Phobic Read online

  For all my boys

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  …even death has some antidote to its own terrors.

  – Bram Stoker, Dracula

  When I was six years old, I found the man my mother murdered stuffed under a trap door in our kitchen. The smell gave him away.

  Police swarmed the house, which—uncharacteristically—made no creaking groans of protest at having that many outsiders in it. It was almost like the house knew Mom’s secret and wanted her to get caught.

  The roof above me rasps now, like it’s being racked by a fleeting storm, but I grip the clarinet in my hands and glance at the stationary leaves and blue sky outside. Another moaning rasp resounds, nearly overriding the chime from the vintage clock with its swinging pendulum. That chime tells me I have thirty minutes before school starts. Time to get going. Except no matter how creeped out I am in my house, school is the last place I want to be.

  Holding my clarinet so I don’t bend its silver keys, I separate the wooden pieces, place them in the case, and snap the clasps shut. Silence clouds my parents’ room in place of the sultry tones I’d been pushing out minutes before.

  I stiffen, more aware of the walls around me. They’re like people I have to make my way through, a pulsing crowd of wood that inverts depending on my movements, tilting and nosing in. When I stop to notice them, they look away; motionless, as if they didn’t know I was there. Just walls, I tell myself, feeling a presence on my back like my every move is being calculated.

  I still see traces of my mother everywhere I look. If I didn’t know she was in prison, I’d think she was the one haunting my house, offering hollow wails in the early hours of morning, when day is breaking but dark things still have time to creep.

  Clarinet case in hand, I scurry through the door at the top of the landing labeled Staff Only and head down the narrow stairs that once gave servants a direct line into the kitchen below. Like servants back then weren’t good enough to use the same stairs everyone else did.

  The dining room is attached to the kitchen, with a thick archway separating one from the other. Dark wainscoting climbs the lower half of the walls and meets speckled wallpaper the rest of the way up. An elegant chandelier dangles over the table littered with my older brother, Joel’s, papers.

  I grab a Pop-Tart from the narrow, floor-to-ceiling cabinet. The music I’d been practicing plays in my head like a CD on repeat, and nerves strum beneath my skin. My scholarship audition—my chance to get out of this house next summer—is tomorrow, and I wish my mom could be there.

  I tried not to mind that she wasn’t at district solo competition last year, when as a freshman I beat a senior. Or that Mom isn’t around to show me the kind of girl-stuff other daughters learn. I’ve got my older brother, Joel, but he knows as much about putting makeup on as I do. And when I got my period I wasn’t about to ask him how to put in a tampon.

  It’s why I like to practice in her and my deceased father’s bedroom. I like to think that even from prison, my mom can hear me play.

  “I just have to make it through school,” I tell myself, ripping open the crinkly wrapper. The striped walls above the wainscoting give several creaks like a rocking chair screeching back and forth, urging me to stop talking. I shudder at the sound and keep going anyway. “Two more days ‘til the audition. I can do this.”

  The TV flips on of its own accord. I jolt and hurry to shut it off, but not before I catch a glimpse of the news anchor; the mother of my archnemesis, Sierra Thompson. It wasn’t enough in sixth grade when Sierra got boobs and I instead got break outs, but since then Sierra has persisted to remind me how lame I am compared to her, how much better than me she is at everything.

  I push a stack of Joel’s blue bound depositions aside enough to perch on the table and watch the window, waiting for my ride. After stealing a quick glance at the clock hanging above the old iron fireplace, I pull out my phone to scan through Facebook, not really reading the timeline. More like a nervous habit to kill time. The TV flicks on once more, striking my back with its unexpected sound.

  “Enough already,” I grumble, hopping from the table to shut it off, but not before Sierra’s mom smiles and tosses her silky hair in the exact way her daughter does. I take a bite of strawberry, flat-pastry goodness and smush the power button.

  Seeing her only reminds me of the argument I had with Joel the night before. How I told him I was dropping out of school and skipping straight to college, followed by lots of yelling and then Joel saying, “Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if you actually tried making friends, Piper.”

  Puh.

  It was hard enough on us both when our dad died ten months ago, but I think Joel has struggled with the whole being-my-guardian thing since then. He barely turned twenty-five, is still in law school, and interns for a law firm. I’m sure he’s not thrilled having to watch out for his kid sister.

  I’m really not that different from Sierra and the other kids who exist to make my life miserable. So what if my house is freaky-haunted and I have a few pimples? That doesn’t give them the right to single me out.

  I give Facebook another glance and see Sierra’s name and some post about the curtains in her bathroom. I’m not even sure how we ended up being FB friends in the first place. One of those I’m-only-friending-you-because-I-know-you-exist situations, I guess. I’ve actually tried being her friend in real life, but after several separate instances where I’d laughed at things she’d said, only to find out later that I was the joke, I decided she wasn’t worth the effort.

