I blinked and looked down at my fingertips, now as dusty as the mirror had been.

Cold water, Gwen. Splash some cold water on your face
.

I reached out, twisted the sink’s tap.

Water trickled out in a slow, stuttering sputter. I ran my hands palms up under the stream, rubbing them together until the grime and muck were rinsed away.

I shut my eyes.

The tap whistled and whispered, spouting a thin river into my cupped palms. I breathed in, out.

The faucet hiccupped.

My eyes flew open.

The faucet issued a quick, shallow belch, and the stream of cool water was staunched.

(what …?)

That half-formed thought was all I had time for. The pipes leading into the wall clanged and trembled, sending another cough through the mouth of the faucet.

The tap began to run again.

This time, it was hot. Scalding.
Searing
.

And it was
red
.

I gasped and pulled my hands back to my chest, cupping
them against my body. I was so horrified by the grotesque torrents spurting out that my brain barely registered the pain.

The water. The
water
.

The water rushing from the tap was
red
.