Tristan pressed his back against the wall and let his father barrel past. The big man flopped back onto the couch and resumed his baseball-watching, beer-slurping marathon. He spent most evenings doing exactly that, drowning his empty sorrow with beer and the distraction of TV.

Tristan hadn’t known it would be quite like this when he chose to leave New York and move to Vermont. After the day from hell, when his parents first separated, he’d been given no choice but to live with his mother. His dad had found out about the affair and left the house, totally devastated. Tristan had then had to suffer a year of back and forth between his parents. Angry, toxic words, hours of accusations and name-calling. He’d heard it all. Walls and shut doors couldn’t hide it from him.

When the divorce proceedings had finally started, Tristan hadn’t expected to even have a choice. When the lawyer first offered it to him, he was almost paralyzed by what to do. His mother had been on one side of the shiny, black table, her wide, blue eyes pleading with him while his father had sat on the other looking lost and desolate.

It’d been the hardest decision he’d ever made, but it was the only one he could. His mother had a boyfriend. It didn’t matter that they’d gotten together when she was still married; they’d remained a couple, happy and in love while his father was ripped apart at the seams. Besides, she had an inner strength and ambition…unlike his dad. If Tristan hadn’t chosen him, his old man would have been left with no one—a poor, lonely wretch living on Fruit Loops and beer.

“I’ll start dinner,” Tristan mumbled, pushing up his sweater sleeves and shuffling into the kitchen.

There was no point fighting over his mother. It only made his dad drink more, and Tristan didn’t want to have to lug him up the stairs later that night. Thankfully his father wasn’t an angry drunk. If anything, liquor made him snore like a freight train…or cry like a girl who’d been dumped at the prom. Neither choice was appealing.

Checking the refrigerator, Tristan snatched the last couple of beer cans and tucked them under his sweater before grabbing his father’s car keys off the hook and sliding them into his back pocket.

“I just forgot something in the garage,” he called. “Back in a sec.”

Sneaking out the kitchen door, he trotted down the steps and went around the back of the garage, emptying the last two cans and squishing the metal down for recycling. He was pretty sure he could convince his dad they’d run out of beer. He’d managed to do it before. The car keys were safely in his back pocket too. His father wouldn’t look for long before giving up and mumbling something about buying more beer the next day.

His father had always been quick to quit on a cause, which was why he probably walked out on his wife, even though she was the one who’d cheated and should have been booted out the door.

Throwing the flattened cans into the recycling bin, Tristan stopped to look across at the mysterious house. If he rose to his tiptoes he could see the edge of the tower poking out above the winter trees. He wondered what was up there. Probably just an old attic filled with broken furniture and dust-covered boxes. Once-priceless treasures that had been discarded for something newer and shinier.

Anger fired inside of Tristan’s chest as he pictured his mother and her new boyfriend locking lips like high school sweethearts.

“Stupid assface,” Tristan muttered, turning back for the house.

He was nearly at the stairs when he caught a movement from the corner of his eye. Whipping around, he spotted the baseball just as it landed in the driveway and rolled to his feet.

Emotions clogged his throat as he slowly reached down to grab it. Running his thumb over the red stitching, he pushed the ball into his palm. It felt so familiar. How many thousands of times had he caught and thrown a baseball in his life? The hours he used to play catch outside with his dad. The endless practices and games his parents ran him to. It had been his number one priority. He’d been obsessed…until everything fell apart.

Because of lies and deception.

Because his mother and her boss were so wrapped up in their own pleasure that they didn’t stop to think about how it would affect anybody else.

Tristan’s nostrils flared. He gripped the ball and hurled it with a loud shout. He didn’t even think about where he was aiming. He certainly didn’t expect the little white ball to sail across to the mysterious green house and fly through the open attic window.

He cringed and hunched his shoulders, relieved at the lack of shattering glass. He felt like an idiot for losing his temper. With all the shouting and angry outbursts he’d been dodging over the past year, he’d learned to internalize everything, to shove his emotions down deep so they couldn’t rise to the surface and hurt anybody.

“Hey!” A young, disgruntled voice caught his attention.

Tristan’s eyes flicked towards the mailbox. A young boy, who looked about ten, glared at him. “Was that my ball?”

“Uh…” Tristan swallowed and walked for the back steps.

“Hey! No fair! I want my ball back!” Pounding feet on the pavement stopped him from going inside.

As easy as it’d be to escape into the house, he didn’t want some precocious kid pounding on the door and disturbing his dad. Tristan couldn’t guarantee what his father might say or do. He didn’t want to face the embarrassment when his father did something to trigger a wave of street gossip.

He rolled his eyes and spun around as the kid puffed to a stop behind him. The boy’s face was round like a basketball, his skin tinged red by anger, the cold wind, or overexertion. It was probably a combination of all three.

Tristan flashed him an apologetic smile and shrugged. “It’s just a ball, kid. I’ll give you one of my old ones.”

“I don’t want one of yours. That was my ball. You had no right to throw it away. I want it back!”

“Then go ask for it.” Tristan pointed at the house.

The kid’s brown eyes rounded like dinner plates as he slowly looked over his shoulder. “Are you crazy?”

“What?” Tristan frowned.

“Hey, Matty! What’s taking so long?” a small kid with freckles and a shock of red hair yelled from the other side of the street.

“This dick threw my ball at that house!” He pointed his chubby finger behind him while Tristan frowned.

He was about to tell the kid to watch his mouth when the little redhead gasped and ran over to them. “No way. Not that house.”

Tristan took in the boy’s pale expression, his face wrinkling with confusion. “What’s so bad about that house?”

“You don’t know?” The chubby kid shook his head like Tristan was an idiot.

He gave him a sharp glare before gazing at the dark, green residence with its army of trees and wraparound vines.

“It’s haunted,” Little Red whispered.