  My best friend Todd’s red pickup appears at the curb, spewing exhaust like the truck has a cigarette up its backside. I jerk up. My pulse kicks at the sight of him. That’s been happening a lot more lately, my insides flaring up and doing some sort of spastic dance whenever I catch sight of his alluring smile and dark curls.

  Leaving the second Pop-Tart on the table, I stuff my phone in my pocket and snatch up my backpack and clarinet case. I dart past the round, velvet-topped table in the wide hallway to the front door.

  I reach for the knob. It won’t turn.

  Heart pounding, I try again. One way, then the other. Chick. Chick. The lock mechanism is vertical. The door isn’t locked.

  “Not now,” I say under my breath. “Please not now.”

  The hairs at my nape skulk up one by one until they all stand on end. My wrist flicks, and the obstinate knob makes the same chick chick sounds. The eerie feeling spreads down the length of my arm, making the knob cold under my touch. What is going on? I’m used to my house doing strange things, but why won’t it let me out?

  Todd’s horn honks again and I shake the door handle.

  “Don’t do this,” I say to the ov
al, pieced glass, setting my case on the rug to use both hands. I wrestle with the knob until a sound startles me, so soft I barely catch it. Crinkling static, like an AM radio out of signal. My ankle rolls in these wedges, and I support myself on the carved hat stand beside a large mirror.

  “What’s with you?” I ask the house under my breath.

  The sound crackles again and I pause. Even though I’m used to crazy sounds, this one I’ve never heard before. I should go; we’re going to be late. Todd’s waiting. It’s probably nothing. But curiosity wins over.

  In a hurry, I duck into what used to be called the parlor area, just off from the front door, ears peeled for the source. Maybe the radio in here felt left out and decided to copy the TV turning on by itself. Like appliances can feel anything.

  The room is ornate, filled with ruched chairs and tables from a different time. Lamps drip with fringe; thick, gaudy curtains pomp up the windows. A cream chaise lounge loiters across from the fireplace beside a collection of old pictures.

  I walk over to the antique radio topped with an elaborate doily. Silence.

  I look out the window. Todd’s truck gives me a dose of reality for about six beats, and then the crackling sound rides softly on the air once more. Definitely not the radio. I scurry back to the only other device the sound could be.

  Black and white fizz covers the TV screen, powered on like before. Only the screen agitates slowly like its disturbed by hundreds of tiny bugs. What is with this thing? I roll my eyes and reach for the control when a voice breaks through the static.

  “D—ort,” fizz. “Sor—pen—th,” more fizz, followed by a final sound: “—per.”

  I freeze. Though I haven’t heard it in ten months, and though the phrasing is broken as if trying to contact me over a bad channel with only parts coming through, I’d know that voice anywhere. The same message repeats, ending in the same manner.

  Todd’s horn honks one more time, and I turn the TV off, grab for my clarinet case and scramble out of there before the house can give me any other kind of creepy interaction. I don’t have time to deal with its mood swings right now.

  Fortunately the knob doesn’t fight me this time, and I bolt outside, the screen door slamming heavily behind me.

  To have the TV turn on by itself isn’t that unusual. To have it happen multiple times, and reveal a broken message that came across like a poor cell signal, is totally uncanny. I have no idea what the voice was trying to say, except that I’m almost sure it belonged to my dead father, and it ended with what sounded like the last half of my name.

  The Ramones blast when I open the door to Todd’s pickup and climb in. The seats are worn, gray cloth, and the smell of fake berries swirls around. A circular air freshener sits in the cupholder beneath the stereo.

  My pulse flares into a frenzy just being near him. Heat gathers in my cheeks and chest, and I sense him even across the gray seat. The lines of his face are different to me now. I’ve known them better than my own since I was nine, but now they’re like a language I’ve only caught bits and pieces of but have come to understand completely. The level of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his lips.

  “What took you so long?” he asks. He wears a tan jacket, and his curly black hair tufts behind his ears. “I was honking for, like, fifteen minutes.”

  For a moment I debate whether or not I should tell him about the TV flicking on, or about hearing my dad’s voice, but I decide against it.

  “You were not,” I say instead, and then add, “you and your oldies,” before turning down the volume. The sight of Todd’s Snoopy Pez dispenser shoved among a gob of crumpled receipts in the cubby below the radio is oddly relaxing. I take a few breaths to slow my pulse. It was nothing, I tell myself. It couldn’t have been my dad’s voice. My house just does freaky things. That’s all.

  “I’ll have you know The Ramones are one of the original punk bands that stick to the main three-chord guitar system—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off with a smile and sink back into the seat with another shaky breath. “Nerd,” I add, as if that says it all.

