Curiosity Killed the Cat (5 page)

The next week, Hannah woke up to the scratching noise almost every night. Even when she made it through the night without hearing the awful sound, she slept in a terrified half-sleep. On Tuesday night, Hannah started wearing earplugs in an attempt to block the sound out. She desperately wished Icky were sleeping by her side. At least that would have made her feel safer.

At school, things weren’t much better. Hannah could barely stay awake through her classes. The argument Paisley and Hannah had had during homeroom on Thursday had blown over, but things weren’t quite the same. Paisley always seemed distracted, and the only time Hannah saw her was in homeroom, since her activities kept her busy after school every
day. Hannah suddenly realized how much a part of their friendship their bus rides to and from school had been. But now that Hannah lived on the other side of town, those moments at the beginning and end of each day were a thing of the past.

In addition to the fact that Hannah hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk to Paisley about the mysterious scratching sound even if she had wanted to, she was still reluctant to open up to her friend. Hannah was pretty sure Paisley would believe her, but there was a small sliver of doubt. What if Paisley accused her of making it all up? That would have been too much for Hannah to bear, so she figured it was safer to keep quiet.

The one bright point in Hannah’s life was that Madison left her alone for the most part, especially on the bus to and from school. In fact, Madison seemed to have a glazed look in her eyes each morning, as though she wasn’t getting much sleep either.

After school on Wednesday, Hannah was in her room, trying to study for a biology test, when she fell asleep at her desk. She woke when a sheet of paper brushed against her face. Hannah shook her head groggily and looked around the room to see sheets
of biology notes and her English essay whipping around the room as though a hurricane was passing through. Hannah looked up to find the ceiling fan spinning at top speed. She jumped up and pulled the cord dangling from the fan to turn it off. Then she gathered up her science notes and the pages of her English essay and stacked them neatly on her desk with a sigh. Just when she thought she and Madison had come to some sort of truce, her stepsister had struck again.

That night at dinner, Allison and Mr. Malloy were busy discussing the contractors while Hannah and Madison ate their vegetable stir-fry in silence.

“They’re almost done with the walls, so we can pick out paint this weekend, Dan,” Allison said eagerly as she passed Hannah the brown rice.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Hannah’s dad agreed through a mouthful of rice and veggies.

Madison wrinkled her nose. “I hope you’re not going to start painting this weekend, Mom,” she said. “You know I’m having friends over on Saturday, and Alexis has really bad allergies. She can’t be around dust or paint.”

Seriously?
Hannah thought.
Who’s allergic to paint?

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Allison said. “Dan and I have plenty of other things to do on Saturday, so we’ll leave the painting for later.”

“What about you, Hannah?” Mr. Malloy asked. “Do you have plans this weekend?”

“Um …” Hannah hesitated. She didn’t have plans yet, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a friend over, too. “Paisley might sleep over on Friday,” she said without thinking.

“That sounds nice,” Allison said. “Dan, I’ve heard it’s supposed to be warm again on Friday. Remind me to talk to the contractors about fixing the wiring on the ceiling fans. Maybe I can get them to do it tomorrow so the fans are working when Hannah and Madison have their friends over.”

“That’s a good idea, especially since we just took out all the window air-conditioners last weekend,” Mr. Malloy agreed.

Hannah had been only half-listening, but suddenly she was all ears.

“Did you say the fans
haven’t
been fixed yet?” Hannah asked.

“Yes, why?” Allison replied.

“Well, my fan’s already working,” Hannah said, giving Madison a hard look as she did. But Madison
didn’t flinch. In fact, Hannah was impressed at how clueless she appeared.

Allison set down her fork. “But that’s not possible, Hannah,” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. “The fans in this house have been broken since I moved in nine years ago. They haven’t worked in almost a decade.”

Hannah looked at her dad in alarm. He gave her a look that she couldn’t quite place. Then Hannah suddenly realized why. She hadn’t seen that look in years. It was the one he used whenever he had been certain that Hannah was lying when she was a little girl.

He thinks I’m making it up!
Hannah thought. Her heart sank as she realized he probably thought she had made up the stories about the paper bag and the shadow on the front porch, too. Hannah realized she was probably right to not tell Paisley every thing that had been going on — if even her dad thought she was lying about it, her best friend would probably think so, too.

“Dad, I promise you, the fan in my room was working before dinner,” Hannah said, desperate for him to believe her. “Why would I lie about that?”

