Ghost in the Closet

2. Chapter One

Chapter One

JULES said Chloe had been acting strangely. The slight shake in her voice told Adam it was serious. Ever since the day Chloe took him into her room to tell him someone had been watching them, he’d been worried about her. If he hadn’t been so busy, he would have gone back to their house sooner. Now he was kicking himself for not having done that.

Cheryl crossed her arms over her chest as they walked up to the front porch. He could tell by how she chewed on the inside of her cheek that she was nervous. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that I haven’t met your family before. I know this is an emergency, so it’s kind of messed up that I’m making it about me. Ignore me. I’m shutting up now.” She waved her hand in front of her face like she was swatting away a fly.

“Don’t worry about it. They’ll love you.” He put his arm around her back before reaching up to knock on the door.

His sister didn’t take long to answer. Jules stood before them with wisps of chestnut hair coming out of her ponytail and a drawn face as pale as ivory. “Thank you for coming.” Her voice still carried that urgent, shaky tone.

Adam and Cheryl went inside.

“This is Cheryl. Cheryl, Jules.” Adam smiled as he motioned back and forth between them.

For a moment, the panic on Jules’s face softened. Warmth passed over her as she made eye contact with Cheryl. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’m sorry it’s under such unusual circumstances. Forgive me for being a bit distracted.”

“Of course. I’m just here to help.” Cheryl’s words were stiff.

Adam marveled at the silence. He was used to Chloe and Carson running up to him and grabbing his legs every time he walked through the front door. This time his niece and nephew were nowhere to be found. Adam looked around the living room.

“They’re in Chloe’s room,” Jules answered his question before he could even ask it. She started up the hallway, but Adam called her back.

“Before we talk to them, why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

The three of them stood together in the center of the living room. Jules leaned toward them and spoke in hushed tones like she didn’t want the children to hear. “I don’t know what’s going on. That’s the problem. Last night, when I went to put Chloe to bed, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I looked all through the house. She wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t in her closet. She wasn’t in Carson’s room, the bathroom, or the kitchen. I couldn’t find her anywhere. I finally got Tim to help me look. He goes right to her bedroom, and she’s sitting there on the floor, but she was covered in goo.”

“Goo?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” Jules continued, like that little fact wasn’t important at all. “I swear she wasn’t there before. I would’ve seen her. I searched for her, and she was nowhere.” She reached up and took the scrunchy off her ponytail, smoothed her hair, and put it in again. “I must look a mess.”

“You look fine,” Cheryl reassured. “You’re worried about your daughter, so you have an excuse to be a wreck. But you’re not, of course.” She stumbled over her words. “You look fine. Amazing.”

Jules smiled weakly at her.

“What’s been weird about the way Chloe’s been acting?” Adam asked. He glanced down the hallway, wondering why he couldn’t hear them playing.

“She won’t really look at me. No matter what I say, she gives yes-or-no answers. You know how Chloe is. She usually talks her head off, but right now, she’s silent.” Jules sighed and looked at the floor. “I know it probably seems minor, but I can feel it. Something is deeply wrong. I know it.”

“I don’t doubt you.” Adam walked around his sister and started up the hallway. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

Cheryl and Jules got up to follow him, but he turned to them and said, “Maybe you should let me talk to her alone first. Just to see what happens.”

Jules nodded, but her eyes were reluctant. “Okay. We’ll wait here.”

Adam walked up the hallway to Chloe’s room. The white door stood ajar, and he could hear the children whispering to each other inside. He pushed the door open to see Carson and Chloe sitting together on the floor. Chloe played with her horses, making them gallop side by side across the floor. Carson folded a piece of construction paper on the floor in front of him. He looked up when Adam entered the room. “Uncle Adam!” He jumped to his feet and ran to his uncle, wrapping his arms around his legs. He looked behind him, expecting his sister to follow. When she didn’t, he let go of Adam’s legs and returned to the floor to hold his piece of paper quietly.

“What’s going on, buddy?” Adam bent down, putting his hands on his knees to be closer to them.

