Page 15 of Play Nice

Turns out Dad left a first aid kit in the upstairs bathroom, with a note on top reminding me to be careful, to be safe. I bring it outside, down to where Baker sits in the yard.

“It’s not broken,” Austin says, checking Baker’s ankle. “Just sprained.”

“Here,” I say, handing over an antiseptic wipe and a Band-Aid for the scrape across the boy’s forehead.

He’s a sweet-looking kid. Big eyes, mouth full of braces. On the verge of puberty, poor thing.

“Thanks,” Austin says, his gaze lingering. I return his stare, give him the up-and-down. He’s dressed in gray sweatpants and a black tank. He has a delicate gold chain around his neck. The uniform of a douchebag. His saving grace are his Vans. If he had on Nikes, it’d be game over.

Also promising—his sweatpants look like they could be from Costco. They’re not designer sweatpants. There’s a direct correlation between men who wear designer sweatpants and men who can’t make me come. I’ve done the unfortunate research.

He has muscles, but they’re not gym muscles. He’s not wearing the tank top to show off his shoulders and his biceps. He’s not trying too hard. All the guys in the city are trying too hard, especially the ones who pretend like they aren’t.

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “I’m suing.”

Baker’s already big eyes go huge.

“Relax, baby. I’m joking,” I say, sitting on the deck stairs.

“Actually, we’re suing,” Austin says. He gestures to Baker. “Look at this.”

“A tragic accident,” I say.

“Did you fall, or did she push you?” Austin asks Baker. “Be honest. You’re under oath.”

“I…I fell,” Baker says.

“Hmm. You’re off the hook, miss. For now,” Austin says. He unwraps the antiseptic towelette and brings it to Baker’s scrape. “When did you move in?”

“I didn’t,” I say.

Baker winces. “There’s no car out front.”

“I don’t have a car. I’m a city girl,” I say. “I’m not here full-time. I’m just fixing it up. It was my mom’s house.”

“Oh shit,” Austin says, standing up straight. “I knew you looked familiar. Daphne?”

The shock of hearing my sister’s name knocks me back. I bang my elbows against the stairs.

“No. Clio?” he asks. “Not Leda.”

“How…?”

“Like I said, I live down the street. I grew up here. We hung out a few times, as kids.”

“Did we?” I think back. Toward the end of our short tenure in the house, my sisters and I were so desperate to get out, we did end up making friends with some of the neighbor kids.

There were games of capture the flag, freeze tag.

The rest of the kids all knew each other better because they went to school together, rode the same bus, but not us.

The Barnes girls went to private school. I’m sure it added to our mystique.

Austin presses the Band-Aid to Baker’s head.

“Ow!” Baker says.

“My brother Jackson helped your mom move in,” Austin says.

Mom wrote about him. The scared teenager who denied saying that he hated the house.

“Did he think the house was haunted?” I ask, swatting at a mosquito. “Your brother.”

Austin crumples up the Band-Aid wrapper and puts it in his pocket. “Don’t think so. No one thought that until after the book came out.”

“Interesting,” I say. “But you think the house is haunted? That’s why you sent your nephew to break in? On a dare?”

He hangs a hand on the back of his neck. His cheeks go red. “What can I say? I’m a bad babysitter.”

I look at Baker. “I think you’re the bad babysitter.”

“Ha. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah,” he says.

“You don’t remember me?” Austin asks.

“Sorry. You must not have made much of an impression.”

He laughs. “I was shy. You and your sisters were intimidating.”

“Still are.”

“Clio, right?”

“That’s me,” I say, reaching out and offering him my hand to shake. He takes it. His hand is warm, his skin soft. “Next time you want to come over, knock.”

“Next time, huh?”

“I’m going inside now,” I say, standing up and collecting the first aid kit. “Good night, Baker. Good night, Austin.”

“Sorry again,” Baker says. Austin helps him to his feet.

“Me, too, kid. A rocky start to your life of crime,” I say, climbing the stairs up to the deck. I step inside and close the sliding doors behind me, lock them.

