The House Next Door Read online

  I told Danny to follow me outside, and I raced into the Creightons’ field.

  We stopped beside the stable doors so I could catch my breath and steel my nerves. This was it, the moment of truth, and I knew I wouldn’t come out on top if I went in nervous.

  Would Batman feel sick to his stomach at this moment? Of course not, but I was no hero. I was just a kid scared out of his mind and trying to save his sister.

  Danny tapped me on the shoulder. His touch spread a chill over my skin like frost forming on a window. He pointed to the field past the stable. There was another cross like the pair in the basement but with a different name carved on it: Shade.

  “Jeez,” I said. “Doesn’t Clara send any of her bodies to the morgue or … wherever you send dead horses?”

  Danny didn’t seem to hear me. He was too absorbed in his own thoughts. “I still feel really bad about what happened with Shade. Things got out of hand.”

  “I know,” I said, resisting the urge to place my hand on Danny’s shoulder. I was still chilled from his touch. “But that was still no excuse for what Clara and Shade did to you and your brother. And if you do this — if you help me — you’ll stop them from hurting anyone else.”

  Danny nodded. “I hope I get to see Jack again.”

  “Why do you think you stayed and he didn’t?”

  “I think it was because … because it was my idea in the first place to take Shade for a ride. It was all my fault. He wasn’t just my brother. He was my best friend.”

  “You’ll be reunited with him soon,” I said. “Do you remember what we talked about in my room? What we need to do?”

  He nodded again, this time with resolve.

  And I knew he was committed. Maybe — just maybe — this would work. I took a step toward the door.

  “Wait,” Danny said. “Before you go in, I just want to say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  And then I stepped into the stable, hopefully for the last time.

  The scene was pretty much as I had left it. Clara stood beside Shade on one side of the stable, and Chris was still tied to a pillar in the middle. Nick and Sophie were kneeling on either side of him. Everyone looked at me as soon as I walked into the light. The looks on my sister’s face and those of the Russo brothers were angry enough to kill.

  I stopped just inside the open doorway.

  “Where are the twins?” Clara asked.

  I shook my head and raised my arms pleadingly. “They’re still in my room. I couldn’t convince them to come. I think they knew I was up to something. They were suspicious that I was setting a trap.”

  Clara shook her head. “I’m sorry to hear that. We had a deal.”

  “Yes, but give me time and I’m sure I’ll be able to convince them, somehow, to come over here.”

  “That’s not how this works,” Clara said. “The deal was you had fifteen minutes to return with Danny and Jack and I’d let you and your sister go. And if you didn’t, well, your sister would be the first to die. That was the deal. And now I’m afraid I have no choice but to honour my end of the bargain.”

  Without looking at me, Sophie stood slowly and faced Clara and Shade. The action spoke loud and clear: I’m not afraid of you.

  Clara laughed at Sophie’s show of defiance, but I thought I detected a note of concern in the sound. She looked over her shoulder at Shade.

  Shade snorted and stamped his hoof, preparing to charge.

  Sophie stood her ground.

  Clara raised her hand. “Shade,” she said, then lowered her hand like an executioner’s axe. “Kill.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Wait!” I shouted, breaking the tension.

  Clara’s eyes flicked to me. She looked ready to charge me herself, but there was curiosity there too. She raised her hand again, this time to stop Shade, and the horse obeyed her.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “If I had been able to convince Danny and Jack to come over here, would you actually have let my sister and me go?”

  Clara regarded me for a moment as if weighing out the pros and cons of being truthful.

  “You already know, don’t you?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer, didn’t even nod. The longer I could draw this out the better. It gave Danny more time to get into position.

  “No, I never intended to let you and your sister go. How could I? You know too much. You’d tell your parents and I’d have the police banging down my front door like that.” Clara snapped her fingers.

  I laughed. It was fake, but Clara didn’t know that and she took the bait.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just, if that had happened I wouldn’t be using my phone. It was fried in your basement when Ernest confronted us.”

