Rules for Ghosting (17 page)

“But we have to get inside there!” Dahlia said, and her wide, panic-filled eyes were the only thing left visible in her now-ghostly face. “And you have to be the ones to do it—the room is blocked off to me for some reason.”

“We will,” said Oliver. “And we'll do it tonight. We just won't clue Mom in first.”

“I'll get back to the Seesaw,” said Dahlia. “I don't know how long I can keep using it, but—”

She disappeared.

Poppy turned the doorknob and stepped into the hallway. “I'll go get the toolbox. We'll find a way in, no problem.”

Alone in the Matchbox, Oliver looked around. “I wish I knew where you are when you're invisible,” he said. “It gives me the creeps not knowing what you're up to.” He swiveled his head from side to side. He felt a prickling in his right shoulder and swatted at it. A second later there was a light scratching sound from the window. The surface was slightly steamed up. Oliver took a step closer to the window and grinned as two tiny stars appeared in the condensation of the windowpane, then below it a wide, half-moon smile.

Getting into the closed-up attic room turned out to be easier than Oliver had expected, though their plan to tackle it that night quickly fell apart. First Mom stopped by Oliver's room
lecturing about the big day tomorrow, then Dad with JJ in tow demanding a slumber party. By the time they had all left, JJ bribed with future promises, Oliver couldn't keep his eyes open. Poppy crept into his room just after midnight, looking more than halfway asleep herself. They agreed to start first thing in the morning.

Particularly since they were opening the room of a dead girl, someone who might have somehow brought down a curse, daylight seemed like a good idea.

“Poppy,” Oliver said through a yawn, “you were right after all—you know, about the spooky-weird, not just the cool-weird.”

“Duh, I'm always right. You should know that by now. But you were right too.”

“Huh?”

Poppy grinned. “We
have
to find a way to stay in this house. As soon as all this ghost stuff is over. Night!” She leapfrogged over the banister and disappeared down the hallway.

They set to work immediately after breakfast the next morning. Although Dahlia wasn't able to ghost through the wall of the hidden room, she used something she called Clearsight to look through the wallpaper, and found a door buried under a couple layers of the brightly patterned paper.

“Right here,” she said, marking the spot on the door with her hands after going through the zapper. This time, she came
back moving extra slowly, like she had a heavy backpack on her shoulders, and Oliver hoped it wasn't hurting her to keep using that machine.

Poppy dove for the box cutter, but Oliver got to it first. “Mom would kill me if I let you use this without her permission,” he said, elbowing his sister out of the way. It didn't take much effort to cut a door shape out of the checkered wallpaper. Dahlia showed them where to cut, though when she was visible she didn't have her ghost sight, so some of the edging was off. Still, in less than fifteen minutes the door was visible. Oliver got a wrench and stuck it through the empty hole where the doorknob had been removed.

He turned the wrench and pulled the door toward him. It swung open wide.

The hidden room was beautiful. Dahlia gazed in through the slowly opening doorway and something shivered inside her, something like a bud lifting its tiny head to the light, opening one petal and then another. So this was the mysterious cursed room! Why did it feel so … comforting? She looked around for signs of ghostly energy, but couldn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Of course, she was still fully corporeal, so maybe she wouldn't see anything until she resumed her true form.

She took in the high poster bed—dull and worn with age, pink satin trim just visible under the thick layer of dust, but gleaming shimmery silver in the early morning light from the far window. A tall, ornate chest of drawers filled one wall, and a plush carpet was spread across the floor.

Almost without registering what she was doing, Dahlia's
feet began to move through the open door and across the floor, her eyes running over every detail.

“Hey,” Oliver said. “Didn't you say you … couldn't come in this room?”

Dahlia felt a sudden lurch in her insides. “I did say that—I couldn't—”

And yet, here she was. The room that had been blocked to her as a ghost had let in her non-ghostly form. Oliver seemed to understand and returned to exploring, and Poppy was fiddling with a music box. Dahlia turned her attention toward the bed. Right next to it, something hung on the wall. She walked over to it and blew off a cloud of dust. It was a wide, flat calendar of yellowed cardstock. At the top, she read,
The Star Lover's Guide to 1954
.

Dahlia swallowed. What was it about this place? Why did it seem almost familiar?

“Wow!” Poppy's gasp was so loud that Oliver's hand shot out to shush her. Their parents might be two floors and multiple rooms away, but sound had a way of carrying the best when you least wanted it to.

Strange feelings rushed through Dahlia as she watched Poppy brush dust off the coverlet and lift up the edge to peer at the sheets. Oliver walked over to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. He wrinkled his nose. “Clothes,” he said. “Old ones. Lots of lace and stuff.”

Dahlia was growing more and more confused at the strange feelings churning inside her. “Wait,” she whispered, but the
other two didn't hear her. Poppy had her hand on a wooden chest that sat under the window. Suddenly Dahlia couldn't take it anymore. She felt a rush of emotion welling up inside her, so hot and fast and strong she could hardly contain it. She ran across the room and yanked Poppy away from the chest. “Stop!” she said. “Just leave everything alone!”

