The Goldmine, the southernmost street in town, had once belonged to the founding families of Addamsville. The houses loomed at sharp angles above the treetops, all imposing Victorian Gothics with huge porches, windows that stared at passersby. They had front gates, and the gates were marked by metal signs decorated with each original family’s name. Horwill House. Grimshaw House. Banforth House. Farow House. On and on, all the way down the street.
Artemis was lucky enough to belong to one of these: her mother had married a Wake. But they didn’t even live in Wake House anymore. In the past month or so, they’d moved into Hillcroft House, the oldest of the old, perched on a rise at the very end of the Goldmine. It had been my last stop of the night when Artemis had found me hiding in her trash.
Sylvester Hillcroft had been the owner of the coal mine where his son, Salem, had died. Stories said Hillcroft House was haunted by the father, who had wasted away after losing his eldest child. It wasn’t the mostfamoushouse in town—that honor belonged to Grimshaw House, with its long-lost buried treasure—but itwasthe most visible.
I parked at the corner at 9:40 p.m. Artemis was already waiting for me behind a tall walnut tree near the end of the driveway, carrying a backpack stuffed so full it threatened to tip her over. Hillcroft House rose behind her like a watchful Victorian toad.
“Took you long enough,” she huffed as she tried to crunch herself into the passenger seat.
“Long enough?I told you I’d be here at nine forty-five. I’m five minutes early. If you were so worried about punctuality, why couldn’t you drive yourself?”
“I would have, but it’s in the shop. I’ve been waiting out here for ten minutes and it’s socold.”
“What’d you tell your mom?”
“That I was helping you, obviously. She knows there’s a firestarter in town.”
“What the hell?” I threw my hands up. “Then why has she been treating me like I’m a horrible person?”
“I don’t know; she doesn’t tell me everything. Come over and ask her yourself.”
I wouldn’t set foot in Hillcroft House until someone forced me. “What’s all this?” I motioned to the backpack.
“Flashlights, some granola bars and trail mix, camera, EMF meter, voice recorders, extra clothes, matches, rope...” She stopped when she saw the expression on my face. “What did you bring?”
I motioned to my flashlight on the dashboard.
“You’reveryunderprepared. You don’t even have your axe.”
“We’re messing with some people, not robbing a bank. And if you want to go at a fully mobile firestarter with just an axe, be my guest.”
“I’ve never investigated the mines before. Didn’t want to go by myself. I want to see if I can learn more before the film crew gets there.” She managed to buckle her seat belt, somehow. “I was doing research earlier today on the mine and I found some new stuff; it was really interesting....”
I threw the car in gear and turned down the street. “Not the first place I’d spend time investigating when we know there’sa firestarter inside. Don’t you have better places to snoop around? Your brand-new spooky scary house, for example?”
“My mom didn’t buy Hillcroft House for its history; she bought it because it’s the most extravagant house in town. She won’t let me investigate it.” She paused, then a sneaky smile slipped onto her face. “I still leave my recorders on at night, though, just in case. Imagine what we could learn if we could find another way for the dead to communicate.”
I headed back the way I’d come. The few people on the sidewalks watched the Chevelle as it passed by.
“Have you everfoundanything?” I asked. “I always imagine you sitting around and listening to hours of empty noise.”
“I’ve gotten some orbs on camera, a few EVP recordings that could be interpreted one way or another... and I had some very interesting EMF readings when I went to Maple Hills!”
“Gnats, weird noises, flashing lights. Cool.”
“It’s not an exact science,” Artemis snapped. “If it were, we’d already know what exactly the ghosts are made of, how they form, their routines, their purpose—and if we could communicate with them, imagine what we couldlearn—”
“You want to know the history of the place; I get it.” I didn’t need to have that conversation over again. We pulled onto Hampstead Road. “That’s better than everyone else, at least.”
Artemis shrugged. “People like to be scared. They like to be creeped out by things they don’t understand. That’s why they tune out when I talk about history. Once you know the truth of something, it loses its power over you. Well. Usually.”
“Usually?”
“You know the story about Gilly Strefford?”
“The girl who was kidnapped and murdered in the house by the funeral home? Yeah, it’s stupid. It’s like someone thought of all the worst things that could happen to a person and put them in one story. It’s tourist bait.”
“That one isn’t made up,” Artemis said. I glanced at her, and she wasn’t laughing. “Gilly Strefford lived in New Valley in the sixties, which got renamed Harrisburg a decade later. Her parents went out of town and left her with her aunt, Mary Hemmings, who lived on Bolt Cross Road near the funeral home. During the two months Gilly’s parents were gone, her aunt and cousins tortured Gilly to within an inch of her life. She died of infection in her injuries. I can’t even explain the details of what they did to her—it was the worst thing I’ve ever read. People play it off now as an overblown murder story, but Gilly was a real girl and she really died.”
