Chapter Two

After an overwhelming day like that, I wasn’t ready to just sit down and do homework as soon as I got home. Instead I dropped off my stuff in my room and went out for a walk. Dad wasn’t home (I assumed he was job hunting) but I left him a note telling him I’d be back shortly.

There was a wooded area not too far from the neighborhood so I walked toward it, eager to get away from this stupid town. Willis Thatcher had told me never to go too far into the woods, but Willis Thatcher was most likely crazy (or just full of it). Anyways going too far into the woods was a dumb idea if I didn’t know the area so there was no chance of that happening.

Once I was surrounded by trees and plants, I felt my frustrations melting away. I stopped thinking about the weirdness of these dumb small-town losers and how no one ever acted like this back at home and how much I wanted to go back home and how much I was already missing home despite just being gone a few days.

All that just went away. In a breath it was there, and when I let it out, it was gone. I breathed in the smell of leaves and pine and earth. Birds fluttered from branch to branch and chirped every now and then. Squirrels rustled in the underbrush and darted up and down trees. To them the world was simple. Find food, find mate, avoid danger. There was no worrying about stupid rumors or missing friends or worrying about why your mom had to die. Everything just happened as it happened and you didn’t bother to dwell on the past because you didn’t have the time to.

I sat down against a tree and let these things lull me to sleep. I woke up with a start and blinked my eyes hard, not quite understanding why it was so dark if I’d only had my eyes shut a few minutes. I checked my watch with what little light I had and found out it was ten thirty. I sighed and began heading back where I remembered coming from. Only I found myself heading deeper and deeper into the woods. I couldn’t recognize anything and it was too dark to see, anyways. I wondered if I could spend the night here. Would I survive? I’d be able to find my way back in the morning. Dad would have to come looking for me anyways.

I heard something that sounded like rustling and wind through the trees and then felt a few raindrops on my nose. I held my breath, praying it would go away. It only got stronger. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I held a whimper in my chest. All I could do now was keep walking till I found shelter.

The rain came down in sheets. My clothes clung to me and weighed me down. My jeans weighed a ton and my shoes and socks stuck to my feet. I kept walking in one direction, figuring the woods couldn’t go on for that long. At one point, I tripped over a branch or a root or something and fell forward into the mud, hitting my knee on a rock. Pain surged through my leg and I started to cry. Not because it hurt, but because I was feeling really run-down and defeated. Still, I picked myself up and kept walking.

Finally, the trees ended, almost in a neat line, and I stepped out into the cemetery. With nothing to shield me from the storm, the rain came down even harder. I stumbled through the cemetery, remembering what Willis had told me about a mansion at the far end of it. He’d told me to stay away but it was raining too hard for me to care right now.

I found the mansion, stumbled weakly up the stairs, and tried to open the door. It was locked so instead I rang the doorbell and waited, shivering. The door opened and a handsome teenage boy answered. He stared at me, clearly confused. “Hello?”

“I’m really sorry,” I chattered, “but I got lost and…and could I use your phone, please?”

He grinned at me, almost mockingly, but held open the door to let me in. “What were you doing out in a storm?”

“I fell asleep,” I admitted sheepishly.

He laughed. “There’s a phone in the kitchen.” He pointed me out in the general direction.

I took in my surroundings as I walked to the kitchen. The house was definitely old but it didn’t seem particularly creepy. I did my best to remember the new house number and when I finally did, there was no answer. Dad was probably sleeping. I sighed and hung up.

The boy who let me in was leaning against the doorway. “Do you need a ride back or something?”

“I would but, um, I don’t really know how to get there.”

A look of realization crossed his face. “Oh that’s right, you’re the new girl!”

I rolled my eyes but forced a grin. “Yep, that’s me.”

He smiled. “I’m Darcy. Darcy Germaine.”

I squinted. Why did that sound so familiar… “Atticus!” I exclaimed, then laughed nervously and said, “Uh, is he your brother? Atticus?”

Darcy gave me a weird look but laughed too. “Yeah, he’s my little brother.”

They looked nothing alike. Darcy was tall and muscular with a square jaw and dark, thick hair. Atticus may not have been the ugliest boy in the world, but he certainly didn’t compare to his brother.

“He’s in biology with me.”

“In the haunted room.”

“So everyone really does know all this stuff?”

Darcy nodded. “Hey, uh, not to be creepy but if you can’t get home tonight you’re welcome to just stay here.”

