Phantoms Read online

  “Listen, I’m not saying they’re evil or anything,” Agnes said. “I researched Mr. Knox, and there’s no denying that he’s done a lot of good in the world.”

  “See?” Benji said.

  “But Mr. Knox isn’t running Shady Rest anymore. I’m not as sold on his granddaughter. I couldn’t find anything about her online, outside of some old articles about her high school track team. Apparently she was an amazing long-distance runner. After that, she drops off the map completely.”

  “Maybe she’s just private,” Cordelia suggested.

  “Maybe. And it does seem like they’re helping the ghosts, so that’s good. But you have to admit it’s a pretty weird coincidence that they were at the ark that day. Two ghost catchers happen to be at a place a phantom happens to appear, when two kids with the Sight happen to be there too? Oh—and the ghost catchers happen to be desperately searching for someone with the Sight in order to run their business?”

  Cordelia gave a begrudging nod. “That’s a lot of ‘happens.’” Maybe Agnes was right, and she was willing to overlook all these red flags because she wanted everything to work out with Shady Rest. The mere thought of quitting tied her stomach in knots. After being teased with a chance to help the ghosts in this new and exciting way, Cordelia couldn’t go back to feeling useless again. She just couldn’t.

  “Okay,” Benji said. “Let’s say it wasn’t a coincidence. What was it?”

  Agnes twisted her braid. “I’m not sure exactly. All I know is Laurel lost the only employee she had who could see the ghosts. She can’t run her business without one. And the way events worked out, she got not one, but two replacements. That just seems . . . oddly serendipitous.”

  “Seren-what?” Benji asked.

  “Fortunate. Sorry—my mom got me SAT flash cards for Christmas again.”

  “It just doesn’t make any sense, Agnes,” Cordelia said, working it through. “Even if what happened at Shady Rest was some kind of setup—which is impossible, by the way, unless Laurel can magically control phantoms—why bother going through all that trouble? If Laurel knew that me and Benji had the Sight, and wanted us to work for her, all she had to do was ask. Easy.”

  “You’re right,” Agnes said. “I don’t have an explanation that makes sense. I’m just saying it’s a big coincidence.”

  Cordelia and Benji guided Agnes around a ghost with loose jeans hanging low on his hips and unlaced sneakers. He gave them a nod as the dehaunter pulled him through the ceiling.

  “Coincidences happen, Ag,” Benji said. “And maybe it’s fate, like Cordelia said. The money I’m making at Shady Rest is really going to help my family. I told my parents yesterday that I’d been bagging groceries and shoveling driveways all over town, and I wanted to chip in until things get better. They didn’t want to take my money at first, but I talked them into it. It’s not enough to fix everything, but it’s something. My mom sang while she was cooking dinner. Do you know how long it’s been since she did that?”

  “I’m glad things are better,” Cordelia said.

  “It’s not just the ark,” Agnes said. “I feel like they get a little weird whenever Victor’s name comes up. Like maybe he quit because something bad happened, and they don’t want to tell us because it might scare us away.”

  “So they’re not telling us everything,” Benji said. “Who cares? Let’s focus on what we know. The guy who created Shady Rest was a saint, his granddaughter literally rescued us from a phantom, and we’ve seen firsthand evidence that their company is helping ghosts. Any way you look at it, we’re on the same side. And it’s not like we haven’t been keeping secrets of our own.” Benji waved his arms, encompassing the entirety of Shadow School. “Haunted school . . . Brightkeys . . . dehaunter. Just because they’re hiding a few things doesn’t make them bad. It just means they’re cautious, like us.”

  “You’re probably right,” Agnes said. “But we should keep our guards up, just in case.”

  “Don’t we always?” asked Cordelia.

  That Saturday it was Ms. Matheson’s turn to drive. Cordelia wasn’t crazy about Agnes’s mother, a professor at an online university who often railed against “children today” not taking the issues of the world seriously enough. It was an awkward ride. Instead of music, Ms. Matheson blasted some sort of boring talk show on NPR and glared at the kids whenever they started a conversation, as though they were hitchhikers who should have been more grateful for the ride.

