They collapsed down around the small coffee table in front of my bed-couch, shoveling egg into their mouths, glaring at anything and everything that moved, including the window curtains. They didn’t start looking like humans again until after they finished eating.
“Neither of us is much for mornings,” Uncle Barnabas said once Nell had swept her clothes out of the old trunk at the foot of her bed and slammed the bathroom door behind her.
“I couldn’t tell,” I said drily.
He straightened out his black polo shirt and tucked it the rest of the way in his pants. Uncle Barnabas had explained the night before that he worked two day jobs on and off throughout the week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the Witch History Museum. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in Salem’s Pioneer Village, a “living history museum” full of men and women dressed and acting like they were Puritans in the 1630s. Which…sounded a lot like home, actually. At least it explained Uncle Barnabas’s strange clothes on Founder’s Day.
“That’s okay,” I said, folding the sheets and straightening out the pillows on my couch-bed. Seeing that Nell and Uncle Barnabas hadn’t bothered, I made their beds too.
“I’m sorry I can’t take you to school myself, but Cornelia will get you all sorted out,” Uncle Barnabas said, pulling on a gray fleece with the museum’s logo.
The tight fist around my stomach was back. “Are you sure I have to go?”
“You’d rather stay here?” Uncle Barnabas raised a brow and looked around. I saw his point. It would be freezing and kind of lonely, but it wasn’t like I was a stranger to either of those feelings. “Believe me, nothing can crack the coven’s protection spell. You’ll be safe there, and the rest is up to you.”
The bathroom door burst open, and Nell came strolling out. Her outfit had been downgraded from yesterday’s radioactive rainbow to jeans, a yellow T-shirt, and a purple sweater. It was her hair that was wild—braided and pinned in every direction over the top of her head, like a futuristic milkmaid.
“That’s an…interesting hairdo,” Uncle Barnabas managed to squeeze out. His arm tightened around my shoulder.
Nell’s hand floated up to touch the braid across her forehead, her smile falling. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
Uncle Barnabas looked like he’d realized he stepped on a piece of gum. He started shaking his hands, like he could wave his words away. “Nothing’s wrong with it. Looks great, Cornelia. Do you have everything you need for your cousin today?”
She sat down on the floor to tug on a pair of slouchy black boots, her chin tucked against her chest so we couldn’t see her face. After a second, she started to unpin the braids, one at a time, shaking her tight curls out.
I started to say something, but she disappeared under her bed, pushing aside a small, clear tub of her clothes to grab a beat-up gray messenger bag and a black North Face fleece. She sent both of them sliding across the floor to my feet.
“Here,” she said. “You can use these for now. I put some notebooks and pens in there, but we’ll have to borrow books from the library.”
Someone—Nell, obviously—had written the words What’s past is prologue in black ink on the gray bag. I brushed both it and the fleece off, trying not to cough with the dust.
“Don’t stay too late at work tonight,” Nell said, sliding her backpack onto her shoulder. “We have the thing tonight, remember?”
Uncle Barnabas cocked his head to the side, staring at her.
“The audition,” she reminded him. “The tour companies?”
“Oh yes, yes, I remember now,” he said, waving a hand. “I’ll be home by six at the latest.”
“Why?” I asked. “What kind of audition is this?”
“Nell had the idea to partner with some of the local tour-guide groups so tourists are guaranteed to end their night coming through the House of Seven Terrors,” Uncle Barnabas said, sounding distracted as he gathered up a small pile of books and papers.
Meaning a steady stream of guests and revenue. I looked at Nell in admiration. It was beyond smart.
After saying good-bye to Uncle Barnabas, Nell and I went down the back stairs of the house, avoiding the monster floors. We barely made it in time to catch the yellow school bus at the corner.
Nell kept her head down, ignoring the way the conversations around us died as we walked down the aisle, heading toward the back of the bus. I was so distracted by the way the other kids stared at us, whispering, I didn’t even think to look back at the outside of the House of Seven Terrors until we were pulling away.
It looked like one house had been stacked atop another and the two awkwardly nailed together. Both halves were crooked, and with its dark wood and nearly black exterior, it looked like a crow in the middle of a long row of doves. The hand-painted sign outside that read WELCOME TO YOUR NIGHTMARE really added to the dire look. Or maybe it was just the fake blood splattered on it.
But the sick feeling in my already tight stomach had nothing to do with the house and everything to do with the weight of the eyes on me, picking me apart.
Wait. For once, they weren’t whispering about me.
“The freak has a new friend,” someone said from across the aisle. “Or is it her boyfriend?”
Anger prickling, I turned toward the direction of the girl’s voice, but Nell gripped me by the collar and turned me back toward the window.
“Just ignore them,” she muttered. “They’ll get bored eventually. Look—there’s the House of Seven Gables.”
Another dark wood house zoomed by in a blur.
“The inspiration for your haunted house?” I guessed.
“Mom’s,” Nell said, leaning her forehead against the window. “The haunted house was her idea. We had just finished the last rooms when…”
I knew what she was about to say: when she passed away. Her mother hadn’t gotten to see the haunted house up and running. I bit the inside of my mouth, wondering what I could say to make it better.
“Do you know that story?” she asked. “The House of the Seven Gables?”
“Uh, am I supposed to?”
“It’s an old Nathaniel Hawthorne book, all about one family betraying another and basically stealing their fortune and secrets. And revenge.” The bus lurched to a stop, throwing us both against the seat in front of us. “They turned the real House of the Seven Gables into a museum, and it’s a tourist’s dream. We pick up a lot of business being only two blocks away, and the people there even let us leave flyers to advertise. The haunted houses near the common are a little more successful, but I think we have a good word of mouth going. If we can seal the deal with these tourist agencies, we’ll be set for years. We might even be able to redo the attic so we don’t feel like we’re nesting up there like owls.”