The Fade Read online

  “They were all on track together.” There has to be a clue there.

  Mrs. Franz seems to read my thoughts. “The police looked into it. The coach, the assistant coaches, the other girls on the team, even the school principal. Everyone was a suspect and nothing was found. Some evil person stole those girls and disappeared into the ether.” Mrs. Franz rubs her face. “When I saw your sister, I got quite a shock. Looks like she could have been one of them. Blond and tall and pretty as a picture. She’s lucky she’s about five years too late.”

  “Isn’t it weird they all looked so similar?” I ask.

  Mrs. Franz shrugs. “We’ve got a lot of Nordic stock here. And like I said, this is a small town. If a pair of siblings find themselves married to a pair of cousins, their kids look the same.”

  “What do you think happened to them?” I ask.

  “I thought the track coach had something to do with it,” she says, sighing. “He was such a strange man. But he was cleared by the police. I’d show up every day and badger them. Brandy was all I had left. They gave me the runaround. That good-for-nothing police chief got his, though. Fired. Then the FBI took over. They had even less time for me. When they decided to leave and call the disappearances unsolved, it was the worst day of my life.”

  I look around the packed kitchen. I understand now why Mrs. Franz isn’t willing to let anything go.

  “Do you believe in spirits?” I ask quietly.

  “You mean an afterlife? I haven’t been to church in ten years.”

  I’m about to tell her more but think better of it. Mrs. Franz has made a precarious peace with her demons, and it won’t help her for me to come barging in with talk of ghosts.

  “Thanks for sharing with me,” I tell her, getting up and rinsing my cup.

  “You tell your mom I said hi. Tell her I wouldn’t mind her company once in a while either.”

  “I will.”

  I slip out the kitchen door and head over to our house. The creepy neighbor is still looking out his window, so I wave to him. He glares back. I wonder how long he’s lived there and what else he’s seen.

  Or knows.

  AFTER MY BIZARRE conversations with Chris and Mrs. Franz, how can I do something as normal as go to the grocery store with my mom? But here I am, staring at ice cream and wondering why Wisconsin has so many more options than Chicago.

  I open the freezer door, but I still can’t decide, so I close it again, making the glass all foggy.

  “Hey, Haley,” someone says, and leans against the glass door.

  I look up. “Oh, hey…Josh, right?”

  He nods. “Yeah. How are you settling in?” I didn’t get to really look at him at the bonfire. He’s tall, at least six feet, with deep brown eyes and two adorable dimples.

  “Good. Fine. Except my house is haunted,” I say distractedly.

  “What?” He smiles and his dimples twitch.

  I laugh. “Did I just say that out loud?”

  “You sure did.”

  “Forget it. Inside joke.”

  “Okaaaay. I saw you standing here looking lost, and thought I’d say hi. So hi.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  His smile fades, and he stands up straight. “Also, the other night, I saw you jogging away from the lake—and, I’m assuming, away from Coop. Are you okay?” He looks concerned, his brow furrowed.

  “Oh, yeah. He just…I mean, it was nothing. We made up about it. Kind of.” I turn to stare at the ice cream again.

  “Be careful of him,” he warns.

  I glance at his reflection in the glass. “That’s cryptic. Why do I need to be careful of Coop?”

  “This may sound hard to believe, but Coop’s unstable. He dumped my cousin out of the blue. No reason. Then he wouldn’t talk to her for an entire year.”

  I try to give Coop the benefit of the doubt. “Really?”

  “I liked him at first. He’s fun and impulsive and cute as hell. But then he started showing up to school looking worn. One minute he’d act like Sera was the most important person in his life, and the next like she meant nothing to him. I was glad when it ended, but Sera was a wreck. He played with her like she was a toy.”

  “They seem okay now.” I think of the day I met them, when they were all outside the library eating lunch. Then at the lakeside. “Mostly.”