  At least she drove fast. They arrived at Shady Rest in record time, and Trish, whose cell phone was noticeably absent, directed them to the equipment shed. They saw Laurel in the back and walked past shelves filled with empty boo-tubes and electronic gizmos. Agnes paused to fiddle with the switches of a long black machine.

  “What’s this do?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Laurel said. “It’s a failed prototype of the ghost catcher we currently use.”

  “How about this one?” Agnes asked, poking the machine next to it.

  “I promise I’ll give you a complete tour at some point. But right now I need to explain what you’re doing today.”

  Agnes reluctantly left the machines behind and joined the rest of the group at the back of the shed. Her eyes kept straying to the shelves behind them, though. Cordelia bit back a smile.

  “Your job is to visit as many houses as possible today and check in on the residents,” Laurel said, tossing Cordelia a set of keys. “Each one of these is labeled with a street name. All the houses on that street share the same key. Just makes it easier.”

  “Why lock them at all?” Benji asked. “It’s not like the ghosts can escape.”

  “A simple precaution against thieves and vandals, just in case anyone sneaks past the guardhouse. Those life windows are expensive.” She handed Agnes an iPad. “You’re in charge of this. There’s an app with a map of the village. Each individual house is represented by a tiny icon. As you make visual confirmation of each ghost, just tap on the house. It saves automatically.” She indicated a long bike rack to her left. “Take any one you like. I’d drive you myself, but I have an important meeting this morning about potential sites.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Benji said, eagerly eyeing the bikes.

  “I don’t get it,” Agnes said. “The ghosts literally can’t leave. What’s the point of checking on them?”

  Laurel’s smile seemed a little forced. “Wow, Agnes. You’re always thinking, aren’t you? I was just about to get to that. If you tap on the house twice, it’ll bring you to a menu where you can let maintenance know about any issues. If you see any structural damage, for example, or maybe one of the life windows is malfunctioning. This way my people know to fix it.”

  “Can’t your staff search for problems like that?” Agnes asked.

  “Going inside the houses makes them a little uneasy. I try to limit it as much as possible.”

  “That makes sense,” Cordelia said.

  “Let me show you something else,” Laurel said. She took the iPad out of Agnes’s hands and brought up the map. “See this red circle up here? That’s what you tap if you see any of the ghosts glowing. Victor said blue was the most common color, but he also saw gold and silver and even pink once. The color doesn’t matter. It’s the glowing we care about. Let us know right away and wait for Kyle and me to get there.”

  Benji looked up from adjusting the seat of a nifty-looking ten-speed. “We have glowing ghosts now? What’s that all about?”

  “It’s perfectly natural,” Laurel said. “Ghosts have a kind of . . . life cycle, I guess you’d call it. Or death cycle. Normal ghosts like Dr. Gill will eventually change to bad, more powerful ones like Gideon.”

  “You called that kind . . . phantoms, right?” Cordelia asked, trying to give the impression that this was all new to her.

  “That’s right. There’s nothing we can do to stop a ghost’s inevitable transformation. You might as well ask a butterfly to stay in its cocoon. But when a ghost starts to glow, it’s like
a warning signal that it’s on the verge of turning. If you tell us, we can freeze the spirit in a boo-tube before it gets dangerous.”

  “What happens if we go into a house and a ghost has already turned into a phantom?” Benji asked.

  “Leave,” Laurel said. “That reminds me—there’s actually one house where that happened. A ghost turned into a particularly nasty phantom, and we decided it was just easier to lock the door and leave it be.” She turned the tablet toward them and zoomed in on 14 Willow Drive. “There it is. The very first house Grandpa ever built—purple, believe it or not. Gorgeous place. That phantom, though . . .” Her face drained of color. “There are some ghosts that are beyond our help. Whatever you do, don’t go in there. You’ll never come out again.”

