it was the only explanation I could think of.
Whatever the reason, I doubted it would happen again.
Chapter Five
The last week of August was cooler than average. The days were warm, but the nights held quite the chill. I was thankful I’d worn my hoodie that night as I snuck past the iron gate and slipped onto the Redwood property.
The place was secluded. No other houses were in seeing distance, and the road leading to the mansion was more like a super long private driveway. But I still liked to hide my car just in case anyone came snooping around. The cops would sometimes check the place out if they received a call about anyone traveling the road.
As I approached the mansion, nerves swirled in the pit of my stomach. Any normal person would’ve learned not to meddle by now.
But I’d never been normal.
“Secrets lie within these walls. Many sad. Others terrifying.”
Z’s statement had made me even more curious. I had read about some of those terrifying secrets, but I wanted to know more. And preferably from the source itself: the ghosts who haunted the estate.
At the front door, I checked the handle. Like last time, it was locked. I lightly knocked on the wood, then knocked again a little harder.
“Hello?” I called out. “It’s Carter, your friendly neighborhood human.” A loud thump sounded from the other side, sending me faltering backward in surprise. “Is that you, Z?”
No answer.
I waited a moment longer before leaving the porch and heading around the house. A dark shape flitted ahead of me. Was it the little boy? Hearing a faint giggle, I took off after it. I didn’t see anything once I reached the back patio, though. No silhouettes, glimmers, or transparent bodies. No ghost children.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said, feeling ten kinds of silly. They were ghosts. There was very little I could do to hurt them, yet they could hurt me with no problem. But still. I didn’t want them to be afraid of me.
I approached the patio doors and peered through the glass. I couldn’t see much on the other side other than what looked like a table and some cabinets. I wiped at the dirty glass before putting my face against it again. A pale face suddenly appeared. I nearly shit myself as I screeched and fell backward on my ass.
The door swung open, and Z stepped outside.
“What on God’s green earth are you doing, Carter?”
“Um.” I stood up and dusted off my butt. “Coming to see you?”
“Why? I thought I made it perfectly clear that—”
“That you don’t want me here,” I interjected, annoyed. “Yeah, I remember.”
Z came closer, bringing a small gust of cold air with him. “Then why are you standing before me right now? Why didn’t you listen?”
“Because I wanted to see you,” I answered, knowing how pathetic it sounded. But it was the truth. Unraveling the mystery of Redwood intrigued me, but the handsome ghost currently glaring at me intrigued me the most.
“When will you learn?” he asked in exasperation. “I do not want to see you. Get that through your thick skull.”
His harsh tone didn’t match the gentleness in his eyes. The way he had reached for me before drawing his hand back contradicted it as well. His words said one thing, yet his actions said another.
“Can I come in?”
Though he had no biological reason to breathe, he released a sigh anyway. I annoyed him that much. “You never give up, do you?”
“Nope. Especially when I have my mind set on something.”
“And what, may I ask,” Z said, stepping even closer to me, “do you have your mind set on?”
“You.” The word came out a lot steadier than I thought it would. Because I was trembling on the inside, worried he was going to force me to leave. “I want to know you.”
His head tilted up a fraction as his jaw tightened. “You can never know me. Not the me I used to be. This is who I am now, a spirit damned to this mansion until the end of days. I barely recall my life from before.”
The pain in his eyes made me think he was lying. Maybe, like Theo, Z’s past was too painful to talk about. It had taken Theo months to open up to Ben about it all.
“Let me get to know the you right now,” I suggested, not backing down. “I’ll tell you about me too.”
“Oh, I feel I know enough about you. You’re like a small, curious pest