Free Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz Page A

beneath my younger sister Margie’s oil painting
     of Mom. The painting was a surprise portrait, done from Mom’s high school graduation
     photo, and presented to my mother at the town art show, at which Margie won honorable
     mention and Mom dissolved into a puddle of jubilant tears.
    The phone continues to ring. My head is about to explode. I can hear the rush of blood
     in my ears, making my temples throb.
    Finally someone picks up. I hear a click. But no one says a word.
    “Hello?” I say, gripping the phone tight. “Mom? Is that you? It’s me. Natalie.”
    I can tell that someone’s there. I hear a sniff and then a sigh.
    “Mom?” I ask again, figuring that it’s her, ever obedient, forever subservient. My
     name should really be Apple, and hers should be Tree.
    “I’m in Minnesota,” I say into the receiver. “I took that trip…the contest one that I was telling you about…the one where I get to meet Justin Blake.
     Anyway, I know that you’re probably upset, but…” My voice trails off. I can’t finish
     the thought. Tears streak down my face.
    “Just know that this trip—my going, I mean,” I continue, “has nothing to do with you
     and everything to do with me. I didn’t feel like I could give up this opportunity.
     Justin Blake has been a major part of my life, and I want to tell him—need to tell
     him, personally —how much his work has meant to me.”
    The truth: it’s been my saving grace.
    The first time my father told me that I was an accident, I wrote Harris’s name all
     over my body with a ball-point pen—311 times—convinced that his name would shield
     me from my father’s words.
    I went out into the street like that, wearing shorts and a tank. The neighborhood
     kids didn’t know how to respond to me. Mrs. Watson asked if I was feeling all right.
    “She’s feeling just fine,” my dad said, running out to get me. “Just kid stuff.” He
     rolled his eyes, as if she could identify with him. And then he yanked me inside,
     dragged me into the bathtub, started the water, and threw a bar of soap at my head.
     “You’re not worthy of having Harris’s name on you,” he said.
    I was ten years old; it was the year I discovered the Nightmare Elf and Hotel 9 series.
    A couple of years later, when I overheard my parents telling Margie how much they
     wished I was more like her, I found Halls of Horror and its prequel Forest of Fright .
    Last summer, when the Riskins invited us to their daughter’s lavish graduation party,
     I overheard my mother telling Mrs. Riskin that we’d all love to go. “But Natalie won’t
     be able to make it,” she added. “She’ll be at sleepaway camp that weekend.”
    I didn’t have sleepaway camp, but thank God I had the Night Terrors trilogy.
    “Please, say something,” I plead. “Tell me that you don’t hate me.”
    I wait for several seconds, but still no one speaks, which makes a bubble form in
     my throat. It bursts out through my mouth, and I let out a thirsting cry.
    “Natalie?” Ivy asks.
    She’s standing in the doorway. I wonder how long she’s been there and how much she
     already heard.
    “What happened?” she asks.
    I close my eyes, picturing myself like a piece of paper inside a fire, getting lapped
     up by the flames, melted away in the heat. But then I realize: the phone’s still pressed
     against my ear. The line’s still connected. I never hung up.
    Ivy comes and sits beside me. She takes the receiver and places it up to her ear.
     “Hello?” she asks. “Is someone there?”
    Her face furrows, like she doesn’t quite understand.
    “What?” I ask, desperate to know if it’s really my mom.
    “They hung up,” she whispers. “I heard the phone go click. That doesn’t make any sense.”
    It actually makes perfect sense to me. What I’ve done—coming here against my parents’
     wishes—is unforgiveable to them. As angry as they’ve ever been at me, they’ve never
     completely shut me out. “I wish I