Chapter Eleven
For a full week after what came to be known as The Great Haunted Stairwell Incident, I didn’t see a trace of Riley or Leah in the neighborhood or at school. I called their home many times, but no one answered.
I could never tell if Mrs. James was at home because she always parked her car in the garage and the only window was covered by a blind with the louvers down.
I did notice Dr. James’s car pass by on the street a few times, very late at night, which wasn’t unusual. He often came home late from surgeries at the hospital.
My mom also tried calling Mrs. James, but no one ever picked up the phone. Eventually she grew worried enough to march down the street herself and ring the doorbell. The housekeeper answered and told her that Mrs. James had taken the children away to stay with their grandparents in Arizona for the week. Mom then proceeded to sweetly wrestle the Arizona number out of the unsuspecting housekeeper. She came straight home and dialed the number, just to make sure everyone was all right.
* * *
“It’s not fair,” I said to Mom when I came home from school that day and heard the news. “He’s my best friend.”
“I know it’s difficult,” she replied, “but they’re not moving to the moon. Only to Boston. It’s less than an hour away.”
“It’s not because of me, is it?” I asked. “Because you heard what Dr. James said—that he didn’t want me coming around anymore. Is this my fault? Am I the reason they’re moving?”
“Of course not,” Mom replied with compassion, stroking my hair away from my forehead. “He was wrong to say that to you. He was just frightened and upset and he wanted someone to blame.”
“It wasn’t even my idea to take our bikes to the hotel,” I said irritably. “It was Riley’s.”
“I know.” She poured me a glass of milk and brought me a peanut butter cookie, which I ate in silence while she peeled carrots at the counter.
“Will they come home before they move?” I asked. “Will we ever see them again?”
“I’m not sure, honey,” she replied. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
* * *
As it turned out, Mrs. James and her children never set foot in our neighborhood again. Mom nevertheless made an effort to keep in touch with Mrs. James, and I was allowed to talk to Riley and Leah on the phone a few times over the summer while they were staying with their grandparents in Arizona.
Riley always asked if I would ever go back to the Clipper Lake Hotel. He wanted me to find out what was wedged up against the door of the fire exit. He said it still bothered him that we’d been locked inside. He confessed he was having nightmares about it.
He asked if I was having nightmares, too.
I said no—because I didn’t believe in ghosts. I explained to him that the light we saw move across the ceiling of the stairwell was the beam from the police officer’s flashlight. They had been walking around outside the hotel, shining lights along the windows.
But the part about not believing in ghosts…?
Well, maybe I did believe, because I’d woken up in a state of panic more than once that summer, drenched in sweat, my chest heaving when I thought there was some unearthly presence standing over my bed, watching me in the darkness.
If there was a presence, was it there to protect me? Or lead me somewhere?
* * *
By the time September rolled around, an older couple without any children had moved into the big brick house on our cul-de-sac. Riley and Leah had moved to Boston to live in an even larger Victorian mansion their father had purchased for them while they were in Arizona. They were enrolled in an expensive private school which required them to wear uniforms and play instruments in the school band.
Sadly, for the remainder of that year, we lost touch completely.
I still managed to keep busy, however, by trying out for the basketball team and working a little harder at my studies. Mom organized more than the usual number of family events, and we even took a trip up to Six Flags the week before Thanksgiving.
Before we knew it, it was time to start decorating for the holidays. I ventured into the season with an eagerness and impatience that confounded me because it was unmatched by any previous holiday season of my young life.
Even then, as a boy of ten, I was puzzled by my anticipation, since I’d stopped believing in Santa Clause and there wasn’t really anything special I wanted under the tree.
Nevertheless, each morning I woke with a quiet excitement that simmered in my body. With tremendous care, I peeled open another tiny window on my Advent calendar. At night, I stared at the calendar’s nativity scene with fascination until I drifted off to sleep.
There were no more nightmares after that.
When Christmas Day arrived at last, my brothers, sisters and I woke at dawn to giant white snowflakes floating buoyantly down from the sky. I remember feeling mesmerized and strangely euphoric as I watched them from my bedroom window.
Later that morning—after we finished opening gifts and had stuffed ourselves with pancakes, bacon, and egg nog—my mother received an unexpected phone call.
I don’t know how, but I knew it was something important. Something momentous. I could tell by the way she set her coffee cup down on the kitchen counter and turned quickly toward me.
“It’s Mrs. James,” she said with an unsettling urgency. “She’s calling from Massachusetts General Hospital.”