  “They share a lot of friends, so Sera tries to be cool. Look, he seems to like you now. You just don’t want to encourage him.” Great, the one maybe-friend I’ve made might be bipolar. Or Josh could just be trying to get back at him for dumping his cousin.

  “Thanks for the warning, but I like to form my own opinions about people,” I tell him. I grab the freezer door handle, forcing him to move, and grab a pint of blue moon ice cream.

  Josh raises his hands in defeat. “I just wanted to let you know what was up.” He backs away slowly. “Oh, and if your house is really haunted, Sera is into all that ghost stuff. Like, really into it. She knows a bunch, if you ever want to talk.”

  “Is Sera here now?” I ask, glancing around.

  “Yeah, in the chip aisle.” I let him lead me to Sera, who is clutching a bag of pretzels under her left arm and a bag of corn chips in her right hand. “Look who I found in the frozen treats section,” Josh greets her.

  Sera looks up. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.” I switch the ice cream container to my left hand because my right is now frozen solid.

  “Haley wants to talk to you about a possible haunting at her house,” Josh tells her.

  “Really?” Sera’s face lights up. “Have you made contact with the ghost? Have you seen an apparition?”

  “Not exactly…” She looks at me expectantly as I juggle the ice cream back to my other hand. “Is there a test you can do or something, to see if it really is haunted?”

  Sera nods, her eyes gleaming. “When can we come over? Today? I have my car, we can leave right now.”

  “Yes. Sure. Wait, you drive?” I ask.

  “Just turned sixteen,” she says.

  “She was held back,” Josh explains.

  “It’s not my fault that my first-grade teacher didn’t appreciate my creativity,” she tells him, then turns to me. “Also, I couldn’t tell the difference between a b and a d.”

  “She just wanted to be in the same grade as me,” Josh says.

  Sera rolls her eyes but also smiles. “Yes, Josh, the world revolves around you.”

  “Just your world, honey.”

  “Anyway…so can we go now?”

  “Sure, let me just tell my mom. Meet you guys at checkout?”

  I find my mom in the meat section. “Haley, food is so cheap here! It’s ridiculous. Look how much ground beef I can get for five dollars! Hamburgers tonight?”

  “Sounds great. Can I invite some friends over? They’re waiting for me up front. They can drive me home.”

  “Um, okay. I’ll buy more meat, then.” She looks down the aisle, hoping to get a glimpse of them. “Who’s driving? Is this that boy your dad told me about?”

  “No, other friends. Sera and Josh. Sera is driving. You’ll meet them later. It’s just from here to home. I’ll sit in the backseat and wear my seat belt the whole way. I promise.” I’d offer to wear my bike helmet if it meant she’d let me go.

  “Okay then,” she says reluctantly. As I walk away, she calls, “Haley, leave the ice cream.”

  I walk back and toss it into the cart. “Blue moon?” she asks. “Neither of those words describes a flavor.”

  I shrug. “It looked interesting.”

  She pulls me in for a quick a hug. “I’m glad you’re making friends here,” she tells me. “Be safe.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Making friends left and right.” I duck out of her hug. A hug with your mom in the middle of a grocer
y store must be the most embarrassing thing ever. “See you at home.”

  She grins and piles more ground beef into the cart. I wish cheap meat could make me that happy.

  THE CAR RIDE could have been awkward, but Sera prattles on about different kinds of ghosts—she calls them apparitions—and the research she’s done.

  “You’ve actually seen a ghost, then?” I ask from the backseat, and Josh busts out laughing.

  “Sera is more of a believer than a seer,” he tells me, and Sera huffs.

  “I’ve witnessed documented proof—”

  “Ghost Journal is not documented proof,” Josh argues. “It’s a crappy show with grainy film, low production value, and atmospheric music.”

  I can tell this is an old argument. “My neighbor says he can see the…um, apparitions in my house.”

  “See them? I need to talk to him. Can I have his number?”

  “Um…he wants to remain anonymous.” I can’t go getting Chris involved more than he already is. Also, what would they say if they knew my main source was a little kid?

