GRETCHEN WAS EXHAUSTED, TERRIFIED, HER VINTAGE slip dress wet from the tall, dewy grass. Her makeup was running, and she had scratches all over her legs. She didn’t know why she had worn that ridiculous rhinestone necklace, but it kept snagging in her tangled hair. Her topknot had come undone somewhere back in the high brambly field. The whole time she was running she could hear voices and shouts and barking dogs coming from just beyond the woods, and twice somebody ran past her panting.
By the time she reached the little white house her heart felt like it might burst. She ran up the steps and pounded on the door, calling out for help.
A face appeared in the lighted window and then the light shut out. Her heart sank.
She stomped on the porch in her Doc Martens and banged loudly on the door again.
“Please!” she yelled. “Help me!”
From behind the door she could hear people talking.
Then the door opened and two people, a boy and a girl about her age, stood staring at her, not moving.
“It’s just another ghost,” the boy said.
“No it’s not!” the girl said. “I can see her too.”
“My aunt is dead!” Gretchen said, barely catching her breath as her words came rushing out. “In her darkroom! I just came here from New York today. Just let me inside and I’ll explain everything!”
They stepped back to let her in, their faces turning to shock and sadness. Gretchen tumbled into their front hall and collapsed, and they knelt to help her.
The boy was a little older than her, almost a man really. He had razor stubble and a small patch of acne on his cheek. He was barefoot, wearing pajama pants but no shirt. He had dark, serious wide-set eyes and brown skin. He took her hand, pulling her up. Then they guided Gretchen to the couch.
The girl ran and got her a glass of water and brought it into the living room.
Gretchen tried to breathe easily but she was hyperventilating. She was grateful and relieved to be inside and away from the horrible old mansion, but she was still trembling. She took a deep shaky breath and put her hand over her eyes, willing it to have been a nightmare.
“She’s in shock,” the girl said. Gretchen struggled to remember the names Esther had told her. Hawk. One of them was named Hawk. The girl took Gretchen’s hand and sat close beside her, then pulled a blanket off the top of the couch and tucked it around her. She looked like her brother but was thinner and lankier. She had a kind smile, and her hair was done in many tiny braids that hung down to just below her chin. “What happened?” the girl asked her gently. Gretchen couldn’t speak. “You’re okay,” the girl said quietly. “You’re safe.”
Gretchen lay there, looking around the place. The whole thing was too surreal; she had come from some kind of gothic hallucination into a normal living room, well kept, with simple modern-looking furniture. A piano; a guitar leaning in the corner by a large comfortable chair; a cello; family pictures that looked like they’d been taken in the last decade; bookcases full of bright paperbacks, not giant leather-bound tomes or cracked disintegrating journals; a television in the corner; and—thank God—an iPod dock with speakers, some tiny island of civilization in this backwater hell.
“I’m Hawk,” the boy said. “Sorry we didn’t let you in right away.”
Then it all came flooding over her again. Esther sprawled on the darkroom floor. The two little girls with their dirty hands and sharp teeth. Gretchen took a deep breath. “Esther . . . ,” she said. “My aunt . . . she . . .” But then again she couldn’t speak.
She drank the water and sat up. How could any of this really be happening?
“Let me start over,” the girl said, smiling at her. She was wearing boxer shorts and a tank top, her eyes looked sleepy, and Gretchen realized that it was probably now three in the morning. “I’m Hope. What’s your name?”
“Gretchen.”
“Hi, Gretchen. Can you tell us what happened?”
She looked at Hope and Hawk, their faces grave. Hope’s eyes were full of understanding. Her brother looked more worried, and though he was older, he somehow seemed frail compared to Hope; something about her seemed grounded, strong. She studied Hawk’s face: high cheekbones and a wide jaw, thick eyebrows and full lips. His hair was cut shorter on the sides and long in the middle. He had a perfectly symmetrical face, the kind anyone would want to photograph.
Gretchen took a breath and said, “We have to call 911.”
“Start from the beginning,” Hope said.
“I came here to help Esther with the house. . . . I . . . she wanted me to come up to the darkroom,” Gretchen stammered. “I only turned around for a minute . . . she drank . . . she drank poison.”
Hawk and Hope exchanged a look, and Gretchen had the feeling that what had happened was no surprise. Hawk’s shoulders slumped and Hope’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
“They’re all out there now, aren’t they?” Hawk asked.
Hope shushed him. “Stop with that,” she said, quickly wiping an eye. She took a deep breath and more tears fell down her cheeks. “Nobody’s really out there and you know it. You’re gonna scare Gretchen.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Gretchen said. She thought again of Esther up in the attic, dead, with those animals lurking around her, and she shivered.