“I don’t know, Hannah,” he said, looking unsure. “I don’t think you would, but you’ve always had a
very active imagination. And I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately with the move….”

He trailed off.

Ask Madison!
Hannah wanted to shout.
She’s the one who turned on the fan!
But Hannah took one look at Madison and suddenly knew that the other girl didn’t have a clue what was going on. She looked almost as confused as Hannah’s dad.

“Just forget it,” Hannah said bitterly as she stood up from the table. “I must have imagined it.”

Hannah headed up to her room feeling more alone than she ever had in her entire life. She pulled the cord on the ceiling fan, hoping it would work, but it didn’t. Then she threw herself facedown on her bed and began to cry into her pillow. She knew if Madison walked in she would never hear the end of it, but at that moment she didn’t care.

That night, Hannah fell asleep fully dressed, her face buried in her damp pillow. She was so exhausted from crying that she slept through the night without waking once.

The next morning, Hannah was surprised to find that she actually felt a bit better. The full night of
sleep seemed to have done wonders, so she tried hard not to focus on what had helped her sleep so well.

In homeroom, Paisley had to study for a vocabulary quiz because she’d run out of time the night before, thanks to her back-to-back clarinet lesson and soccer practice. Hannah left her alone to study until just before the bell was going to ring.

“Hey, Paisley?” Hannah asked hopefully. “I was wondering if you want to sleep over tomorrow night. We can watch old movies and make caramel popcorn — your favorites.”

“Oh, Hannah, I can’t,” Paisley said distractedly as she closed her vocabulary notebook and slipped it into her backpack. “Indira from soccer is having the entire team over for a spaghetti dinner since we have a big tournament on Saturday. I’m so sorry. Maybe next weekend?”

“Sure,” Hannah mumbled, doubtful that Paisley’s schedule would be any less busy the following weekend. A second later, the bell rang, and Paisley was gone.

The only thing Hannah was looking forward to for the rest of the day was her guitar lesson. But when she got to the music store after school, she
found a hastily written note taped to the door of Mr. G.’s studio. It read:

DEAR STUDENTS:

WAS STRUCK WITH FOOD POISONING AND HAVE TO CANCEL ALL LESSONS THIS AFTERNOON. MY APOLOGIES FOR THE LATE NOTICE. FREE LESSON NEXT WEEK TO MAKE UP FOR IT.

— MR. G.

Hannah felt bad for Mr. G., but she was also annoyed. Why couldn’t he have been more careful about what he ate? She had been looking forward to her lesson all week.

Hannah texted her dad and told him the lesson had been canceled and that she would just walk home since she had the extra time. She didn’t really want to see her dad, anyway; she was still upset with him for not believing her about the ceiling fan.

Most of Hannah’s walk home from the music store was on residential streets and along the occasional commercial strip packed with pizza shops, dry cleaners, and nail salons. But Hannah had forgotten that the last part of the walk was along a long stretch of road that bordered the cemetery. Even
though the weather had been super warm lately, it
was
October, and the days were getting noticeably shorter. By the time Hannah got to the cemetery part of the walk, the sun had slipped behind the trees, and the sky had turned a deep, dark blue just barely tinged with pink.

Hannah started up the road quickly, glancing nervously over her shoulder to see if there was anyone else around. The sidewalk and street were both completely empty. There was the occasional
swish
of a car passing by, but other than that, Hannah was completely alone.

The edge of the cemetery was thick with trees, and the leaves cast wild shadows on the sidewalk and on the road in front of Hannah, making her uneasy. It was almost as if the branches were claws that were about to lean over the cemetery fence and pluck her from the sidewalk like a stuffed toy in an arcade game.

It didn’t help that some of the leaves had already fallen from the trees, leaving a light coating on the sidewalk. They crackled and crunched under Hannah’s boots, piercing the quiet and adding to the creepy scene.

Hannah’s heart was beating hard and fast as she walked, and she could hear it pounding in her ears.

The strap on her guitar case dug into her shoulder painfully, but she didn’t dare stop to readjust it. She was afraid that pausing even for a second would be an invitation to some ghost or shadow in the cemetery to step out in front of her to say hello.

Hannah could just see the street sign for her block up ahead in the gathering gloom. It was less than thirty feet away. She breathed a sigh of relief and quickened her pace.

Then suddenly, she heard a loud crack behind her, followed by what sounded like footsteps.