Carson glanced over at his sister before returning his eyes to his sheet of paper and shaking his head.

Adam looked to Chloe, who continued playing with her horses, not even acknowledging that he had entered the room. “Your favorite uncle is here,” he announced as if she couldn’t see him standing there.

She glanced up from her horses only for a second before returning her gaze to the floor. She made her horses leapfrog over each other.

“What were you whispering about?”

She shook her head and glanced up at him briefly.

“Your mom is worried about you. Do you know why?”

Chloe’s shoulders tensed, and she froze for a few moments. Then she went back to playing.

Adam squatted down in front of her. “She told me about last night. Where did you go?”

Chloe glanced at her brother, who had folded his sheet of red construction paper into a small, lopsided rectangle.

Adam turned and looked at him. “Carson, why don’t you go see what your mother is doing? I need to talk to Chloe alone for a little bit.”

Carson looked up at his sister with large blue eyes. She didn’t acknowledge him, then he looked back at Adam.

“Go on. We’ll be out in a minute.” Adam nodded at him.

Carson jumped up and ran out of the room, his little feet slapping the floor as he went.

Adam lowered himself to the floor to sit in front of Chloe. He knew she would be more apt to talk if he were at her level.

She continued to make her horses run in circles around each other.

“Where did you go last night?” He asked the question again.

“The closet.” Her voice was unusually soft.

“Really? Your mother said she looked for you there and couldn’t find you. Your closet isn’t that big.”

She glanced up at him. “I was in the closet.”

“Okay.” Adam stood up. “Can you show me where? I want to see your hiding place. Maybe one day I’ll need to use it.”

She shook her head. “It’s not there anymore.”

“It isn’t?” Adam opened the door of the walk-in closet and turned on the light. Tiny dresses and shirts hung on white plastic hangers. Below them, gray plastic bins full of toys lined the shelves. Adam didn’t see how Chloe could have hidden in the closet without Jules finding her. There was no place that wouldn’t be visible as soon as she walked in. “Where did your hiding place go?”

She shrugged. Then she got up from her toys and walked over to the closet door. She scrunched up her face as if willing herself to step inside. Adam watched as she pointed at the back wall.

“Your hiding place is here?” He reached out. As soon as his finger touched the textured surface, a chill shot through him. He drew his hand away and looked at the wall. There were a few scuff marks on it that probably happened when Jules installed the shelf inside. He looked at Chloe, who stared back at him with wide, innocent eyes. “How do you hide here?”

“Sometimes the wall goes away.” She backed out of the closet and walked to the middle of her room. Then she spun around and collapsed onto the floor with her legs crossed in front of her. She picked up the white plastic horse and made it kick its back legs up into the air, bucking.

Adam stood in the closet, looking at her. She was telling the truth. He knew it because he felt something unusual when he felt the wall. Maybe it was a door to another world. Maybe his niece was like him. He reached out and touched the wall again. It was cold and solid. He knocked on it, and it sounded hollow. He pushed on it, but couldn’t find a way to open it. When he finished exploring every inch of the wall, he stepped out into the room with Chloe. “When you go into your hiding place, where do you go? What is it like?”

She raised the horse over her head and looked up at it as it flew through the air. “It’s like nothing.”

She didn’t have to say anything else to describe it because Adam knew this place. He had been there before on investigations. It was a dark, empty place.

“It’s scary.” She continued to play with her horse as she spoke.

“Why do you hide there if it’s scary?”

She put the horse down on the carpet and stood up again. She went to the door and pressed her ear against it, listening. Then she tiptoed over to Adam. “He makes me,” she whispered.

“Who?” Adam asked.

She nodded her head, and her blonde curls bounced. “If you’re not careful, maybe he’ll make you hide too.” She walked over and stood very close to Adam.

He bent down so he was at eye level with her. “Who is he?” He stared into her little face: her upturned nose and large eyes.

“The man in the closet knows everything.” She turned around and went back to playing with her horses.

