I stood frozen as a statue, staring at the girl who must surely be an illusion cooked up by Nick. But it wasn't. Stephanie looked up from the book she was leafing through to stare straight at me. I lifted my hand to my mouth and started to back away slowly.

I had never been more scared in my entire life. The girl was all dressed in rags and once beautiful dark hair hung like strings to her knees. Her horrifying eyes were ragged, black wells. And they were staring right at me.

Then Stephanie stood up and I quickly backed away some more. Then I let out a blood-chilling scream as Stephanie came flying, literally flying, towards me. I thought for sure she was going to kill me, but she passed right through an old vanity and into the wall. She was gone.

I jerked awake, sure great-aunt Stephanie was about to get me. It had all seemed so real: seeing her sitting on my bed, her flying towards me, and ,lastly, disappearing through that old, dust-covered vanity.

I must have fallen asleep after attempting to eat that moldy, grease-ridden pizza. I sat up in my new bed, still freaked from my dream when I saw something that freaked me out even more: an old black book with a cracked leather cover, just like the one from my dream.

I stared, gobsamcked, at the book. I was so shocked, it's amazing my brain could still function. How had this book gotten here? And, more importantly, was it the book from my dream? It sure looked like it.

Gingerly, I picked it up. Some of the leather from which its cover was made from crumbled to dust at my touch. I brushed it off my bed, to intrigued by my discovery to care much.

I flipped through the book to see that it was filled with neat careful writing. It appeared to be some sort of journal or diary. I skimmed through it and caught phrases like "She's coming" and "I'm terribly frightened."

Now hooked, I jumped to the first page and began to read.

August 16, 1854

Today we moved into we moved into the home of our ancestors, Mostin Manor. It is quite comfortable. I especially like my room. It is on the fourth floor on the left side. It has a balcony with a splendid view of the back gardens. The bed linens are a little odd. They are decorated with thorny rosebushes and girls cowering under them. The previous owner must have had queer taste!

Whoa, the girl (I'm assuming it was a girl; the cursive the journal was written in was very flowery) had the same room as me! Did she know about Stephanie Mostin? And, weirder still, my bed sheets had been around in 1854? I hoped they'd been washed by then.

Pushing all other thoughts aside, I picked up the journal and started to read again.

August 17, 1854

It is such a dreary day. The sun hasn't shown its face once and it is already six in the evening! Not much has happened except that Johnny keeps insisting that he has seen the ghost of our ancestor Stephanie Mostin! He says she was wandering around in the family cemetery in the back yard. Johnny claims she was all dressed in rags with dirty hair to her knees. Mother scolded him for lying and boxed his ears. She told us not to listen to him. Johnny got very indignant and went ranting on about how he really had seen the ghost of Aunt Stephanie. He tried very hard to convince Mother of that, but all he got was an early bedtime for frightening the twins, Beth and Jo. Before he ascended the stairs, he looked at me pleadingly and said, "You believe me, don't you, Victoriana?" I looked away but didn't miss the disappointment in his eyes. I, his best friend, have let him down. I am not entirely sure what to believe. Did Johnny really see Stephanie Mostin?

Who were these people? I was getting more than a little freaked out. If what I read was true and Johnny, whoever he was, one of my ancestors from the sound of it, was telling the truth, then Great Aunt Stephanie's ghost really was haunting Mostin Manor. Not a happy thought.

I picked up Victoriana's diary again and skipped ahead a couple entries.

September 2, 1854

I am so frightened! I don't know what to do! Everyday she draws closer and closer, and yet Mother will still not believe me! Was what happened to Beth and Jo not enough for her? Is Mother willing to sacrifice Johnny and I as well? I do not want to find out. She is picking us off one by one. I want to escape, escape with Mother and Father and Johnny before it is to0 late. Before she comes. Before Aunt Stephanie kills us all…

I dropped the book. An echo resounded through my room, marking its abrupt fall. Could it be true? Could Great Aunt Stephanie's ghost be haunting Mostin Manor? And, scariest of all, what had happened to Beth and Jo? It sounded like Stephanie had… killed them.

"But that's not possible," I told my self as I flipped through the creepy diary. I was trying to find the entry that told what had happened to the twins. "Ghosts of runaway girls don't just-" I was cut short by a piercing scream coming from two floors down.

With a new fear to replace my old one, I quit my room and dashed down the two flights of stairs. Just as I expected: the scream belonged to Sophie. I found that I was the last to arrive; Mom and Nick had beaten me.

Sophie was curled up in Mom's arms and she was sobbing uncontrollably. When I looked at the state of her room, I saw why. And it scared me more than anything.

Her bed was on its side, the lamp was broken, and the curtains were slashed. If it could be ripped or broken it was. But that wasn't what was so chilling. In what appeared to be blood, the words YOU WILL SUFFER were written on her wall.

I glanced over at Nick to see that he was shaking. He saw me staring at him and gestured wordlessly to the menacing message and then to our sister's bloody arm. The meaning was clear: the message had been written in Sophie's blood.

I pressed my hand to my mouth and silently screamed. Who could do such a thing?! And Sophie's only eleven!

I stopped my rant as my sister shakily began to speak. "I…I was re…reading my b-b-book and out of no where a-a- a-a g-g-girl appeared. She was horrible! Her…her clothes were rags and instead of eyes she had b-black holes! She…she told m-me I was g-g-going to suffer as s-s-she did. Then she c-c-c-cut my arm and…and dragged me over…over to the wall and-"

Sophie broke off and began to sob hysterically into our mother's shoulder. Nick looked over at me horror dancing on his face. Mine probably was a reflection of his. "Nick, Mia," Mom's sharp voice drew me out of my thinking. I looked over at her to see that she was trying to contain the same emotions I wasn't able to: fear and bewilderment. "I 'm going to take your sister to see a doctor and I don't feel comfortable leaving you here alone after," she faltered, "after tonight's recent events." We nodded. There was no way I wanted to spend another moment at Mostin Manor, not after what'd happened.

We trooped outside to the car (with Mom carrying Sophie) only to remember that we'd gotten a flat tire pulling into are new driveway. "Well isn't that convenient." I knew Mom was pretty annoyed because she only uses sarcasm then. "Do we have any medical supplies…" I let my suggestion slide away under the heat of my mother's glare. Luckily, Nick knew what to do. In no time at all he'd whipped out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived four minutes later bringing with it an unwanted surprise: there wasn't room for my brother and I. The driver looked apologetic, Mom however looked ticked. She argued with the man about how we couldn't possibly stay here in light of recent events, but when he said, "Ma'am, I personally don't know much about medical stuff, but I can see that your daughter's lost a lot of blood. You should get her to a hospital as soon as possible."

With a final glare in the driver's direction, Mom shifted her focus back to us and said, "I'm sorry Mia and Nick, but you're going to have to spend the night at the house." Then she rattled off a list of safety measures we were to follow, adding about fifty new ones. But for once I didn't care.

It's a good thing my brother was paying attention because all I got out of it was that Nick and I wouldn't be coming with Mom and Sophie to the hospital and that, since it was eleven at night, they would be staying at the hospital over night.

As they drove away all I could think about was: Stephanie's ghost attacked my sister, the ghost wrote with my sister's blood, the ghost is in the house, the ghost is going to kill us, just like it killed little Jo and Beth. With those pleasant thoughts making a home in my mind, I fainted. And the last thing I saw was a girl's face staring down at me from a nearby tree with a malicious grin on her eyeless face.