For us, “home” had never really been a location.

At least not since Charlie had come along.

“See?” I said, turning my gaze on my little sister, who stood toes-to-the-threshold in the doorway. “There’s no one there.”

To this, she said nothing. Just stared at the cracked plaster wall inside the otherwise vacant closet.

“There was a house in there,” she said. “Like ours but nicer.”

My shoulders slumped. This was dumb, and my calculus was getting cold.

“How about this,” I offered, plucking her stuffed octopus, Checkers, from her bed. “How about we swap rooms tonight? I’ll sleep in here, and Chess and Checkers can sleep in my bed.”

“He can get to your closet, too,” Charlie replied without missing a beat.

“Great,” I said, officially fresh out of patience. “So, either way, you can send him to me, this Zeebo guy—”

“Zedok.”

“Right, okay.” I’d probably regret humoring her later. “You can send him to my closet, and I’ll tell him to get lost.”

“He told me to tell you he can see you in your dreams.” Her thumb crept toward her lips—a nervous habit that usually meant she was afraid she was about to get in trouble. “And that you wouldn’t believe me when I told you about him. So he told me to tell you that he knows you like that boy with the blond hair.”

“Chris Hemsworth?” I asked, unimpressed.

“Kyle,” she replied.

I scowled at her, though the only one I had to be angry with was myself. Most likely, Dad had asked her to get the scoop on Kyle, a cute guy in my chemistry class, who I might have brought up once or twice, just so Dad wouldn’t be so Dad later when and if I actually made a blip on Kyle’s radar. As a result, Charlie had just factored Kyle into the sensory overload that came with yet another full-scale change.

Probably, the shadowing me through the house and “monster in my closet” talk also meant something more important was at play.

Charlie was feeling the move. And maybe the same sense of isolation that had begun to nibble at me in this decrepit once-upon-a-time palace was eating at my little sister, too.

This house wasn’t like the others my father had flipped. This Addams family mansion meets Poe’s House of Usher was, by far, my father’s most ambitious.

Not to mention his most risky.

The other houses, shotguns and suburban bi-levels, had taken three to four months to turn around with the help of a contractor. This one would require more than the projected six months. Which was good news for me, because that meant I might actually get to finish my last year of high school at Langdon. And even though there were only the three of us—me, Charlie, and Dad—I liked the idea of a bigger house that had room to stretch out in. I also liked the idea of a graduation ceremony at which I would not be seated next to total strangers.