The Nightmarys - By Dan Poblocki Page 0,17

was almost certain that whoever was assaulting the door was no prankster either. For the past few weeks, she’d been seeing things she should not have been seeing. She’d managed to dismiss the other incidents as exhaustion, but this was not something she could ignore. She was trapped in a tiny room, wearing a bathing suit that did not yet belong to her. And outside was … well … No, that was impossible. There was no such thing as ghosts.

Emma reached for the doorknob. Grasping it, she turned her wrist slowly, then pulled the door open. Peeking out, she saw no one, so she swung the door wide.

But then, standing in the opposite cubicle, Emma noticed the girl. Her wet black hair was plastered to her dirty face, her brown skin pulled taut over her cheekbones. She wore the same stars-and-stripes dress she’d been wearing the last time Emma had seen her … nearly sixty years ago. “Delia,” Emma croaked. Her sister.

The girl leapt across the aisle, arms raised, and Emma stumbled backward. “It was your fault!” screamed the girl. “You weren’t watching. You weren’t watching. You weren’t watching!”

Emma hit the mirror behind her and covered her face. “I’m sorry!” she cried, sliding down the wall until she’d managed to curl herself into a ball on the carpet. “I’m so sorry, Delia! Please!” She felt someone grab at her shoulder. Emma slapped the hand away, then glanced up, expecting Delia to lean in at her with a mouthful of broken teeth.

Instead, the salesgirl stood over her, wearing a shocked expression. “Is everything all right, ma’am?”

Emma didn’t know what to do. Lifting her eyes, she peered at the aisle outside the dressing room. No one else was there. She shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Everything is fine,” Emma said, standing sturdily. She brushed herself off. “The bathing suit fits perfectly. I’ll take it.” The salesgirl nodded and stepped out of the cubicle.

Then a voice whispered from the adjacent dressing room, the same voice she’d been hearing for several weeks now, whenever she thought of her sister. It said, Your fault …

“Wait!” Emma grabbed the salesgirl’s arm. The girl looked worried. “Can you do me a favor?” Emma asked. “Just … stand outside the door? Make sure no one tries to come in?”

The salesgirl simply stared back, as if Emma had lost her mind.

14.

The morning after swim practice, the clouds had broken, and bits of blue shone through the gray. After he got off the bus, Timothy went directly to the school library. There were only ten minutes before the first bell, but there was something he needed to do. He plopped himself down at an empty computer, logged on to the Internet, and did a search of the name Ogden Kentwall.

The first few pages of results didn’t produce any exact matches—a few “Ogden”s, several “Kentwall”s, but nothing else. Just when Timothy was about to give up and head to his locker, he finally came across a Web site for an independent bookstore, called The Enigmatic Manuscript, located in the northwest corner of the state. The Web site listed several other Zelda Kite Mysteries and a brief biography of the author, which had been written by the owner of the store, a woman named Frances May.

“Ogden Kentwall is actually a pseudonym for a man whose real name was Hieronymus Kindred,” wrote Frances, “a lawyer from Boston, who allegedly based the character of Zelda Kite on his teenaged niece. Kindred’s foray into children’s literature was short-lived, due to the series’ never really catching on. His three titles that survive, however, have a strange, subtle charm, and I would not be surprised if someday they are rediscovered by young audiences. I have one copy of each, available for purchase through this site …”

As Timothy read the short blurb, he began to feel a chill. Hieronymus Kindred? Why did the name sound familiar? Before he had a chance to think about it, the first bell rang. Timothy quickly logged off the computer, snatched his bag from the desk, and headed toward homeroom.

By the time Timothy made it to Mr. Crane’s third-period class, the school was buzzing about Stuart. Timothy hadn’t said anything about what had happened the night before, yet everyone was looking at him strangely, expectant, as if he might know something more. He sat down and tried not to look at the empty chair to his left.

Before Mr. Crane came through the door, Brian Friedman and Randy Weiss