Jules darted her gaze around the living room as if she was seeing the place for the first time, before telling Cheryl to take a seat again. Of course, Cheryl understood why she was so anxious. Any mother would be worried if something were wrong with her child.

Cheryl sat awkwardly on the edge of the beige sectional. “I wish we could’ve met under better circumstances.”

Jules sat down on the chair directly across from her. She glanced up the hallway before her gaze settled on Cheryl again. “Yeah,” she said absentmindedly.

Cheryl nodded slowly.

“Tim thinks I’m being overly dramatic, but I really did look everywhere. It was like she just disappeared into thin air and then materialized again.” She exhaled. “Chloe is usually a super energetic child. Let’s just say she’s quite a handful. But ever since last night, she just sits on the floor in a room playing with her plastic horses. She’s hardly said a word. She’s usually a little chatterbox.” She raised a nervous hand to the back of her neck and started squeezing it as if giving herself a massage.

Jules looked so much like Adam. They had the same piercing eyes and squarish faces, but Jules’s lips were fuller, and crow’s-feet were already forming on the outer edges of her eyes. “So, she’s been unusually quiet recently?”

Jules nodded. “It’s not just that. There’s something going on that I can’t quite put my finger on. I know it’s only really been a couple of hours that she’s been like this, but I’m worried. Something doesn’t feel quite right. When she woke up this morning, she told me someone was watching us. Normally, I would dismiss something like that because she likes to say silly things sometimes, but I’ve had that distinct feeling ever since I woke up too. I keep feeling like someone is behind me, and if I turn around, I’d see him standing there watching me from the corner of the room.”

Cheryl nodded. “Something is going on in this house. I felt it as soon as I walked in, but I can’t say what exactly yet. We’ll have to do some more looking around. Adam will probably want to set up some cameras.”

Jules scoffed. “Of course, he will. Here’s the thing: I know Adam says he was haunted, and now he’s doing this, but I don’t believe in it. I think it’s all a figment of his imagination.”

“Then why did you call him?”

“I don’t know. I was scared, and I didn’t know what else to do.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Now I feel kind of silly.”

“Don’t. You did the right thing by calling us. I know you don’t believe in any of this. Adam told me, but whether anything paranormal is going on in your house doesn’t depend on your belief. Forces beyond what we understand or can even comprehend act on our lives every day.”

Carson came running into the living room. “Uncle Adam told me to come find you.”

Jules leaned forward, ready to get up. “Does he need to talk to me?”

Carson shook his head. “He wants to talk to Chloe alone.” He looked over at Cheryl and hurried to his mother’s side, grabbing her arm. “Who’s that?”

“This is Cheryl. She’s Adam’s friend.” Jules reached down and pulled him into her lap.

Cheryl waved. “Hi.”

He looked at Jules and continued what he had been saying. “She won’t talk to Uncle Adam. She told me he doesn’t want her to talk to any grown-ups.” Carson slapped his little hands over his mouth and looked at the floor.

“Who doesn’t want her to talk to any grown-ups?” Cheryl asked.

Carson looked up at his mother. “Who?” she asked.

“The man in the closet,” he whispered.

Jules looked at his eyes with alarm. “What man?”

Carson shrugged and shook his head.

“Carson, I’m serious. Tell me what man you’re talking about.” Jules’s voice was stern.

“I don’t know, Mommy. Chloe says, but I don’t know.”

“What does Chloe say?” Cheryl asked.

Carson pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“You can tell us about the man in the closet,” Jules spoke in a calm voice. “The only way we’ll be able to make sure he doesn’t come back is if you tell us about him.”

Carson drew the corner of his mouth down and shook his head again more vigorously, tears welling up in his eyes.

“You don’t have to tell us now if you don’t want to,” Cheryl said, noticing how upset he was getting. The last thing she wanted was to make him cry the first time she met him.

“I’ll ask Chloe about it,” Jules said.

Carson buried his head in her chest and wrapped his arms around her.

Cheryl watched him, wondering what Chloe had seen in her closet. Would Adam be able to get her to talk, or would her fear keep her silent?