Chapter Three

"And this," I say as I conclude the tour of the house I'm giving Lacey, "is my room." I make a sweeping motion as I open the door, revealing my apple green walls, white ruffled curtains, flowered bedspread, and all of my furniture that my mother picked out when I was little and is inspired by the grandeur she read about in historical novels.

"I'm glad they finally let you paint your walls. I thought you'd never get rid of those dancing bears!" Lacey flops down on my bed. The 'dancing bears' she's talking about were painted on my wallpaper by my maternal grandmother whenever I was a baby. I myself had half expected Mom to carefully remove the paper and bring it to the new house. She did remove one, though. And frame it. It's hanging above my dresser. Lacey laughs uncontrollably when I point it out.

"I'll never be able to escape the bears. They'll probably be a feature in my wedding. Now get off your butt and help me find an outfit for tomorrow." We may be entering our junior year of high school, but we still take first day of school outfits very seriously.

Standing side by side with Lacey, you might think we could be sisters. We both have dark brown hair, only Lacey's is short and straight while mine is long and a little bit wavy. Both of us have upturned noses and oval faces, but where my eyes are hazel, Lacey's are this wonderfully dark green. I look more like my father and Lacey than I do my mother and Rhett, who are all strawberry blonde hair and gray-blue eyes. The only thing I share with Rhett is our ability to both tan pretty and freckle like we're Irish in the summer.

"I like this," Lacey says, holding out a green dress printed with tiny, silver birds. Lacey's never been one for subtly, so after she finishes the outfit for me with sandals and jewelry, she once again jumps on my bed and smiles up at me.

"I want to hear about the house. Have you seen anything scary yet? Ghosts and demons? Faces in your mirror, unexplained voices? What about your housekeeper? I'll bet she's seen some stuff." I roll my eyes at her, but I pull up the false bottom floorboard beside my bed and pull out the stash.

"Look at this. It's like a collection of pieces from people who've died here." I pull out the picture of the pretty young woman holding a baby.

"Her name was Nora Montgomery. She and her husband committed suicide here after their baby was kidnapped and dismembered."

"You're wrong! How could you say such awful things, you terrible little girl? My Thaddeus is fine! Just fine!" Nora Montgomery falls to the floor of Callie's bedroom, her jeweled gown and many necklaces tinkling and clanging as she goes. She feels an arm wrap around her shoulders and turns her head to see the blond haired boy she once saved from her son. She always was fond of him.

"Shh, Nora, it's okay. She doesn't know the truth. It's okay, it's just lies she's been told. She doesn't know better." Tate begins to smooth her hair down, being careful of the exit wound in the back of her head. He really doesn't understand why some of the other ghosts don't hide their death wounds. It's not like it's hard to pass for totally normal.

"Thaddeus is fine, isn't he?" Tate nods, but his eyes are on Callie. She's holding the gun, his gun. The gun his mother used to kill his father and Moira. One of the guns he used in his library massacre. The one he pulled on the SWAT team and earned him seventeen bullets ripping through his chest.

"I don't know who this is from," she says, setting it on the bed. Her friend picks it up and turns it over in her hands. If Tate had a heartbeat, it'd be pounding, he's sure of it. He helps Nora to her feet, still trying to get her to stop crying.

"Let's go see Thaddeus."

When I come home from my first day of school, there's a woman with a blonde beehive sitting in our living room. On the floor, playing with a toy fire truck is Michael. Moira is bringing her a cup of tea, and sitting opposite from her is my father. I can tell from the way Moira is so stiff around her, that she doesn't like her.

"There's my Callie-bug! Come say hello to Constance Langdon, our neighbor. We met her son when we moved in, remember?" Constance stands and meets me halfway, hand extended. Hers is soft but papery. She's much older than I expected her to be.

"Hello, darlin', it's nice to meet you," she says and I'm surprised again. There's a Southern accent in her voice that wasn't in Tate's. I smile at her and tell her it's nice to meet her, too.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been by to see you sooner. I've just been so busy with this little devil of mine," Constance says, affectionately ruffling Michael's hair. Suddenly, something catches his eye. He stares toward the corner really intently for a second and then his face breaks into a huge smile and he waves.

"Callie, dear, how old are you?" I take a seat on the couch being careful to step over Michael and his toys. I'm not very sure what to make of Constance, but she obviously makes Moira uncomfortable. Moira probably worked for Constance when Tate was little. Maybe she was mean to her.

"I'm sixteen, ma'am," she nods, a smirk coming to her lips. She looks me up and down, like she's appraising me. I feel uncomfortable under her scrutiny. I put Michael's fire truck up on the coffee table and push it around for him just to have something to do. He laughs and stands, pushing it fast so that it flies of the end.

"Whoa!" he says.

"Ma'am. I like that. Not a lot of young folk have manners these days." She flutters her hand around to make her point. When she takes a sip of her tea, she makes a face.

"Moira," she calls, "could you bring me some sugar?" then she says in a lower tone to Dad and I, "She never did learn how I like my tea, and she worked for me for years when I lived here. Might want to keep that in mind."

I can see that Dad doesn't know what to do with this woman. I want to leave, but I know it would be rude to. I'm grateful when Michael hands me his fire truck to push around.

"Constance, where is your other boy? Shouldn't he be out of school by now?" Constance is dumping sugar into her tea. She swirls it daintily with her spoon and sets it down carefully on a coaster. She's a southern belle, alright.

"Tate's still at school. Track practice. He goes to Westfield. He spoke highly of y'all when he came home after helping y'all move." Constance reaches into her purse and pulls out a bundle wrapped in gold paper and tied with a curly ribbon.

"A house warming gift. It's sage, to cleanse this old house of its history." She says this with a tight smile. I can already tell that Dad isn't going to burn it, even though he takes it with a gracious nod. Dad and Constance keep chatting about myself, Rhett, Tate, Michael, and Mom while I play fire truck with Michael. Rhett and Mom are lucky he has soccer practice and they get to skip this.

Nobody but Michael knows it, but Tate is actually sitting beside Callie on the couch. They're playing the Invisible Game, where Michael has to pretend he isn't there because nobody else can see or hear him.

"No," Tate says, placing his hand over Michael's mouth when he tries to bite Callie's arm when she isn't looking. Michael closes his mouth without biting, and Tate is grateful. If he had bitten down, the others would have been able to see his blood and his mother would know something was up.

"Remember what I told you? We like Callie. We're going to be nice to Callie. If you bite her, you're going to be in big trouble." Michael takes his fire truck and places it in Callie's lap.

"Vroom, vroom," she says when she pushes it along the coffee table. Michael takes it and shoots it across the wood so that it goes flying off the edge. He laughs, running after it. When he turns, he looks to his father and Callie and claps, waiting for their approval.

Side by side, Callie and Tate clap for Michael.