A Dreadful Thing

3: A STRANGER FROM NOWHERE

THREE: A STRANGER FROM NOWHERE

Orla

Orla stared at her bedroom ceiling in Number Twelve, Forestry Road, and counted the boards. There were twenty-two, stretched out from one wall to the other, and Orla knew them well, having counted them many, many times over the years.

On the border of Dirgemore and the Acadia National Park sat an old colonial home half swallowed by the surrounding forest, swaddled in the shadow of the mountain at its back. The kids in town often said it was haunted, and sometimes Orla agreed with them. A few dingy, white shingles had fallen from the siding, leaving gaps Orla likened to teeth missing from a skull's mouth. If you stood at the end of the drive and gazed up at the main gable, the window there resembled an open, watching eye. Normal families had dogs and welcome mats and potted begonias. Number Twelve, Forestry Road, simply had spiders and old newspapers and untrimmed shrubs instead. Sometimes, Orla wondered if Morty used to be a ghost who lived there, and he'd decided to haunt her instead of the old, dusty house.

Huffing through her nose, Orla sat up on her bed, turning her head to the window. She looked down at the driveway, slanted and covered with old, dead needles shed by three spruce trees that hunched over the roof like old, bitter crones. She'd been banished to her room for two days.

"Stupid, duck-faced Marissa Mallard," she grumbled, wrapping her arms around her folded legs. She rested her chin on her knees. "Hope she gets a scar."

She didn't really hope that. Orla didn't like the girl, but she told herself wishing injury on someone would make her just as awful as Marissa. No matter what other people thought of her, Orla couldn't be considered a violent or malicious person. The worst she usually wished on Marissa was for her grades to be so terrible, she had to transfer to a different school—but Marissa had excellent grades, much better than Orla's. Orla had a great deal of difficulty concentrating in class with Morty at her side.

Groaning, she flopped back onto her bed, the sheets unmade, the room in a state of disarray. She wanted her radio, but that had been the first thing Mr. Byrne removed when he grounded her. Her second-hand Walkman had been the next thing, though she'd tried to hide it. Mr. Byrne could sniff things out like a bloodhound. He'd left the old paperbacks she'd purloined from his collection over the years, though.

A light breeze caused the aluminum blinds to sway, coming in through the cracked open window. Dust glittered in the shafts of sunlight. Orla looked at her nightstand, at the digital clock, seeing the hour had just turned to three in the afternoon.

Orla counted the boards overhead again, all twenty-two of them. She sat up.

"Mr. Byrne!" she shouted. "Is it lunchtime yet? It's past three already!"

No answer came, and so Orla wriggled off her bed and crossed the room, kicking aside stray laundry. She opened the door and leaned over the threshold, shouting toward the stairs. "Mr. Byrne!"

"Stop yelling."

Orla yelped and spun in place, looking toward the head of the hall. Mr. Byrne stepped from his own room, shutting the door behind himself with a quiet thump. He had his spectacles in hand, and he methodically cleaned the lenses with the cuff of his sleeve.