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  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Haunt Me Sneak Peek

  Copyright

  I see her at the corners of my vision.

  The ghost of the girl, carrying an old teddy bear.

  I see her, but I don’t see her eyes. Don’t see her face. Just the black hair obscuring pale white skin.

  I know what will happen when I see her face. I know because it’s happened before—my new friends told me.

  They tell me I need to get out of here immediately, before it’s too late.

  Because the girl is getting closer.

  Every time I see her.

  In the mirror.

  In the hallway.

  Outside my door.

  Closer by an inch every time.

  Every time, only an inch.

  But those inches add up.

  * * *

  My friends are wrong, though.

  Moving won’t help.

  She’s following me. Everywhere I go. There’s no escape.

  It’s already too late.

  And when she reaches me, I’ll never be seen again.

  “I’m getting closer,” she says, her voice echoing around the room. “I’m going to find you, Tamal. I’m going to get you!”

  I squeeze my head to my knees because if I can’t see her, she can’t see me, and I’m already as hidden as I can be up here, tucked away behind the moving boxes and covered with a blanket that had—only moments ago—been wrapped around my great-grandmother’s old rocking chair. It’s the perfect hiding place. But I can’t convince myself it’s good enough to avoid her.

  The floorboards creak.

  Inches away from my hiding place.

  I don’t peek.

  I know if I do I’ll see her feet under the gap in the blanket.

  I know if I do, she’ll find me.

  I try not to breathe. Try not to move the slightest bit.

  The floor creaks again.

  She’s moving away.

  I let out a sigh.

  “Gotcha!” she yells, tossing the blanket off me.

  “Aww,” I moan. I collapse back on the carpet and look up at my new friend Lela. Even though my family just moved here, we’re already fast friends. It helps that she was the first person I spoke to my first day of fourth grade. It also helps that she really wanted to check out my house.

  She giggles at my look of defeat. “That’s no fair,” I say. “I totally saw you peeking when I went to hide.”

  “Did not!” she says. Her hands go to her hips. “You’re just angry that I found you first. I still have to find Max. Did you see which way he went?”

  I open my mouth to tell her that he isn’t up here—I saw him going toward the kitchen when we ran off to hide—but catch myself. Her smile widens.

  “Nice try,” I say.

  “Not even a little hint? This place is massive.”

  She’s telling me.

  We’ve been in our new house a whole week, and I still haven’t memorized the layout. There are at least a dozen bedrooms and as many bathrooms, and there are three whole stories to explore. Not including the basement—not that I’d ever go down there unless Mom made me go do the laundry. The mansion is monstrously large, but somehow costs the same as our two-bedroom condo in New York. I guess moving to the country has its perks. We get to stay in a sprawling mansion.

  “Fine,” she says when I shake my head. “I’ll find him myself, then. He’s a lot better at hiding, though, so it might take a while. You have to stay here and … unpack as punishment!”

  She winks, then turns on her heel and runs off down the hall.

  I try not to take her remark personally. I mean, I barely know her or Max—I just met her at school on Monday—so I’m still getting used to her brand of humor. It’s November, which means they’ve already been in school awhile. I’d honestly been terrified that I wouldn’t make any friends, but the moment I showed up in class, Lela walked right over to me, Max beside her, and introduced the two of them.

  “You must be the kid who moved into the manor house,” she’d said. “Welcome.”

  And really, they were the only kids who were welcoming. Pretty much everyone else in class ignored me. I didn’t know if it was because of the color of my skin or the fact that we’d moved into the biggest house in town, but it was unsettling. Lela and Max, though, didn’t seem to care about any of that. We played together and swapped stories all through recess, and after school that first night, we went to the park until dark. Max’s mom even drove me home, which was super kind, since my house is at the top of the hill and surrounded by woods.

  Lela and Max had come with, and the moment we reached the house, Lela gasped in awe.

  “Wow,” she whispered, then looked at me. “I bet it’s even cooler on the inside!”

  Which, I guess, seemed like more than enough reason to invite the both of them here for game night.

  Truth be told, I think they’re both just excited to get to explore the house. Apparently, it’s sort of a mystery to the kids in town. I’m just grateful for the company—we’ve barely been here a week, and the massive empty hallways and enormous rooms feel incredibly lonely, no matter how loudly my parents blare their music.

  I stand by the door, listening to her run from room to room, calling out Max’s name. It makes me smile. Even though we just met, I can tell that the three of us will be best friends. Which is good, because my parents were terrified that I’d have a hard time adjusting out here. If I ignore the strange looks I get from some of the other classmates, I’d say I’m doing a good job.

  I think I’m having an easier time adjusting out here than I did back in NYC.

