Free Ghostlight by Sonia Gensler

giggled. “If I am, no one told me.”
    His eyes twinkled again, but with a blink they turned serious. “Julian’s mom is very ill. She has been for a long time.”
    I started to ask what kind of illness, but something in his expression warned me off. “Julian seems okay, though. And Lily is cool.”
    “Yes, she is.” His shoulders softened.
    “And beautiful.”
    He smiled. “She wants to be an actress, and she’s already getting small parts in commercials and music videos.”
    “I’m a swimmer, too.” Lily appeared at the door, spreading a blob of sunscreen across her nose and cheeks. “Did Daddy tell you I was born in the water?”
    “Literally,” he said.
    “I just came from swim camp. Swimming is my second-favorite thing. Want to hear my life plan?”
    “Uh, sure,” I said.
    “First I train for the Olympics. After I win a few medals, I’ll do sponsorships.
Then
I’ll start acting full-time in movies.”
    Her face was perfectly straight as she told me this. And the crazy thing was, I didn’t doubt she could tackle it all. For an eight-year-old she was pretty intense, but not in a bad way. Some people—like her and Julian—just knew what they wanted. Other people tended to wander between this and that, not really trying hard at anything. Like me.
    Julian appeared behind Lily and pulled his backpack over both shoulders. He was wearing another funky T-shirt with a cartoon of some guy’s head. Only this head was a simple outline that was shaped almost like a balloon. Or half of one, at least. Where did he get these shirts?
    “Are we ready?” Julian asked. “If we don’t leave now, Dad will make us have a tea party.”
    Lily giggled.
    Mr. Wayne leaned forward and lightly tapped the cartoon on Julian’s T-shirt. “By all means go make your movie, young Mr. Hitchcock. Just know that I’m counting on you to pay the bills when my career bottoms out, which it will if I don’t get enough songs written this summer.”
    “Embrace your despair, Dad. It can be a great motivator.”
    Mr. Wayne waved us off with a laugh, but I saw something else in his eyes as I turned to follow Julian out the door. It looked a lot like worry.

The sun was scorching, and by the time Hilliard House was in view I’d worked up a good sweat to go along with the dread boiling in my belly. Julian wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt while Lily stared at the back of the house.
    “It’s so old,” she said.
    Julian and I followed as she walked around to get the front view. We all stood in silence while she took in the two stories of red brick and the fancy porch with its four white pillars and triangle-shaped roof. The paint was peeling from the trim and a few of the windows were cracked, but the brick was holding steady. Someone had whacked the weeds since Julian and I had been there last.
    “It’s a lot prettier from the front.” Lily turned to Julian. “But there’s no light in the window like in the photograph.”
    “If there was a light in the window,” I said, “I’d be halfway back to Grandma’s house by now.”
    “Really?” Julian studied me. “It bothers you that much?”
    I shrugged. “Kind of.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t see the light in the daytime anyway.” Julian turned to Lily. “And we didn’t come all the way out here just to get spooked and run away.”
    Lily put her hands on her hips. “But I
like
being spooked.”
    “I don’t,” I said.
    In fact, butterflies flapped in my stomach as I put the key in the lock. It didn’t turn at first, and for a second I was sure it would break off in the lock. The thought of having to explain that to Grandma was almost scarier than the prospect of a ghost on the other side of the door.
    “This place is starting to seem a little creepy now,” whispered Lily.
    “Try pushing on the door as you turn the key,” Julian said.
    When I did that, the dead bolt released. My shoulders tensed up as I opened the door, but the only thing to fly out at me was a