𝐟𝙪𝐥𝐥 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚 ┃ 𝐥𝙪𝒌𝙚 𝐩𝙖𝒕𝒕𝙚𝙧𝙨𝞸𝙣

Chapter 1

"Kids, it's time. We're doing it today." Mom tells us grimly, waking us up at 5 am. Ever since my dad died, she had gone from boyfriend to boyfriend. My dad left a huge hole in her heart, but she wanted us to have male role models in our lives. Clearly that didn't go over well.

"Finally! Are you going to tell him off?" Lakota, my older brother asks.

"No, we're moving away." She tells us. I'm not shocked. Her boyfriend is abusive. I can't tell you how many times we'll hear them start fighting, and Kota and I will run down stairs and have to physically pull him off my mom. I hate him. I really do.

"When?" Ben, the youngest asks.

"Noon. He's out with his boys, and we'll have four hours to get to the airport and get on our flight to our new house." She tells us. See, we're all homeschooled, and he made us move in with him and downsize, so it's not like we'll be leaving a bunch of stuff or a school.

We move quickly to pack a suitcase as well as a carry on for each. Kota and I have both been slipping mom money to put towards the new place, knowing this day would come sooner than later. She's resourceful, starting a secret bank account, stashing for months, reaching out to my dads brother to look for houses for her. He ended up putting the down payment on a house for us in California. She'll pay him back once she has the full funds, and until then he's more than happy to help. Everyone hated Tony. He's a jerk.

"Mom, I'm scared." Ben voices. I know the feeling. We all are. Waiting for the taxi that will get us out of this joke of a house, I'm surprised he isn't crying. He's 10 but he's also pretty sensitive. Not saying that's a bad thing, he's just a little more prone to being nervous than other people.

"It'll be ok."

The taxi arrives and takes us to the airport. Security and checking bags goes quickly, then Mom leads us to our terminal. Ben asks if he can wander around the gift shop thingy, and I volunteer to take him. He gets his heart set on wanting a little trinket. I grab the $20 I had stashed in my backpack for a moment such as this, and proceed to bring two of the little state shaped keychains to the register.
"Why two?" He asks me.

"Because no matter where we land, Minnesota will always be apart of us." I pinky promise him. I would have gotten one for Kota, but I know he wants nothing to remember this place by.

Ben sleeps on the plane, lulled to sleep by the sounds of rock music coming out of his headphones. I glance at his iPod, which used to be Kota's before he got a phone, and notice the band. Who the heck is Sunset Curve?

I turn to ask Kota and he laughs.

"It's an old 90's band. I could only ever find that song of theirs. Not sure why."

"What song is it?" I ask.

"Here." He passes me a earbud and we listen to the soundtrack together. If feelings could get caught off of a voice I'd be screwed because the lead singer sounds hot.

"Nice..." I headbag along to the beat. For once it feels like we're a normal family. That is, until my mom reached forwards from the seats behind me and taps Kota.

"We're landing in about ten minutes. Who's waking Ben up?"

"I got it Mom." I offer.

After Ben begrudgingly wakes up, and we get through the airport, there's a taxi waiting with the driver holding my moms name on a sign. Oooo, fancy! Thanks to my Uncle Peter.

They drive us to our new house. Not bad, not bad. Apparently the family that used to live here had a son and a daughter. The daughter went to college and the son was in middle school but they needed to move for the dads job. It's got a detached garage, which is really a hangout space. There's a piano out there, as well as a bunch of instruments. We explore all afternoon, and that night all three of us kids bed down in one room.

I'm awakened by a crash downstairs, and notice Ben is gone, before I hear a scream

"KOTA HE FOUND US!" I panic, before jumping up and bolting for the door. I make it down the stairs, Kota hot on my heels ready to hit him, when I realize there's a blonde boy in a pink sweatshirt with his hands up like we have guns, looking super afraid.

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE?!" I yell, grabbing a shaking Ben and yanking him behind me.

"YOUR HOUSE? I'VE LIVED HERE SINCE I CAME BACK FROM THE BLACK ROOM AFTER I DIED!" The boy yells back. Wait, hold on what?!

Mom comes running down then, with her pistol.

"Who the hell are you?" She says, gun aimed right between the eyes.

"My name is Alex, let me explain." Mom lowers the gun. This guy has such a calm demeanor when we're not all yelling.

"This used to by my friends house. We were in a band together, and we ate bad hotdogs, and died. We came back because the girl that used to live here played one of our songs and brought us back. They moved, but we didn't because Julie and my friend had a big falling out, but we didn't know what kinda people you were or if you would try to kick us out so we weren't gonna show ourselves but I got curious and little man here got hungry and that's why everyone was screaming." He rambles, explaining why Ben has a half eaten can of Pringles.

"Wait, how many ghosts are there, are any of them bad, and can you guys protect us." Kota asks.

"Three, no we're all friendly, and yeah I mean, I guess. From what though?" Alex asks. Kota looks at me, and I roll my sleeve up, showing the bruises covering my arms from the last time we had to pull Tony off of my mom.

"From a demon in our past."

"Say no more. You just earned yourself the most rewarding haunting you'll ever have." He says solemnly. "I'll go get the others and let them know it's cool to hang around... if it is?" He looks at mom.

"Stay out of her room, and I have no problems with it." Mom states before turning to go back upstairs. "It's three am kids, go back to bed. You can talk to the others in the morning."

We all nod and listen.
Oh, did I mention? My mom has had ghosts in every single house she's ever lived in. And has seen and met them all. Except for Tony's house. Even ghosts were afraid of him.