  There, I didn’t really have any friends. I didn’t play sports, and I wasn’t cool or smart enough to be in any of the clubs, and my school didn’t have a band program until fifth grade, so I couldn’t even play an instrument. Which just meant I spent a lot of recesses on my own. And weekends.

  Hearing Lela wandering down the hall, singing out “Oh, Maaa-aaax” as she searches for him, makes me smile. But then I remember that I’m supposed to be unpacking, as punishment for her finding me first, so I head back into the room and peel the tape from one of the boxes. Nothing but dishes inside. Ugh. This was supposed to be down in the kitchen. Two floors down.

  I pick up the box when I feel it.

  A tingling on the back of my neck. A cold breath. Someone watching me.

  “He’s not in here,” I say to Lela. “I already told you.”

  I glance up.

  Toward the standing mirror propped in the corner.

  I can see all the way to the end of the hall.

  To where a girl stands, clutching
a teddy bear.

  At first, I think it’s Lela. That she found an old stuffed animal in one of my boxes and brought it out to mock me. But that isn’t right. Lela’s skin is dark and her hair is short and curly, and this girl is pale as a sheet, with long black hair. And that teddy bear is way too old to be mine.

  More chills race down my arms.

  Is the girl …

  floating?

  I drop the box and turn around.

  The hall is empty. Completely empty.

  Of course it’s empty—it’s just my friends and me here. My parents are out getting groceries for dinner. I furrow my eyebrows. Look back to the mirror. But it’s just my reflection staring back. No girl at the end of the hall. Had she even been there in the first place?

  I lean in closer, peering at myself in the mirror, and pull down my eyelids like that might reveal something. I just look tired. I look in closer, examining the whites of my eyes …

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  I jolt upright and turn around. Lela is standing there, Max looking crestfallen at her side.

  “Found him,” she says. “Now it’s your turn. But be warned, I’m really, really good at this game.”

  She turns to go, but Max must notice I’m still sort of in shock.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. He’s a bit shorter than Lela, with short black ringlets of hair and wide shoulders—he’s already playing football on the school team, but he’s admitted he’d rather be playing trading card games than running laps.

  I shrug. Look over their shoulders. There’s no one at the end of the hall.

  There never was, Tamal. There never was.

  But I know I saw something. Someone. That was impossible, though, wasn’t it?

  Unless what my other classmates whispered was true.

  Unless this place was really haunted.

  “Yeah,” I say. I put on my most convincing smile—trying to convince both them and myself that I wasn’t seeing ghosts. “Just fine. Let’s go.”

  We head down to the kitchen together to start the next round.

  I swear I feel eyes on the back of my neck the entire way.

  I don’t look behind me.

  I don’t want to know what’s waiting there.

  “So why did you move to Roseboro?” Lela asks my parents over dinner.

  My mom and dad went all out. It’s our first night in the house with company, and it’s clear my parents want to do it right; they’ve even set up the table in the dining room so we aren’t eating in the kitchen like we have been. There’s homemade soup and fresh salad and roast chicken with spiced potatoes and carrots. And my dad made his special chocolate chip cookies for dessert—we can smell them baking as we eat, and it’s making it hard to focus on the pile of carrots that just don’t seem to disappear from my plate.

  My parents share a look and grin.

  “Well,” Mom says, “Arthur and I both grew up in the country, and we thought it was a good place to be kids. We wanted Tamal to have a similar upbringing. Get some dirt under his nails, you know?”

  “Plus the cost of living is much better,” Dad says. He’s an accountant. He says stuff like that a lot.

  “I’m sure Lela doesn’t care about cost of living,” Mom says with a grin. She tosses a crouton at him. He tries to catch it in his mouth and fails.

  Max gives me a look that clearly asks, Are they always like this? and I just shrug. Because, yup, they’ve always been like this.

  “Well, then,” Dad replies, “I bet I have a topic they’re dying to talk about.” He folds his hands and rests his chin in them, looking at my new friends with a devilish glint in his bespectacled eyes. “Tell me all about this town’s ghost stories.”

  “Arthur,” Mom says, but it’s clear from the sudden shifty expressions on Max’s and Lela’s faces that he’s hit a very good subject. The other kids at my school must not be the only ones who think this place is filled with ghosts.

  Chills race down my spine.

  Immediately, I remember the girl I thought I saw in the hallway.

  Immediately, it feels like she’s watching me again.

  I force down the impulse to look around and instead try to look like my heart isn’t racing.

  “Come on, Nadiya,” Dad continues. “A small town like this has to be brimming with ghost stories. I mean, have you seen the abandoned mill by the river? If that isn’t a hot spot of paranormal activity, I don’t know what is.”

  Okay, so my dad’s job is as an accountant. But he’s also a huge supernatural buff. Like, he watches those silly ghost shows every night before bed, the ones where groups of teens go into supposedly haunted buildings with flashlights and beeping equipment they bought online and try to contact the dead. Mostly they just run around jumping at perfectly explainable noises, talking about cold spots and presences as if they aren’t in a basement in Minnesota in January.