  “Good to know,” Cordelia said.

  They started with the three houses down the road from the main office. The ranch. The log cabin. The split-level. Inside, they were all the same. The air was cold and stale, like a vacation home left unoccupied for months.

  On almost every wall hung a life window, blasting memories at high volume.

  According to Laurel, there was a special team that curated videos to meet the specific needs of each inhabitant. These included everything from social-media feeds and home videos to TV shows and sporting events. Sometimes information about a ghost was scarce, or the spirit had died a long time ago. In that case, more generic videos were used, as Laurel had done with Gideon: nature scenes, cooking videos, cats. Anything, Cordelia supposed, to make the ghosts feel more alive.

  The life windows certainly made finding the ghosts easier: They were always standing in front of one screen or another, watching the images with a slack-jawed expression. Once Cordelia or Benji spotted a ghost, Agnes tapped the appropriate icon on the tablet, the app rewarded them with an encouraging ding, and they continued to their next destination.

  The first few houses were fun. After that, it started to feel like work. The low point was when Cordelia suffered another attack of dizziness, though luckily she was able to hide it from her friends by falling onto a convenient couch until it passed.

  By noon, the novelty of the job had worn off completely. They were getting bored.

  “It’s like playing hide-and-seek with someone who doesn’t understand the rules,” Benji said. “Why don’t we take a break and ride to the edge of the property? We can work our way back from there.”

  It was relatively warm for early February, and the fresh air felt invigorating. Cordelia’s bike was brand-new and fancier than the one she had at home, with lots of knobs that she was afraid to touch. It worked great, though. She pumped the pedals and darted down the street. There was no need to worry about traffic. There were no cars.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Agnes said. “It’s so quiet.”

  “Yeah,” said Benji. “It’s a real ghost town.”

  The two girls rolled their eyes.

  “What? Someone had to say it!”

  They entered a new section of the village that Laurel hadn’t shown them on their tour. There was no architectural variety here. Each house was exactly the same: a tiny white ranch with black shutters. The only way to tell them apart was the number spray-painted on each door.

  “Is this where the poor ghosts live?” Benji asked.

  “Laurel said they needed a haunt, not necessarily their haunt,” Agnes said as they cycled past a long row of the identical houses. There was barely any space between them. “I’m sure the archimancy works fine, even if it’s not much to look at.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Benji said. “Why spend all that money on a big fancy house? It’s not like the ghosts know the difference. They have to cut corners somewhere if they want to keep doing this.”

  “I still like the other section better,” Cordelia said.

  They parked their bikes and got to work. Searching the smaller houses was a breeze, and the kids were able to blow through an entire block in less than an hour. To break the monotony, they started making predictions before they opened each door: Would the ghost be male or female? Young or old? Found on the first or second floor? Agnes guessed correctly far more often than the others, making Cordelia think that what she lacked in Sight, she made up for in psychic ability.

  There was one house, however, where all their guesses were wrong, because there was no ghost inside it—or even life windows, for that matter. Instead, a dozen mannequins had been posed all over the house: washing dishes at the fake sink, lying on the floor of the bedroom, looking out the window. Personally, Cordelia thought this was a lot creepier than any ghost, and got out of there as soon as possible. They texted Laurel, who told them that through a quirk in its construction, that particular house had proven to be unhauntable. They could just ignore it and move on.

  They didn’t ask her about the mannequins. Cordelia wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  As their day wound down, and they were all getting tired and prickly, they came to another house that was noticeably different than the others. Instead of playing family memories, the life windows showed only classic films. Most were in black and white, many with subtitles. Quite a few were horror movies. Cordelia recognized some of the famous monsters, but the only movie she had actually seen was an old ghost story called The Innocents, which she had watched as research the previous summer.

  They found the resident of the house upstairs.

  He was glowing.