Hannah didn’t even turn to look — she just broke into a run. When she finally reached the house, she dropped her guitar case with a thud and threw herself into the porch swing with relief, her heart racing and her breathing heavy. Hannah looked down at her hands to see that they were shaking.

Now that she had made it home and was sitting on the peaceful front porch among Allison’s pretty flower boxes, Hannah felt silly about her hysterical dash up the street. Still, she
had
heard something behind her. Or had she imagined it? Hannah wasn’t even sure she could trust herself anymore.

On Saturday morning, Hannah woke to bright sunshine streaming through her window. The scratching sound hadn’t woken her for two nights in a row, and the good weather and the fact that it was Saturday filled Hannah with a burst of unexpected optimism.
Maybe the strange noises are gone for good
, she thought hopefully.

Hannah headed downstairs for breakfast. Her dad was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal and reading the newspaper. Hannah helped herself to a bowl and a spoon and joined him at the table. She poured herself some Cheerios and looked at her dad.

“So, what are you up to today?” Hannah ventured. Her good mood made her eager to forgive him
for not believing her the other night. At this point, she wasn’t even sure herself whether she had imagined the working ceiling fan or not. “Want to go for a hike?”

Her dad put down his paper. “Oh, Hannah, I wish I could, but I promised Allison we’d go to Home Depot to pick out paint colors for the bedroom and the office today.”

“Oh,” Hannah said softly. She was disappointed, and her first instinct was to mope about it like she had been doing for the past two weeks. But then something inside Hannah shifted. Suddenly, she didn’t want to feel sorry for herself anymore.

I will
not
mope around on a beautiful, sunny Saturday
, she thought. She was tired of waiting around for Paisley and her dad to make room in their schedules for her. Today, she was going to do whatever she wanted to do, even if she had to do it alone.

“You don’t want to hang out with your boring old dad, anyway, do you?” Hannah’s dad asked with a goofy wink. “Didn’t Madison say something about having some girlfriends over today? I’m sure you’d much rather do manis and pennies with the girls than go for a hike with your dear old dad.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “It’s manis and
pedis
, Dad,” she corrected him. Suddenly feeling bold, she continued, “And I don’t think Madison would really want me hanging out with her and her friends. In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t exactly get along.”

Hannah’s dad looked up at her, a startled expression on his face.

“Er, no, I didn’t realize that,” he said. Hannah thought he looked extremely uncomfortable. “But I’m sure it’s just an adjustment period you girls are going through. I’ll bet by Thanksgiving, you’ll be great friends!”

He patted her on the hand awkwardly.

“Sure, Dad,” Hannah replied, her urge to express her true feelings evaporating as quickly as it had come on. What was the point if her dad wasn’t even going to try to understand? “Whatever you say.”

Hannah stood up from the table, put her empty cereal bowl in the sink, and headed back upstairs to her room.

Half an hour later, Hannah had a plan. She definitely didn’t want to hang out around the house all day, where she would be likely to run into Madison and
her friends. So she packed a lunch, her guitar, a fleece blanket, and a book, and she headed out to the backyard. Her cozy little arbor in the cemetery would be the perfect spot to read, play a few songs, and relax.

Hannah was halfway across the yard, heading toward the gate to the cemetery, when, out of the blue, Madison appeared in front of her, blocking her path.

“What the —” Hannah gasped as she stumbled backward, almost dropping her guitar. “Where did you come from?”

“Right over there. I was watching.” Madison gestured to the lawn behind her, where three lounge chairs were set up in a circle in the sun, a pile of magazines and a jumble of nail polish bottles lying in the grass between the chairs. Madison crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Hannah menacingly.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Madison demanded.

Hannah took a step back instinctively. But then another wave of self-confidence washed over her.

“That’s none of your business,” Hannah snapped back. “Now if you don’t mind —” She gestured for
Madison to move out of the way so she could pass. Madison looked taken aback that Hannah had actually stood up to her, but it didn’t take her long to recover.

“Actually, I
do
mind.” Madison narrowed her eyes at Hannah. “Because it looks to me like you’re headed for the cemetery, and that is
not
okay with me.”

Madison stabbed Hannah in the chest with her index finger. “I
told
you to keep a low profile about that,” Madison hissed. “I have friends coming over, and if they see my freaky stepsister running around between the tombstones, it’s not going to look good for me.”

Madison flipped her blond hair over her shoulder. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to even get my friends to agree to come over here today? They hate the idea of hanging out at my house, but I finally convinced them the cemetery is no big deal. And I’m not going to let
you
ruin every thing!”