  I think my dad likes them because at the end of the show, everything is inconclusive, meaning they didn’t find proof of ghosts, but they still keep trying. There’s always another mystery hanging in the air. There’s always the chance that next time, they’ll find something.

  Then they’ll have a real reason to be scared at what goes bump in the dark.

  I watch them with him every night.

  And every night, I have to force myself to pretend that walking to my bedroom alone afterward doesn’t feel like the scariest thing on earth. Which is silly, because in New York, that was a very short walk.

  “Well,” Lela says, “there is one story.”

  “Lela, don’t—” Max interjects.

  “What? He asked.”

  My dad actually claps. My mom just rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair.

  “This sounds like a good story,” Dad says. “If you’re not supposed to tell it.”

  “I guess so,” Lela says. Her eyes drop to the table.

  “But it’s not really a story,” Max says. “I mean, it is a story. But it’s true.”

  “Even better,” Dad says. “Where does it take place? The mill?”

  Lela hesitates.

  “No,” she finally says. She takes a deep breath and looks straight at me. My blood runs cold—I know what she’s going to say before she even speaks. “It took place here.”

  “About a hundred years ago, a real rich family moved to town,” Lela says. Max angrily picks at his food, glaring at her between bites, but she ignores his silent protest.

  “Up to that point, Roseboro had mostly been a farming town. But this family, the Robertsons, had big ideas. They came here to build the mill and put Roseboro on the map. I guess they thought the locals would want that, but the locals were suspicious of newcomers—especially rich newcomers—and the Robertsons weren’t welcome. They weren’t even allowed to build their house in the middle of town like they wanted. They were forced to build out here. Back then, this was the very outskirts, nothing but woods and fields. And the graveyard.”

  “Graveyard?” Dad asks. Lela’s got him totally hooked.

  Lela nods.

  “Graveyard. Hundreds of Roseboro residents were buried here. Some people say it was just the Robertsons being spiteful, but they built their house right on top of the graveyard even though the town tried to put up a fight. They couldn’t fight, really—didn’t have the money. So up went the house, and then the mill. The Robertsons couldn’t get anyone to work there, though. I guess they didn’t expect the locals to hold a grudge so bad, or thought that they’d eventually realize that jobs were better than history. But the mill went under, and a year later so, too, did the house.”

  Lela goes quiet.

  Dad shakes his head. “Anyone who knows anything knows not to build on a graveyard. That’s rule number one.”

  “The real estate agent didn’t happen to mention that, did she?” Mom asks, suddenly interested.

  Dad shakes his head. “Not to my knowledge. Which is good, because if she had, I would have offered double!”

>   “Arthur,” Mom groans. She tosses another crouton at him. He doesn’t even bother to try and catch it or swat it away. It bounces off his head and onto the floor.

  “What? Just being honest. I wonder where I left all my equipment …”

  Because yes, my dad also has ghost-hunting equipment. Most of it hasn’t left the box it arrived in, but I know that he’s eager to try it out. Maybe that’s part of the reason he chose a mansion like this—even before knowing the story, it doesn’t take a genius to imagine this place is haunted.

  “Anyway,” Dad continues, shaking himself of his thoughts, “I don’t think this young woman was telling a real estate story. Where are the ghosts?”

  “Besides here, you mean?” Max mutters.

  Lela glares at him, then turns on the charm and smiles at my dad.

  “Well,” she says, “I started with the history of the house. But the story gets a lot darker …”

  Dad gestures for her to continue.

  I want to tell her that this is enough, that we don’t need to hear any more. This isn’t like watching a TV show, where we can laugh at the strangers who’ve willingly ventured into spooky places in search of scares. This isn’t a ghost story that’s happening to someone else.

  She’s talking about here.

  The house I live in.

  The house I’m stuck in.

  And I don’t want to know the truth.

  But I can’t stop her without looking like a total scaredy-cat. And that’s not how I want my new friends or my dad to see me.

  So I stay quiet, and Lela keeps talking, and suddenly I want nothing more than to be back in New York.

  Which just shows how scared I’m getting, since no part of me has wanted to return there since we left.

  “Well, this place was cursed from the very beginning,” Lela says. “I mean, like you said, everyone knows not to build on a graveyard. There were issues during construction—strange noises coming from the build site, weird apparitions. I heard one of the builders was even killed. But when the family did move in, it got … worse.”

  I look down at the floor. I start to imagine the skeletons buried underneath. All the tombstones cleared away so this house could be built. In my mind’s eye, the skeletons scrabble through the soil, slowly scratching their way to the surface, while the wind in the trees echoes with the howls of ghosts.