Moonglass

that he’d just pull me in close to warm me up. We stood in front of a smattering of condemned cottages—all practically falling down, but each one unique. Behind the waist-high fence the state had put in, there was a boardwalk that now rolled and waved over sand and under the ice plant that had taken over. I wondered if the boardwalk had at one time spanned the length of the beach, but it didn’t seem likely.
    “Well ?” Tyler faced the cottages. “Which one?”
    I swept my eyes over the worn wood of each cottage and settled on one a few steps away. In front of it, half-buried, lay a small blue rowboat that looked like it had sunk into the sand.
    “That one.” I pointed. “It looks like a postcard.”
    “It is, in the general store. The Carter Cottage. It’s also been painted a million times or so. Originall choice.” He stared straight ahead at the Carter Cottage, and though I did too, I could feel him smiling.
    “Hey, you said it was my choice. That one looks the most …”
    “Friendly?” he finished.
    “Yeah. I dunno if it’s the fog or what, but they all look a little creepy right now.” He turned to face me and shrugged. “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want. It’s mainly spiderwebs and mouse crap, anyway.” I scrunched my nose. “But in a few you can find stuff that the people left behind when they had to leave.” automatically my eyes went way down the beach, to my mother’s cottage. “When did they leave again?” I asked casually.
    “The state gave them their first eviction notices back in the seventies, but they fought it until around fifteen years ago.” He kicked at the sand in front of him with his toes. “In these ones that haven’t been redone, there’s still a lot of their stuff. That’s what makes the cottages kind of creepy. This one’s that way.
    Has a story, too.”
    I was still looking down at the beach cottage. My mother’s cottage. The possibility of anything of hers still inside made me feel heavy and slow. I swallowed and forced myself to turn my eyes back to Tyler. When I did, he grinned and nudged me.
    “still in? If you get scared … you know, feel free to just grab on to me, and I’ll fight off the cottage ghosts.” He puffed up his chest in exaggerated toughness.
    He meant it as a joke, but it took everything I had to offer a smile.
    I stepped over a low point in the fence. “All right then. The Carter Cottage.”
    In the dark the smell of damp wood was the first thing I noticed. That, and that the floor felt like it was gonna give. Both were unsettling.
    Tyler grabbed my elbow lightly. “Watch your step. There’s holes all over the place.” He flicked on the flashlight. “There.” My eyes followed the beam of light as it circled the small room. He had been right about a few things. Cobwebs hung heavily from the ceiling corners and window frames, the wood floor was dotted everywhere with tiny brown pellets, and everything was still there—a sagging couch facing the ocean, a coffee table, shadowed picture frames on the walls. I didn’t move.
    “It’s darker in here than I thought it would be,” I said, looking back toward the cracked door.
    “All the shutters are closed up. These things are pretty dark even in the daytime.” He stepped past me, avoiding a broken floorboard. “This one is small.
    Living room right here, kitchen, bathroom, and one tiny bedroom. I think it must have been where the kids slept, because there’s still a set of bunk beds in there. Wanna see?”
    I thought of every horror movie I’d ever watched. The ones with kids in them were always the creepiest. I tried to stall. “How do you all of a sudden know so much about these places? And why’d you play dumb about them at the bonfire?”
    He led me through a narrow doorway. “Rookie hazing. Remember? We have to go through all the ones on the north side. Except that when we do it, there are dumb-ass old guards hiding everywhere, jumping out at you like idiots. James actually put his foot through the floor back there last summer.”
    We went into the tiny bedroom, which held the bunk beds and not much else. Tyler shined the light on their red metal frame. “What was your other question?”
    I rolled my eyes in the dark. “Why you played dumb at the bonfire,” I answered with feigned annoyance. Despite the overtly creepy atmosphere, I was starting to enjoy myself.
    “Oh, that . If I’d told you all about it then, you wouldn’t have gotten curious and