  “You were in my basement?” Clara roared. “You saw my father?”

  “Yeah, that’s where we first discovered that iron horseshoes repel ghosts. And I gotta say, it’s a little weird you buried your parents in your basement.”

  “I dug them up from the cemetery and brought them home to be with me, where they belong!”

  I pictured Clara sitting in the damp darkness with her parents’ decomposing corpses and her father’s ghost, and I knew that’s why the furniture had been set up down there.

  “Sadly, my mother’s ghost didn’t come back with my father’s,” Clara said. “But dear old Dad, like Shade, died with unfinished business. They were eager to return … for revenge.”

  “Ernest is dead,” I said. “Well, dead again. We pinned him down with iron horseshoes until he evaporated before our eyes. And since I couldn’t get Danny and Jack to come over here with me, I’m going to grab one of those horseshoes and do the same to your horse.”

  My lie about evaporating Ernest and my threat of killing Shade worked. Clara locked eyes with me and I could feel her fury radiating off her like heat waves. She was enraged, desperate and irrational.

  And all of her hatred was focused straight at me.

  “You,” she said. She wrinkled her nose and pulled her lips back as if addressing me physically repulsed her. “Shade! Charge!”

  Shade rocketed toward me — not Sophie — like a cannonball. White froth spewed from his mouth and he grunted loudly. His hooves thundered so forcefully that I could feel the ground shake from across the stable. Ba da rump, ba da rump, ba da rump!

  I stood my ground. When Shade was only a few metres away I shouted, “Danny! Now!”

  Danny slipped through the roof and dropped through the air. He landed on Shade’s back and grabbed his mane. He didn’t pull back or try to slow Shade — instead, he spurred the horse forward at a faster clip.

  I jumped to the side just in time to avoid being run down.

  Danny rode Shade through the open doorway.

  Everything was going according to plan. Everything was going perfectly.

  It didn’t last.

  Through the open stable doors, I caught a glimpse of a man approaching from the farmhouse.

  Ernest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  How had Ernest gotten past the horseshoe? I had seen it wobble, but not fall. And then a quick image flashed before my eyes, as realistic as the two hallucinations I’d had before. After we’d left the basement, the opossum had skittered out of its hiding place and bumped into the cross, knocking the horseshoe to the ground. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew that was what had happened.

  And my hatred for that opossum reached new heights.

  But there was no time to think about it. Ernest had nearly reached the stable. If he got in, not only would he be able to attack us, but I didn’t know how to get him all the way back to his grave. And even if I could achieve that, he’d probably just escape again.

  “Sophie!” I yelled. “Throw me that horseshoe!” I pointed at the one she had kicked toward Clara, the one that had only made it halfway across the stable.

  Without hesitating she picked it up and threw it to me. />
  I caught it and ran outside, straight toward Ernest.

  I think the boldness of me charging him caught him off guard. He frowned and slowed his pace. That was good.

  “Danny!” I shouted as I ran. “I need your help!”

  He was galloping away fast, but he heard me over Shade’s thundering hooves and looked back over his shoulder. Seeing what was happening, he pulled Shade in an arc, circling Ernest and me.

  I didn’t slow down. At the last possible second — right before colliding with Ernest — I raised the horseshoe and slammed it into his chest. With my free hand I grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him toward Shade’s grave.

  Shocked, Ernest yelled and stumbled, allowing me to drag him to my intended target. But at the same time he grabbed the back of my neck and my body tensed with pain. I closed my eyes tight, grunted in agony and forced my legs to keep moving, hoping that I was still heading in the right direction. My stomach churned, my head throbbed and I felt like I’d pass out at any moment.

  Thankfully, it was enough.

  I felt bumpy earth beneath my feet and opened my eyes to see that I’d managed to pull Ernest to Shade’s grave.

  Ernest’s grave had acted as a portal before. I could only hope Shade’s would act the same way — and on a one-way, permanent basis this time.

