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One beep. NO. That was true. Ollie loved Brussels sprouts, the weirdo.
Okay, then, Coco thought. As proof, maybe it was still kind of weak. Maybe it was the smiling man’s lucky guess, but she had to trust it. Coco kept on padding down the stairs.
Finally she stepped off the stairs and onto a concrete floor and found herself in a gigantic space. Utterly still and utterly dark, except for a flickering light. Coco went around a pile of old clothes and saw a single oil lamp burning. It was just like the oil lamps that Ollie’s dad had in the Egg. Coco stared at it. Where had that come from? Who had lit it? She scanned the basement. Complete and horrible silence.
The lamp illuminated dusty lockers and piles of boxes. Rusting tools.
Coco considered the lamp, thinking hard. Coco had taken the Ouija board because it was the only thing visible on both sides of the dining room mirror, after Ollie had gone through it.
But that wasn’t completely true. Coco remembered suddenly that there had been another thing visible on both sides of the mirror.
The fire itself.
Okay, but so? She didn’t know what that meant, or if it would be any help. It was only that the Ouija board was the first thing Coco had seen that had struck her as—different. Out of place. This lamp was the second.
&n
bsp; She was reaching out a hand to pick up the lamp when she heard soft, skittering footsteps again. She still couldn’t see anyone. “Brian?” she whispered. “Brian?”
No answer.
But Ollie’s watch began to beep, loudly and steadily, in the darkness.
* * *
—
Ollie, crouching behind the lockers, froze when she heard the thin, whispering voice. You shouldn’t have come here. It seemed to have spoken right beside her.
Very slowly, Ollie turned.
It was the ghost girl. Gretel, if that was her real name. The ghost girl had been scary at a distance. She was worse close up. Her nose was black, as were the tips of her fingers. There were black specks on her cheeks. The rest of her was bloodless-white, her lips bluish. Her eyes were wide and unblinking.
“I tried to warn you,” she whispered. “I tried. Too late. You’re here and she’s hunting you. Go away. I’m hiding. If she finds you, she’ll find me.”
It took Ollie a moment to understand what the girl was saying. Her voice was thick and slurred, as though her frozen lips and jaw didn’t work very well. “Mother Hemlock?” Ollie whispered back, trying to neither stare at the wide, unblinking eyes nor flinch away from the black-tipped fingers. “Is she looking for you?”
“Always,” whispered the girl. “Always. Sometimes she catches me. But I get away again. Now she won’t find me. I’m hiding. I’m not afraid of the dark anymore. I can hide in the dark.” She surveyed Ollie, and the blackened lips pressed down to nothing. “You’re here too and you have to take care of yourself. Go away.”
“You tried to warn me, didn’t you?” said Ollie. “You said, don’t listen. You showed me where to hide in the kitchen.”
The girl didn’t say anything, but Ollie had no intention of going away. She needed help, and she needed answers. She tried again, “Is your name Gretel?”
The girl shuddered, and slid away from Ollie. Her trembling mouth made an eerie contrast with her unblinking eyes. “Gretel? Was I? I can’t remember now.” Suddenly her calm, flat voice rose with panic. “I can’t say anything else! He won’t let me! How long have I been down here? An hour? Two? Not more. I can’t remember now. But it doesn’t matter. This is my hiding place. Go away!”
An hour? Ollie wondered. She opened her mouth to ask another question.
But she didn’t. The footsteps had started up again. They were thumping somewhere on the stairs in the dark. Coming closer.
Ollie shut up and crouched low. Gretel, shivering, retreated deeper into the darkness. The footsteps got to the bottom of the stairs. They were the footsteps of a two-footed person. Not the bear, then. And they didn’t sound like the clacking footsteps of Mother Hemlock. Who was it?
The footsteps paused, right at the base of the stairs.
Ollie peered cautiously around the lockers.
But there was no one there.
The footsteps continued, though. Foot by foot they went farther into the basement.
