Hidebehind

Thirty-Eight

I didn't pay attention to anything as I got back to the house and just kept on walking, right between the rows of peach trees. The ground was soft from the fruit that had just sat there and rotted all summer, but at least the bugs were gone. I was wringing my hands, and I must have looked pretty concerned, because all of a sudden, Maisie was there trying to comfort me.

"Hey, it's all right, Rob. It's all right. Let's talk about what this means."

"It means he has my sister!"

"No," she said, making me look up at her and her bright eyes. "It means you weren't making things up, about Jay, that is. He must be a real person, right? If you and your sister both know him, if your Great Grandma talks about him."

"He isn't a real person, though! I mean, he was, once, but now he's not! And I have no idea where to even find him."

"You never went to his house or anything?"

"No! And it makes sense, now, why he never had me over. He doesn't have a house! I thought you said you believed me, that he was a ghost."

She sighed and put a hand on my shoulder, making the cold in me burn a little less. "Well, I do, but I'm just trying to consider all the options, here. So let's say Jay is a real person. Sure, Alex and I have never met him, and you say he goes to our school, but just because we don't know him doesn't mean he isn't real."

I shook my head. I felt so frustrated I wanted to cry. "I showed you the picture of him. Of him and my Grandpa when they were kids. I showed you. And I told you what he told me, about leaving me alone, and how it all makes sense. Even when he was around, Alex didn't see him. I don't know why Penny and I both did but nobody else does. But we did. Oh, I don't know! I don't know what to do. But I do know one thing, and that's that Penny isn't coming back."

Alex spoke quietly for the first time since returning to the back yard, "How do you know?"

I didn't know how I knew. I just did. I felt it somewhere, because Jay had told me that he'd be leaving me alone for a long while. And yet . . . was this really leaving me alone? "I don't think Jay will hurt her or anything," I thought aloud. "He never was mean to me. It was more like . . . like he wanted a friend." My own words calmed me. Jay had probably been the nicest person I'd met since I had arrived at Great Grandma's. I would've been really bored if he hadn't shown up. Something welled up inside me, something that might be tears, and I didn't want to cry in front of Alex and Maisie, so thankfully, Maisie again distracted us all by gasping and pointing to the house.

"Look!"

Alex and I raised our eyes to the house, and there, scrawled in black paint in symbols I had become familiar with, was a line of graffiti all the way from one end of the bricks to the other.

"Where did that come from?"

I looked at Alex and then, silently, went up the porch and into the house. They didn't follow me, but they were still there when I returned with the papers I needed. Neither of them said anything as I started translating the message; they just watched, and I hoped they were amazed.

"Help . . . me. The first part says 'help me.'"

"Help who?" Alex echoed.

I ignored him and kept going, getting excited. "T-o-f-i . . . no, wait. That was an 'n.' Tonight! Tonight! It says 'Help me tonight'!"

Alex and Maisie were quiet, wondering who-knew-what, until Alex asked, "How can you read that?"

"I told you Jay was my Grandpa's friend Jimmy, the one who disappeared. That morning you broke all that stuff in the fancy room, Alex, I was cleaning up and found this folder of old papers that they must've written when they were kids. I found this secret code that he and my Grandpa had come up with."

"The graffiti on the school? And on your silo?" he asked.

"Yep. I could read them. They both said something about hiding . . . you can't hide behind it."

"Who can't hide behind what?"

"I don't know, Alex! I don't know!" My frustration was starting to overwhelm me again. "The monster, I guess. The monster . . . remember? It's always behind you, never in front of you. It sneaks up and gets you."

"Maybe it's a message for the monster," Maisie said.

"So now you believe me about the monster, too? Or are you just 'considering all the possibilities' again?"

She frowned at me. "Now you're being a jerk."

I was. I knew it.

"Do you think this was a message from Penny?" Maisie asked in an almost-whisper.

I hadn't considered that. The thought scared me more than if it had come from Jay. "But we would've seen her . . . we weren't gone that long, and this definitely wasn't on the wall when we were back here a minute ago. She couldn't have done it that fast and then run off."

"Unless . . . she's now a ghost too . . ."

"No, Maisie! No. That's not it." I probably wanted to believe it more than I actually did believe it. I shook my head in thought. "Seriously, though . . . that can't be right. Listen. In the movies and stuff—what do ghosts want more than anything?"

"To scare people." Alex said.

"No."

"To haunt houses?" Maisie offered.

"No!" I cried. "Well, maybe a little. But I'm talking about ghosts of people who died and nobody knows how. They want their death to be solved, right? They want someone to figure it out so that they can move on, or whatever. Maybe that's what Jay's asking . . . if it was Jay who wrote this."

"If that's true, then why doesn't he just reappear and talk to you like you said he's been doing?"

"Maybe because you're here, Alex. He really doesn't like you."

Alex raised his eyebrows. "Why not?"

I shrugged, not really caring if he was bothered by what I'd said.

"Fine," he snapped. "Then maybe we should just leave, so he can appear to you again and you can figure this all out yourself. Come on, Maisie. Clearly Rob doesn't want me to be here anyway."

"Stop. I . . . I do, Alex. I'm sorry. But you basically told me you thought I was crazy."

"Well . . . I don't anymore. At least . . . not entirely."

If I said anything else, I was afraid I'd annoy him again, and even though he'd said some unkind things to me, the truth was, I didn't hate Alex.

"Here's what we have to do, obviously," he went on, as if he'd just said something embarrassing and wanted to forget about it and move on. "If we need to help someone—Jay or Penny or both—then we need to be here tonight. Looks like we're staying here."

I grinned, grateful.