  I dropped to the ground and pulled Ernest down with me. He landed on his side, our faces only a few centimetres apart. A small white dot flickered deep in each of his irises, but otherwise his eyes were cold. The sight chilled my blood.

  Fortunately, it was the last I saw of him.

  Danny rode Shade straight through the ground and disappeared into the grave, first crushing, then pulling Ernest into the earth with them.

  A deathly silence stretched out across the field. The wind died and it started to snow. I held my breath and stared at the grave, worrying I’d see either Shade or Ernest come kicking and crawling back up through the dirt, but that didn’t happen.

  Danny thought he’d be able to keep them in the Netherrealm and prevent them from coming back, but I placed the horseshoe on the ground, just in case.

  Feet pounded across the snow behind me.

  “Matt! Watch out!” Sophie shouted.

  I spun and jumped out of the way. Clara dropped to her knees before Shade’s grave. Sophie, Nick and Chris stood behind her.

  All the anger and hatred had drained out of Clara’s face, leaving behind pale skin, sunken eyes and quivering lips. Her shoulders were hunched and she bent forward at the waist as if her body was broken and hollow. She buried her face in her hands, and then she began to cry.

  She didn’t appear to be a threat anymore, so I joined my sister and the Russo brothers.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I told them.

  “It’s all right,” Chris said, raising his hand to prevent me from saying anything else.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Nick said. “I was super angry when I thought you were selling us out.”

  “I’ve never been so angry in my life,” Sophie said.

  Nick continued. “But now we know it was all part of your plan.”

  Sophie looked at Clara, then at the grave. “Are they gone for good? Ernest and Shade? And Danny too?”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “How did you know Danny would be able to ride Shade into the ground?”

  “I didn’t. But I couldn’t think of anything else, so I figured it was worth a shot. Remember that Batman comic book? I figured if iron worked in the real world the way Nth metal worked in the comic, maybe a ghost with a grudge would be able to force Shade — and Ernest — back to the place they belong. In the comic it was called the Netherworld. It stuck in my mind thanks to Sophie — she pointed it out earlier tonight.”

  Sophie beamed.

  I lowered my voice a notch or two. “Clara called it the Netherrealm. I guessed that they were similar places, and that Ernest and Shade could be forced there by another ghost. Luckily, Danny really wanted to see his brother — Jack’s ghost moved on as soon as he died — and he wanted to make sure Ernest and Shade couldn’t hurt any more kids.”

  Clara continued to sob with her back to us.

  “So basically,” Sophie said, “your love of superheroes saved us.”

  I shrugged and returned the smile.

  “No, seriously. It saved our lives,” Sophie said. “Wait until Dad hears that you used your geekiness for good. He’s going to be so proud. Dad’s a huge geek too,” she added for Nick and Chris’s benefit.

  I hadn’t taken my eyes off Clara as we spoke. She didn’t look at us or say a word. It was as if she was in her own world.

  “When I went home I grabbed this,” I said as I took Sophie’s phone out of my pocket.

  “Didn’t it get fried when you entered the stable?” Sophie asked.

  I turned it on. I didn’t know her passcode, but there were three bars on the top of the screen, so it had a signal. “I guess ghosts only do that if they mean to, not just by getting too close to a phone.” I held the phone out for Sophie. “Anyway, can you call the police?”

  Sophie didn’t have time to take the phone.

  Clara quickly got to her feet and lunged at me. Her fingers wrapped around my throat and squeezed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The world had shifted once more. It was no longer night. It was no longer winter. But I was still standing in the field at Briar Patch Farm.

  The farmhouse and stable were the same but in better condition, and the field and gardens were in much better shape. There was only one other house nearby, and it looked nothing like ours. The two homes were surrounded by grassy hills, trees and bushes.

  There was a car in the driveway and a FOR SALE sign hammered into the ground beside the road. I approached the front of the house just as the door opened and Ernest and Hazel stepped out into the sunlight. Hazel held a small sign that said SOLD.

