The Haunted

They stood there for several moments, staring at each other, frightened, and it was not until a Hopi woman on the outskirts of the Kachina festival smiled at them, motioning toward a table full of little wooden dolls representing demigods and demons, that they started moving again, passing through the festival to the other side of the park and Old Main.

Twenty-nine

Julian met Claire for lunch again at her office, bringing takeout tacos this time, and it felt just as awkward as it had the day before. He didn’t think she was still mad at him, but there was not much talk while they ate, and when they did talk, the conversation seemed forced. He hated this feeling of estrangement, but he knew that the only cure would be for him to leave the house and stay with her and the kids at her parents’ place, and that he was not willing to do.

At least, not yet.

Although … he was not sure why. After his experience last night—an experience he was definitely not going to tell her about—he should have been falling over himself to get out of there. But something was keeping him in the house. He told himself that it was the hope, the possibility, that he was close to finding out what was really going on and figuring out a way to stop it. But he didn’t believe that, and whenever his mind even approached the subject, he quickly steered it in another direction. He didn’t want to think about what he was doing or why.

Lunch today didn’t last as long as it had yesterday. They both avoided talking about the big-ticket items, and their efforts to discuss small stuff were downright painful. Julian didn’t jump up and leave immediately after finishing his tacos, but shortly after she finished and he sucked the last of his Coke through the straw, he stood, wadding up his napkin and throwing it in the wastepaper basket. He told Claire he still had to finish work on that Web site and had better get going, and they parted amicably but without hugging.

He was outside and had just unlocked the driver’s door of the van when Claire stopped him. “Julian?”

He looked up to see her standing in the doorway of her office. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to stay there. You’ve proved your point. Whatever it was. You’re a big macho guy, and you’re not afraid of anything.”

He felt himself hardening against her. She must have sensed his antipathy, because she quickly added, “I’m just afraid for you. It’s dangerous there. And you have two kids, you know. They should be your priority.”

That hit him where he lived, and he tried to come up with a response that made sense, but she was right. Nothing was more important than Megan and James.

Still …

“Something’s happened,” he told her. “Something’s changed. You’re not there, so you haven’t noticed it, but it’s like …” He tried to verbalize what he’d been feeling. “You know how the basement used to be creepy? It’s not anymore. The garage is. It’s like this new ghost somehow deposed the old one. I don’t know what it is about our house that makes the spirits of dead people hang around, but it seems like the people who die there stay there. At least until someone else takes their place. And right now, the guy who killed himself in the garage is our ghost du jour.”

Claire gave him a hard stare. “You think that’s cute? You think you’re being funny?”

“I’m not trying to be. I’m sorry. But I think I’m onto something here. I think I might be able to—”

“I don’t care if you find a way to exorcise every single ghost in every haunted house in the country. It’s not worth the risk. You have two kids who need you. I need you. That house is just a house. We sell it, get rid of it, find another. People do it all the time for all sorts of different reasons. It’s not a big deal. Let it go.”

They’d attracted attention. A couple who’d just exited the sandwich shop were walking slowly down the sidewalk, pretending not to look or listen but doing both. In the van’s side mirror, he could see the owner of the used-book store across the street pausing in his rearrangement of the outside paperback rack to watch.

Julian didn’t want to talk in front of them, and he moved back onto the sidewalk, where he stood in front of Claire, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’m close,” he told her.

“No!”

“Yes.”

She pulled away from him and went back into her office. He thought of following her, but she wasn’t going to change his mind, he wasn’t going to change her mind, and it was probably better if they didn’t get into a shouting match right now.

He walked back to the van and got in. The bookseller was arranging his paperbacks again; the couple from the sandwich shop had left. Julian backed into the street. Intellectually, he knew Claire was probably right, but emotionally, it felt wrong, and he drove home convinced that he had made the correct decision.

The sight that greeted him when he pulled onto Rainey Street was completely unexpected.

Every single house was up for sale.

Except theirs.