Free Haunted by Joy Preble

Zip.
    Figures. You want to see supernatural stuff, and it gets all shy. “Hey!” I say to the rusalka, who’s gone all invisible on us. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Still nothing.
    We let ourselves out the front gate. I’ve trashed the padlock beyond locking, so we leave it hanging there. Carter will probably get yelled at for leaving it open, but that will be about it.
    I pull my cell out of my skirt pocket. It’s been buzzing up a storm since we got to the pool, but I’ve been ignoring it—which, let me say, is not something I’m programmed to do—but if we’re headed back, I guess it’s time for a little damage control. Or at least for me to figure out how cranky Mrs. Benson really is that I’ve cut out on her like this. Tess’s story, that Miss Amy had taken ill and I was the only one who could help her with the beginning tap class, probably sounded as contrived to Mrs. Benson as it did to me when Tess relayed it as she’d climbed into the car. “You totally owe me,” she’d said. “Especially since I had to lie to Amy, too, about why I wasn’t going to be there to teach my class.”
    I thumb through the missed calls, then press voice mail. Two messages in, it’s clear that I’m in big trouble. Mrs. Benson has chosen the passive-aggressive method of dealing with my unplanned exit from work. She’s called my mother, who has uncharacteristically surfaced from wherever she’s gone this afternoon.
    My mother’s voice message consists of, “Where are you? Call me. Amelia is really pissed at you. I can’t believe you’re screwing up this job after she was nice enough to give it to you.” Actually, she used a more colorful phrase than screwing up . Once she decides to be a less-than-model citizen, her language is one of the first things to go. Especially when she’s angry.
    My father has left two messages: one asking me where I am, and the other asking me if I’d heard from my mother.
    There are also two texts from Ben, the last one confirming that we’re still meeting at eight. Both of them end with xo .
    I text Ben back, See you then , adding my own xo . We walk toward the footbridge to the Birnam Woods subdivision that spans the little stream. I wonder, not for the first time, how many residents ever think it’s sort of odd to name a housing development after the forest in Macbeth . But it’s not like there’s a ton of For Sale signs or anything. Everyone seems just fine living on Inverness Lane and Dunsinane Street. Maybe if they kept getting visited in their dreams by a witch named Baba Yaga, they’d think twice about buying a house on a street named after a play in which just about everyone dies and the three witches mess with Macbeth’s head until he goes crazy. Or maybe not.
    This is what I’m thinking about when I see her. I stop so suddenly that Tess, walking too close behind me, smacks into my back. Ethan, walking on my right, stops too. I feel this happen rather than see it because I can’t really focus on anything but the woman in front of me. My heart leaps into my throat.
    “What?” Tess’s voice is shrill, I register that much. “What do you—? Oh. Hey! I see her! This time, I see her! This is totally amazing. I actually—”
    “Careful.” Ethan takes my hand and holds it so tightly that I almost yelp—except that my throat’s so tight with fear that no sound comes out.
    The rusalka stands with her back to us on the far end of the wooden footbridge. Tiny droplets of water fly in the air as she combs her pale fingers through her dark hair.
    “Tell me what you want,” I ask her. “Why do you keep following me around?”
    “Stories within stories, Anne.” The rusalka stays where she is and turns her head ever so slightly as she speaks. “You’re a smart girl. Not like me. You’ll figure it out.”
    Right.
    “ Kak vas zovut? ” Ethan’s still gripping my hand, but he moves us a few steps closer to the rusalka.
    I don’t know what’s said, but