AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Charlotte studied him from behind her sunglasses. “If you want to show us.”
He turned and they entered the neighborhood. The houses at the head of the street were small but newer, interspersed with brick apartments and low-slung, white-painted churches. The buildings turned significantly more run-down the farther along the street they went. Mac eventually turned in to a cul-de-sac where the road was just sand. There was a large sign indicating that this was the future site of a new Habitat for Humanity community. Here, old houses were dilapidated and boarded over and covered in vegetation, obviously waiting for demolition. Some had already collapsed in on themselves, as if they’d grown tired of waiting. Mac stopped at an empty lot where only a few cinder blocks remained of a foundation.
“I have the craziest feeling I’ve been here before,” Charlotte said.
“Me, too,” Zoey said, looking around.
Charlotte turned, her brows lifting curiously above her aviators. “Really?”
Zoey nodded, and a thought occurred to her. She quickly took out her phone and called up her photos.
Mac had been quiet for a while, but he finally said, “Camille’s house used to be in that empty lot. It’s amazing it stayed up as long as it did. Sometimes I think she kept the walls standing by the sheer force of her will.”
Charlotte reached over to him, her palm hovering just inches over his plaid shirt. She finally set her hand on his shoulder and patted. He turned his head and smiled at her.
“It is!”Zoey exclaimed, looking up just in time to see their surprisingly tender exchange.
Mac and Charlotte both gave a start, and Charlotte dropped her hand immediately.
“That house right there.” Zoey pointed to a small green house with a collapsed roof across the road. There appeared to be a tree growing out of it. “Do you see the concrete step? It’s got one jagged corner, and the street number fourteen looks like it was spray-painted on it.”
“We always called it the lime house. For the color, I guess,” Mac said.
She passed her phone to him with excitement. “It’s the same house in the background of this old photo of Lizbeth and Lucy Lime I found in Lizbeth’s condo! What if that wastheirhouse?”
Mac used his fingers to zoom in on the photo while Charlotte leaned over to see. He smiled in aThat’s interestingkind of way, as if it weren’t the most incredible discovery. “It was before my time,but I bet Camille knew them. She fed the neighborhood children around here for generations.”
“Maybe that’s what seemed familiar to you, too, Charlotte,” Zoey said as she took the phone back from Mac. “You remembered me showing this to you.”
“That must be it,” Charlotte said, though she didn’t sound convinced.
“Did you know Roscoe Avanger grew up in this neighborhood?” Mac asked.
“Now you’ve done it,” Charlotte said at the exact moment Zoey exclaimed, “What?”
“I can’t remember which house Camille said belonged to Roscoe’s grandfather. It might be gone already. Roscoe apparently used to run away a lot, and sometimes ended up on her porch.”
“Was his home life bad?” Zoey asked.
“I don’t know,” Mac said. “But this was a rough neighborhood, and I got the impression from Camille that he was something of a hoodlum. She said she wasn’t surprised that he turned into a writer. She said stories chased him like ghosts.”
“Roscoe Avanger and ghosts again.” Charlotte shook her head. “Everything on this island seems related to those two things.”
“Even us,” Zoey said. “Roscoe Avanger bought and renovated the Dellawisp. We met because of him.”
“And ghosts?” asked Charlotte. “How are we connected to ghosts?”
Zoey put away her phone. “I don’t know, but I bet we are.”
Mac laughed. “This is like the Mallow Island version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
“Who?” Zoey asked.
“Ah, youth,” Mac said as he made a U-turn and drove out of the neighborhood.
Zoey turned to watch the houses as they faded from sight.
Everything around her was suddenly stitched together by unseen threads, as thin as gossamer. She’d come here wanting to feel a connection, but she’d always thought that connection would be to her mother.
