It found us, p.17
It Found Us, page 17
Just then, the last of the rain stops and the thunder dies down, leaving us in an eerie quiet. Normally I like the quiet. It gives me a chance to think and to brainstorm whatever case I’m working on. Not today though. Today the quiet is unsettling. Scary.
“I’m sorry.”
A cold chill slides up my spine. I know that voice. I slowly look up into my brother’s eyes. They’re flat. Lifeless. They look exactly the way they did in my room when Den drew the smiley face on the wall. Even worse, the smile is back. The horrible, vengeful smile.
It’s happening again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A blast of adrenaline works through me. My brother being possessed is not one of my favorite experiences, but that doesn’t matter. It’s our big break, our chance to talk directly to Smiley and fix this once and for all.
“Hey,” I say softly, standing up to face Den. His face is slack and emotionless.
Maggie huddles next to Mrs. Forster. “Hazel? What’s happening?”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Just stay calm.”
I put both palms out toward my brother as if I were facing a feral animal. “Stay calm,” I say again. Not that it matters. The person in front of me looks like Den, but I know better. I’m talking to a stranger. “Can I have the article, Mrs. Forster?”
Mrs. Forster’s gaze bounces between me and Den. She nudges the frame into my hand. Like us, it’s drenched and covered with splatters of mud.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say quietly. Den’s eyes are still fixed on me, unblinking. Unseeing.
I say it again. “It wasn’t your fault.”
My brother opens his mouth. I expect him to say I’m sorry again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets out a bone-rattling howl.
Covering both ears, I sink down to my knees. A deep rumble starts up below our feet, building until cracks begin to form in the ground between the graves. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Maggie’s foot slips into one of the widening gaps. She loses her balance and tumbles to the muddy earth.
“Stop!” Maggie screams, using both hands to wrench her foot free from the chasm. “Den, please stop!”
I look back at my brother, hoping, begging the universe that he hears Maggie, and is strong enough to fight this.
He doesn’t.
His evil smile widening, Den lifts both arms up as if he’s conducting an orchestra. His eyes are dark now, pools of slate gray that remind me of clouds just before a storm. The wind slashes through the graveyard, making the trees around us tremble and quake. A nearby headstone splits in half. Then another.
“Girls! Over here!” Mrs. Forster waves at us from beneath a tree. Maggie and I grasp each other’s hands and run toward her, skidding to a stop when a loud crack rings through the air.
A limb. I watch in horror as it crashes down from the tree—the tree Mrs. Forster is standing under.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I didn’t even realize I could scream as loud as I’m screaming right now. Mrs. Forster’s body is hidden beneath a mess of splintered wood and leaves.
Maggie races to the pile and begins frantically digging. Her breath is coming out in shaky, scared hiccups. “Help me!”
“I can’t,” I yell through gritted teeth. I’m stuck to the ground, unable to move my feet as if they’ve been glued. Suddenly, Den is beside me. The sinister smile is gone, replaced with the same dead look he wore before.
This is your chance, Hazel Woods. Do. Not. Waste. It.
“You’ve been blaming yourself all these years,” I say in a shaky voice, reminding myself that the person inside of my brother right now isn’t evil. They’re sad and hurting. “I get it. But you didn’t cause anyone to die.”
Quivering, I hold out the article. Den’s eyes flick down to the black and white picture of the train wreck. The dead look falters for a moment. My brother’s eyebrows jump, then bunch together.
I point at the picture in the article. “There was a train wreck. The conductor of a different train fell asleep behind the wheel and”—I pause to breathe through my fear—“his train crashed into the back of yours and started a fire. It happened while you were playing hide-and-seek, so I can see how you’d think you caused it with the lanterns.”
I sneak a look over at Maggie. She’s not crying anymore, and Mrs. Forster is sitting up. Her lower half is still covered with the tree limb, and there’s blood on her forehead. She gives me a thumbs-up to let me know she’s okay.
Refocusing on my brother, I use my index finger to trace the title on the article. His eyes follow along with my finger. “I know you were the seeker that day. What you need to know is that your friends would have died even if you’d found them all right away. You couldn’t have saved them. No one could.”
I stop talking and wait for a reaction.
Den’s eyes fill with tears. He blinks them away and shakes his head as if he’s trying to fight the emotion.
“She’s telling the truth,” Maggie says loudly, her voice cracking midsentence. “It’s time to let go.”
“And let Everett go,” I add. “He’s our friend and keeping him won’t change what happened.”
My brother opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it again. He looks from me, to Maggie, and then to Mrs. Forster, who is now pulling herself onto shaky feet.
