Authors: Lara Parker
ing in shifts, carry ing the wood and rolling it up to the back
door of the kitchen. Fresh snow lay all around, but they soon
trampled their path to melting scum.
“Where are the keys, Willie?” David said before he picked
up a piece of snow- covered kindling. He felt a splinter slide into his palm. “Ow!”
“You keep away from them buildings.”
“Why? What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?” He gri-
maced at the splinter lodged under the skin.
“It’s kinda hard to forget all the things you did when you
were allowed to play there. You stay in your room, study for
those tests you need to take.”
David took off his cap and beat it against his leg to knock
off the snow. “Damn it, that’s not fair! Willie, I’m not that little kid everyone thought would grow up to be a criminal.”
“Th
at’s right,” Willie said dryly. “You had everybody plenty
worried. Trying to fi x Mr. Roger’s brakes so he would crash his
car.”
Not all this again, David thought. His hand throbbed. “Be-
cause he wanted to send me away to military school! I was ten
years old!” David took a breath because he could feel himself
getting frustrated. “Come on, Willie, that’s all in the past.
You know I’ve changed.” He looked out at the grounds behind
Collinwood and saw that the snow had fallen so thickly all
the paths and low bushes had disappeared. He would miss
Jackie’s bus.
“Th
en stay away from places you’re not supposed to go.”
—-1
David could feel the angry child welling up inside him.
—0
—+1
41
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 41
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Lara Parker
He decided to try a diff erent tack. “You know, Willie, the
truth is I need to make some extra money for college, and there
are a lot of things abandoned that nobody wants I could sell. I
could split what ever money I make with you.”
Willie looked at him warily. “You ask your dad?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. If I put aside a little cash, he’ll
be really impressed. What do you say?” He waited.
“Don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Exasperated, David shook snow off his jacket. “Okay. You
win.” He shrugged. “I’ll just break in.” Willie only grunted and
David felt a fl ood of irritation. “What’s the real reason I can’t go back there?”
Willie stared at him a minute. “You’ll probably just think
I’m crazy.”
“No, I won’t—”
“Th
en I’ll tell you.” His mouth was working again. “Th
em
places is haunted.”
David laughed. “Wait a minute. What did you say?”
“I said they’re haunted.”
“Haunted? Oh, come on.”
“You remember what happened in the swimming pool,
don’t you?”
David felt a tremor of guilt. “Uh, yeah, some little kid. But
that was a long time ago. You don’t need to bring that up.”
“You
weren’t s’posed to be back there. You were playin’
chicken— and skating the pool.”
“Not fair, Willie. Gimme a break.” David remembered cry-
ing in Roger’s arms, saying it wasn’t his fault. A kid had fallen
off the coping, a younger boy who had tried to do a really diffi
-
cult maneuver on his skateboard. An ambulance had come and
taken the kid away, and he had been forbidden to ever play there
again. David sighed, wondering if he would ever live it down.
“So you think that boy’s ghost is back there?”
-1—
“Him and a lot others.”
0—
“But that’s stupid.” David was ready to lose his temper.
+1—
42
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 42
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising
Th
inking about the past always gave him qualms. Th
e splinter
was bothering him, and he decided to go in the house and get
some tweezers. “Never mind, Willie. It’s a big waste of time
talking to you. I’ll just look around in the basement.”
“Th
is basement?” Willie jerked up.
“Yeah. Th
ere’s a lot of junk down there. Fishing poles, golf
clubs, guns, lots of old tools. I could have a yard sale. And maybe the portrait is there, too.”
Willie looked at him, his eyes widening. “Now wait a min-
ute. Th
ere ain’t no painting down there. Don’t you be going
down there either, you hear me?”
David sighed and sucked on his hand. Th
e splinter had hit a
nerve. “Okay, this is getting crazy. What’s the matter with the
basement?”
Willie shook his head.
“No, Willie. Tell me. I’ve been thinking about this for a
long time. Th
ere’s something weird about this house, isn’t there?
And about my family. We live alone out here and there are se-
crets, things no one talks about. What’s wrong with us? You’ve
been around a long time, ever since I was a little kid. Do you
know what it is? When you say the outbuildings are haunted,
what do you really mean?”
Willie slammed another armload of wood in the wheelbar-
row. “I’ll get you the damn keys. Don’t blame me if you fall in
the swimming pool. And just stay out of the basement. Too
much junk, Too many things to trip over. And there’s nothing
down there. You understand?”
By the time he got the keys from Willie, who, in his dim-
witted confusion said he had forgotten where he had put them,
David was too late to meet Jackie. Th
e bus would have come and
gone. She would already be at home, and if he went to the Old
House he would have to make pleasant conversation with her
mother and endure those thinly disguised looks of disapproval.
Nevertheless, still determined to pursue his goal, David
—-1
decided to look for the painting alone. If he were going to search
—0
—+1
43
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 43
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Lara Parker
the old pool house, which was the place he was most curious
about, he would have to hurry not to miss the light. It was
snowing again when he climbed on his snowmobile and jerked
the pull cord. Th
e engine rumbled into a satisfying whine as he
pressed in on the throttle. He skimmed along the sea road, rel-
ishing the motor’s increased per for mance, and practiced carving
the hillocks near the road, shifting his weight in the turns,
dodging the trees and half- buried rocks, and his heart beat
faster as he felt himself become one with the machine.
