“Can I ask you something?” Josh said, dusting some cookie crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “What time did you have this little nightmare?”
I narrowed my eyes, wondering why that could possibly matter. “Um … it was this morning. When I woke up the sun was up. Like … six thirty?”
Josh’s green eyes widened. He picked up another cookie. “That is so weird.”
“What?” I asked.
“I had a nightmare this morning too, and you were in it,” he said. “I don’t remember what it was about, exactly, but when I woke up I looked at the clock and it was exactly six thirty-two.”
I felt an eerie tingle all down my back and froze with my spoon halfway to my mouth. “Really?”
He smirked and popped the cookie into his mouth. “No.”
“Ugh.” I balled up my white linen napkin and chucked it at him. He ducked to the side and the napkin fell innocently to the hardwood floor behind him.
“Okay, about this plan of yours,
can I just say … no?” Josh said. He used his napkin to wipe his mouth, then tossed it down and chugged a glass full of whole milk.
“No?” I asked incredulously. “Since when do you tell me what I can and can’t do?”
Josh laughed, pulling his head back and shaking it in an amused way. “Like I’d ever try. No. I wasn’t telling you no, you couldn’t go. I was telling you no, you’re not going alone.” He paused and wiped his mouth with the napkin again, this time clearing away a milk moustache. “I’ll be coming with you. As of now, I’m not letting you out of my sight for one second.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling silly.
“Unless you think ‘Elizabeth’ would mind,” he added, throwing in some air quotes.
I laughed and rolled my eyes at him. “I don’t think she’d mind at all.”
The snow on the quad was frozen solid across the top, so that the crust would hold for a moment with each step before the crunchy layer gave way and my boot sank into the softer, wet snow beneath. Every now and again, if I stepped just lightly enough, I left no footprint at all. My trail appeared as though I had played a sporadic game of hopscotch: a two-footed jump here, a one-footed hop there. The moon shone down on campus, reflecting off the otherwise smooth snow, brightening the sky and giving almost the illusion of day.
As I approached the landscapers’ storage building on the outskirts of campus, everything was still. No night owls, no crickets, not a living thing stupid enough to be out and about and making noise. Not one except for me. And …
“Josh?” I whispered harshly, creeping around the corner of the building, which bordered the woods. “Josh, are you—?”
A crash loud enough to wake the dead stopped me in my tracks. I briefly considered bolting, but then the side door slowly creaked open and Josh poked his head out—along with the heads of two rather large shovels.
“Sorry. Did I scare you?” he asked.
“Me and half of Connecticut,” I said, glancing back at the darkened windows of Hull Hall, my hand over my heart.
“You know, when I suggested going on a date, this is not what I had in mind,” Josh said, stepping outside.
“I know. We’re still going to do that,” I promised him. I looked at the open padlock on the shed door. “So how did you—”
“Hey!”
Josh and I both screamed and clutched each other, the business end of one of the shovels nearly colliding with my skull. I released his arm when I saw Ivy trudging toward us. She wore a black ankle-length coat and a black skullcap, and she had her hair done in two thick braids.
“What are you doing out here?” I demanded.
“You didn’t really think I was going to let you guys do this without me, did you?” she asked, raising her perfectly thin eyebrows. She lifted her chin toward the shed. “You should probably relock that.”
“Don’t you want a shovel?” Josh asked, angling toward the door.
She scrunched her nose. “I don’t do shovels.”
Josh laughed. I wished Ivy had told me she was coming instead of startling us in the middle of the mission, but I was glad to have her along. Sneaking around the eerie Easton woods in search of a ghost’s legacy was definitely a “the more the merrier” type of situation. Josh secured the lock on the door, slung both shovels over one shoulder, and nodded toward the woods.