Chasing Midnight (9 page)

Wish number two.

I pick the pink ones and slip them on—yes, these are running shoes you
slip
on—before checking them out in the mirror. I’m impressed. I don’t think my feet could look any better if they tried.

Reluctantly, I give up admiring my Nikes and venture out into the hallway, but after one turn I’m already lost, with no staircase in sight and my sense of direction completely shot. I also can’t find a single recognizable landmark (or housemark, I guess), and the air smells unfamiliar too—unquestionably a different scent than my other house. This strange house is as dark as it is foreign, and I’m afraid to turn on any lights, for fear of waking someone up. Every direction I turn has me bumping into walls and furniture and sharp corners, colliding with anything one could run into when one doesn’t know the layout of her own house.

At last, I spot the outline of a stair railing and make my way toward it. With one hand gripping the cool, slick railing for support, I descend the spiral staircase with caution, taking each step one at a time until I reach the bottom. When I step out onto the hard floor at the base of the stairs, a dim light comes to life along the perimeter of the room, bleeding through the darkness like a tiny glowing sunrise.

I gasp at the enormity of the shadowy room as it comes into focus. We’re talking vaulted ceilings with enough space to kick and miss a field goal—the kind of square footage that would make the Sistine Chapel jealous.

I take a few steps and stop, unsure exactly where to go next. Something about this place feels familiar, but I’m still too stunned by the newness of this situation to connect any dots forming in my head. I’m also pretty positive that somewhere in this “house” an irritated man in knee socks and running shoes claiming to be my father is impatiently waiting for me to show up.

Where?
That’s what I want to know.

To the left of me, about twenty yards away, a bright beam of light seeps out of a dark hallway. Not having any better leads, I follow the light, stopping at the entrance to the bright kitchen where Dad is sitting at the counter, staring into his phone. I am frozen in place, my hand covering my mouth because the dots
in my head have connected and all at once I realize the room in front of me isn’t just
any
kitchen. It’s the exact kitchen in which I practically spent the entire night last night working my butt off while trying to please a bunch of rich kids.

This is Brecke Phillips’s house.

For a second I think maybe I’m wrong, that maybe I’m imagining things. Everything looks so different this morning without the bright lights and constant noise of the wait staff running back and forth. But the longer I stare, the more obvious it becomes.
This
is the view of an average morning in the kitchen belonging to the biggest, fanciest house at the top of Sea View Drive.

Wish number one.

I pivot on my heels to take in my surroundings, freaking out just a teensy bit. This is . . .
drumroll, please
. . . MY HOUSE. Not Brecke’s house.
Mine.

I can’t help it; I start laughing. But then I stop when Dad raises an eyebrow and shakes his head at me.

Ignoring his uptight attitude, I stretch my leg on top of the countertop, checking out how sweet my shoes look on the sleek granite.

They look
good,
by the way.

“Get your foot off the counter and let’s go,” Dad says, nudging me out of the kitchen to the front door.

Outside on the porch, I stand under a pair of hazy lights, waiting for Dad to start out with a few stretches or something low-key like that. But he takes off running down the walkway and vanishes into the darkness before I even realize he’s gone.

Shoot.

I run after him, but stop at the end of the driveway where an over-the-top display of professionally arranged pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns sit atop two big bales of hay. The jack-o’-lanterns glow in the moonlight, their carved smiles seeming to mock my incompetence, a hint of evil hiding inside their rotting cores.

“Mackenzie, what’s your problem today?” Dad pops out of the shadows, making me scream. I can’t help it; I still have evil on my mind. “Let’s go!”

“Right.” I sprint toward him.

We join the same creek path route we always run. But it takes us a little longer to get there since we have to start all the way at the top of Sea View Drive.

Dad is much quieter than usual, bumming me out a little because part of the fun of running with him is all the challenges he invents, like whoever reaches the guy in the red jacket last has to do fifteen pushups. Or running backwards until the next mile marker, or telling jokes and making me laugh, which of course always gives me side stitches and then I have to stop and let him beat me to the finish line.

Just stuff like that.

By the time the sun crests the top of the hill, I am wiped out and have to slow to a jog on the way back. We ran twice the distance I’m used to, and an hour earlier, too, though I’m not sure why because none of my wishes said anything about being an overachiever.

When I lope into our long, circular driveway five minutes later, Dad is already stretching on the top step, not even breaking a sweat. I stop short at the edge of the lawn, mesmerized by its perfection, running my palms across the top of the velvety grass. The blades are perfectly even and plush, with just the right amount of bounce, even in November. None of my lawns ever came close to such excellence, not by a mile. It takes money to look this good.

“Nice run, Mackenzie,” Dad says when he sees me. “Next time, though, get up on time so we don’t have to cut it short, okay?”

That was short?

“Who are you?” I say under my breath, following him inside.
And where’s my real dad?
I want to ask. But the monster house we live in has already swallowed him up, and I don’t know what
else to do now, other than find my way back to my room and get ready for school.

It’s the kind of moment that calls for music—you know, the pump-me-up-while-I-try-on-twenty-new-outfits kind of moment.

My first instinct is to look for an iPod. But then I remember I have an iPhone. Who needs an iPod? I thumb through the songs in my phone, relieved my taste in music hasn’t changed since . . . well . . . since I turned rich. It’s nice to know that certain things are off limits.