I flop back onto the couch and pull the blanket up to my chest. I text my sisters on our group thread.

Do you remember a neighbor kid named Austin?

Neither responds. Not surprising: it’s late. Daphne must still be working, and Leda must be asleep—she and Tommy probably share a nightcap of MiraLAX and pass out by nine thirty.

I turn onto my side. My sketchpad is on the coffee table next to the bottle of vodka.

Something nags at me, but I can’t figure out what.

I sit up and look over at the sliding doors. I left the back light on.

I get up to turn it off, then go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and do my p.m. skincare routine.

Earlier in the day, I’d made up one of the twin mattresses in Daphne and Leda’s room for me to sleep on.

I don’t want to sleep in my room because the combination of boot prints on the carpet leading in and the rumpled sheets imply the disturbing possibility that Mom might have died in my bed—something I still don’t care to confirm—and that’s where I saw the mouse, so just overall it’s not ideal.

I also don’t want to sleep in Mom’s room because it’s too weird.

She probably had sex with demonologist Roy in that bed.

Daphne and Leda’s room is really the only option other than the couch, which isn’t particularly comfy.

I retrieve my new favorite blanket from the couch for extra warmth, drape it over my shoulders, and waltz down the hall. It feels wrong to be in Leda and Daffy’s room without them. Like I’m breaking a sacred law. Like at any moment they’ll burst in and scream at me to get out.

It makes it difficult to relax into sleep. And it’s way too quiet. Even quieter than at Dad’s. The crickets around here must be bashful.

Half an hour passes before I give in and get up, trek back to the living room for my portable speaker.

I bring it into my sisters’ room, connect to Bluetooth, and pull up “City Sounds Ambience for Sleep” on YouTube.

I shimmy under the covers as the generic city sounds stretch to touch the walls, fill the space. I close my eyes and wait for sleep.

I’m almost there when I notice it.

Among the chorus of traffic and faraway conversations, there’s a distinct voice. It comes and it goes, like it’s part of the loop, but it doesn’t totally match the rest of the track. It’s a whispering that’s somehow loud enough to hear over the car horns. Always the same, saying the same thing.

Hello hello.

It’s so good to see you again.

Hello hello.

It’s so good to see you again.

It’s unnerving at first, but eventually the repetition becomes hypnotic. Lulling me to sleep.

Hello hello.

It’s so good to see you again.

Hello hello.

It’s so good to see you again.

Hello hello.

Hello hello.

“Hello.”

The entrance to the attic was in Cici’s closet. A small rectangular opening covered by a plank of painted wood. You needed a ladder to get up there, and I didn’t have a ladder.

One rainy Saturday, when the girls were at their father’s house, I dragged a dining chair downstairs to Cici’s room, stacked some books on top of it, and climbed up to the attic.

The attic was essentially a crawl space over the garage.

Not enough room for me to stand up, not even hunched over.

There was old insulation, white like snow.

Cobwebs hung from the rafters. It was cold, so much colder than the rest of the house.

There was no explanation, no reason for it, because even outside, it was warm and pleasant—mid-May.

But in the attic, it was winter. Desolate and freezing.

I could tolerate being up there for only a few minutes at most. I shuddered and lowered myself through the opening. My feet found the stack of books. They came out from under me, and I fell.

When your father dropped you off the next day, I was incoherent, still bleeding.

He assumed I had fallen because I was drunk.

He called his lawyers as soon as he left.

The truth is I had been drinking. I needed the liquid courage to look up in the attic, to confront what I suspected was there.

But that’s not why I fell. And I had only done it to keep you girls safe. That was my reason for everything.

My head hit the wall and my knee smashed against the doorframe.

I lay there in shock. I reached up to my head and my hand came away bloody.

That’s when I knew with certainty. Crystal clarity.

That’s where it lives.

It lives up there.

There’s something living in my house.

Then I heard it again, like I did that first night. It’s awful, evil laughter.

But it wasn’t trying to hide this time. It made no attempt to conceal itself, to sneak. It was glad that I knew. It wanted me to know it was there.

Because it understood something, something that I did not.

No one would believe me.