“Please,” I beg.
There’s a scuffling sound in the bushes nearby. My mind immediately clenches on the worst possible scenario. After all, this is my first investigation involving a ghost. Who knows what the spirit inside of my brother has up their sleeve. More ghosts? Another storm? Demon dogs? Anything is possible.
Before I can find a place to take cover, something large catapults out of the shrubbery. It unceremoniously hits the ground with a loud familiar grunt. I blink at it in shock.
No, not an it.
A he.
Everett!
He’s shivering and covered from head to toe in mud. His face is pale, his lids fluttering over barely open eyes as he rolls onto his back.
“Everett!” I turn to run, but Den’s hand shoots out and grabs my wrist.
“Thank you,” he whispers. Only it’s not my brother. It’s Smiley.
The gratitude in Smiley’s voice makes my heart ache. All these years. So much pain and blame and hurt. I can’t imagine how lonely it must’ve been.
I drop a hand onto Den’s and give a gentle squeeze. Tears sting the rims of my eyes. “You’re welcome. You can rest in peace now. No more blaming yourself.”
Maggie helps Mrs. Forster limp to Everett. Together they help him to his feet. He’s dazed and his lips are a frightening shade of gray, but he’s alive.
He’s alive.
My tears spill over. Never in a gazillion years did I expect an investigation to make me feel this way. This wasn’t just figuring out who toilet-papered someone’s house, or took a bike, or let their dog poop on a neighbor’s lawn. This was a kid’s life.
Actually, it was two kids’ lives. Everett and Smiley.
“Hazel?”
It’s Den. His face is twisted in confusion.
“Den? Is that you?” I ask. My hand is still on his.
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I could play a great prank on you right now.”
“Don’t. You. Dare.” I grin. “It worked. I can’t believe it, but it actually worked.”
Nodding, my brother looks down at Smiley’s grave. “I could tell. I felt different when the ghost left me this time. It wasn’t the same guilty feeling. It was good. Peaceful.” He draws in a shaky breath. “And Everett?”
I slide to the side, giving Den full view of the scene behind me. A hobbled Mrs. Forster, a tearstained Maggie, and a very, very alive Everett Michaels.
Den doesn’t waste any time. He sprints to his best friend and gives him the biggest bear hug I’ve ever seen.
And that was the moment I decided that if I ever get to record What Hazel Knows, it isn’t going to just be about mysteries. It’s going to be about people. There were a lot of things I didn’t know when I started looking for Everett. I didn’t know how great my parents are. I didn’t know that my brother doesn’t always have to be my enemy. I didn’t know that I can use my skills as an investigator for bigger, better things.
But most of all, I didn’t know how lucky I am. I might be a snoop, but I’m a snoop with a great life. A life Smiley didn’t get to have.
I’ll never forget that ever, ever again.
EPILOGUE
I tilt forward over the microphone and smile. This is my happy place. The recording studio I never thought I’d have, and the podcast I never thought would exist. Fortunately, after news broke that I helped find Everett Michaels, my parents reconsidered and helped me turn a corner of our basement into my own studio.
Of course, it helped that I’ve done some reconsidering of my own.
“Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of What We Know, a podcast dedicated to mysteries and the people at the heart of them. I’m your host, Hazel Woods. Today we’re here with a very special guest, a guest many of us thought we’d never see again. Would you like to introduce yourself?”
With a smile, Everett leans in toward his microphone. He looks so much healthier than the day we got him back from Smiley. His face isn’t so white, his lips have color, and he’s not shivering.
“Uh, hi. Yeah. I’m Everett Michaels. Otherwise known as ‘the boy who lived.’” He puts air quotes around that last part.
I laugh. “Pretty sure that’s not what anyone is calling you, but whatever.”
Everett snorts. “Fine. I made that up. But it’s true. There were times my parents thought I wasn’t going to live—you know, when I was away.”
He always says it this way. Den said that when Everett first came back, he didn’t remember anything about the time he was missing. Even though he was exhausted, hungry, and struggling to breathe through what would eventually become a full asthma attack, Everett thought they’d been playing hide-and-seek that whole time.
The only thing he knew for sure about being “away” was that he was sad. And once Smiley released him, that sadness went away.
“Can you tell us what it was like to find out that you’d been missing for two days?” I ask him.
Everett inhales, looks at the ceiling, then back to me. “I guess I thought it was a joke at first.”
“But you eventually realized it wasn’t. Then what?”