  It was barely discernable, just a hazy nimbus of blue. Other than that, the ghost didn’t look unusual. He was a pudgy man wearing a red sweater and thick glasses. The old movie that currently held his attention looked pretty spooky: a woman swimming in a pool while shadows danced along the wall and something growled in the background. The ghost watched intently and mimed writing in a notebook.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s about to turn into a phantom,” Benji said after Agnes had tapped the red circle on the map.

  “The change probably happens without warning,” Agnes said. She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

  Benji took a step closer to the front door.

  “Why didn’t we ever see any of the Shadow School ghosts glow?” Cordelia asked.

  “It takes decades for ghosts to turn into phantoms,” Agnes said. “The ones at Shadow School never lasted that long. Either the ghost scavengers got them or we freed them. But this guy might have been haunting his house for a long time before Laurel brought him here. Check out all these black-and-white movies. Those were probably recent when he was alive.”

  Within minutes, they heard a car screech to a stop. Laurel and Kyle ran into the house with their equipment.

  “Barry DeWitt!” Laurel exclaimed. Her face was flushed with excitement. “I wouldn’t have picked him to turn so quickly. Big film buff, as you could probably tell. Reviewed movies for his local paper. He’s definitely glowing?”

  Cordelia nodded. “He doesn’t look very dangerous, though.”

  “And now he never will be, thanks to you. Let’s get him out of here.”

  Mr. Dewitt’s attention remained riveted to the movie while Kyle and Agnes pieced together the ghost tent. In short order, the critic was safely sealed inside a boo-tube. His mist flickered like a film strip running through a projector.

  “You guys did great today,” Laurel said, slipping the boo-tube into its protective sleeve. “Why don’t you head back early? Trish has your pay for today. I even threw in a little bonus for a job well done.”

  “Thanks!” Benji exclaimed.

  With extra time on their hands, they decided to take a different route back to the office. Cordelia lagged behind her friends and thought about the day. She supposed she was doing something useful, but it was nowhere near as satisfying as sending ghosts into their Brights. And what was going to happen to poor Mr. DeWitt? Was he just going to stay frozen forever?

  We could bring him to Shadow School, she thought. Phantom or not, the dehaunter would send him along his way.

  It was a good idea.
But she couldn’t make it happen without telling Laurel the truth about their other life—which she wasn’t willing to do without Dr. Roqueni’s permission. Mr. Dewitt would have to wait for now.

  They passed the purple house.

  Cordelia slowed down for a better look. There was nothing particularly menacing about the house’s appearance. The color was pretty, even peaceful, like the bouquets of dried lavender Cordelia’s mom sometimes placed on their dining room table.

  For a moment, Cordelia considered getting off her bike and peeking in a window. She was curious to see the terrifying phantom that seemed to frighten even Laurel.

  “Come on, Cordelia!” Benji called back from the end of the street. “You’re so slow!”

  Cordelia took one last look at the house, then pedaled faster to catch up to her friends. For once, she had seen enough ghosts for the day.

  11

  Esmae

  On a cold morning near the end of February, they pulled into the horseshoe driveway of a massive red mansion wearing a cap of snow. There were several packages on the front stoop.

  “Does someone live here?” Agnes asked in surprise. They had visited over a dozen haunted houses in the past six weeks. Until now, all of them had been abandoned.

  “The Connolly family,” Laurel said. “Nice people. But they haven’t stepped foot in the house since Wednesday. They refuse to come back until we’ve taken care of the ghost. I’ll show you why.”

  Laurel pulled out her phone. While she swiped and pecked—presumably searching for whatever she wanted to show them—Benji began to cough. He had been suffering from a sinus infection all week but was still adamant about coming to work today. His parents had begun to rely on his weekly pay, and he didn’t want to let them down.

  He’s the best son in the world, and they don’t even know it, Cordelia thought. She felt the sudden urge to give him a giant hug and maybe even a kiss. On the cheek. Probably.

  Benji noticed that she was staring at him. “What?” he asked.

  Cordelia handed him a tissue. “Your nose is running.”