  It wouldn’t be a surprise if Todd had a book somewhere on the history of rock bands, with a whole section on subgenres like punk. He’s a geek like that, the type of person to do extra reading on the Revolutionary War just so he can learn more about it than what gets covered in class.

  The sunshine helps me relax further, makes everything seem brighter out here, helps me detox from grim thoughts. Or maybe it’s just being with Todd. He knows me, gets me, the way no one else cares to. I don’t have to rush around him, to be afraid he’ll poke fun at what I say or how I look. He sees beyond that.

  I stare at the multicolored brick homes lining the street. Their quaintness is so different from the lavish Victorian architecture of my home, with its wide, white porch and triangular trim on the eaves. And I can’t get the desperate sound of Dad’s choppy message out of my head.

  “Today’s the big day,” Todd says, turning the corner and providing a distraction.

  “No, tomorrow,” I correct him. He gives me a grin that lets me know he’s joking. “You’ll still give me a ride, right? Because Joel has to work and he tried, but he can’t get it off—”

  “We’ve been over this, Pipes. You know I’ll give you a ride.”

  I was afraid once he made the football team he wouldn’t have as much time for me anymore, but nothing has really changed. Except for his new pack of friends. I think again of Sierra’s group. In any other case I’d grind my teeth, but this time another thought occurs.

  If Dad is trying to contact me, I want to know why. The house would know I don’t like those guys—maybe inviting them over will trigger it again. It’s stupid, I tell myself. They’d never buy it, and who knows if it would work at all, anyway? And besides, I still don’t understand why the house didn’t want me leaving this morning in the first place. Or if that’s what actually happened.

  Sigh.

  Part of me wishes I could sneak off and run through my audition piece a few more times. The clarinet is free therapy. Instead, I keep hearing Dad’s voice, keep picturing his aloof presence. The way he would stand and watch me with a calculating gaze, or the way he acted most of the time since Mom’s crime—so consumed with himself and his library that he hardly cared whether I was above ground or six feet under. And now that non-message almost sounded like he’d been asking for help. But that’s impossible.

  “You okay?” Todd asks.

  “It’s just my audition,” I lie. Stupid, to have them all over. And what reason would I give, I’m hoping to hear from my dead father?

  “It’s in the bag.” He dishes me a warm smile that I can’t help but return. “You’re going to blow them out of the water! And even if you don’t, I’ll be there. Right on the stage. I’ll tell them how your squawking wakes everyone up far too often, and they need to let you win just so you’ll stop practicing so freaking early.”

  I laugh. “Because that’s an acceptable reason to award a scholarship.”

  “Sure it is.”

  Silence cocoons in the cab between us as Todd pulls into Vale High’s parking lot. The momentary elation of just being with him siphons out at the sight of cars and students in clusters or walking solo, laughing, staring, putting a kink in my stomach. “Beat on the Brat” plays, with its simple boom chuck boom chuck drumbeat and those odd inflections that only The Ramones can pull off.

  “Coach was cool with you taking practice off?” I ask, fingering the rectangular black case in my lap.

  “Oh yeah. I told him my mom needed a ride to the hospital.”

  “And he bought it?”

  “Yep.” Todd parks near the football field and kills the engine right as Joey Ramone sings, Oh yeah, oh oh.

  I climb out of the truck and adjust my clothes. I leave my sweater on the seat since the sun is already at bake level. The smell of spent exhaust wafts on the air, and I ignore the clumps of kids gathered nearby or flocking through the door
s across the lot, as if the school holds something they all want.

  Smiles on their faces, heads to the ground, fingers locked with fingers. Everyone in their own world even though we’re all at the same place. I picture the reasons for the smiles, the hand-holding. I don’t get how one place can offer Spectacular for some and then Suckfest for others.

  “Anyone ever tell you it looks like you’re planning on running away?” Clutching the strap of his backpack, Todd gestures to the clarinet case in my hand.

  “It does resemble a mini-suitcase,” I say.

  Todd gives the sky a careless look, his forehead smooth. The tan jacket hugs his broad shoulders, and he tucks a few fingers into the pocket of his jeans. It’s not fair; he looks so calm—and okay, gorgeous—when I’m fizzling like a dry-ice bomb inside.

  “You coming?”

  I shake myself and realize he’s standing by a car in the row across from where he parked.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Hey, Todd!” someone yells. Todd looks over and waves a long hand to a group of guys near the flagpole.

  He gives me a beaming grin and says, “See you at lunch, okay?” before breaking toward them.

  “Sure,” I say, even though he’s already gone. Students pass me, and like a trained dog I mount the sidewalk and join them, heading toward the heavy brown doors closest to my locker inside.

  The halls are congested. Chatter and laughter fill the air, along with the sound of someone slamming their locker. Once I make my way through the thickest part of them, bumping a few shoulders and getting a sore toe in the process, I nearly trip.