Poppy turned around and raised an eyebrow.

Dahlia found that she was trembling. What was going on with her? There was some connection here, something about this place she could almost remember but not quite. Some draw pulling her just as strongly as the fear was trying to push her away.

“Never mind,” she muttered, moving toward the bed. “Just jittery, I guess.” Her legs looked sharply outlined again, so she knew the others saw her bobbing around on a short floating skirt. She didn't have much longer before her next zap.

“It looks like the room was frozen in time,” Oliver said. “Somebody locked it up years and years ago, after Laura Silverton's death, I guess. And no one's set foot in it since.”

“No kidding,” Poppy said, waving her dust-blackened hands and turning back to continue investigating.

Dahlia ran her hand along the edge of the coverlet, gently swirling the dust up into the air. The bed was neatly made, with a folded pile of clothing on the end. Almost as though it was still waiting for the room's inhabitant to wake up and get dressed. Dahlia sat down on the bed, and her eyes fell on the nightstand.

Reaching over, she picked up a tiny silver frame. She blew the dust off the frame and saw a tiny black-and-white photograph containing three fuzzy, washed-out faces: a wide bearded man, a stern but smiling woman, and a small apple-cheeked girl.

Dahlia's hands turned invisible. The picture frame dropped through them, clattering to the floor. Her breath catching in her throat, Dahlia jumped up and shot back toward the main storage area. She had to get back to the Seesaw, had to zap herself again as quickly as she could, and then start searching that room from top to bottom. Because, because—

The small face in the frame was her own.

This had been
her
room.

How could she not have known it? And yet, of course, she now realized that somewhere deep down, she
had
known. Right from the start, bits of knowledge had been there, little tendrils of remembrance. She thought of the date on the calendar—far later than Laura Silverton had lived. She thought of her discomfort at the others fingering the things in the room—
her things
.

“What's the matter?” Oliver asked behind her as she finally slowed to a stop, hovering over the loose board.

Dahlia bent over to pick up the Seesaw but her hands passed right through it. The jolt caught her off guard—was she growing so used to Manifesting that she was forgetting she was a ghost?—but once her form stabilized, she steadied herself
and picked up the device. Might as well bring it back to the room, as she would certainly need to use it again soon.

“That closed-up room was yours, wasn't it?” Oliver asked. “It wasn't that Laura girl's after all. You were a lot younger in that photo, but it's definitely you.”

Dahlia walked back toward the room on leaden feet. “I don't know anything about Laura, but I do remember this being my room. It just … the memories came back to me all at once. I'm sure we'll find some clues in here.” She paused on the threshold. “Or, I hope we will. I don't think I was in here when I was young. It was much later. I do remember my early childhood years, you know. My memories don't stop until a year or two before I died, until …” The memory came to her like a slap across the face. “Until my father left. That's when everything changed—I can almost remember. My mother pulled back into herself. I hardly saw her. She let most of the household staff go. She became kind of like a ghost herself.”

Oliver looked down at the ground. If he was uncomfortable hearing all this personal stuff, he didn't show it. He just looked sad.

Dahlia shook her head. “Come on, let's get searching. Your party is going to start soon, isn't it?”

She stepped through the door, with the Seesaw clutched tightly against her chest. As she crossed the threshold, though, something felt different. There wasn't a wall keeping her out, like when she was a ghost, but something was pushing against
her, holding her back like a web, like a soap bubble and with just a bit more pressure … the push became an energy, which pulled suddenly taut. Dahlia leaned in harder, and finally it burst in a gush that knocked her backward.

There was a loud grinding noise, as if the walls themselves might be coming apart. The floor lifted and dropped, shook itself like a dog, then was still. Dahlia barely kept her balance, panting a little.

She knew what had just happened: she'd broken through the force that had kept her out of the room while she was in her ghost form. When she was back to normal, she knew she would be able to use her Clearsight and see right through this room, just like any other part of the house. But why? And how?

Had she just broken the curse?

Arms shaking, Dahlia set the Seesaw on the ground inside the door.

“What
was
that?” Poppy asked. “Are you okay? You went all white and the room kind of went boom and jiggled. Do you think anyone downstairs heard that?”

“I sure hope not,” said Oliver.

“Is everything all right up there?” Mrs. Day's voice drifted up the stairs, sounding thankfully far-off.

The kids exchanged looks. “Fine!” called Oliver quickly. “Just, uh, dropped something heavy. No problems here!”

A rumbling man's voice chimed in. “Perhaps we should make sure all is well.”

“Rutabartle?” Poppy whispered. “What's that nosybones doing here?”

“Checking up on the party, probably,” said Oliver.

Poppy giggled. “Do you think he'll like our decorations?”

Dahlia wanted to join in the lighthearted conversation. She also wanted to think about this question of the curse and the dispelled energy and what that would mean for the Day family. Instead, all she could think of was that she was standing in this room, in
her very own room
, walking on the floors that she had walked on before she died. Maybe the actual
room
where she had died.

It was like a blanket had been lifted off the air surrounding her and it now hummed and whispered to her in soft, familiar tones. She dove back into her search with a renewed energy.