The ghost of drowned mea.., p.3
The Ghost of Drowned Meadow, page 3
She was on volume three of My Secret Dream of a Boring Life. This was the volume where the story got more serious. At the end of volume two, Zophia revealed that she was not human, and she was relieved that Kosuke and the others still accepted her.
Zophia did not, however, tell them that she was the dread Night Queen who had conquered their realm. That didn’t happen until volume three, when one of her generals, Tsuki the Moon Swordsman, showed up with terrible news. While she was fooling around with humans, two of her other generals, Dym the Earthen Wizard and Piorun the Mysl Grandmaster, had conspired together and were now trying to seize the throne for themselves. Zophia had to make a choice. She could leave behind this new life she’d made with Kosuke and the other humans to defend her throne, or she could remain happily where she was and let the generals take the kingdom.
But of course it wasn’t that simple. Zophia knew that if Dym and Piorun took power, they’d want to enslave all the humans, including Kosuke and the other friends she’d made. So she decided to give up her beautiful boring life so that she could protect the people she cared about. That meant it was time for war, and for the true power of the Night Queen to emerge …
TAP
“Absolutely not.”
Morgan quickly leaned over and slammed the window shut.
That obnoxious dripping would not work on her this time. And what about the crying she’d heard last night? She’d half convinced herself she’d imagined it, but what if it had been Joel that whole time, laying the groundwork for his ghost trolling? The dripping had been one thing, but how else could she explain the crying? Joel had seemed like a nice guy, but the girls had called him a creepy weirdo. Maybe it was because he was one of those horrible boys who enjoyed pranking people. What if he’d been sitting outside her window the last few nights messing with her and laughing to himself?
The idea made her so mad that she couldn’t get to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, she gave up and decided a late-night snack might soothe her.
But when she got down to the kitchen, nothing was really calling out to her. She stared into the open fridge, trying to decide if there was anything that might make her feel better. Cheese stick? Orange? None of it grabbed her.
TAP
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. The kitchen suddenly felt colder than any open fridge could make it.
TAP
She slowly turned and saw the kitchen faucet dripping. It had never done that before.
TAP
But that wasn’t so crazy, right? Faucets dripped. Of course they did. Someone probably hadn’t completely shut it off. Maybe even her. She’d been pretty distracted when she’d been rinsing the dishes after dinner.
TAP
She stepped over and yanked hard on the handle.
TAP
It didn’t work.
She jiggled it, thinking that might fix it somehow. Instead a big spurt of water came out. But it wasn’t regular sink water. It was dark and cloudy, and there was a thread of slimy green seaweed in it. As if it was …
“Seawater,” she whispered.
She watched it swirl down the drain. Once it was gone, she reached out to turn the faucet on again, but hesitated. What if it was more seawater? What did that mean? How was it even possible?
“You still up, honey?”
Her dad stood behind her, holding the empty popcorn bowl from earlier.
“Uh, yeah,” she said.
He gave her a quizzical look.
“You okay?”
“Sure.”
She stepped away and watched intently as he rinsed out the bowl. This time it was totally normal, clear sink water. And when he turned it off, it stayed off. No drip. Everything was fine.
So why didn’t she feel better?
Seawater coming out of a faucet did not prove the existence of ghosts. Morgan knew that. But the ocean followed her into dreams. That night she woke up three times from a nightmare about drowning. Each time, she came awake gasping, her lungs burning as though she’d been holding her breath while she was asleep.
The next day, Sunday, Morgan’s father was still on deadline, but her mother didn’t have to go into the city for work, so she decided it was time to finally finish unpacking. With Morgan’s help, of course.
They’d been in the house for over a month, and all the essentials had been put in their proper places. But there was holiday stuff, old paper files, and little decorative knickknacks all still in boxes.
They took care of the knickknacks first. These were little things like framed pictures and tchotchkes that needed to be placed strategically on bookshelves and hung on walls. Even though Morgan’s father didn’t draw superhero comics, he still loved them, so there were a lot of collectibles that needed homes. Morgan’s mom had a weird thing for foxes, so there were lots of fox figurines that needed to be placed too. And with this big house, there were so many more options. Sadly there were no Night Queen decorations because it wasn’t mainstream enough yet for toys or models. Maybe once the anime came out, there would be some.
Thinking of the anime made Morgan think of Joel, which then made her mad. It sucked that the first anime fan she’d found on Long Island was a creepy weirdo. Well, she wouldn’t let him spoil it, or anything for that matter. In fact, now that she’d placed her father’s prized Sandman figure on the mantel and her mother’s nine-tailed fox statue in the stairwell, this place was starting to feel less like some spooky haunted house and more like her home. So it had some weird plumbing issues. Nowhere was perfect.
Sadly the fun unpacking was over pretty quickly. Then there was just the stuff that needed to be crammed into the attic crawl space. And since it was so cramped, it was Morgan’s job to climb up there and organize it all. This was the not-fun part.
The crawl space was accessed from a narrow, rickety ladder that dropped down from the ceiling in the upstairs hallway. There were no lights or windows up there. It wasn’t insulated, so bits of sunlight shone through cracks in the roof, but she still needed a flashlight. It was hot and stuffy and so dusty that she could feel her throat drying out with each breath.
