Little Secrets Read online

  But that’s why she had the flashlight. Ginny clicked the button. The blue-white light flashed rapidly, like a strobe, before she clicked it again to put it on the regular setting. A steady beam of bright light shone ahead of her, looking almost solid with the dust she’d kicked up swirling in it.

  Ginny held the flashlight in her palm and slowly waved the light from side to side. “Whommmmm. Whommmm.”

  Lightsaber.

  The effect was ruined when the light bent along any objects in the way, but still it was good for a giggle as she oriented herself. She swept the room with the flashlight. All the corners the light from the bulbs wouldn’t reach, even if they were all lit.

  The furnace was in the far corner, in a little jig-jog that upstairs was part of the dining room. Ginny flashed the light above her, into the ceiling joists. She remembered too late the sound of nails and claws, and screamed when the shivering shadows tossed a pair of bright eyes at her, a flash of teeth.

  Seconds later, of course, with her heart pounding and palms sweating, she had to laugh. It wasn’t a raccoon—or worse, a rat—but a child’s stuffed toy shoved into the space between the rafters and close to the silver ductwork.

  That was creepy and gross, but not terrifying and not as weird as some people might think. She could remember as a kid hanging out in her grandma’s basement with Peg and Billy and their cousins, trying to scare each other with stories or playing hide and seek. As a teenager, Ginny’s uncle Rick had built a rec room of sorts in the basement, using spiffy 1970s paneling and cast-off furniture he and his friends had salvaged from the garbage. There’d been plenty of weird things tucked into the rafters of Gran’s basement, including the gape-mouthed plastic face of a decapitated blow-up doll Peg and their older cousins had convinced her was a “princess mask.” Compared to that, a kid’s teddy bear was hardly strange at all.

  To her right was the concrete wall that had been repaired in the long-ago fire. It was just as dirty and hung with cobwebs as the other walls, but of slightly different brick. Sean had stacked their ski equipment along it but left bare the metal shelving unit she’d meant him to use. Ginny shook her head, biting her tongue and refusing to let herself get worked up over it.

  The furnace kicked on with a rumble when she approached. That had to be a good sign, right? She didn’t know much about furnaces, other than how to change the filter, but the repairman had mentioned that Reset button and whatever he’d done to it had worked, at least for a little while, so it seemed like it was worth a try again.

  Over in this corner, the bulb had not just blown, it was missing entirely. Ginny touched the chain and set the fixture swaying anyway as she passed, but she used the flashlight to look over the furnace. She regretted, now, playing the role of little wifey while Sean went with the repairman to check things out. She’d always made it a point in the past to be aware of everything, the basics of what she considered necessary adult skills. How to change a tire, balance a checkbook, change a fuse, mix a basic cocktail. In the days before she’d gone to a Mac, how to defrag a computer. Yet when the repairman was here, she’d hidden herself away in the kitchen like some sad parody of June Cleaver, complete with apron and bare feet.

  What the hell had happened to her?

  A sudden sob threatened to strangle her, but Ginny forced it back. No crying. Not here in the dim and dirty basement. Christ no. She wasn’t going to lose it. She bit her tongue and rubbed the sore spot against her teeth until the urge to cry went away enough to ignore.

  The Reset button. Where would it be? She shone the light over the entire furnace, but there was no helpful marking. The furnace itself still rumbled comfortingly but also deceptively.

  “Let me heat your house,” the furnace’s rumble said. “Or, you know, make you think I’m going to. But then you wake up freezing your tits off while chocolate melts in your cupboards.”

  Just to the left of the furnace was a small window set high in the wall. It opened into a well framed with a half circle of metal and a patch of gravel at the bottom. She could see nothing through it, but some pale light filtered through, enough that when she went around the side of the furnace she could click off the flashlight.

  And there it was. At least, she assumed the switch on the side of the furnace, tucked between two sections and just above the place the filter nestled, was the right one. What else could it be?

  What’s the worst that could happen, Ginny thought, and flicked it off.

  At that moment, the light from the window cut out completely, leaving her in shadow. Ginny turned, the flashlight tumbling from her fingers as she spun. Framed in the window was a face, eyes wide and mouth yawing.

  It screamed, shrill and high and piercing. The sound ripped at her eardrums and set the hair on the back of her neck on end. She dropped the flashlight, screaming herself, louder and more frantically than when the stuffed bear had startled her.

  The face disappeared. More screams echoed. She heard the faint rustle of feet in the leaves.

  Ginny collapsed against the furnace, no longer rumbling, and let herself dissolve into relieved laughter. She pressed a hand to her heart to slow the beating. The other went between her legs, praying she hadn’t lost control of her bladder. She seemed safe enough there, though there’d been a moment when she was sure she was going to piss herself. At least she’d managed to avoid that.

  It was one of the kids from next door, the face in the window. For whatever reason, they’d been peeking in her windows. Well, they’d had a scare, hadn’t they? Maybe it would keep them away from her house, she thought, even as she laughed again at how they’d terrified her too.

  She bent slowly, carefully, to find her flashlight, but it had rolled away somewhere. It was gone. She’d have to look for it later, in the brighter daylight or at least when she’d replaced all the burnt-out bulbs, but for right now her bladder was protesting the strain she’d put on it. She’d be lucky to make it upstairs.

  Somehow, with her knees knocked together, Ginny made it to the bathroom in time to avoid an accident. Washing her hands, she caught sight of her reflection and laughed again at the memory of the neighbor boy’s terrified face. Of her own fear. She laughed, loud and long.

  And then she was weeping, both hands gripping the porcelain while she bent forward, helpless against the onslaught. Her shoulders heaved. Sobs racked her. She opened her mouth and almost expected to puke, that was how fierce the tears burned, but, instead, snot and saliva dripped into the sink. Fat, hot tears splashed. Her fingers curled and gripped, tight and tighter, because if she let go of the sink she was surely going to fall onto the floor.

  It didn’t pass with ease, this sudden burst of grief, this madness. It didn’t fade or taper off into sniffles. It ended abruptly, like someone had slapped the hysteria out of her, and it didn’t leave her feeling better, the way tears were supposed to. Everything about her face felt hot and swollen, and when she dared to face her reflection again, she looked how she felt.

  Ugly.

  With a determined shake of her head, Ginny gathered up the sorrow and the crazy, and she folded it like origami. She pushed it away, pushed it aside. Pushed it inside.

  Deep inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “What the hell were you doing in the basement anyway?”

  As predicted, Sean hadn’t been amused by the story she spun as humorous so she could forget how it had ended. Ginny sighed and pushed her fork through the spaghetti noodles and sauce. It was a lackluster dinner, at best. Overcooked pasta and sauce from a jar, garlic bread she’d cobbled together from some leftover hamburger buns and garlic powder. She wasn’t hungry anyway.

  She looked at him across the dining room table. He seemed so far away, compared to their seats at the old table in the kitchen, but she figured if he was going to surprise her with this ugly table, she could insist they use it. “I told you. I was looking at the furnace