Page 4 of What Happens at Nightfall

“It’s a rhododendron.” The boy uncurled, moved unsteadily to his feet. “My dad’s the arborist here. He’s in charge of the grounds.”

“Where do you live?” Jess wondered if the boy were putting her on. Arborist? Was that even a thing?

The boy looked at her warily. “At the Fort Hamilton entrance.”

“Is that the one with the big gate?” Jess fished her map of Green-Wood out of her purse and shook it open to its full, unwieldy size. It was dark enough in the boy’s hidey-hole that she needed to press the flashlight icon on her phone.

The boy took a tentative step forward. “That’s the main gate. Fort Hamilton is on the other side.”

He wiped some snot off his nose with the back of his sleeve. Jess gave up all hope of finding Kimmy and the group. She’d get the kid home and then call Kimmy and explain. How far away could it be?

“I’ll see you home.” Jess thrust the map at the boy. “You show me where we are on the map, and I’ll figure out how to get us there.”

“Or I can just show you,” said the boy. “I know the way.”

Jess pinched the map shut along its creases. “Lay on, Macduff.”

“I thought it was lead on.”

“That’s a common misconception.” Jess had been in charge of props for their high school production of Macbeth. If that was a dagger Macbeth saw before him, it was because Jess remembered to put it there. “Were those friends of yours who ran off?”

“Sort of. Not really.” The light was almost gone but the boy moved with assurance, leaving Jess to hurry after him.

She whipped sideways as something moved as she passed, pale in the dying light. An urn. With wings. There must have been a pigeon behind it to make that rustling noise. Even if she couldn’t see any pigeon now.

The path twisted sideways and then twisted again. They darted through a tunnel of hanging leaves, the foliage sweeping all the way to the ground, murmuring as they passed. It was like a funhouse, the twisting roads, the greenery that deadened sound, the glimpses of things half seen, teasing the corners of her eyes. Jess fumbled in her pocket for her phone. The screen glowed with texts from Kimmy. No time for that now. She’d call her when they got to the kid’s house.

Quick . . . There was that voice again. Thin like the wind. Quick . . .

Jess pressed her thumb hard against the flashlight icon, holding up the phone. A cliff rose above them like something out of The Lord of the Rings, pocked with tombs built into the base, gravestones dotting the grass like morbid lawn ornaments. A mansion loomed at the top of the hill, a light glowing in one of the windows.

“Is that your house?” The wind was stealing Jess’s breath; the last word came out as a gasp.

The boy gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “That’s a mausoleum.”

“So . . . not your house, then?”

They cut to the right, around the base of the hill, and were nearly blown backward as the wind howled against them. It must be a wind tunnel, Jess thought vaguely, like that block on Madison. Some trick of topography. Not malice, even though it felt like it, even though the wind made them battle for every step and the darkness rushed at the narrow light from her phone.

A stone angel thrust out an arm, urging them forward. On a white slab, a black stone bear turned and growled, its claws scrabbling against the marble. An illusion, obviously an illusion.

“QUICK” read the letters at the base of a monument, like the voice Jess kept hearing in her ear, stronger now, indignant.

The boy pressed close to her; Jess grasped his arm, pulling him faster, while to either side things rattled and gibbered around them.

“Almost there,” shouted the boy.

His words were lost in a tremendous crash as something toppled behind them, just as Jess’s overburdened phone went dark.

On a plinth above them, an angel’s stone wings rustled. Jess burst into a run, or maybe it was the boy who was running, his hand clutching hers, as they sprinted between trees whose leaves flamed bright red even in the darkness.

Ahead, the windows of a house gleamed like eyes over a terrible open mouth: twin arched windows over a peaked porch. It was straight out of John Bellairs, thought Jess incredulously. She could have sworn there had been that exact house on the cover of The House With a Clock in Its Walls. An iron widow’s walk pierced the night sky above pointed gables of extreme Gothicness. Weeping willows crowded the curved walk and a triangular arch dripping with Victorian ornamentation cast the door into darkness.

It was a picture book haunted house, the place where you didn’t go for candy apples because they might turn you into stone.

At this point, Jess didn’t care how haunted it was. It was shelter. From inside, she could hear music blasting and the homely smell of something cooking.

Someone was singing along with the music, his voice rising enthusiastically above the recording. “Sometimes I give myself the creeps . . .”