She looks at Amy’s house through the window, then closes the curtains and kisses me good night. I could pull them back and spend all night watching. But this is the haunted house. This is the one with the ghosts.

I don’t go downstairs to check and clap and repeat.

Instead, I lie in bed, trying to piece everything together.

That’s when I figure out my next move. I’ll go straight to Will.

55

I should have photographed Will’s drawings, but there was no time.

Now I sit in my wardrobe, shining a light on the carvings and comparing them with what I saw last night. They seem the same, but anyone can draw a stick figure. The one thing that makes me certain is the pairing. Always two, always one big and one small, like a parent and a child.

“What are you doing?” Nia is standing in my doorway, looking confused. “Why are you in the closet?”

“Come here and I’ll show you.”

“You’re so weird.”

“Not as weird as this. Just look. Please.”

Nia’s face softens, and I get out so she can get in.

I can’t show Mum, because she’d only worry, but my stepsister will be honest. She’ll tell me if this is something or nothing.

She doesn’t need to know who drew them. But I suddenly have the urge to show her and to prove, or at least try to, that I’m not the odd one.

But Nia doesn’t move. She just sighs and says, “I’ll leave you to…whatever this is.”

She’s not like Zak. She doesn’t trust me without question.

But, the more people I show, the more real it will be.

Last night already feels like a dream, and I need to cling to the facts, to the unease I felt in their company and looking at those drawings.

“Please,” I say again, and something happens behind her eyes. For a split second, Nia looks at me like she looks at Aaron.

She nudges past and pokes her head around the corner, then edges in farther and waves her hand at me. “Pass me your phone.”

“What do you think?”

Nia doesn’t reply for a long time. I can’t read her face, and, when she does finally speak, her voice is different.

“Did you do this?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer. She wants me to say yes. She wants to dismiss this as just another Tom thing.

I shake my head and she stares back at the carvings, then looks at the wall where she discovered the words. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nia shocked before, and certainly never speechless.

She gets it, now. She knows we moved into a house with secrets, and the latest warning can’t be painted over.