Chapter Eleven

By nine p.m., I'm sprawled across the couch, half dozing through an episode of Ted Lasso I've watched at least a dozen times before. On the floor, an empty beer bottle sits next to a paper plate with uneaten crust from the pizza I ordered for dinner. Friends had warned me there'd be a phase in which I let myself go, ignoring all healthy habits and basic hygiene. I didn't believe them at the time. But now, after a week of eating takeout dinners and performing the bare minimum of dressing and bathing, I know it to be true. I've now hit a point somewhere beyond letting go. Abandonment.

Even though I could use a shower, a shave, and a vegetable, I remain where I am, letting my eyelids flicker and close. Maybe I'll sleep through the entire night this way. That would be a welcome change of pace.

I'm on the cusp of sleep when my phone chirps out a noise.

Ping!

Startled, I reach for the phone sitting a few feet from the beer bottle. Activity from the trail cam died down once dusk descended, with the birds retreating into the trees and the squirrels going to wherever squirrels go. Opening the app now, I'm greeted with a picture of moonlit lawn and, at the edge of the woods, an opossum with its glowing eyes unnervingly aimed straight at the camera.

The view from the trail cam is different at night. More ominous. Deep pockets of shadow border the frame, tinted a sickly green by the night vision. The grass itself is rendered gray, like dirty snow. Beyond the lawn, barely visible in the darkness, is the forest, the trees there tall and blurry.

I set my phone face down on the floor and check the bottle for any remaining drops of beer.

Ping!

I eye the phone as the alert from the trail cam shoots a thin glow across the living room carpet. I ignore it, telling myself it's just the opossum again. Or something similar. A deer. A raccoon. A fox.

And ghosts.

I'm struck by a memory of Mrs. Barringer coming to our door one summer, right before I returned to school for the fall semester. By then, I knew they were moving out of the neighborhood. I'd heard my parents whispering about it one night. It was too hard on them, my mother had said. Especially Mrs. Barringer. Hemlock Circle now held too many bad memories. Where they were going—and when—I had no idea. All I knew was that it felt like I was partly to blame. That my inaction that night in the tent meant the Barringers didn't just lose a son, but that they were also losing their home.

So I was surprised when Mrs. Barringer showed up holding something rectangular wrapped in tissue paper.

"I thought you should have it," she said as she handed it to me. "Billy would have wanted you to."

I tore off the tissue paper, revealing a book. The front cover was an illustration of a translucent figure floating over a cemetery. Above it, written out in bold purple lettering, was the title.

The Giant Book of Ghosts, Spirits, and Other Spooks.

I turned the book over in my hands, uncertain if I wanted it. Taking something that belonged to Billy felt wrong for a hundred different reasons. I didn't want to see this book every day and be reminded that he was gone, that it was my fault.

"That's so thoughtful, Mary Ellen," my mother said, deciding for me that the unwanted gift was something I had to accept. "What do you say, Ethan?"

"Thank you," I dutifully replied.

I went upstairs and put the book on the top shelf of my bookcase, its spine facing the wall so I couldn't see the title. I never touched it after that. Not once. It might still be in my room, buried under decades of dust.

Thinking about it now brings forth another memory, jarring in its suddenness. Like a movie that's been spliced together wrong, jump-cutting from one scene to another.

My last Halloween with Billy, trick-or-treating in our respective costumes. I'd dressed as Sam Neill's character from Jurassic Park, braving the crisp October night in khaki shorts, denim work shirt, red neckerchief. Billy had gone as a ghost, complete with gray face paint, powdered hair, and plastic chains dripping from his limbs.

Afterward, we sat in my kitchen eating candy. Although Billy had washed his face, traces of his makeup remained. Pale rings surrounded his eyes, and a streak of gray ran down his cheek. Munching on a fun-sized Snickers, he said, "What would you do if you ever met a ghost?"

"Scream and run away," I said. "Wouldn't you?"

Billy shook his head. "I'd try to talk to them. That's all they want, really. To be acknowledged."

"But what if they tried to kill you?"

"Most ghosts can't hurt you," Billy said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

That, plus his obvious sincerity, prompted me to say, "You know ghosts aren't real, right?"

"Yeah, they are."

"Then why don't we see them everywhere?" I said. "Why aren't there, like, ghosts walking down the street? Or in the supermarket?"

"First of all, a lot of ghosts are invisible, so you can't see most of them," Billy said, making his point by stabbing the air with his candy bar. "Second, they are everywhere. I bet there are ghosts roaming these woods right now."

The very thought gave me a full-body shudder. Unlike Billy, I'm not a fan of ghosts, then or now. I spent that Halloween night burrowed under my covers, too scared to even glance at my bedroom window for fear I'd spot a ghost on the edge of the woods.

"All ghosts really want is for you to know they're there," Billy continued. "They're not intentionally trying to scare people."

"Well, I think everyone's scared of ghosts."

"Not me," Billy said proudly.

Ping!

The alert stops the memory cold, and I grab my phone again, this time annoyed. Whatever animal is in the backyard, I'd love it to leave. But when I open the app, I don't see an animal.

I see Vance Wallace.

He stands between the magnolia tree and the woods, seemingly oblivious to the camera. He's dressed like a man who's been startled awake—pajama bottoms, gray T-shirt, hair standing off his head at multiple angles. Slippers cover his feet. Grass clippings from yesterday's mowing cling to the soles.

I'm outside in thirty seconds, tentatively crossing the lawn. When Vance spots me, he lurches my way. Up close, he looks addled. It's the only way to describe it. There's no recognition in his eyes, even though he saw me yesterday and stares directly at me now.

"Mr. Wallace?" I say. "Are you okay?"

"Did you see him?" he says in a voice too quiet to be a bark and too gruff to be a whisper.

"See who?"

"That Barringer boy."

Unlike Vance Wallace, I do whisper. "Mr. Wallace, Billy's dead."

Vance reaches out and seizes my forearm in a death grip. His mind might not be all there, but Mr. Wallace's muscles are working just fine.

"I saw him," he says. "I followed him here. He's back."

He turns to face the woods, now crowded with shadows. I see nothing in the gloom. Just trees stretching for miles, turned pale from the moonlight.

"Are you sure it wasn't a deer or something?" I say.

"That was no deer," Vance growls. "The Barringer boy is up to no good."

In the distance, I hear the slap of footsteps on the grass. Turning, I see Ashley running around the side of the house with Henry straggling behind her. Instinctively I know why she's here and why she brought her son with her. Much like Mary Ellen Barringer when she crept into my backyard with Andy, Ashley doesn't want to leave her son unattended.

"Dad?" she says, out of breath from exertion and exasperation. "You're not supposed to leave the house without telling me."

"But I saw him again."

"We've gone over this. You didn't see anyone."

"I did, dammit!"

"Let's get you home." Ashley tries to take his arm, but Vance shakes her off.

"I can walk home on my own, for God's sake. Stop treating me like a fucking baby, Trish."

Behind her, Henry gasps. Ashley's reaction is even worse. Her eyes go wide, shimmering with hurt. That same pain slips into her voice as she says, "It's me, Dad. Ashley. Mom's no longer with us."

Mr. Wallace stares at her a moment, confusion writ large on his face. The expression soon falls away, replaced by something approaching abject terror. He opens his mouth to speak, but Ashley shushes him and tells him it's okay. She reaches for him again, and this time Mr. Wallace lets her do it.

As they leave, Vance turns around to stare at the woods.

"I'm not lying," he tells me. "Something is out here."

"That's enough, Dad. Let's go back to the house." Ashley pauses to give me an over-the-shoulder glance. "You, too, Ethan. I could use the help."