Enzo was the one who finally reached out and turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. He pushed it open, revealing a dusty corridor with rooms branching out on both sides. A staircase with a thick wooden bannister hugged one wall. We couldn’t see much else through the gloom from where we stood.
Then something really weird happened, which was that Enzo reached down and grabbed my hand. I was startled and glanced at him, but he was already stepping into the house and pulling me behind him.
It was dim inside. None of the windows had curtains, but they were so dirty, they filtered the afternoon light. Enzo and I walked slowly from room to room, and I didn’t know if my hands were sweaty because I was nervous or if it was because one of them was clasped in his.
The floorboards were covered with dirt, and I looked for footprints that didn’t match ours, but it was too hard to tell in the low light. There were a few small pieces of leftover furniture and bits of trash, but mostly there was dust. The wallpaper was peeling, the pattern so faded that I could barely see there had been a pattern to start with.
“Nothing,” Enzo whispered after we’d explored the first floor.
“Let’s go up then.”
I expected him to argue with me, but he just nodded and started up the stairs, still gripping my hand.
There was more light on the second floor, because of the broken windows. The stairs led to a long hallway, which was empty and in pretty much the same state as the rest of the house. The first room we found was a bathroom with cracked tile and a toilet filled with dark-brown water.
“Ew. Next room.” I tugged Enzo’s hand, and he followed me down the hall.
The bedroom was empty except for an ancient-looking sheet balled up in one corner.
“Who do you think lived here?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Enzo said.
“Pretend you do. Come on. You love to tell stories.”
“OK.” Enzo took a deep breath and thought for a moment. “It was probably some guy who went nuts after the war. He didn’t trust the government, so he moved his family out here where they could live off the land and have peace and be happy.”
“And were they happy?”
“For a while. But you know happiness never lasts forever.”
“Whose room was this?” I urged, ready to get lost in his story.
“A little boy’s,” Enzo said. He pointed to the far corner. “His bed was over there. And his desk was in that corner, and he had a toy box right where we’re standing. He wanted to play with army men, but his dad wouldn’t let him, so he played cowboys and Indians instead.”
“Tell me about the rest of the family.”
Enzo laughed, and it echoed in the empty room. “Come on.”
He pulled me to the next bedroom, which was pretty much the same as the first, except for some leaves that had blown in through the broken window.
“This was the girls’ room. There were two of them. Twins.”
“And?”
“And they were afraid of the woods at night,” Enzo said, not trying to keep his voice low anymore. “They said they could feel creatures watching them. That’s why they got a room at the front of the house. Their window faced the field instead of being close to the trees.”
“Were they right? Were they being watched?”
Enzo looked at me. “What do you think?”
“Yes. Of course they were. The twins were probably out playing one day and saw something, a beast. Maybe it lunged at one of them, but they managed to get away. And that’s what started the haunting. Every day, something strange and scary happened until it became too much, and the family abandoned the house.”
I was out of breath by the time I finished talking. I was excited and scared and, well, happy. I’d been waiting forever to find someone who’d tell stories with me the way Enzo did.
Enzo grinned, and I smiled back at him. My heart was pounding even more than before. We were both suddenly very quiet, and Enzo looked at me, and everything felt different and strange.
“Come on,” Enzo said. “Let’s go see where the parents slept.”
Enzo pulled me toward the next room, and I let him, laughing. He reached the doorway first and stopped short. He dropped my hand.
“Shit.”
“What?” I pushed ahead of him then stopped too. “Oh.”
Unlike the other rooms, this one had been occupied recently. A mattress piled with blankets was pushed up against one wall. There was a gallon water jug and a flashlight on the floor next to the mattress. And a book, laid open to mark a page. I tried to see the title and take in the other stuff in the room—newspapers, food wrappers, a pair of boots—but Enzo pulled me back and whispered that we had to leave, and he didn’t sound happy anymore.
I pulled away from him. “Enzo, it could be Lizzie.”
“It’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
I moved toward the mattress. Enzo grabbed my shoulder hard enough to hurt.
“Hawthorn, it’s not Lizzie.”
I turned to look at him. His face was pale.
“We spend all this time looking for her, and now that we finally have a real lead, you don’t even want to check it out?”