9. Shadow of a Doubt

Chapter One

(Chris)

The fireplace felt warm against my skin. I was seated on the old couch in the front parlor of Castle Callaghan, watching the flames in the stone fireplace, trying to listen for sleigh bells. People moved around me, my sisters, Jason but no one seemed to notice me. Like I was invisible on the couch. That would be so cool, I could pretend I was Casper the Friendly Ghost and spook everyone. 

But then it seemed to take forever for anything to change. No one was looking for me, no one was missing me. I tried to get up off the couch but nothing worked. My arms wouldn’t move, neither would my legs and the weirdest thing of all, I wasn’t even sure I was breathing…

I jerked awake and found myself staring at the ceiling of my new bedroom. It had been more of an adjustment than I’d thought it would be, moving into the carbon copies’ room. The sage green wasn’t that bad, I had to admit, and truthfully I’d just wanted to hassle them, not that I hated that color. All the pink stuff was gone though, thank goodness.

I took a deep breath and shuddered. I’d thought the nightmares were gone. But they’d come back. Sometimes it was being trapped in a dark place I couldn’t get out of and I would suffocate, other times it was seeing everyone–siblings, parents–slaughtered in the family room. But this one was the most unsettling of all, because it seemed so familiar.

The nightmares had started way before Halloween. Dreams of being trapped and alone had started after that fateful trip to Paris and I was stuck in a cast for weeks. All year, something had happened, from me and Jason being thrown in the river at the amusement park, to some crazy lady nearly smothering me, thinking I was Dad. The insanity of that so-called haunted house and now…the Halloween party that should have been a blast. But some guy had tried to kill all of us because Dad had split the dude’s family up. 

I think the worst thing was that little stunt at school a few months ago had totally backfired. I hadn’t really thought about it when that Madden guy had challenged me to climb the back of the bleachers. I like a challenge. Never realized he and his group were an under-age thieving ring run by two adult jerks. I’d never thought they’d come after me.

I rolled onto my side, but I was wide awake now. The small four-foot tree on my chest of drawers was dark. I’d turned it off before going to sleep earlier. When I moved into this room after my sisters vacated, I had so many plans. Black walls, neon accents and black light. Mom vetoed all of them. It’s weird that she had already thought ahead and now I have my own Christmas tree. I’d always shared with Jason before. That took some getting used to, as well. My own space.

The new tree had a lot of movie ornaments on it, from all my favorite movies like Star Wars, Harry Potter and others. Jason’s now just had the nautical and sports ornaments. He had blue lights, mine were gold. I still don’t know where Mom finds the different colored lights. When the carbon copies had this room, their tree had green lights and Rielle, ugh, had purple. 

Purple was not a Christmas color, but Rielle oft reminded me that my opinion didn’t matter.

“Bossy little sisters.”

I gave up on trying to go back to sleep, found the socks I’d kicked off at some point and got out of bed. I headed downstairs, managing to avoid the squeaky spot that announced to the whole house and the world in general that you were up. It was closer to Rielle’s door and every year, she got caught checking to see if Santa had arrived yet.

I headed down the back stairs and took a moment to look around, remembering how it had looked at Halloween. The spooky decor was gone, now it was all Christmas. I could almost imagine that the house still had the lingering cold from the storm that had knocked power out for almost a week.