The ceiling in the crawl space was high enough for her to sit up, but not to stand. Her mother shoved boxes up one at a time, and Morgan slid them around, trying to find the best way to fit everything while keeping it all more or less organized. And of course she had to maintain a central aisle so she would be able to reach the stuff in the back at some point in the future.
It didn’t take all that long, but she was sweaty, gross, and miserable by the end. Morgan’s eyes itched from the dust, and she’d torn her sock on a nail that stuck out of the rough floorboards. Then, worst of all, just as she shoved the last box into place, she got a splinter in her knee.
It wasn’t in too deep. She was able to get most of it out with her fingers, but it still hurt. She glared at the offending board that dared injure her and noticed it was a slightly different color from the rest. In fact, when she focused the flashlight and looked closer, she saw that it seemed to be loose.
Careful not to get any more splinters, she lifted it up, and was surprised and delighted to find a hidden space underneath. A secret space. And inside was an ancient-looking leather satchel.
Was this possibly the coolest thing that had ever happened to her? Maybe so. What was in the satchel? A treasure map? A lost work of art or manuscript? Maybe just a bunch of really old money? Anything seemed plausible and she was ready for it.
She carefully lifted the satchel and placed it on her lap. She brushed away the thick layer of dust, then opened it up. Inside were two things: an old, yellowed newspaper clipping and a child-sized uniform.
The newspaper clipping was dated August 1, 1937. The headline read:
LOCAL BOY BELIEVED DROWNED
At approximately eight o’clock in the morning, the remains of a small sailboat washed ashore in East Setauket. The vessel originated at Port Jefferson and after an extensive investigation, police determined that it was likely stolen by twelve-year-old Joseph Klaus, who had run away from his summer camp in Yaphank two days before. Authorities believe he may have been trying to reach his home on the other side of the harbor, but was caught in the recent storm and drowned. No body has been recovered.
There was more to the article, but that was all Morgan needed to read. This was the boy Joel had been talking about. The boy who died. The story was heartbreaking and distressing, but at least he hadn’t died in the house. That was something.
Next she examined the child-sized uniform.
There was a tan button-down shirt, dark shorts …
And a red armband with a Nazi swastika.
Morgan stared down at the Nazi swastika for a long time. Long enough for her mother to call up to her in a concerned voice. Rather than reply immediately, Morgan tucked the newspaper clipping and the uniform under her arm, and climbed down the ladder.
She held them out to her mother and said in a quiet voice, “I found these.”
Morgan’s mother was normally so calm and collected, but when she saw the Nazi swastika, she gasped and physically recoiled from it. After a moment, she composed herself and took the bundle from Morgan.
“Sweetie, let’s have a chat.”
A few minutes later, they were sitting at the kitchen table, Morgan with her seltzer, and her mom with a cup of chai. Morgan didn’t like chai, but she did like how it smelled. The distinct blend of cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger that drifted up from her mother’s I’M THE BOSS mug reminded her of the cozy comfort of their old Brooklyn apartment.
“Morgan,” her mother said. “You know that the Nazis weren’t just villains in a Captain America movie, right? They were real.”
“I know that,” said Morgan. “The Nazis were the bad guys we fought in World War Two.”
“And you know the Nazis did more than just try to conquer Europe. They also tried to exterminate all the Jewish people in the world, as well as gay people and Roma people.”
“The Holocaust, right? We learned about that in school. But the Nazis were in Germany. So why is there a Nazi uniform here?”
“I’m sad to say, there were some Americans who agreed with the Nazis.”
“How is that even possible?” asked Morgan.
“I don’t know,” her mom admitted. “Even now, there are people who try to claim that the Nazis weren’t as bad as everyone made them out to be, and that the Holocaust wasn’t real.”
“But don’t we have pictures of it all?”
“We have lots of evidence,” said her mother. “Photographs, film, documents, personal testimony from victims, and even confessions from former Nazis.”
“So how can people say it wasn’t true?” asked Morgan.
“I wish I knew,” said her mother.
Morgan looked down at the folded uniform that lay on the table between them. Some kid back in the 1930s had worn this. Had that kid really wanted all those people to be killed?
“What do we do with it?” she asked.
“I’m going to see if there’s a local museum or historical society that wants it,” said her mother.
“You think it should be in a museum exhibit?” asked Morgan.
Her mother’s brown eyes were piercing. “Humanity can never forget what the Nazis did, and we can never let it happen again.”
Morgan felt uneasy the rest of the day, and that night decided to read in the living room rather than her bedroom. Just in case there would be more dripping and crying. Not that she really thought she was being haunted by a ghost Nazi boy or anything …
But once she went to bed, Morgan’s dreams were filled with Nazi soldiers. They chased her across a never-ending field. Then suddenly the ground beneath her vanished and she plunged into a deep ocean. Her arms and legs flailed helplessly as she tried to swim back to the surface, which was always just out of reach. Her lungs burned for air. She had to clamp down on the impulse to breathe, knowing she would only suck in the dark water that surrounded her. That was the scariest part of drowning—feeling your chest heave with the urge to breathe, even when you knew there was nothing but the cold vastness of the ocean all around you …
Morgan snapped awake, shivering and drenched in sweat. It was very early morning, still pretty dark.
