PARTONE
CHAPTERONE
It was,as Rowan’s best friend Hilary often said, a day of small mishaps turning into complete disasters.
First, Tuna didn’t start.The aging Volvo sedan didn’t even click when Rowan turned the key that morning, so it became a mad dash to get to the bus stop.That made her twenty minutes late to work—and she was lucky it wasn’t twice that—which made the head nurse, Wendy Yamakari, a little piqued.Rowan had been so discombobulated she’d spent a good fifteen minutes of her lunch break crying in the bathroom, more out of sheer frustration than anything else.
Then, as usual when she was upset, the patients started to react.Benny began to scream halfway through the shift, and not even Rowan’s calm voice could help him.They had to wrestle him to the ground and use Thorazine.Siegfried slipped back into catatonia, and Marshall was found smoking a cigarette by the fire door, completely naked.Rodney had another of his episodes in the middle of dinner, and the food thrown had a marvelously energizing effect on every other patient in the cafeteria.
As a result, Rowan was two hours late getting home, bone-tired, and had to walk eight blocks from the bus stop.Her purse strap had snapped, and to crown the whole damn day, her shoelace had snapped tooandshe had a pounding headache.
So when she saw the lights in the abandoned Taylor house on Smyrna Avenue, she was tempted to just let the whole thing lie.Who cared what kids were up to in there?It was three weeks to Halloween, and the strange people were already coming out and doing odd things.
Rowan should know; she had a whole ward full of them at work.
But then she thought she saw a flicker of flame in one of the house’s upper windows, and that decided the issue.She’d take a look.If they had a candle or something in there it was a fire hazard, and if she passed by and something happened later, she’d never forgive herself.
So she made her way through the broken-down gate and up the weedy driveway, shivering under the October chill and going cautiously, pushing back a few stray strands of hair that had come loose during the struggle with poor Benny.Her thick-soled nurse’s shoes made little noise against the dry cracked concrete, and she had her cell phone out, with 911 on speed dial.It will probably be nothing,she thought,and you’ll feel stupid, won’t you?But better to feel stupid than to have some teenager die in a house fire because they wanted to do some Halloween woo-woo.
She was tempted—oh, very tempted—to let go a little, maybelookahead and see who was in the house, but that would have been a violation of privacy.Hearing what other people were thinking was a curse at best, and a double curse at worst.She had worked too hard and come too far to risk exposing what she was to a bunch of drunken teens.
The laurel hedge had gone wild, bending over the low, broken fence and screening her from sight.Once she was all the way up the driveway, she thought maybe she was mistaken.The upper windows of the crumbling old Victorian house were dark and broken, dusty and watchful.
I wish the city would level this place.It’s a hazard to life and limb.All those kids with rocks can’t wait to break a window or two, and daring each other to sleep here—someone’s going to get hurt.
It was more than that, of course.The house sent a cold chill up Rowan’s spine.The kids whispered, like they probably did about every old abandoned house, that the Taylor house was haunted, that someone had been murdered there, and if you slept there you’d go mad.Rowan didn’t know about going mad.She’d seen enough madness to doubt that one night in a rickety old house could drive you into it, but still…
The place looked creepy, and raised gooseflesh up and down Rowan’s arms.
Will you just quit it?Next you’ll be believing in ghosts and fairy tales.Be rational for once, Rowan!
So when she came around the corner and looked at the flagstone front walk, weeds forcing up through the stones and drifts of fallen leaves lying dry and whispering to either side, she was completely unprepared for what she saw.
A sleek black van was parked on the front walk, its windows blind with privacy-tinting.There was a faint smell of ozone, and flickering candlelight shone out of the broken windows on the first floor.She contemplated this for a second before someone stepped out the front door, making the rickety porch groan.
Rowan ducked back so the overgrown hedge hid her from view.What on earth is going on here?She looked down at her cell phone tucked in her hand.Her purse, clutched against her other side, shifted a little bit.
Instinct insisted she hide, and it was so clear and unavoidable her heart began to pound.She’d only felt it two or three times in her life, but each time it had proved valuable.Whatever was going on there was likely to be uncomfortable, dangerous, or both.
Most likely both.
I’m going to take another look,she decided,just to see if I should call the police.Who knows, maybe someone’s bought the old wreck?But the chill touching her nape mocked her.Who would buy this place?It had stood empty for at least twenty years, even though urban development was going on all around it.
Rowan peeked around the hedge.
Candlelight still flickered in the windows.She heard the faint echo of footsteps and a low indistinct murmur of voices.
Someone scuffed on the other side of the van.Rowan’s heart leapt into her mouth.She thought of retreating, but she hesitated, curiosity and civic duty warring with caution.
“Hello there,” someone said, very low, almost whispering.
Rowan jumped guiltily.
A shadow slid out from behind the van.Her dark-adapted eyes made him out to be a man, taller than her, dressed in a hip-length coat and a pair of jeans.He had both his hands up, like people on TV did when the police had them at gunpoint.“Don’t be frightened,” he said.“I won’t hurt you.”
That was strange enough to nail her in place for a few more seconds.Clutching her purse under one arm and her cell phone in her other hand, she searched through all the words she knew.None seemed applicable.“Hi,” she settled for.“This must seem really strange to you.”
“Well, we’re out here in the middle of the night, so maybe we’re the strange ones.”Nice and calm, as if they weren’t standing in front of an abandoned house.“You wondered what was going on?”
