Ghostlight

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Sonia Gensler

Cover photo of house copyright © 2015 by iStockphoto; silhouettes of children and photo of window copyright © 2015 by Shutterstock

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gensler, Sonia.

Ghostlight / Sonia Gensler. — First edition.

p. cm.

Summary: A summer film project turns spooky when the setting turns out to actually be haunted.

ISBN 978-0-553-52214-3 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-553-52215-0 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-553-52216-7 (ebook)

[1. Ghosts—Fiction. 2. Haunted houses—Fiction. 3. Motion pictures—Production and direction—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.G29177Gh 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2014039521

eBook ISBN 9780553522167

Random House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v4.1

ep

For my dear grandmothers, Ruby and Margaret Ellen, who indulged me with stories of the “olden days” and never, ever gave wallopings

We'd only been at Grandma's for
five minutes
before Blake ruined everything.

“I start high school this fall, Avery.”

“Duh, I know. So what?”

“So, it means I'm done playing magical kingdoms.” He patted his overstuffed backpack. “Besides, I have a mile-long list of summer reading.”

At first I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. Then anger boiled in my belly, bubbling higher and higher until it burst from my mouth as the filthiest string of words I'd ever spoken. There was no way to claim I didn't hear Grandma calling after me as I ran off, so I let the screen door slam behind me. Figured I might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

I marched along the gravel driveway toward the back buildings, biting my lip to keep from crying. People always did that in books, but it turns out that biting your lip while stomping is a bad idea. After a quick check for blood, I stepped up my pace.
Stomp, stomp
past the storage shed and the old barn, past the cattail pond and the copper beech tree. I was determined to keep stomping until I hit a fence or a gully. And if it was a gully, I might just jump in. Blake would be sorry then.

I got so caught up imagining my brother kneeling at my grave—blubbering and begging for forgiveness—that I almost stomped straight into the strange boy walking ahead of me. I barely had time to dodge behind a tree before he paused and glanced behind him.

He was shorter than Blake, and skinnier, but seemed around the same age. His button-down shirt was bright white, and his khakis were creased in all the right places. They were city clothes, too nice for summer on a Tennessee farm. He carried a fancy camera with a huge lens, and as he walked, he raised it every few seconds to take a photo. That's probably why he hadn't noticed me.

So I followed him.

I figured I'd have to be stealthy and keep a certain distance. Maybe slip behind a few more trees. But he was oblivious to me because he was taking pictures of
everything.
Trees, bushes, fence posts. He even took a shot of a pile of manure.

I was concentrating pretty hard on him not paying attention to where he was going, which meant I wasn't paying much attention either. When I finally looked past him to what was ahead, I realized his path would take us toward the river.

And that meant we would run right into Hilliard House.

Sure enough, we came through a thicket of trees, and there it stood at the top of the hill, facing away from us toward the river. The redbrick house glowed like an autumn leaf against the blue sky, but its border of bushy, sunburned weeds reminded me of a dirty beard. The churning in my gut started up again.

Ahead of me the strange kid lowered his camera. Then he made a beeline for the house.

“Hey!” I shouted.

He froze in place. After a moment he turned slowly. “Hey
what
?”

“You gotta stay away from there.”

“Why?”

His raised eyebrow told me he wasn't used to hearing
no,
so I used my bossy grown-up voice. “This is my grandma's land, and you don't have permission to be on it.”

He pointed at Hilliard House. “Is that where she lives?”

“Of course not! Nobody's lived there for ages.”

He stared at it for a moment before turning back to me. “So what's the problem? It's a
house.
I'm not going to break it.”

“It's just…forbidden.”

“Seriously?” He grinned. “Is there a curse on it or something?”

I shot him a withering look, Grandma-style. “Forget the house. What's up with that camera? Are you a photographer?”

“No…I make movies.” He stood a little straighter. “I'm a filmmaker.”

That
I didn't expect. It was the sort of thing you'd hear from an old dude with a goatee and black-rimmed glasses. In the city. Not from some kid trespassing on a farm.

“What kind of films do you make?” I asked.

“The kind few people understand or appreciate.” He glanced back at the house. “So, is it from Civil War times?”

I sighed. “I'm not sure.”

“Have you ever been inside?”

“I told you, it's off-limits.”

He stared at the house like he was trying to memorize every angle of it. “Didn't you ever look at a place,
really
look at it, and know it had stories to tell?” His eyes met mine. “So many stories that your head felt like it would explode?”

I couldn't look away. “Actually,
yeah.
”

“I wonder if the door is locked.”

