Buzz was right—there was nothing unusual inside. Ruthie flipped through the clothing on hangers: her dad’s familiar flannel shirts, her mom’s turtlenecks and fleece. There was a stack of sweaters on the shelf above. Clogs and running shoes in neat rows on the floor below.
Her mother had kept most of her dad’s clothes after he died, almost as if she was expecting him back. Checking that Buzz wasn’t looking, Ruthie buried her face in one of her dad’s old plaid shirts hanging in the closet, trying to catch a scent of him. She smelled only cedar and dust.
She didn’t like being in the closet, even with the door open. Small, tight places had always freaked her out. In her worst nightmares, she was trapped in tiny rooms, or having to wriggle through narrow passageways she could barely fit through. And she always got stuck and woke up screaming, breathless.
Keeping as much of her body as possible outside the closet now, Ruthie searched through the clothes, thinking how odd it was that her mother had sealed away this stuff. Hadn’t she just been wearing this green cardigan last week? Ruthie peered inside all the pockets, even reached into the shoes. All she came up with were a couple of matchbooks and half a roll of Life Savers covered with pocket lint. She pulled out all the shoes, clearing off the floor, and felt around the edges of the floorboards, checking for another secret compartment.
“I still say it’s pretty freaking weird,” Buzz said, squinting at the closet.
“Yeah, why try to keep people out like that? All she’s got in there is a bunch of old shoes and stretched-out turtlenecks.”
Buzz shook his head. “That’s not what bugs me. What it looks like to me is, she was trying to keep something in.”
Ruthie forced out a wheezy-sounding laugh, watched Buzz tearing at the label of his beer bottle.
It felt strange and kind of thrilling to have Buzz here, in the house—in her mom’s room, even. Mom didn’t think much of her relationship with Buzz, and made it clear that she believed Ruthie could do better than the stoner kid who worked at his uncle’s scrap-metal yard.
“I mean,” her mother told her once, “I see that the boy is handsome, but he’s just not who I would picture you with.”
“And who would you picture me with?” Ruthie had asked, temper flaring.
Her mother thought a minute. “Someone who didn’t spend all his time searching the sky for flying saucers. He calls so much attention to himself that way. I saw a flyer at the farmers’ market—he’s started a UFO-hunting group of some sort. It said on the flyer that he thinks the Devil’s Hand is some kind of alien hotspot.”
Ruthie shrugged.
“That’s all we need,” her mother said. “Buzz and his merry band of wackos out roaming our woods.”
“They’re not our woods,” Ruthie said.
“Still,” her mother said, pursing her lips. “The boy needs to have some sense talked into him.”
“You don’t know him at all,” Ruthie had said, stalking out of the room.
Buzz was the most sensible, stable person she knew. Yeah, he had a few weird ideas, but so what? The guy was rock solid. She understood that her mother was distrustful of people she didn’t know, but, still, it pissed Ruthie off that her mother didn’t trust her judgment.
But now, with her mom gone, all of this felt silly and little-girlish. If her mother got back, Ruthie would do things differently. She’d insist on inviting Buzz to dinner, let her mother see how wonderful and unique he was once you got to know him. She’d even take her mom over to see his sculptures. Who knows, maybe, with all her mom’s craft-fair connections, she might have some ideas for ways Buzz could market his art, someday even make a living from it.
She joined Buzz on the bed, picked up Visitors from the Other Side, and flipped it over to look at the photo of her house with Sara Harrison Shea.
“It’s really bizarre that she lived here,” Buzz said. “I mean, I knew she was from West Hall, but—”
“Wait, you’ve, like, heard of her?”
Buzz sat up straighter. “Sure. Sara Harrison Shea is kind of the most famous person who ever lived in West Hall. I even read the book, but that was way before I met you. I guess that’s why I never recognized your house. Crazy.”
Buzz hadn’t done well in school—he was a learn-by-doing kind of guy and, back in high school, always had trouble memorizing things and then spitting them back out for tests. He did great with all the hands-on automotive-technology stuff, but give him a pop quiz and he was screwed. He was a very slow reader, and Ruthie suspected he had some degree of dyslexia, but never brought it up because he was so insecure about people thinking he was stupid.
“So she was famous because of this book?”
“Well, yeah. In certain circles, she’s a big name.”
Ruthie nodded. Despite his slow reading, Buzz was well read when it came to the supernatural and conspiracy theories. Of course he’d know all about the freaky lady who saw dead people.