“Never,” I said. “No body parts. No hands, no feet … I’m not going to duck my head underwater and look for your corpse. So if that’s what you’re hoping for, let it go.”
Suddenly, the rose petals began to move.
Something was in the tub.
And whatever it was, it was coming to the surface.
I staggered back and ran into the counter, gripping it to keep myself from passing out. Behind me, the bathroom door slammed, shutting me in and eliminating about 80 percent of the light.
And in the sudden darkness, the water trembled.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away, anticipating the moment that a hand dripping with decayed flesh would push free of the petals.
Finally, the petals parted. But what came up between them wasn’t any kind of hand….
It was a piece of paper.
I looked around for something I could use to fish it out — a toilet brush or a plunger. But the bathroom was devoid of anything remotely useful.
I had to know what was on that paper. I knew in my gut that I needed to see it. I also had a feeling that, no matter how hard I tried, the bathroom door wouldn’t open for me unless I followed these ghostly instructions.
I stepped closer. The page was crumpled, and a corner of it floated up out of the water. If I was careful, I could grab it by that corner and pull it out without even touching a single flower petal.
The room was dark, but the tub was lit in a slanted rectangle of moonlight. My heart had taken over my whole body, beating so hard I swayed on my feet.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I reached my hand down toward the piece of paper.
I was a foot away. Then ten inches. Eight. Six.
Four.
My fingers hovered over my target. The roses in the tub drifted in a slow circle, stirred by some supernatural current.
I grabbed the exposed corner of the paper and yanked it up so fast that I splashed myself full in the face with water.
But I got it. And not so much as a single body part had I submerged in the evil haunted bathtub. I’d given the spirit what it wanted….
Now the door would open and let me out.
Feeling a thin silver lining of triumph, I sighed and turned to walk out of the bathroom.
That’s when it hit me. Not a physical thing, but a force, like a powerful burst of wind — my own private tornado. The impact slammed against my torso and propelled me backward, until I lost my footing.
As my feet came out from under me, the backs of my legs struck something hard and smooth, and before I had time to take a breath deep enough to scream, I plunged backward into the bathtub.
The rose petals were so soft. It felt as if thousands of gentle fingers were touching my hands and arms and face and throat and feet, and the parts of my back and stomach that were exposed when my pajama top floated around me in the water. My screaming/breathing reflex showed up just late enough that I opened my lips and nearly choked on a mouthful of wet roses. I sprang out of the tub, about four feet straight into the air, miraculously not landing face-first against the corner of the bathroom counter.
Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I thought for a second that I was seeing another terrible specter: a girl with matted dark hair, white skin glowing in the dark room, hideous black bruises all over her body like spots of decay.
But nope, it was just me. Soaking wet and covered in rose petals.
The door opened without being touched, which was not a comfort. I fought the urge to scream and race down the stairs to Mom’s room, and wake her and Jonathan with my story of what had happened.
Instead, I forced myself to walk slowly — not calmly, but slowly — toward my open bedroom door. I didn’t bother to avoid the rose petals this time. I shuffled right through them. They clung to my wet skin and covered my feet like moist, flaking socks.
They seemed as real as anything else you could touch and smell and see. But when I had passed back into my own room, I knew without having to look that they would be gone when I did turn around.
All that remained to prove anything had happened was the sopping-wet hot mess that was me — and the soggy piece of paper clutched in my right hand.
Under the bright lights of my bathroom vanity, I managed to uncrumple the page and gently stretch it back to its normal dimensions.
I’d never seen a screenplay before, but I knew that’s what I was looking at. There were character names and lines of description and action.
It started in the middle of a scene in which two people were eating dinner.
One of them was a woman. Her name was Charice.
And one of them was a man.
His name was Henry.
And the last thing on the page was a line of dialogue.
CHARICE
This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.
I managed to hold off until seven o’clock in the morning before texting Wyatt. I figured someone as OCD as he was had to be the early-bird-gets-the-worm type — even on a Sunday.
I typed Are you up? and leaned against the headboard to watch my phone for his reply. Ironically, that was when the sleep I’d waited all night for decided to sneak up on me. My heavy lids slipped shut as I stared at the darkened screen.
Then the phone vibrated, startling me back to full awareness.
Yes. Everything okay?
I replied: Ha ha ha ha NO.
Need to talk?
Yeah, I typed. Where can we meet? Not my house.
There was a pause, and then his reply came through: Mine?
I must admit that I was dying of curiosity about the home life that would produce a specimen like Wyatt. Were his parents studiously brilliant, obsessed with research and The Truth? Tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists? Lifelong paint-chip eaters?
I was about to reply Yes, but I guess I took a little too long, because another pair of messages popped up from Wyatt:
Promise I’m still not the killer.
Murderer’s honor.
At eight o’clock, I slipped on a pair of flip-flops, grabbed my house key, phone, and the monstrosity of a backpack, and set out for Wyatt’s house. I left a note for Mom explaining that I was meeting Marnie, which I knew she’d believe since (as far as she knew) I’d never gone anywhere else.
The Sheppards’ house was only about a five-minute walk away, and Wyatt was out front when I rounded the corner.
“What happened?” His eyes darkened with concern when he saw me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I asked.
He looked startled for a second, then realized what he’d said. “Oh,” he said. “No. Sorry. Nice overalls, by the way.”
I was wearing my softest long-sleeved black T-shirt and Mom’s overalls, with a chunky blue scarf wrapped around my neck — the fashion equivalent of comfort food. Wyatt wore jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt, untucked. His feet were bare. The effect was kind of mountain-mannish, if mountain men wore horn-rimmed glasses.
Inside, Wyatt’s house was starkly modern, a two-story rectangle made of glass and wood. The whole back wall was made of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over trees, at precisely the right height so you couldn’t tell you were in a city at all. It felt like being in a tree house, or a cabin somewhere out in the wilderness.
“This place is cool,” I said. “What do your parents do?”