Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia

Author:Francesca Zappia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

16

On the morning of the homecoming parade, town center bloomed with mums and falling leaves, and streamers striped the lampposts lining the parade route. Locals and tourists alike filled the streets. The day was a sunny sixty-five degrees; smells of hot dogs, tacos, kebabs, and funnel cakes wafted down the street. Parents brought folding chairs, and games for their children to play while they waited; others found seats on the curb or the stoops of the shops along Valleywine. Even the ghosts had their spots, as if the people who had come to watch had subconsciously made space for the dead they couldn’t see. There were far fewer ghosts than in previous years, and they hung around the buildings as if they meant to flee at a moment’s notice.

I’d only come to be seen. It was way more suspicious if someone didn’t come to the parade, no matter who they were. Better to stay out in the open so everyone could keep an eye on me. I planted myself on a picnic bench outside town hall. Above me four American flags hung along the face of town hall, framing the town seal showing a covered bridge adorned with the words ADDAMSVILLE, IN; EST. 1865.

Mom’s shoebox was tucked underneath Sadie’s bed, where Dad wouldn’t go looking for it. I’d spent the rest of last night, long after Sadie claimed a headache and finally turned in, sorting through her photos and her notes, unable to put them down. The notes were a mess of code, even knowing that she was writing about ghosts and firestarters. She had kept track of routines and habits, likely spots for entrances to appear, the best ways to lay traps for firestarters that had already possessed humans, to get rid of them without anyone thinking she was a murderer.

Her pictures at least had an order to them. A sense of what she was looking for. Bach and Forester were part of it. She’d been looking for Bach’s entrance for a long time, but her map drew so many lines between the spot where she’d disappeared, Grimshaw House, Forester House, and the Firestarter Murder sites, she must have also thought it had something to do with her and Aunt Greta.

The only evidence I took out of the house was the photo of Mom and Aunt Greta. It rested snugly in the inner pocket of my jacket. They had been normal girls once, and something had changed them.

Artemis found me twenty minutes before the parade began, carrying two funnel cakes and a cherry slushy.

“Here.” She handed over one funnel cake and took a seat beside me. I scooted over to give her more room. “What’s that stare for?”

“How did you know I like funnel cakes?”

“You always walk around with one at the parade.”

“I didn’t know you paid attention to me.”

“You’re kind of hard to miss.”

That was fair. And maybe also insulting. But fair.

“I didn’t figure anything else out from the box,” I said. “Still trying to decipher it.”

“It was a huge find,” Artemis said quietly.

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