Paris felt for the old house key in her pocket, and clutched it as she made her way toward the front door. After all these years, she’d never bothered to throw it away. Perhaps she’d kept it as a reminder of what she’d lived through. Or maybe she’d sensed that she might need it again someday.
Someday had finally come.
Right as she stepped up onto the porch, a bright light turned on. She froze, heart pounding, ears cocked for the sounds of footsteps coming from inside. When she heard nothing, she realized that the floodlight above the door was motion-activated, and it turned off after ten seconds. It made sense that they’d finally installed one, and now that she was prepared for it, she moved quickly toward the door as it turned on once again. Thankfully, the old key slid into the lock easily. She entered the house as quickly and quietly as she could, then remained still. When it was dark again, she exhaled and reached into her knapsack for her flashlight.
She probably didn’t need to be so stealthy. Nobody was here. The property was four acres total, and you couldn’t see the house from the main road. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
The floors had been upgraded, and there was a new beige sectional where the old floral sofa used to be, but Lola Celia’s old rocking chair was still in its usual spot near the window. A 60-inch Samsung had replaced the old tube TV, but otherwise, everything looked the same. It even smelled the same, a combination of stale cigarettes, Filipino food, and the slight swampy odor of the pond that always made its way inside.
And then, as they always had, the frogs by the pond started croaking in unison, the perfect soundtrack to the life she’d lived here, and the things that had happened in the dark.
She needed to find the urn and get the hell home.
* * *
It wasn’t on the fireplace mantel next to the framed family photos, nor was it sitting on any of the curio shelves, or stored inside any of the kitchen or dining room cabinets. She even checked the bathroom and the coat closet. Wherever the urn was, it was nowhere on the main floor, which left her two choices: go up or go out.
It was hard to imagine that an urn filled with human remains would be stored in one of the bedrooms. It was likelier to be in Tito Micky’s shed. But it was equally possible that the family had spread the ashes nineteen years ago, and that Ruby had lied to her, pretending she had leverage on her daughter that she didn’t.
The motion-activated light flicked back on as Paris went out again, but it was off by the time she reached the toolshed. It was never locked, and Tito Micky, for all his faults, had always kept the small space pretty organized. She scanned her flashlight beam over the tools, old cans of paint, musty blankets, cheap folding chairs, and the newer lawn mower. She even looked inside her uncle’s old fishing box.
No ashes, no urn. Dammit. It had to be somewhere on the second level of the house. Assuming it even existed at all. She exited the shed and then stopped.
Something felt off. She paused, wondering what was different. It hit her a moment later.
It was too quiet. The frogs had all stopped croaking.
Paris switched off the flashlight. Instinctively, she looked up at the second floor of the house, at the window of her old bedroom. Was there someone in there? She blinked. No, there couldn’t be. Everybody was at the wedding, three hours away.
Weren’t they?
Something moved in the window, and she froze. At first she thought she was seeing things, but then a person-like shape moved closer to the glass. A face appeared, blurry from this distance, but unmistakable nonetheless. They locked eyes.
Tito Micky.
She was back in the rental car in two minutes, her armpits sweating and her heart pounding so hard, she could hear it in her ears. She started the car, keeping the lights off until she made it back onto the road, her eyes darting to the rearview mirror every other second for any sign of someone following. She stepped on the gas, watching the needle on the odometer climb from sixty, to seventy, and then a hundred kilometers an hour, a good twenty over the speed limit.
It wasn’t until she was all the way out of Maple Sound that she remembered Tito Micky was dead.
She had seen a ghost, and that ghost was with her in the car now, whispering in her ear, his hot, sour breath on her neck. The skin on her entire body was crawling, as if a tub of tiny spiders had been poured over her head and were now inside her clothes, looking for crevices to explore. The memories were taking over, and they were vivid, and terrible.
’Sus. You look just like your mother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
While Joey had never liked looking like Ruby, her mother had hated it even more. The best part of Joey’s night was when she finally got to wipe Ruby’s face off hers. When Cherry gave her the go-ahead to leave, the first thing Joey did was peel off her eyelashes and cold cream her skin.