The Old Willis Place

me. I'm scared."
    I pulled away from her. "You have MacDuff. But Georgie's out there in the woods with no one but Nero."
    "Don't be mad," Lissa begged. "I'm sorry, Diana, I'm so sorry. I didn't know—I didn't mean—I—"
    I left her weeping on the couch, her arms around the dog. All I cared about was Georgie. I was his big sister. I had to keep him safe from Miss Lilian.
T HE D IARY OF L ISSA M ORRISON
Dear Dee Dee,
What happened today is almost too terrible to write about. My hand is still shaking so much I can hardly hold my pen. I did what I said I was going to do. I made Diana go inside the house with me. MacDuff wouldn't come with us. Diana didn't want to go in either—she said it was against the rules.
Oh, Dee Dee, I should have listened to Diana. She and MacDuff are both smarter than I am. What's wrong with me? Why do I do dumb things?
As soon as I stepped inside that house, I smelled a horrible stink—cat pee mostly, just disgusting—but did that stop me? Oh, no, I went in anyway. I just had to see what the house was like.
But it was more than that, Dee Dee. It was like something was making me go inside. It was kind of like a voice in my head saying, "Come in, come in."It wasn't just an invitation, Dee Dee, it was more like an order, and I had to do what it said. Hearing voices—it sounds crazy, but that's what it was like.
I hope nobody ever reads what I just wrote. They'd lock me up in a padded cell for sure. But it's true. There was a voice, and now I know it was Miss Willis. She wanted me to come in, she wanted me to open that door.
I was scared, but I didn't want Diana to know, so I said let's go upstairs. We went to Miss Willis's bedroom and I tried on her clothes and made fun of them. I even took one of her hats, a big one with flowers on it, really hideous, and then I made Diana go to the third floor. There was a big old piano up there, all covered with cobwebs. Diana freaked out when I started playing it. We actually had a fight, and then she started crying and I realized I was acting like a spoiled brat, making her do what I wanted when she was so totally worried about those rules—which turned out to be much more important than I ever dreamed.
So I told her I was sorry and we started to leave, but at the bottom of the steps the voice in my head started up again. There I was, right in front of the parlor door, and I knew that was the room where she died, and the voice kept telling me to open the door.
So I grabbed the knob. Diana tried to stop me, but it was like something had ahold of me and it was making me turn the knob and open the door. Honest. I'm not just making excuses for what I did. It was her. Miss Willis. I'm sure of it now.
As soon as the door opened, this icy cold wind came rushing out and I saw something gray go running up the steps. It took the hat, snatched it right off my head, and stopped at the top. Dee Dee, don't think I'm nuts when I tell you this—it was Miss Willis. She looked real, but I knew she was a ghost because she died at least ten years ago. There she was, staring down at Diana and me, mean and ugly with wild white hair, wearing a gray dress like any old crazy woman you might see in a store or walking down the street.
She leaned over the rail and started yelling at Diana. Then she ran down the hall and I heard her bedroom door slam and the house got very, very quiet—as if it was holding its breath till the next thing happened.
That's when I started screaming. I couldn't stop. Maybe I was hysterical. Or losing my mind. Diana grabbed me and yanked me along behind her. She kept saying I had to go faster, but my legs wouldn't work right and I couldn't see, maybe my eyes were shut, I don't know, but I was so scared. We got outside and ran all the way home and MacDuff ran with us. I thought Miss Willis was chasing us, I thought she'd come to the trailer, I thought she'd hurt Diana and me.
Diana says Miss Willis's ghost won't hurt me, she'll go after her and Georgie because she hates them. Not me. But, Dee Dee, what could they have done to Miss Willis? She's been dead so long and Diana's only twelve like me. It's all so strange—her parents, the rules, all the things I don't know about Diana's life. My head hurts when I think about it.
But, no matter what Diana says, I'm still scared and Dad is still at Home Depot, and when he comes home he won't believe a word I say, he'll just be mad because I went into the house when he told me not to. Maybe Dad will find