-1—
0—
+1—
44
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 44
3/15/13 7:44 PM
T h r e e
It had been snowing all day, and Jacqueline had watched the
storm from her seat in the classroom, mesmerized by the
dance of windblown fl akes outside the glass. Th
e schoolyard had
faded to a misty black- and- white photograph hanging behind a
gauzy scrim. Th
en it was a Japa nese print, then a tissue paper
cutout. Th
e sky had fl oated down and swallowed the earth.
But by the time school let out, the snow had melted at the
back entrance under the overhanging shelter of the boarding
area, and— along with a blast of hot air— the students burst
screaming from the building. Th
e school bus had been delayed
by the storm, but it was fi lled up with noisy teenagers, soggy
stocking caps and scarves, and jackets reeking of wet wool and
nylon when Jackie slipped into a seat next to a fogged- up window
and pulled her legs up under her.
Th
e ride home was the worst part of her day, and she always
dreaded sitting in a seat by herself, ignoring the stares and snick-
—-1
ers aimed her way. Already ringing in her ears were the cruel
—0
—+1
45
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 45
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Lara Parker
jibes the four boys she hated the most made from the back of
the bus, teasing that she endured silently, even though she fanta-
sized turning them all to stone. In her vision, she would become
an enraged Medusa, her mouth gaping open and her head crawl-
ing with snakes as she watched them freeze into motionless
statues with rigid scowls on their faces.
Sometimes the girls pretended to be friendly but traded
whispers behind her back, girls with blunt- witted minds. Rud-
derless skiff s fl oundering in the murky waters of their lives.
Today they only deadpanned and giggled when she looked over
at them, as if they had heard some mortifying rumor about her.
David would already be waiting for her. He always worried
when she was late, and he had promised to help her search for
the painting. Th
e outbuildings behind Collinwood were the most
obvious storage places, and he had said he would fi nd the keys
to the old swimming pool and the bowling alley. He had assured
her over and over that they would fi nd it together.
Th
e Collinses were wealthy, and David had always been
schooled at home. For a month they had been fellow students,
and they had studied Greek mythology and Roman history,
chemistry and algebra. It had been so comforting, sitting in the
sunny kitchen with David, reading about the gods and god-
desses of ancient Greece together and laughing at their human
foibles, or watching his lips move as he worked out congruent
triangles and not blurting out the answer before he found it. But
her mom had run out of money, spent it all to redo the Old
House, and so she had been forced to return to the local high
school.
She fl ipped the hood of her coat up over her head and
thought of her mother’s advice. “Just ignore them. Th
ey’ll leave
you alone.” Today she was in a black mood, and there was an
ache from loneliness inside her rib cage. She could feel tears
welling up. She could have accepted her solitude, but her classes
-1—
were disor ga nized, and the teachers spent most of their time
0—
trying to control the classroom. Th
e gloomy redbrick school
+1—
46
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 46
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising
building had been an abandoned woolen mill back in the fi fties,
and it was attended by the sons and daughters of loggers and
fi shermen, none of them interested in going to college. Her only
escape had been art class, where she could ignore them all and
follow her paintbrush into her own dreams.
Ping!
Something hit her on the back of her head— a pencil, probably.
“Hey, weirdo, you smell funny. What’s the perfume?”
She knew without turning around that would be George
Claggard— the brutish one, the ape with hairy knuckles whose
father was a longshoreman. He always wore a red- and- black plaid
wool coat, leather work boots, and a hat with fake fur earfl aps
over his kinky curls. Once he sat down beside her on the bus
and she thought he was trying to be friendly, but he leaned into
her and whispered that he wanted to show her something— his
father’s hook, a lethal tool used for loading crates at the docks.
She could smell his breath, and she had stared into his tiny eyes
before she bit out, “Get away from me!”
“Could it be bat shit?” he sang down the aisle. “Ummmm . . .”
It was one of their favorite taunts, and for good reason. A
bat had followed her out of the forest one day and it had chosen
to stay on her shoulder. She had liked stroking his soft brown
fur, kissing his tiny turned- up snout, and even wearing him
upside down on the collar of her coat, just to freak everybody
out. When he unfolded his wings and took off , the girls screamed
hysterically, especially when he landed in someone’s hair. But
she had taken him home to the woods. Had he whined for her
when she left him behind?
“Phew! Your clothes must be stiff as cardboard.” Th
e boys
guff awed as if this was hysterically funny. Ernie Slavic, the snub-nosed weasel, was the clown of the pack, a skinny, dark- haired
boy with a foul mouth and sneering gaze. He always wore a
sweatshirt, even in the coldest weather, the hood pulled over a
New York Mets baseball cap that shadowed the deep- set eyes in
—-1
his thin face and his pimply complexion. She suspected that
—0
—+1
47
039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 47
3/15/13 7:44 PM
Lara Parker
Ernie was the ringleader, smarter than George, and the instiga-
tor of their plots. She knew, for instance, that Ernie was the one
who bought the weed.
“Yeah! How come you always wear that same ol’ dirty coat?”
She looked down, surprised at the insult. She loved her
coat, even the frayed sleeves. Her mother had bought it for her
one sunny autumn day in Boston, and they had spent a happy
afternoon, choosing the quarter- length navy jacket that suited
her best, and brought out the color in her eyes. Afterward they
had gone to Schraff t’s for hot chocolate.
For the fi rst time she noticed buttons were missing and the
sleeves came to above her wrists. Her mother, who spent all her