The Boys Who Loved Me - Krista Wolf Page 0,83

with a phrase that stuck in my head for the rest of the summer: Sometimes in life you just gotta jump.

The memories were still fresh as I unlocked the old wooden door and made my way into the cottage I’d called home for the past four and a half months. The place was quiet as I walked the wide-planked floors and narrow hallways. Flipping on a light, I passed through the colorfully-tiled kitchen and opened the fridge.

It was just about as empty as the rest of the house.

I grabbed a bottle of water and unscrewed the cap, then took a few cold swallows. The stress of the day still lingered on me, like my beer-soaked Bavarian maid’s outfit.

“Thanks, Stacy!” I cried cheerfully, as I did at least two or three times a day. I glanced to the left, where the first door in the hallway opened into what was once her bedroom. Three weeks. That’s all she’d stayed. For three solid weeks we’d had the best of times together. Beyond that it had been just me and Castigere, the rainbow-colored parrot.

I thought bitterly about all the places we wanted to go but never did. The things we wanted to see up here, but never got around to. The only thing I did follow through on was catching up on all the girly flicks we’d planned to watch on the cottage’s ancient television. Only I’d watched those movies all alone, instead of curled up with my friend beneath a cozy blanket, sharing a bucket of buttery popcorn.

Hell, I’d watched them all and then some.

Moving into the back of the house I kicked off my shoes and stepped out of my black-and-white ruffled uniform. Not every weekend under the tent was a designated costume party, but even when the patrons weren’t dressed up I was still required to wear this godforsaken outfit. Tight white stockings, uncomfortable footwear and all.

The shower in the old cottage was a tight fit, but at least the water was warm. I took extra time each night, scrubbing stale lager and sticky bock from my aching body. Running Stacy’s strawberry-scented body wash up and down my tired legs, using the natural sponge loofah she’d brought up from home.

Because hey, she hadn’t taken everything with her.

I was halfway through my shower routine and just about done rinsing my hair when it happened. There was a loud, sizzling ‘pop’, and then suddenly darkness swallowed everything.

Crap.

It took me a few seconds to kill the shower. Then, fumbling through the pitch blackness, I found the towel and wrapped it around me. A few steps later my hand closed over my phone. I flicked on the flashlight.

The breaker box again. In the basement.

The basement was almost a crawlspace, and that creeped me out. Especially since the last time I went down there I got a face full of spiderwebs.

No, the last two times you went down there.

With no other choice I went anyway, holding the phone out in front me. With the other hand, I held the towel pinned around my body.

“It’s a beautiful cottage,” I sneered, mimicking Stacy’s voice. “Wait ‘till you see it…”

I was talking to myself to keep from freaking out, because even without the spiderwebs the basement was creepy as hell. Shadows danced as I padded down the wooden steps, my arm held shakily out before me.

“Ugh!”

The fuse had tripped before, but this was the first time I’d walked the basement in bare feet. It felt cold and ghoulish. Wholly disgusting. I was lamenting not finding my shoes first when the old electrical panel floated into view.

I hadn’t figured out which combination of lights and appliances was the culprit for tripping the breaker, but I knew which switch to flip. Only this time, it wasn’t tripped. Both sides of the breaker panel were live.

Double-crap.

I flipped everything off, then on again. Nothing happened. And that’s when I noticed it: ten ancient glass fuses, screwed in beneath the panel. The kind they didn’t make anymore.

And one of them was scorched black.

“SHIT.”

I was holding the phone as close as I could, right up next to my face. Squinting hard, I peered into the dark, smoky glass…

BZZZZZ!

And that’s when the ringer went off an inch from my ear, scaring me half into the next world.

Five

CANDY

My heart leapt out of my chest as I screamed into the dirt-lined basement. At the same time, my phone tumbled from my hand in a dizzying spin of light and shadows.

WHAT THE—

End over end it fell, almost in