—or apply for a credit card. But the rest were the same message over and over again, at first all lowercased then gradually shifting to all caps: “the shadow is in the hall…The Shadow is in the Hall…The Shadow Is In The Hall...The SHADOW Is In The HALL…THE SHADOW Is In THE HALL…THE SHADOW IS IN THE HALL…”

Forty-five times the message was repeated, the increased capitalization implying a growing sense of urgency. The fact that someone from the bank knew about the shadow, something he had not shared with anyone, was frightening enough, but the obsessive repetition, the warning, filled him with genuine dread. Maybe Mr. Worthington had somehow discovered his secret fear and was using it to intimidate him, but Nick was suddenly afraid to leave his room, and he took his headphones off, grateful to hear his parents’ voices from the front of the house. He looked over at the closed bedroom door, half-expecting to see a creeping darkness seep onto his floor from underneath it.

Recognizable footsteps passed by—his mom walking to the bathroom—and he immediately took advantage of her presence, lurching out of his chair and pulling open his door.

Just as the door to the bathroom closed.

Leaving him to face the shadow.

It was in the hallway, exactly as the bank’s texts had warned, hovering somehow in the narrow space between his doorway and the wall opposite, wavering in the open air in an extremely unnerving manner, its unsteady motion emphasizing the fact that it was not a real shadow, that it was…something else.

A ghost.

He immediately ducked back into his bedroom, shutting the door. The phone in his hand buzzed, and he quickly shut it off, putting it face down on his dresser in case it continued ringing the way it had that time before. His heart was pounding crazily, and he was about to call for his dad to save him—

What if the shadow killed his dad?

—when he heard the toilet flush and the sink run and the bathroom door open. He yanked open his own door, and there was no shadow, only his mom, startled by his abrupt action.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he told her.

She looked at him askance but continued walking, and, grateful for her protection, he walked with her back to the front of the house.

5

Jen didn’t like the bank manager.

Come to think of it, she didn’t like Evangeline much either. But she was stuck alone here with both of them because Lane, as usual, was late.

The bank manager’s office was silent save for the buzzing of a fly that had somehow gotten in and was speeding about the room. She watched as the insect bumped into the window and kept flying, wondering why it didn’t sustain brain damage from repeatedly slamming its head so hard into various surfaces.