She sat up in bed, feeling disoriented. The dream had seemed so real.
Then she felt something strange in her mouth. She fished around with her fingers until she pulled a slimy tendril of seaweed from between her lips.
She stared at the wet green strand uncomprehendingly as it dangled between her thumb and forefinger. Then she recalled the headline of that old newspaper clipping:
LOCAL BOY BELIEVED DROWNED
She rinsed her mouth out repeatedly with mouthwash. But afterward she thought she could still faintly taste the grit of seawater.
Zophia Zye, who came to be known as the Night Queen, didn’t start off as royalty. In fact, she and her family were peasants who lived in a rural oni village where people didn’t know how to read. When soldiers posted a sign warning the villagers that they needed to evacuate because of an imminent volcano eruption, none of them even realized they were in danger until it was too late. Zophia was the only person in the whole village who survived, and that was because her parents sacrificed themselves to get her to safety.
After Zophia realized what had happened—how easy it would have been to prevent the tragedy, if only they’d known—she sat down at a crossroads and wept. Then a mysterious being appeared and asked why she was crying. When she told him her sad story, he felt bad for her. He revealed that he was a god and said he would grant her one wish. She wished for the ability to read anything, in any language, no matter what, so she would never suffer the same terrible ignorance again.
When the mysterious god granted her wish, it was like Zophia saw the world in a completely new way. Some of it was good, and some of it was bad.
Morgan felt similarly, except it was pretty much all bad. The world around her, which only yesterday had seemed safe and normal, now felt like a darker, more dangerous place. Nazis in Long Island? It just didn’t make sense. Yet clearly it had been true, and according to her mother, it might even still be true. It was also getting harder and harder to convince herself that Joel had made up the idea that her house was haunted. In fact, it might be even worse than he’d said. It wasn’t merely a ghost—it was a Nazi ghost.
She was once more tempted to hide in her corner during lunch, but forced herself to sit with Hannah, Tressa, and Piper again. It was actually a little easier. Maybe because she really didn’t want to be alone.
The girls were talking about what a great time they’d had wakeboarding, and how Jake had totally been flirting with Piper the whole time. Morgan was barely paying attention though. She just stared at them and wondered if any of their families had been Nazis.
“How long have your families lived here?” she asked abruptly.
They all seemed a little thrown off by her question, which she supposed was understandable.
“Why?” asked Tressa.
“Oh, uh …” Morgan decided that straight up asking them if their ancestors had been Nazis was not a great way to make friends. “Just curious. You all seem like you’ve known each other forever.”
“The three of us basically grew up together,” said Tressa. “My parents moved here from Jersey when I was a baby.”
“What about you two?” Morgan asked, trying to make the question seem more casual than it actually felt. “Did your parents move here when you were babies?”
“Hmm.” Piper’s pale face frowned. “No, my parents grew up here too. I think it was my grandparents who moved here from Ohio. I still have relatives in Cleveland, but we don’t see them very much.”
“Ha, I have you both beat,” said Hannah, ever competitive. “I know for a fact that my great-grandpa moved here when he was little, like, forever ago.”
Morgan tried to think about her own great-grandparents. The last one had died when she was only five so she didn’t really remember them. But her parents and grandparents talked about them, and she was pretty sure at least one of her great-grandfathers had been in World War II. That meant Hannah’s family had probably been in Port Jefferson back when Joseph Klaus drowned. And Hannah’s last name was Meyer, which Morgan was pretty sure was German. In theory, they could have been Nazis …
“Whoa, what’s up, new girl?” asked Tressa. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Morgan laughed nervously. “Yeah. I mean, supposedly I live in a haunted house, so …” She shrugged, trying to play it off.
But all three of them looked at her with wide eyes.
“Wait, that’s you?” asked Tressa.
“Oh, wow, that’s super scary,” Piper said sympathetically.
“So not only do you live down the street from a creepy weirdo, you also live in the neighborhood haunted house?” asked Hannah. “You really lucked out, new girl.”
Morgan felt her heart sink. There went her last shred of hope that Joel had made it all up. “You’ve … all heard about it?”
“Of course,” said Tressa. “Anybody who grew up around here can tell you about the haunted house.”
“Yeah, Tress, you remember when we were little kids?” asked Hannah. “We would hold our breath when we walked past the house because we were afraid the ghost would possess us or something.”
“R-Really?” asked Morgan.
“I heard somebody finally moved in, but I didn’t realize that was you.” Tressa looked truly concerned. “Wow …”
“Seriously,” said Hannah.
“Stop it, you guys,” said Piper. “You’re really freaking her out.”
“Nah,” lied Morgan, trying desperately to act cool. “It’s not like I really believe in, like, ghost Nazis or anything.”
“Ghost what now?” asked Tressa.
All three looked confused. Why had Morgan brought up the Nazi part?
“The boy who died …” she mumbled awkwardly. “He was like a Nazi or something …”