Before I could answer, he took off toward the house, and all I could do was follow as he made his way around to the front porch. His city shoes clacked on the brick-lined path, and my mouth got that tingly, slobbery feeling, like I was about to throw up. I wanted to shush that clacking, as if someone else might hear it. When he leapt up the porch steps to try the front door, I held my breath. But after a few twists of the knob, he shrugged and let go, turning back toward me and stepping more carefully on the way down. He took a few more shots of the house and then walked back to where I stood.

“It's locked up pretty tight.” His camera beeped as he checked the photos. When he raised his eyes to me, his expression softened. “Are you sick or something? You look kind of pale.”

I swallowed and shook my head. “I'm fine. Why are you here, anyway? I know you're not a local.”

“I'm from Nashville, but my dad's renting a little white house down the road.”

I nodded. “That's Hollyhock Cottage—it belongs to my grandma. You here for the summer?”

“Dad is. As for me…I'm not sure.”

“And you're thinking of making a
movie
out here?”

“Maybe.” He pushed more buttons on his camera. “I'd love to take more footage of this place, from all different angles.”

“I have to get back now. Grandma's expecting me.”

What Grandma was expecting was to chew me out for swearing at Blake and slamming the door, but I wasn't about to mention that. I just wanted to get some distance between me and Hilliard House.

“Okay. See you later.” He pointed his camera toward the house and fiddled with the lens.

“Um, that means you have to go, too,” I said, “seeing as you're trespassing and all.”

He didn't have a quick answer for that. When he lowered the camera, his green eyes gleamed with…well, I wasn't quite sure what, but it was something bright and alive.

I thought of Blake and how his face had lost all of its liveliness over the past few months. There was a time when it was no big deal for him to smile or laugh or just seem
excited
in some way. Now he always looked bored. It didn't help that his hair drooped into his eyes most of the time.

This kid, on the other hand, seemed like he could barely contain himself.

“It's such a cool old building,” he said.

“There's plenty more on this farm I could show you. Places much better than an old, falling-down house.”

“Yeah?”

“I could come down to the cottage tomorrow after lunch and give you the tour, if you want.”

He frowned. “It'd be easier if I met you. You live in that house at the top of the hill, right? I could meet you at one o'clock and we could scout locations together.”

I wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded a heck of a lot better than sitting alone in my attic bedroom plotting Blake's unsolvable murder.

“Sounds cool. I'm Avery, by the way. Avery Hilliard. My family's owned this land for about a million years.” I grinned. “Or thereabouts.”

“I'm Julian.” His gaze shifted to the left. “Just Julian.”

When I got back to the house, Grandma was settled in the saggy brown couch, a smile curving her mouth. I wasn't fooled.

“Sorry about slamming the door and all,” I mumbled.

“Sit down, Avery May.” She patted the space next to her.

Weasley was stretched out on the rug, so I scooped him up before I sat down. Not that I needed protection from Grandma or anything. I just knew she was irked, and it felt good to have something warm and furry to hold on to.

“I wish you'd try to put yourself in Blake's shoes,” Grandma said. “He's nearly fifteen and has different interests, but he doesn't have the words for expressing that in a kindly way. He will learn, however, and it's your mother's job—and mine—to keep at him. Not yours.”

“But we had plans for Kingdom this summer. We were going to get Princess Etheline married to the Lord of the North Countries, remember? Blake was supposed to write the treaty, and I was writing the vows.”

“Honestly, child, I'm surprised he stuck with Kingdom for as long as he did. You might be grateful for that.”

My eyeballs were prickling, so I concentrated hard on smoothing Weasley's whiskers. “It's not fair,” I muttered. “There's not much to do around here without Kingdom, and I can't keep it going without him.”

“Your mama didn't have a brother when she was growing up,” Grandma said. “And you know what she did? She used her imagination and found her own projects. Ponder that. You can't go looking to Blake for your happiness.”

“Only because he's a jerk.”

Her mouth tightened. “People who can entertain themselves draw others to them.”

I lowered my head and tried to look repentant, but really I was thinking of Julian and his quest for the perfect film location.

“I met a boy today, Grandma. He said he's staying at Hollyhock Cottage.”

She nodded. “A gentleman took the house a couple of days ago. I believe he brought his son with him.” She gave me a sidelong look. “You ought to come with me when I check on them tomorrow morning. I need to meet this boy if you're going to be spending time with him.”

“It's not as if I
like
him or anything. He's a little weird.”

“I'll reach my own conclusions about that. In the meantime, you're washing the dishes for the rest of this week.” She smiled. “And I've put my cheesy lasagna in the oven, so you'd best gird your loins for battle.”

“Grandma,” I whispered. “I wish you wouldn't say
loins.
”