Evil's Enemy

Chapter 6

This cold issomething else entirely. It's snaking underneath my clothes andcovering my skin in goose bumps. It feels kind of like when youhave a fever and you're shivering despite the fact that your temperatureis rising and you're bundled up under layers of coversin bed. The kind of cold that's damp, as though the whole houseneeds to be run through the dryer. It's . . . all right, fine, I'll admitit: it's creepy. I say it out loud and Mom laughs."Is that your new favorite word?" she asks."No," I say softly. I can't remember ever having said it muchbefore. But then I never felt like this before."No one has lived in the house in months. It's just beenempty too long. Once we get all of our stuff in here, it'll feelmore homey. It'll be great, I promise."But our stuff—the moving truck full of our furniture and mybooks and knickknacks and clothes—won't get here until tomorrow.I guess the movers who were driving it from Texas weren'tin as much of a hurry to get here as we were. Mom and I ascendthe creaky staircase and briefly explore the second floor—twobedrooms and one bathroom with a malfunctioning lock onthe door ("I'll ask the landlord to fix it," Mom promises)—butit's hard to imagine how our stuff will look in our rooms whenmost of our belongings are still a hundred miles away. I go intothe room that will be mine and shudder at the bright pink wallpaperand carpet. I am not a pink kind of girl. I decide that I willput my bed in the corner to the right of the door and my deskbeside the window across from it. I walk to the narrow windowand look out, but the branches of a pine tree in our backyardalmost entirely block my view of the street.