“Then I was freaked out. Anyone would be. My mom was so scared, and,” he goes quiet for a minute, his mouth turning down at the edges as he obviously remembers something. I want to ask him to spill it all, to tell me exactly what he’s thinking and feeling so my listeners get the full story. But something stops me. Maybe it’s the sadness lurking behind his expression, or the tone in Everett’s voice. “I just never want to see that look on her face again.”
I nod. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him be serious, and I’m pretty sure—no, I’m totally sure—this is a sign that Everett Michaels has changed. Yeah, he might still toilet-paper a house here and there, but like me, Everett learned something from those forty-eight hours. From Smiley.
Still, this feels private. And as much as I want my podcast to become popular, I don’t want to be the old Hazel to make that happen. The old Hazel would have pushed and pushed and pushed no matter who she upset or bothered. The old Hazel would have asked Everett questions that made him uncomfortable because the answers were all she cared about. The new Hazel, though, she realizes now that there are more important things in life than popular podcasts.
“Well, we’re happy that you’re back safe and sound,” I say, clearing the thickness from my throat. “And now for the big question…the question everyone is wondering about!”
He looks at me with cautious curiosity. “What’s that?”
“Now that you’re back, what are you going to eat for dinner?”
Everett bursts into laughter. “I’m still really hungry. I had tacos last night, but I might have them again. Is that wrong?”
“Tacos can never be wrong,” I answer with a laugh of my own.
“Thanks for the reassurance.” He looks down at the smiley face sticker on my new clue journal and nods. “And thank you. Thank you for finding me. For not giving up.”
I glance over to our old ratty couch where Den and Maggie are sitting quietly. They’re smiling, beaming at Everett’s choice of words. Thank you. Two tiny syllables that make such a huge difference.
“You’ve been listening to What We Know with special guest Everett Michaels. I’m your host, Hazel Woods. To everyone who cared enough about this story to listen, thank you.”
I click off my microphone and stop the recording, then let the feeling of peace wash over me.
I did it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As someone who loves history, especially forgotten or “lost” history, I could not resist writing a book that featured the Hagenbeck-Wallace train wreck of 1918. With eighty-six people killed, it was one of the deadliest train accidents in US history. Given that the train cars were filled with circus performers who dedicated their lives to making others smile, the disaster that unfolded that day is even harder to stomach.
The Hagenbeck-Wallace circus reportedly employed over 250 performers. Their reputation was so great that when they visited a town, it essentially became a holiday. In some cases, schools and businesses even closed. Can you imagine that type of excitement? It would have been magical in Hammond, Indiana, on June 22, 1918, except that tragedy struck.
Although many elements of this book have been fictionalized, the train wreck, the concept of roustabouts, and the existence of a mass grave in Showmen’s Rest were not. In a quiet section of Woodlawn Cemetery where fifty-six people are interred, stone elephants with downturned trunks permanently mourn the loss of life. While we don’t know much about who “Smiley” actually was, the nickname makes me think this was someone who was often smiling—someone who was joyful and brought joy to others. This is precisely why I chose that grave and history to focus on in It Found Us. I can’t give Smiley a name, but I can shed light on the story and the tragic day that brought an end to their life as well as the lives of so many others.
I did my very best to stay as accurate as possible regarding the known facts surrounding the Hagenbeck-Wallace disaster, however I did take some liberties when it came to the motivation and needs of our restless spirit, Smiley. Thank you so much to Annie Berger and the entire team at Sourcebooks Young Readers for supporting and championing me and my stories. Thank you to my agent, Shannon Hassan, for finding each of my books the perfect home. Thank you to my family for listening to every story idea, for reading the rough drafts, and for being positive in the moments when I’m not. And thank you to my dear author friends, who read and cheerlead in a way I’ll never be able to show my full appreciation for—Jenni Walsh, Jen Calonita…cheers to you!
If you’d like to do additional research on the Hagenbeck-Wallace train wreck, I’d recommend starting on the Showmen’s League of America website: www.showmensleague.org. This site features an entire section on Showmen’s Rest as well as a donation page where visitors who want to help support the upkeep of such a beautiful memorial can send money.
And finally, thank you all for reading Hazel and Smiley’s story. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsay Currie is the author of spooky middle grade novels, including The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street, Scritch Scratch, What Lives in the Woods, and The Girl in White. While she’s never experienced anything truly paranormal, Lindsay enjoys researching her city’s forgotten history and learning about the events that shaped the many ghost legends in Chicago. When she’s not reading or writing a mystery novel of her own, Lindsay can generally be found taking long walks with her family, chilling with one of her three dogs, or searching the graveyard for her next antagonist.
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Lindsay Currie, It Found Us