  “That doesn’t seem suspicious,” Josh mumbles. “It’s not Coop, is it?” He whispers his name like it’s a bad word.

  “No, it’s not Coop,” I assure them. Just his little brother.

  “Good, because he’s full of crap,” Sera says. Josh nods.

  “Anyway, my anonymous-source-who-definitely-is-not-Kelly-Cooper says they’re all teen girls and have gotten lighter over the years. Kind of see-through.”

  “Wait, you think there’s more than one apparition at your house?” Sera squeals, and bounces a little in the driver’s seat. “This is too good to be true.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t live there.”

  When we pull into my driveway, Shannon is in the front yard, practicing her footwork. She dribbles the soccer ball back and forth with impressive precision.

  Sera grabs a bag from her trunk and I lead them past Shannon, who is oblivious to our presence, and inside. Dad is unpacking the living room and looks up at our arrival.

  “Hey, Dad, this is Sera and Josh. Mom said they could stay for dinner.”

  “Where is your mother?” he asks, confused.

  “Still at the grocery store, purchasing vast quantities of ground beef. She said hamburgers for dinner, so find the grill.”

  “And you are up to…?”

  “We’re just going to hang out”—I pause—“unless Josh isn’t allowed in my room?”

  Dad glowers at me. Josh holds up his hands the same way he did in the grocery store, a sign of surrender. “If it helps at all, I’m totally gay,” he tells my dad.

  My dad blinks hard and puts his glasses on the top of his head, flustered. “It’s fine, Haley. It was just…that other boy…Oh, just go upstairs and leave me alone.”

  Sera giggles nervously as we head up to my room. “Well, that was super awkward.”

  “Sorry about that,” I tell them, shutting the door behind us. After a second I lock it too. Don’t need my parents or Shannon walking in on whatever we’re about to do. They’ll think I’m insane.

  “I don’t really get along with my dad either,” Josh says, reclining on my bed.

  Sera stands by my window, staring out across the yard. “You can totally see Coop’s place from here.”

  “Yeah….I guess you spent a lot of time there.”

  “I did. In middle school. It was always really sad there.”

  “Well, after what happened, I’m surprised this whole neighborhood doesn’t just have a rain cloud constantly pouring down on it,” Josh says.

  Sera pulls herself away from the window and takes in her cousin. “Josh, you don’t just lie on someone’s bed like that.”

  He looks at her. “Why not?”

  “It’s super rude.”

  “Maybe it’s a guy thing,” I say, since Coop did the exact same thing.

  “Fine.” Josh gets up and sits at my desk chair. “Better?” He swivels it around. “Man, it looks like a tornado swept through here.”

  I glance at the mess, the skyline drawing I worked so hard on, now shredded paper on the floor. “I was downstairs, and when I came back up all my pictures were ripped off the walls.” I haven’t cleaned up the mess, but I did tape a new piece of paper across the wall, leaving a blank canvas. “I didn’t want to draw anything else in case it happened again.”

  “That’s incredible,” Sera says.

  “Again, you don’t live here. Incredible is not the word I would use.”

  “I mean incredible in the sense that it proves an apparition haunts this house.”

  “Yes, clearly it’s a ghost,” Josh says. “That’s the only possible explanation.”

  “You’re really not helping,” Sera tells him.

  “Since when have I ever been helpful?” he asks.

  Sera sits on the floor, opening her bag and removing things. Candles and some incense.

  “This is my go bag for paranormal activity,” she explains. “I like to keep it with me at all times, in case I need it.”

  “In three years, this is the first time she’s ever needed it,” Josh tells me. Sera glares at him.

  “Do you have a Ouija board in there?” I ask, kneeling across from her.

  “Nope. Those don’t work. They’re for amateurs.”

  “Oh, because you’re a professional,” Josh scoffs from across the room.