  A moment later, Clara followed. She looked twenty years younger than I was used to, about forty years old.

  I didn’t bother hiding. They looked right through me.

  “So, what do you think?” Ernest asked Clara.

  “I love it,” Clara said. “But don’t ask me. This has always been her dream. What do you think, Mom?”

  Hazel smiled with her mouth and her eyes. “It’s perfect.” She spread her arms and her grown daughter eagerly flung herself into the embrace as if she was four years old, not forty. “I’ve always wanted to live in the country. And after I read Black Beauty when I was eight years old, I’ve always wanted to have a horse.”

  “I’m pleased for you,” Clara said. “I’m pleased for us. We’re going to be so happy here.” She let go of her mother and quickly looked back at the house. “I forgot my purse inside. I’ll be right back.” She stepped back into the house.

  Hazel’s smile faltered as she turned to Ernest and gave him a meaningful look, but he held up his hands and stopped her from saying whatever she had been thinking.

  “She can live with us as long as she needs to,” he said. “I stopped thinking she should live on her own years ago. If you’re both happy, I’m happy. That’s honestly all I want.”

  Hazel’s smile returned. “Thank you, Ernest.” They hugged and she added, “This is a dream come true. I think I’m going to need to pinch my arms every morning till the day I die to make sure it’s real.”

  Ernest waited on the porch for Clara to return and Hazel walked to the street.

  Neither Hazel nor Ernest saw the pickup truck that turned the corner at the end of the country road. It swerved wildly and nearly drove off the road, then righted itself and continued toward Briar Patch Farm.

  Hazel placed the small SOLD sign on the larger FOR SALE one. She sighed, a satisfied sound.

  Then she frowned.

  So did Ernest.

  They looked down the road toward the sound of the approaching truck.

  “Hazel?” Ernest said, shielding his eyes from the sun. He took a step
toward her.

  “He’s driving awfully fast,” Hazel said quietly.

  “Hazel?” Ernest repeated, a little louder than before.

  Clara stepped outside.

  The truck accelerated.

  “Hazel!” Ernest shouted.

  She didn’t move. The truck veered left. It jumped onto the front lawn.

  It drove into her and she flipped over the hood, then landed on the front lawn. The driver didn’t slow down. He drove back onto the road and sped away, kicking up a cloud of dirt in the truck’s wake.

  “Hazel, no!”

  “Mom!”

  Ernest and Clara ran to Hazel’s side and knelt in the grass beside her. Blood ran out of her mouth but she was still breathing.

  “This can’t be happening,” Clara said. Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. “Tell me this isn’t real.”

  Ernest seemed paralyzed.

  “Promise me,” Hazel said softly. She seemed to know she’d been hurt too badly to recover.

  “Anything,” Clara said.

  “I want to know you’ll be happy. Promise me you’ll still move here. Promise me—” She coughed, and more blood trickled down her chin. “Promise me you’ll get the horse.”

  Clara closed her eyes tightly and nodded. “I promise.”

  “Do you remember the name I always wanted?”

  Clara nodded again. Tears fell from her chin. “Shade. I’ll never let anything happen to him, as long as I live.”

  And as I watched the scene, the sky and the grass and the farmhouse and Ernest and Hazel faded away, leaving Clara behind in a crumpled heap — before she disappeared as well.

  ***

  The world returned, cold and dark once more.

  It took a moment for me to get my bearings. I was lying on the ground, my back on the snow. Sophie looked down at me.

  “Matt!” she shouted. “You’re all right!”

  “I’m fine,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my head. “What happened? How long have I been out for?”

  “A few minutes,” she said. “You fainted as soon as she touched you.” Sophie pointed at Clara, held back by Nick and Chris. With her head slumped and her eyes closed she wasn’t putting up a fight. All the same, I hoped the Russos wouldn’t relax their grips for a second.