“Did you bring the camera?” McKenzie asks as she climbs the stairs.
“Yeah,” Lauren says. “My brother showed me how to set the timer and everything.”
“Cool,” McKenzie says.
Once they reach the second floor, they disappear into one of the bedrooms, and I tiptoe after them, flattening myself against the wall outside the room they’ve entered. Something thumps onto the floor, and a bag unzips.
“Give me that,” McKenzie says.
“Jeez, I’m just trying to help,” Lauren says.
“I want to make sure this goes off without a hitch,” McKenzie says. She’s definitely in charge, and the disappointment I felt earlier turns toward myself. I should’ve known better.
The first time I saw McKenzie was on my first day at Coal Creek High. I was walking down the hall outside the school office, reading my class schedule and trying to figure out where homeroom was, and I bumped right into her as she came out of the girls’ bathroom.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
She was wearing jeans and a white Oxford shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cleavage. Her honey-blond hair hung in loose waves over her shoulder, and her makeup was flawless: not too much, not too little. She was as preppy as it got here in Pinnacle, and I bet she had a closet full of plaid skirts.
“It’s okay,” she said, and then looked at me more closely. “You’re new.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m McKenzie Wells,” she said, and smiled.
“Tyler White,” I said, “but people call me Ty.”
It took her a minute to figure out that I’m a girl. I knew when it happened, because this tremor went over her face, as if she was buzzed by static electricity. After that, she excused herself, clearly rattled by making such a basic mistake, and I was left standing there in the hallway as she practically fled toward the lockers and her friends.
It bugged me, sure. I’m not the butchest chick on the planet, and in San Francisco, enough people look like me that I’m not an anomaly. But in Pinnacle, girls don’t wear boys’ clothes and have short hair. I think it’s my walk that confuses them the most, though. Girls usually have this swaying motion when they move, so that even from far away, it’s obvious they’re girls. But I’ve never walked like that. I walk like my dad.
I think she would have just avoided me from then on, but her last name is Wells and mine is White, so we were assigned seats next to each other in physics and study hall. She was nice enough to me in class, but it wasn’t like we were friends. And her friends didn’t talk to me. Only she did—usually when they weren’t around. She had this way of looking at me, though—kind of under her eyelashes when she thought I wouldn’t notice—that made me think she thought I was cute.
I should’ve known better.
I hear McKenzie and Lauren arguing over where to place the camera. “We can attach it to the ledge here,” Lauren says.
“It’s just going to poke out if we put it there,” McKenzie objects.
They decide to stick it on the top of the window. “The tape will hold it,” Lauren says. “We have to point the lens down. Nobody’s going to be able to see it in the dark.”
Their lights bob inside the room as they rig the camera over the window. And then Kelsey says, “Look what I got to write on the wall.”
Lauren and McKenzie make appreciative sounds. Kelsey wants to do it, but ultimately McKenzie prevails. “I’ll use my own hands. It’ll look awesome.”
“Ty’s gonna freak,” Kelsey says gleefully.
“Do you think it’s too much?” Lauren asks, sounding hesitant.
“Nah,” McKenzie says dismissively. “It’s a joke. Wait’ll we post the video. Everybody’s gonna love it. We have to do a Halloween prank—we live in Pinnacle.”
A Halloween prank. I feel sick to my stomach. This is why McKenzie asked me to meet her here: to play a joke on me. I suspected something like this—that’s why I got here so early—but the confirmation sinks inside me like lead weights.
I could go home right now. Stand her up. Never speak to her again. But even though the idea of running is extremely tempting, I’m also pissed. McKenzie Wells might rule the school, but she doesn’t rule me.
When I hear them finishing up, I slide farther down the hall, edging into the room next door. It’s empty, but out of the corner of my eye I see something move. I almost jump out of my skin before I realize it’s a mirror: one of those old-fashioned ones on a wooden stand. Somebody left a damn mirror behind. I let out my breath slowly, hoping the girls can’t hear me.
After they leave, I walk down the dark hall, back to the room they outfitted with the camera. I want to check it out, but then I realize I’ll be caught on tape. Crap. Something in the house creaks, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
I decide to head outside to wait for my date with McKenzie, and I book it down the stairs in my haste to leave.
3. October 31, 9:02 p.m.
The tour guide gathers us on the sidewalk outside the guesthouse. This is the second-to-last stop on the tour; after this he’ll lead everybody back to the Pinnacle Theater for the Spooktacular Spectacle. I stand on the edge of the group, the hood of my new winter jacket pulled up. The crowd is mostly adults, but there are three boys about my age nearby.
“This is the Spruce Street Guest House,” the tour guide says, “which operated from 1886 to 1923 and then was briefly turned into a sanatorium before it shut down in 1929. While it was a guesthouse, it was operated by Maud Collins, a woman who married a much older man who had made it rich in the gold rush. When he died, she took her inheritance and bought this place, intending to turn it into a high-class hotel. Unfortunately for Maud, Pinnacle was never quite as sophisticated as she hoped.”
The tour guide laughs dryly, but the crowd is getting restless. The boys whisper to each other behind cupped hands. I don’t recognize them from school, but lots of people from the neighboring towns come to Pinnacle on Halloween night.
The guide clears his throat. “The Spruce Street Guest House is home to at least one ghost, which was documented three years ago on camera by a ghost-hunting team from the cable TV show Ghost Seekers.” The boys shut up, and I shift a little closer to the front. “Before I tell you more about the ghost, let’s go on inside and take a peek, shall we?”
An excited murmur goes through the crowd. So far we’ve only been inside two other buildings—both of them saloons—and this house is way bigger. The tour guide leads us up the path to the front door, which he unlocks and pushes open with a dramatic creak. I wonder if that was staged. The guide switches on an electric lantern and ushers us inside. A few of the tourists pull out their own flashlights, and we crowd into the foyer.
The guide starts up the staircase and tells us to gather around. I stand in the doorway to the front parlor, eyeing the slipcovered furniture uneasily. In the pale light of the lantern, the armchairs look like monsters. The guide begins to tell us about the history of the guesthouse and how Maud Collins was picky about the boarders she allowed to stay here, how she had rules about how late the women could stay out and whether they could be seated next to the men during meals. The boys are clumped together a few feet away from me, talking in low voices and not paying attention.
I don’t blame them. Everybody wants to hear about the ghost, but the tour guide wants to set the scene. I zone out because I already read about the history of this place last week, after McKenzie asked me if I wanted to meet her here on Halloween night. Her invitation, during study hall, was delivered so casually that at first I didn’t get it, and she had to ask again.