I’m just about to open it when an intense chill runs over my limbs, like someone’s just dumped a bucket of ice water down my arms and back.
A slow, laborious creak comes from behind me.
From the closet.
I freeze.
Suddenly the window doesn’t seem so interesting anymore.
Bony fingers of terror skitter down my spine and I’m turning around.
The closet door is open a few inches even though I know it was closed before.
Maybe it was the wind, I tell myself.
There is no wind. If anything, the room has become still, like all the air and smell and life has been sucked out of it and the only thing left is dust.
Maybe I’m dreaming.
I’m always dreaming.
With that in mind, my feet start moving across the room, the rug cold on my soles. I’m poised, every nerve in my body ready to spring, my heart beating so fast I swear it has wings.
I stop outside the closet door and stare dumbly at the crack. The space taunts me with the dark depths behind it. In this moment it feels like it’s not a closet at all, instead it’s something infinite. A doorway to something horrible.
My hand slowly reaches for the doorknob.
I pause, my hand shaking, losing all nerve to grab it.
Then . . .
“Help me, Ada,” a faint voice rasps from inside the closet.
The voice of my mother.
The light in the closet goes on.
I scream.
My whole body launches backward and I’m running for the door out of my room and into the hallway.
I run right into Dex.
“Ada,” he says, grabbing my shoulders. “What is it, what happened?”
My mouth flaps open, soundless as I stare at him and then Perry as she appears behind him, coming out of my old bedroom.
“Something is in my closet,” I manage to say, my whole body trembling now.
The door at the end of the hall opens and my dad stares at us, slipping on his robe and sliding his glasses down on his face.
“It’s past midnight. What’s going on?” he says gruffly, voice hoarse from sleep.
I look up at Dex, not sure what to say.
“She had a dream,” Perry says to him quickly. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep, dad.”
We stand there in the hallway, halfway to my room, watching my dad carefully. Thankfully he takes the bait, even though I know, I know I wasn’t sleeping this time. He frowns at me with a mix of exasperation and concern on his face before stepping back inside his room.
“Stay behind me,” Dex says, pushing me so Perry and I are behind him. Like hell I’d want to go back in first.
Dex walks to the middle of my room while Perry and I hang around the doorway.
“This closet?” Dex asks, pointing at it. It’s still open a crack though the light is off now. “I only ask because it feels like Perry and I are sleeping in an extension of your closet too.”
“Yes,” I tell him, too afraid to be annoyed. “But the light was on. It turned on, by itself, just as I was about to open the door. I heard . . .” I trail off, not sure if I should say anything else.
Perry is watching me closely. “Heard what?”
I swallow hard and give her a pleading look. “I heard mom,” I whisper.
“You know that’s not her,” she says to me but I can’t quite agree.
Dex frowns at us, then looks around him. He quickly moves to the desk and grabs the pencil I was using to sketch and holds it like a knife.
“What the hell are you going to do with that?” Perry hisses. “Draw the ghosts?”
He tilts his head, giving her an incredulous look. “Have you ever been stabbed with a pencil in the eye? No, because if you had, you’d probably be dead. Anyway, no one said anything about ghosts.”
“No one has to say anything about ghosts,” I say. “But I don’t think this is that. I know when I’m dealing with a ghost and when I’m dealing with . . . well, I don’t know. If I’m not dreaming then I’m going fucking crazy.”
Perry quickly pinches my arm, hard.
“Ow! The fuck?” I cry out, shying away from her.
“Not dreaming.”
Dex takes in a deep breath and whips the closet door open.
My hands fly to my face. I don’t know what I’m expecting.
But it’s empty. Just full of my clothes, shirts hanging from the rattling hangers. Dex stoops, sticking his hands into the bottom of the closet, shuffling through sandals and heels and clothes that have fallen.
“There’s nothing,” he says, straightening up. “Except that you have an obscene amount of heels that belong on a stripper named Candy.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell him, glaring.
He raises his palms, walking over to us. “Hey, I’ve known some mighty fine strippers in my day. It’s not an insult. Unless your name is Candy.”
Perry rolls her eyes. “I thought you were fond of the ones called Marla.”
“Ah, you remember,” he says happily.
Perry ignores him and turns to me. “So what exactly happened?”
I point at the desk. “I was sketching and fell asleep. I woke up. I heard the knocks.”
“Good ol’ exploding head syndrome,” Dex comments.
“Yes. That. But I swear it was right here, like someone was pounding on the desk. Of course I woke up and I was alone. Then there was something outside the window.”
Dex walks over to the window and hauls it up, sticking his head out for a moment.