“Do they hurt?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” I said. “It’s kind of a dull pain. The prosthetics are cheap, so they don’t fit very well. You get used to it.”
She hugged her legs to her chest and stared at me over her knees.
“What?” I snapped.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without makeup on before.”
“So?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just interesting.”
I sniffed. “Whatever. I know I have acne.”
“You’re pretty both ways.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“The fact that I’m pretty?”
Artemis gave me a withering look.
“Come on,” I said, “you have to give meonebad joke.”
“Not even one.”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it.” Mom’s pictures and notes might right at this moment be washing into Addams Lake, and I could have saved them when I went into the trailer that last time, but I chose Dad’s axe instead. I hugged my legs to my chest, too, and we faced each other on the bed, our toes almost touching.
“What happened at the motel?” she said.
I told her. I could still smell the smoke, still feel the fire. I remembered exactly how disorienting it was to watch Ludwig’s form flicker in the heat haze, worse than the flickering edges of the ghosts. When I finished, she didn’t ask what we were going to do. I couldn’t think about hunting.
“I didn’t know you had a thing about neat shoes.” I motioned to the neat row of footwear.
“I don’t,” she said. “Salem does.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Well, I don’t know that it’s Salem for certain,” she went on; talking had brought a little color back to her cheeks. “If I leave my shoes scattered around at night, when I wake upthey’re neat like that. Same order, same place.”
“So your mom is doing it.”
Artemis shakes her head. “I’ve tested it. It happens even if I’m barely asleep, or for only a few minutes. It happens if I hide shoes where Mom wouldn’t know to look for them or wouldn’t be able to get them without making enough noise to wake me up. And did you hear those stairs? Anyone coming up here makes enough noise to wake me up.”
“You think Salem Hillcroft is rearranging your shoes.” I’d never seen an Addamsville ghost affect a physical object, but I was far from knowing all of Addamsville’s secrets.
“I think something is rearranging my shoes.”
“Have you tried asking?”
“Six times.”
“Cool, so I have to stay in the haunted room tonight.” It would make me feel better, to have at least one ghost around.
“Yougetto stay in the haunted room tonight. This is the best room in the house. You remember the third floor at Grimshaw House?” Artemis crawled to the edge of the bed and got up to push back the curtains on the other windows. Then she moved around to turn off her lights.