“God, I don’t want to be a burden or anything.”

He laughed. “It’s a mansion. We have space.”

That made sense.

“If you need dry clothes or anything I can lend you something…”

“Um…would that be weird?”

He shrugged. “Weirder things have happened to my clothes.”

I didn’t really want him to elaborate. Instead I took him up on his offer and he found me a t-shirt, jeans and socks.

“If you need those clothes dry there’s a drier in the basement. Atticus is down there so it shouldn’t be too creepy.”

Yeah right, being alone in a basement with a necrophiliac won’t be creepy at all. “What’s he doing in the basement?” I asked.

Darcy made a face. “Really, you don’t know? Jesus, people usually know everything about Atticus. And about the house.”

I stared. “What?”

“The town morgue is in the basement.”

My eyes grew wide.

“It’s not that bad. You won’t be scarred for life or anything. Good night!” And with that, he turned and went up the large, curving staircase.

I gulped and turned to the basement door, which had a white light coming out from under it. This was turning out to be the worst day of my life. I opened the door and walked carefully down the stairs, my heart pounding.

I’d never seen a morgue before, but this one was small and white with three metal tables and three bodies in sheets on top of them. Atticus was standing over one of them, has back to me, and the sheet pulled down to the dead person’s shoulders.

“Hello?” I said.

He turned and a look of familiarity crossed his face. He looked me up and down and didn’t say anything.

“Uh, where’s the dryer?”

He jabbed a finger towards a door.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I went inside, shut the door, peeled off my wet clothes and changed quickly into the dry ones. I set the dryer and emerged. Atticus gave me a weird look.

“Uh, your brother lent me these. Until mine dry.”

He didn’t really react, just kept working on the body.

“What are you…um, what’re you doing?”

He held up a little container of what looked like powdered foundation.

I stared. “Are you putting make-up on them?” This seemed very funny to me and I couldn’t help but giggle. Atticus Germaine, school weirdo and all-around creep was some kind of makeup genius? The thought of him reading a Vogue magazine for tips was the best mental image I’d had in a while.

“No one likes to see a relative looking like a corpse,” he muttered.

I pressed my lips together tightly. “I guess not.”

I went upstairs to go find a room to sleep in and found the house pitch-black. I scurried back down to the basement. Atticus looked up at me, expectantly.

“It’s, uh…it’s kind of creepy up there.”

“You planning on spending the night down here?” he said sarcastically.

“Well aren’t you going upstairs?”

“When I finish Mrs. Price.”

I looked down at the dead woman Atticus was fixing up.

“Her?”

He nodded.

I sat down on the steps. “How did she die?”

He shrugged.

I sighed and picked at the hem of the oversized t-shirt I had on. Normally I can tolerate silence better than most people. But in this room, it seemed like making noise was all that kept me apart from the corpses. “So. Darcy and Atticus…those are some pretty weird names.”

“Our dad’s an English major.” He put the makeup away in a bag and ran a finger across Mrs. Price’s cheek, quickly smoothing some makeup down. “Used to be a professor.”

“What’s he do now?”

Atticus finally looked up at me. His eyes were startlingly green. Even behind his glasses they seemed to have a kind of glow to them. “He hunts ghosts.”

I stared. “Really?”

He pulled the sheet carefully over Mrs. Price’s head. “Really.”

“I didn’t know there was any money in that.”

“There isn’t,” he muttered.

“Oh,” I said softly. I looked down at the covered body and suddenly found the words coming out of my mouth. “Some people at school…well, they say you’re a necrophiliac.”

Atticus stared at me, his eyes freezing over into a harsh glare. “And?”

On the inside, I was kicking myself. This guy was allowing me to sleep in his house when he didn’t even know me and here I was accusing him of having sex with dead people. Now that I’d opened my big mouth I had no choice but to continue talking in hopes it would fix my stupid mistake.

“Well…it’s not true…is it?”

He gave me a look, then went to turn off the lights. “Dead people are easier to get along with.” He began to climb the stairs and as I followed him up he muttered, “Doesn’t mean I wanna fuck ‘em.”

Atticus pointed me out to a spare room and I curled up in the bed. Just before I fell asleep, I could have sworn I heard two people whispering at the edge of my bed. It should have scared the crap out of me, but I was too tired to care, and I slipped away into my dreams.