“That’s probably where the story about Daisy leading children to safety came from. Our moms were found in the park when they reappeared, on the edge of the woods. Supposedly it was their dog that found them.”
I looked again at the picture. Both Mom and Aunt Greta had light-colored eyes in it, maybe hazel or light brown. Mom’s eyes had always been black. So had Aunt Greta’s. That meant this picture was before. Before knowing. Before hunting.
“Tonight,” Sadie said, jaw set. “We’re going inside tonight.”
“We can’t stay late,” Artemis said. “I have to get up early for the homecoming parade tomorrow.”
“Seriously? For aparade?” I threw up my hands.
“Grim.” Sadie reached out to smooth his hair. “Are yousure you want to do this? You don’t have to come, either.”
Grim didn’t answer for a moment. He was looking across town, where the woods hid the base of Piper Mountain, and the radio tower blinked red in the growing dark. Only when he focused faraway like this did he seem sharp and completely alert, like a dog honed in on a distant scent. “Do you ever feel,” he said, “like there’s something wrong with the world, but you don’t know what it is?”
“Sure we do, Grimmie,” I said, patting his arm, “but existential dread is just another part of life.”
Grim laughed and said, “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll go.”
I looked to Artemis. “Going to lie to get out of the house this time? Momma Wake is going to find out eventually.”
“No. She’ll be asleep by the time I leave. Idohave ways to get sneak out that she doesn’t know about, but more importantly, even if I do lie, my mom doesn’t snoop around. I know you think she’s the worst person on the planet, but she can be really cool. She trusts me.”
That must be nice, I thought,to have someone who knows why you do the things you do.
I sniffed at Artemis. “Tell her to stop calling me a criminal and maybe I’ll believe it.”
“Stop behaving like a criminal and maybe she will.”
“Damn.”I spun back toward the Chevelle, hands up in surrender. “Touché.”
15
When I was thirteen, the Chevelle was found on the northern edge of Black Creek Woods, near the abandoned train cars. The driver’s door hung open, as if Mom had gotten out in a hurry. She’d left a trail into the woods at almost the exact location where she and Aunt Greta had been found as girls, but there were no signs of a struggle.
The police followed that trail into the trees until it went cold. No dogs could catch her scent. No amount of canvassing revealed any clues. I had never known Mom to be particularly fond of Black Creek Woods, and being one of the Aberdeen girls, it was no wonder why. But the second disappearance had been willing. She had been hunting, I knew, because there was no other reason she would have left us like that. I thoughtshe would have at least left clues forme, but the photo from Grimshaw House was the first I’d ever seen.
Staring up at the flaking back of Grimshaw House, I felt a wealth of secrets hiding inside the walls, waiting. The backyard was a dead jungle right down to the shore of Addams Lake, the house barely fending off the wilds with the remains of an old back porch. A few tourists andDMWfans still camped out front, but Rivera had kept Norm parked by the curb, so they hadn’t come any closer.
Sadie kneeled on one side of me, Artemis on the other. Grim’s lanky form folded into the shadows behind us. We’d crept along the lakeshore from the foot of the bluffs, behind the long row of Goldmine houses, avoiding homeowners and security lights. Artemis cupped a hand over her phone to block the light as she checked the time. 12:34 a.m. When we were sure there was no movement nearby, Sadie let out a long sigh and began making her way toward the door.
She’d been the one to answer the question of how to get in. Her time with the Birdies had not been forgotten after all, and she still knew where that experience was when she needed to bring it out and dust it off. She crept silently up the porch and kneeled by the lock of the vine-covered door, barely a shadow on the moonless night. Several quiet moments passed. Theclickof the lock opening was barely audible, and Sadie held the handle with one hand while she pried back some of thevines with the other. Then she pushed the door open slowly enough that its rust-stuck groaning could be mistaken for the old house settling.
Another several seconds. No movement. I tapped Artemis and Grim on the shoulders and led the way to the door.
We slipped inside. Sadie closed it behind us. Artemis’s phone flashlight, pointed at the floor, gave us enough light to see one another. We stood in the kitchen, and from the animal droppings and dead flies at our feet, I was glad I couldn’t see the rest of it. The air was thick with must and the smell of something dead.
Sadie was already tense. Not only was she three hours past her bedtime, she was in the creepiest house in Addamsville. Sadie did not do creepy. She hadn’t even worn her combat boots, which might have helped a little; she’d once told me she never felt afraid when she wore those boots, because wearing those boots meantshewas the thing to be feared.
“Ugh,” she said now, huddled tight between me and Grim. “It’s too quiet in here.”
“There’ll be some light from the street,” I said, “but if you have to use yours, no pointing it at the windows. Tad said he found the picture upstairs, so that’s where we should go first. Grim, is there anything else you want to look at while we’re here?”
Grim took a moment to answer; he was frowning past me, into one of the front rooms.
“I can look around down here,” he said. “You all go upstairs. I’ll meet you.”
Sadie squeezed his arm. Artemis turned off her light.
The Goldmine houses all followed the same Victorian Gothic layout, so Artemis led the way down a narrow hallway off the kitchen, past a dark doorway that led down to what I assumed was the basement, and through a living room to the steep staircase to the second floor. The upstairs rooms were mostly empty save for a few old armchairs, a bed frame without a mattress, and a vanity whose mirror was crusted over with age. In the master bedroom, Artemis almost stepped on a decomposing raccoon, and I had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming.
