Page 100 of Some Kind of Haunted

“You need to be getting better rest, too,” I tell him, remembering what Nora said about his balance getting worse when he doesn’t sleep well.

He pats my arm. “I will after Halloween,” he assures me. “Just got to muddle through until then.”

I think we have to do more than muddle, but he doesn’t. He’s old and frail.

We’ll do the fighting while Harrison muddles, I tell myself.

Outside the diner, Harrison straightens. He reaches into the pocket of his woolly cardigan and pulls out something that glints a bit in the light from inside.

My stomach heaves when I recognize it.

It’s the furry hair locket.

“Oh, my goodness,” I say, my voice much too high. “Where did you find that? I’ve been looking everywhere.”

For a moment I think Harrison is going to challenge me on this obvious lie—maybe tell me exactly where he found it. Right there with all the hairy horrors, making it pretty clear that I put it there. Which I did.

But he doesn’t do this.

I make myself smile gratefully as I take the hideous thing from him. He stares at me, and I realize I have no choice but to slip it on over my head.

It thuds against my collarbone with more weight than something so small and delicate should have, surely. And I consider indulging what feels like a few dry heaves within, but there’s no time for this.

Not with Jack and Logan in that fucking tower waiting for us.

“Good, good,” Harrison says, his gaze on the necklace. “Now we can go.”

He seems to steady himself as we head down the street. The crowds have dissipated a little with the sun setting. There will be more of a dinner crowd later, but even tourists seem to feel that they shouldn’t be lurking in the shadows out here.

Harrison waves off my arm when I offer it and begins to walk on his own. “You follow my pathway now,” he tells me, without looking back.

I nod, even though he can’t see me. But he doesn’t stay in the light like he said we would. He seems to skirt into and out of shadows in a way that makes me more than uneasy. Especially when trying to follow him, one of my feet hits a shadow, and I swear the necklace moves, there against my collarbone. Tickles.

Like little tendrils of hair have escaped and are brushing against my skin.

I nearly cry out in horror, but instead, I just keep both feet firmly in the light and it doesn’t happen again.

I’m aware once more that there aren’t as many streetlights on this part of Main Street as I think there should be. I stare up at the clock tower, looming there before us, and feel the way I usually do when I see it.

Like it’s a scream in my head and I should be running in the opposite direction.

But if Jack is waiting, if Logan is waiting, we have to get there. Because three of us might not be enough, but two is even worse odds.

A set of three middle-aged couples is lurching toward us, laughing loudly like they’ve recently hit the winery on the other side of town. They weave their way toward us, part for Harrison, and then one of the bigger men nearly crashes into me.

I manage to jump out of the way, but when I glare back at the clueless group, I stumble a little on an uneven slab of sidewalk, and I’m sure I’m going down—

But I manage not to fall. I frown down at the crack in the sidewalk, my gaze catching. I can see a little rock in the crack. In the shape of a heart.

Your mother is always looking down on you two, Dad would say, picking up the stone. He’d hand it to one of us to hold.

And Amelia had the same thing. A collection of heart-shaped stones, some passed down and some found.

On a whim, I reach down and pick up the rock. I slide it into my other pocket, so I can be balanced between the two hearts, and I immediately feel better about everything.

I might be walking toward my literal childhood nightmare, but at least I have two heart stones to protect me.

Harrison looks back at me, no doubt puzzled that I’ve somehow fallen behind. “Everything okay?”