  She ignores him and sets up four candles in a square, about a foot apart, then lights each one and the incense. Sickly-sweet smoke fills the room.

  “We’ll call to the girl that lived here, Kaitlyn, and ask her what she wants. What will help her move on.”

  “So everyone in town really does know about this house?”

  “Are you kidding?” Sera says. “It’s a local legend.”

  “Everyone knows about the four girls that went missing,” Josh says disinterestedly, playing on his phone.

  “Right. The Grabbed Girls of Gladwell.”

  Josh looks up. “Devil’s advocate here: How do you know that’s even who is supposedly haunting this house?” he asks. “They disappeared, as in, no bodies. No bodies could mean they’re still alive.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “I know you don’t believe me, but even if it’s not them, there is definitely some strange paranormal shit going on.”

  “I believe you,” Sera tells me.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I really mean it.

  “And what are the chances that a different set of girls was murdered here?” she asks Josh.

  He holds up his hands in surrender again.

  “That’s what I thought,” Sera mutters. “Okay, this would work better if we had something of the apparition’s. Something personal to her.” She looks at me hopefully.

  “I…I mean, two families have lived here since then. I…” I pause. “But I found this ring in the basement. It might have been Kaitlyn’s.”

  “Whoa. Cool. An actual Grabbed Girl memento.”

  “You could probably sell that on eBay for a ton of money,” Josh says. “If you can prove it’s genuine.”

  “Who would buy a dead girl’s ring?” I pull it off my finger and hand it to Sera.

  Josh frowns. “Who would wear a dead girl’s ring?”

  “Never underestimate the power of the macabre,” Sera tells me, placing it gingerly on the rug in the middle of the candles. “Ready?” she asks, and I give her a nod. She closes her eyes and holds up her hands.

  “Kaitlyn,” she says in a weirdly deep voice. I hear a snicker from Josh. She shoots him a dirty look before closing her eyes again. “We know that your spirit is here with us,” she continues. “We want to help you. We want you to be at rest. What can we do?”

  I wait expectantly for something, anything, to happen, but nothing
does. Sera opens her eyes just a smidge, then shuts them tight. “Kaitlyn. Why are you haunting this house? Why are you disrupting Haley’s life? You must have a reason. Give us a sign.”

  We wait in silence. I’m about to side with Josh and admit this is all a big waste of time and more than a little crazy when the candles go out and my world turns to blackness.

  One second I’m sitting across from Sera and the next I’m standing across the room, charcoal in my hand. I drop it on the floor, confused. They’re each still seated where they were, but they’re staring at me, openmouthed. No, not at me, past me to the wall.

  I turn around. Taking up most of the wall, on the paper I put up earlier, is a massive portrait of a girl I’ve never seen. I know her hair is blond because I left it the white of the paper, shading in curls and texture. Her mouth is pinched, but it’s her eyes that are the worst: where they should be are gaping holes. Blood runs down her face.

  “Holy shit” is all I can manage to say.

  “Sera, I am so sorry for all the times I’ve made fun of you about this ghost stuff,” Josh almost whispers.

  I turn to them again. “What just happened?”

  Sera shakes her head, speechless. I look to Josh.

  “Sera was there, asking Kaitlyn to give us a sign, and you just got up, grabbed some charcoal, and started drawing. I thought you were joking at first, but…you wouldn’t answer to your name. I shook you a little and you gave me this look of death, so I just sat back down until you were done.”

  “I don’t remember any of that,” I say, swallowing.

  “I knew it was real,” Sera says finally. “I knew it!”

  “So what do we do about this?” I ask.

  “Well, I’m getting the hell out of here,” Josh says, standing up.

  “Wait, no.” I take a step toward him, desperate. “You can’t leave now.”

  “Are you kidding? This is the part in the movie where every idiot character has a chance to run and live, or stay and die. Hmmm, which should I choose?”

  He grabs Sera’s bag and shoves the candles inside, then helps her up. She still looks stunned. “I told you it was real,” she tells him.