After picking some dance music, I scour my unfamiliar bedroom for a speaker dock, figuring the rich me would’ve never skimped on something as important as that. No matter where I look, though, I come up with nothing. So I settle for the next best option—turning up the volume on my phone and pressing my song of choice.

Bad idea.

The room explodes with music, igniting the air like I stepped onstage at a concert. My hands fly to my ears. It’s still way early, and if today’s schedule is anything close to the norm, my mom and little brothers still have another hour to sleep.

The music seems to chase me at every turn as I race around the room, picking up anything that can pass for a speaker—a shiny jewelry box . . .
no
. . . a vase filled with pale pink flowers that aren’t artificial nor is the water in which they are soaking . . .
no
. . . a laptop computer . . .
no
. . . an iPod mini with attached headphones (good to know for future runs) . . .
no
. . .

“What are you doing?” a jarring voice yells from behind me, barely audible above the music.

I spin around to face a barely-awake Spencer. His bedhead hair is twice the height of his normal hair, which already has about four inches on the rest of us. Half-opened eyes and wrinkled boxers clue me in to the probability that he didn’t wake up on his own, either. Oops. But, gosh, I love that hair, and it is so good to see my brother again.

Smiling, I throw my arms around his neck. But he detaches my arms before I realize what’s happening, and steps out of my reach. Then he grabs my phone, stabs his fingers into the screen, and the room is silent again.

I sort of wish I thought of that first.

“Sorry,” I say.

He ignores me. Doesn’t even look at me. Just steps away from me like I’m a germ trying to invade his lungs. “You’re such an idiot,” he says, turning around and shuffling out of my room.

Well, that was rude. “Hey, Spence,” I call after him.

He ignores me. Spencer
ignores
me.

I stand there in a daze, watching him disappear into the dark hallway, shocked. This is not normal Spencer; something has to be wrong—and not asthma-wrong, either. I mean, if my wish list gave me any indication of what to expect from here on out, there’s a pretty decent chance that my Hail Mary attempt at wishing Spencer well last night might just have worked. Which means Spencer
isn’t
sick anymore, which would be the
greatest thing in the world.

So, if he’s healthy now, why does he seem so grumpy? Spencer’s never even this grumpy after a night of coughing and wheezing. In fact, I don’t think Spencer knows
how
to be grumpy.

Maybe last night’s asthma attack still happened.

Maybe I did the spell or whatever it was all wrong last night, and only half of my wishes were granted; three out of seven is nothing to complain about. Had I known that ahead of time, though, I would have put Spencer at the top of the list.

After getting dressed, there is still no sign of anybody else up. Or
anywhere,
for that matter. The house seems too bright, too quiet, too clean—and for a weekday morning feels alarmingly empty, even at 7:30. Where has all the noise and commotion run off to? Where’s Mom, trying to shove a bowl of oatmeal
or yogurt smoothie into my hands as I rush out the door? Why isn’t Dad reading a newspaper with his legs propped up on the kitchen table, despite the rest of the world getting their news electronically? And the twins—where is their tornado of commotion that follows them around everywhere they go?

Maybe Indy’s arm is still broken. Maybe last night’s trip to the hospital still happened and everyone is sleeping in as a result. I can’t blame them. I would have sidled up to my snooze button all morning if it weren’t for Dad.

But, if that’s the case, what’s the plan for me getting to school now that walking is out of the question?

Enter wish number four:
New BMW, where are you?

I scan the kitchen and family room for the garage entrance, wondering how in the world to go about picking the right door in a house this size. Which side is the garage even on? From where I stand, I count nine doors. Figuring I might as well start somewhere, I head toward the closest one.

My black strappy sandals tap along the wood floor, shamelessly exposing my green-painted toes for all to see. Normally I keep my long, ugly toes out of sight, almost always shoved into old Nikes or closed-toe shoes at the very least. But it would appear that at some point between my old life and this new one, I got an over-the-top pedicure I don’t remember getting.

I’m not going to let that go to waste.

Two doors already proved fruitless—a closet and a pantry. I edge around a round wooden table near the next set of doors, expecting to trip any second over one of my little brothers’ toy airplanes or latest Lego creations that always seem to be abandoned in the most inconvenient places. Over the years I learned to keep my shoes on at all times for that specific reason. But, miracle of all miracles, there is not a Lego or a toy airplane in sight. Maybe in my rich life we have maids.

I could go for that.

Down a high, arched hallway, I stop at the crushing scent of lily.
Mom
. . . It’s her favorite flower. In the summer she always
cuts lilies from our yard and arranges them in a vase for the kitchen table. She’d have them in containers year-round if they bloomed that often. But here they are, staring back at me in a glass vase atop a table at the beginning of November.

Lilies in the fall cost a lot of money.

I hit the jackpot a little further down the hallway, where a heavy door opens into to a six-car garage. SIX. That’s five spaces more than my old garage. Three spaces are empty, the others occupied by an orange Range Rover, a black convertible Porsche, and exactly what I’m looking for—a shiny black Beamer.

Assuming it’s mine, I grab the BMW key fob hanging on the wall and skip down the stairs. Halfway down I stop, overwhelmed by the hugeness of this moment. A smile inches its way across my face as tingles kiss my skin from head to toe.
This
is what it’s supposed to feel like—being one of the lucky ones: a luxury car to call my own, freshly arranged flowers in the hallways, a clean house, a perfect nose, and a sweet pedicure. I even
look
the part in my two-hundred-dollar jeans and black silk shirt. What can possibly go wrong with a life like this?

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