Now it was Hannah’s turn to glare at Madison. She couldn’t believe that she had been scared of her before — Madison was just an insecure bully!

“Well, what better way to prove to your friends that the cemetery is harmless than for them to see me hanging out around it?” Hannah asked innocently.

“Harmless?” Madison was aghast. “It’s a cemetery! There are bats that fly around at night, and crumbling old tombstones, and mangy stray dogs and cats that live there.” She lowered her voice and paused dramatically. “And there are
ghosts
. Bad ones.”

Even though it was warm in the sun, Hannah shivered.

“You do know about the ghost cat, right?” Madison asked.

Hannah nodded mutely. Just when she had convinced herself the scratching sounds and the weird things that had been happening had been in her imagination, she had to listen to yet another cemetery ghost story.

“Well, they say that little girl died because her cat lured her to her death,” Madison said, her voice barely a whisper. “And people around here have seen the shadow of a black cat in the cemetery. Anyone who follows the shadow is led to their death. When I was eight, there was this little boy, Jeffrey, who lived down the block. One day he wandered into the cemetery alone and got lost in the woods for three days. When they finally found him, he was so dehydrated he almost died. After a few weeks in the hospital, he
pulled through, but his family left Sleepy Hollow and never came back. Jeffrey had told his parents that he was following a black cat when he got lost.”

Hannah gasped in spite of herself. Could it be true? This version of the story was a lot creepier than the one Paisley had told her.

Madison had a smug, satisfied look on her face.

Hannah was just about to reconsider her plan for the day when she suddenly realized what was going on: Madison was just trying to scare her away from the cemetery for her own purposes. She was probably making up the whole thing about Jeffrey.

Just like earlier, something inside Hannah shifted. She was suddenly angry. Madison had done nothing but make Hannah’s life miserable since she’d moved in, and now that Hannah was trying to escape — to a cemetery, of all places! — Madison was trying to stop her from doing that, too.

“Well, you can believe whatever you want, but I
like
the cemetery,” Hannah challenged. Her words were punctuated by a burst of drilling noises from the house, indicating that the contractors had started their work for the day. “It’s peaceful, quiet, and
relaxing
there. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a ghost.”

Madison’s mouth dropped open in shock, and the look on her face was one Hannah would remember for a long time. Hannah felt another surge of confidence rush through her as she strode past Madison, her head high, and headed for the cemetery gate.

“Suit yourself,” Madison shouted after her. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

With Madison and the noisy house finally behind her, Hannah smiled. She headed straight for the cozy little arbor and found it had been undisturbed since her last visit.

Hannah used the blanket to make a cushion on the stone bench, and then settled in to read her book. After just a few chapters, the warm sun caused her to drift off to sleep. In her dream, Hannah stumbled through her mom’s house, searching desperately for Icky. She felt a rising panic in her chest as she followed the crying sound from room to room. But every time Hannah got close to Icky, the crying stopped and began again a few seconds later, but from somewhere else.

Just as she was looking for her cat in another room, Hannah woke with a start. Her book slipped off her lap and crashed to the ground. As she leaned
down to pick it up, she heard a soft meow behind her. Hannah jumped up and whirled around. Had she really just heard a meow, or had it been part of her dream?

Sure enough, there was another soft meow, and it definitely sounded like it was coming from the other side of the bench. Hannah pinched her arm hard to make sure she was awake. It sounded just like Icky had in her dream! Could he have made it all the way across town to the cemetery?

Hannah leaped up and moved instinctively toward the sound. She took a few steps forward and then stopped to listen. The meow came again, but it sounded even farther away and in the opposite direction. She took off after it.

Hannah continued to follow the sound to the edge of the cemetery and into the surrounding trees. Every time she thought she was getting closer to the cat, though, the meowing shifted and moved farther away.

And then she saw it — a shadowy black tail with what looked like a white patch on the tip.

“Icky!” Hannah cried. She dashed after the shadow, but her toe caught on the gnarled root of a
nearby tree. Hannah tumbled forward and landed hard, scraping her palms and skinning her knee against the rough tree root.

Hannah winced in pain as she stood up and brushed off her clothes. She wasn’t badly hurt, but she felt silly for chasing after a cat that had probably been just one of the cemetery strays. She turned to head back to her little arbor, but she didn’t see tombstones anywhere. All she saw around her were trees.

That’s when it hit her.

She was alone in the woods. Alone and completely lost.