The Haunted by Danielle Vega

Author:Danielle Vega
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

17

Hendricks was slumped in a plastic waiting room chair, her knee bouncing anxiously. She looked up when the doors to the intensive care wing whooshed open and her parents stumbled out.

“He’s okay.” Her mom pulled Hendricks to her feet and folded her into a bone-crushing hug. “The doctor said he broke his leg badly when he fell, and that he’ll need to be in a spica cast for six weeks.”

Her dad closed his eyes for a beat, breathing hard. “Because he’s so young, the doctors want to keep him at the hospital for a couple of days to make sure his leg sets properly. But he’s okay.”

He’s okay. For a moment, Hendricks leaned into her mother’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar floral and fruit scent of her perfume. But then she remembered how terrified Brady had looked when he was lying on the floor back home. The way tears had filled his eyes as he’d reached for her. Ha-ha.

Brady might be okay, but all of this was still her fault. If she’d only gone to his room when she first heard the laughter, none of this would have happened.

Hendricks sucked in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry,” she said carefully. “I should have been with him, I should have been watching him—”

“Honey, it’s not your fault,” her mother said. “This kind of thing happens with toddlers.”

Hendricks’s throat felt thick. “You don’t understand,” she said quickly. “Brady didn’t climb out of his crib. There was something in the room with him, something like a . . .”

She stopped talking, her mouth suddenly dry. How was she supposed to tell her parents that a ghost hurt Brady?

Her mom frowned. “Something like what?”

“Something,” Hendricks said, more insistently this time. Her cheeks were burning. She didn’t want to say it out loud, but she needed them to understand. There was something wrong with that house. They couldn’t go back there. “It was something not . . . not normal.”

Her mother was studying her now, a strange expression on her face. “Honey, you aren’t making sense.”

“Did an animal get into his room?” her dad added, scratching his chin. “That damn window. Didn’t I say I was having a problem getting it to stay latched?”

“It wasn’t an animal. It was a thing. I think . . . I think it was a ghost.”

Her parents exchanged a loaded look. Hendricks could see immediately that they didn’t believe her.

“Haven’t you heard about that little girl that died?” she rushed to add. “There’s something really wrong with that house. Something bad.”

Her mother pinched her nose between two fingers, like she felt a migraine coming on. “It’s just an old house. I know it’s creaky and drafty, but—”

“You guys aren’t listening to me.” Hendricks was vaguely aware that her voice was getting louder. A few of the nurses on the other side of the room looked up and were frowning slightly in her direction. Fast, before she could lose her nerve, she said, “I’m telling you I saw something in Brady’s room.

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