Ghostlight by Sonia Gensler Read Free Book Online Page B

the cemetery.”
    “I think I’ve found him. Come here.”
    He stood midway between two headstones and pointed to the one on his right. “This is him, right?”
JOSHUA EVERETT HILLIARD
    AUGUST 23 , 1899 – FEBRUARY   5 ,  1985
    It was the plainest of headstones, thick but not very wide. No carvings or quotations from the Bible. Just his name and dates engraved in stark lettering.
    “There’s another stone over there,” Julian said. “It’s what I really wanted you to see.”
    I followed him to a wide stone of thick, expensive granite. It had two names on it.
ELIZABETH ANNE CUNNINGHAM HILLIARD
    NOVEMBER 10 ,  1905–APRIL 10 , 1955
    MARGARET ANNE HILLIARD
    JANUARY 5 , 1930–FEBRUARY 12 , 1937
    Julian glanced at me. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
    “Mother and daughter?”
    “Yeah, and I bet Elizabeth was Joshua’s wife. Can you check with your grandma?”
    I nodded slowly. “Poor little Margaret. Only seven years old when she died. And when they buried her, they left room for the mom but not the dad. What’s up with that?”
    “It is a bit peculiar.” Julian took several close-up shots of the headstone. “Yesterday I checked that shelf of local history books at your grandma’s cottage. I found an old paperback about the Carver County floods of 1937. The big flood in February was the worst—houses were swept away and people died.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “Avery, look at the death date on Margaret Anne’s grave.” His eyes gleamed as he pointed at the stone. “1937.
February
1937. I bet she drowned in the flood. And you know what that means?”
    I shook my head.
    “Our film has its ghost.”

I stared at the ceiling for quite a while that night, thinking about this so-called ghost Julian had in mind for our movie. To say I didn’t feel so great about the idea was what Blake would call a “massive understatement.” But had I said anything to Julian?
    Of course not.
    He’d had that lively look in his eyes again—that creative spark that seemed to light me up, too. Truth was, while I was sitting next to him, I almost thought I could handle a spooky movie with a ghost. Even at
Hilliard House.
As Julian said, we were just telling stories. It was all pretend, right?
    But in the darkness of the attic, with only the faint yellow glow of my night-light to keep me company, it wasn’t so simple. I just didn’t know how to explain that to Julian.
    He answered the door the next day, and once again there wasn’t a whiff of baking in the air. I hoped Curtis Wayne might say “hey” from the living room, but he didn’t even look up from his guitar. The tune he was strumming sounded angry, and I couldn’t help noticing the patchy gray scruff on his cheeks and the way his hair was mashed on one side of his head.
    “The desperate and unshowered phase,” Julian murmured.
    Once we were settled in his room, he queued up the movie I’d started two nights before.
    “Lily was supposed to come last night,” he said, “but the driver is bringing her tonight instead. So we’re not as much behind schedule as I thought. Are you going to bring my tablet back?”
    “Yeah. I just forgot.” I flinched as the opening credits blared. “That music is freaking annoying.”
    “This is the last one we’re watching,” he said. “It’s also the oldest of the three and the most traditional haunted house story. That’s why I wanted you to see it.”
    I watched again as the brother and sister explored the house that overlooked the sea—a house that turned out to be haunted, of course. But their story ended a little different from the others because the characters actually tried to communicate with the ghost through a séance. For a movie that started out kind of silly, that scene made my scalp prickle. And when the ghost actually appeared? The prickles snaked all the way down my spine. By the time the siblings figured everything out and saved the day, I decided the movie wasn’t half bad.
    “So…” Julian