The Old Willis Place

wasn't just the wind last night, was it?"
    "No," I said.
    Lissa drew in her breath. "She called your name and Georgie 's name. Even with my head under the covers, I could hear her."
    "I told you she'd come after us," I said.
    "But why?" Lissa asked, genuinely puzzled.
    Instead of answering, I kept walking, head down, scuffing leaves out of my path. If only I could tell her the truth. She might believe me now. After all, she'd seen Miss Lilian. She'd heard her voice in the wind. She must realize ghosts exist.
    "I was with you in the house," Lissa went on, her voice shaky. "She should be after you and me, not Georgie. He wasn't even there."
    I looked at her. She was close to tears. "I couldn't sleep a wink last night," she said.
    "She's not after you," I insisted. "She won't hurt you."
    "I hate this place," Lissa went on as if she hadn't heard me. "I told Dad we have to leave, we can't stay here, but he won't listen to me. He acts like I'm a baby afraid of the dark."
    Lissa sat down on a boulder at the edge of the field and began to cry. I huddled beside her, sorry she'd been drawn into Georgie's and my troubles. Indifferent to our worries, Mac-Duff followed his nose into the weeds, roaming in circles around us, happy to be outside smelling wonderful smells.
    Glad for each other's company, Lissa and I pressed closer together. She shivered despite her warm jacket.
    A thick white cloud cover hid the sky, and the air smelled of snow—the first of the year, earlier than usual. My father would have said Mother Goose was about to shake the feathers out of her pillows.
    I gazed across the field toward the house. A gust of wind blew through the treetops, making a mournful sound. The air filled with flying leaves. A thought formed in my head, then another and another. They came from nowhere, just the way the rules had. Suddenly, I knew exactly what to say to Lissa. And, more importantly, what not to say.
    "Do you remember telling me about those missing children?" I asked her.
    She looked at me. She'd stopped crying, but her eyes were red and wet. "The ones Chelsea says haunt the farm?"
    I nodded. "What if I told you what happened to them?
    "Those children vanished a long, long time ago. How could you know anything about them?"
    I leaned closer, forcing Lissa to meet my eyes. In a whisper, I told her the words I heard in my head. It was almost as if someone else was speaking—a ventriloquist, maybe, using my voice. "When we first came here, Georgie and I found an open window in the basement. We used to climb inside and explore the house. It was scary, just like it is now. Creepy. We played the piano, we went through the closets, we stole books and clothes."
    "You said it was against the rules to go in the house," Lissa reminded me. "Weren't you scared your parents would find out?"
    "In those days, our parents weren't as strict as they are now. We didn't have as many rules."
    MacDuff interrupted me with a series of loud barks. He ran to Lissa and sat close to her, whimpering. We both looked across the field, to the trees and the house beyond. We saw nothing, but the dog's behavior made us uneasy.
    Lissa bent over MacDuff and stroked his sides. "What's the matter, boy?" she whispered. "Do you see something?"
    The dog rested his head on Lissa's knee and gazed at her in a way that made me think of Lassie. He thumped his tail and grinned, as if he'd merely been seeking affection.
    I touched Lissa's arm to regain her attention. "One day Georgie talked me into exploring the cellar. We'd been afraid to go down there because it was so dark, but Georgie borrowed a big flashlight."
    Lissa continued to pet MacDuff, but she was paying close attention to me.
    "We found a door in a dark corner of the cellar. It was bolted shut," I whispered. "And when we opened it—"
    Suddenly, Lissa drew back, alarmed by something in my voice. "No, I don't want to hear any more."
    She covered her ears like Georgie used to, but I pulled her hands away and held them tight. Somebody had to know where Georgie and I were and who had put us there. Somebody had to see to our burial. Otherwise, we'd be prisoners on the farm forever. These were the new rules. I knew them just the way I'd known the old rules.
    MacDuff looked at us uneasily, as if he didn't like the way I was holding Lissa's hands.
    "We opened the door," I went on relentlessly, spinning the lie as I talked, speeding up the story. Since it was partly Lissa's fault that the old woman was loose, she