not sure there’s a market for household junk found in bogus haunted houses.”
There are two closets, one on each side of the room, their doors slanted to accommodate the vaulted ceiling. We each take one, Dane’s opening with a rusty creak.
“Nothing in here but suitcases,” he says.
I cross the room and peer over his shoulder. Sitting on the closet floor are two square cases. We drag them out of the closet and each open one. Inside Dane’s is a record player. Inside mine is an album collection. The record on top is a familiar title: The Sound of Music.
Seeing them gives me the same creeping sense of unease I felt last night when I realized my father hadn’t lied about leaving everything behind. I do an involuntary shimmy, trying to shake it away. Just because they exist doesn’t mean what my father wrote is true. I need to remember that. Baneberry Hall is likely filled with things mentioned in the Book.
Write what you know. My father’s favorite piece of advice.
“It’s junk,” I say as I stalk back to my closet. “We should toss it.”
Dane does the opposite and lifts the record player onto the desk. The case of records soon follows. “We should give it a spin,” he says while sorting through the albums. “Showtunes or, uh, showtunes?”
“I prefer silence,” I say, an edge to my voice.
Dane gets the hint and backs away from the desk, joining me at the second closet as I pull the door open.
Inside is a teddy bear.
It sits on the floor, back against the wall like a hostage, its once-brown fur turned ashen from years of dust. One of its black-button eyes has fallen off, leaving a squiggle of thread poking from its fur like an exposed optic nerve. Around the bear’s neck is a red bow tie, the ends squashed, as if it had been hugged too tightly for too long.
“Was this yours?” Dane says. He gives the bear a squeeze, and a puff of dust rises off its shoulders.
“No,” I say. “At least, I don’t think so. I have no memory of it.”
A thought occurs to me. A sad one. It’s possible this bear had once been Katie Carver’s and was left behind, like so many of the family’s belongings. My father, not knowing what to do with it, might have stuck it in the closet and forgotten about it.
I take the bear from Dane, set it on the desk next to the record player, and return to the closet. There’s something else inside, perched on a top shelf.
A blue shoebox.
Just like the one my father claimed to have found in the Book. Filled with strange pictures of Katie’s father.
My unease returns. Stronger now, and more insidious. With trembling hands, I take the box to the desk and open it, already knowing what I’ll find inside: a Polaroid camera and a stack of photos.
I’m right on both counts.
The camera fills one end of the box, clunky and heavy. The photos—five of them in all—lie haphazardly beside it. But instead of Curtis Carver’s vacant stare, the first photo I see is, shockingly, of me. Like the one in the parlor, it bears only the faintest resemblance to me.
I’m wearing jeans and a Batman T-shirt in the photo, which was snapped in front of Baneberry Hall, the house lurking in the background like an eavesdropper. Its presence means I was five at the time. Because there’s no scar on my cheek, I also assume it was taken in the first three days of our stay. There’s not even a bandage.
It’s also missing in the next photo, which shows me standing with two other girls, one roughly my age and the other much older. We’re in my bedroom, lined up in front of the armoire, our eyes glowing red from the flash and giving us the look of demon children.
The younger girl I recognize. I saw the same features in the face of the woman I met last night. The only difference is a present-day hardness not evident in this younger version of herself.
Hannah Ditmer.
Which means the older girl in the photo is Petra.
She’s so pretty it takes my breath away. Long limbs, creamy skin, blond hair that’s been piled atop her head. Unlike Hannah and me, who stand stiff-backed with our arms at our sides, Petra strikes a playful pose. Hand on her hip. One leg bent in a backward kick. Flash of bare feet, toenails painted red.