[Not Just Any Other] Ghost Story

Chapter 5

The next day, Sarah was two and a half books into her library haul when the call from Principal Orr came. She'd need a visit to the local pediatrician ("You're missing quite a few booster vaccinations, young lady"), but after getting the required jabs, she would be free to attend classes. For the first time since Jane had first proposed this trade-off, Sarah was excited about the possibilities.

But Doctor Lee couldn't see her until Thursday morning. It had also been raining for almost twenty-four hours, so tidying the garden was out of the question, as well. Resigned to finishing reading everything she'd checked out, Sarah made herself a fresh mug of peppermint tea and hunkered down on a big armchair in the parlor.

A fire roared in the hearth, not only warming the air, but also giving it a scent of burning pine. It was pleasant at first, but after finding herself re-reading the same paragraph three times from being distracted by the stuffiness, Sarah slammed the book shut, placed the hardback on the chair, and stepped to the nearest window.

She unlatched and lifted the pane, and a cool breeze blew through the screen as rainwater poured down from the overflowing gutter.

"Sarah? Could you come into the kitchen for a second?" Jane asked from the other side of the house, drawing her away for a moment.

After helping her aunt take the stand mixer out of a high cabinet, Sarah returned to read. But she hadn't made it two pages before sweat was rolling from her brow.

"What the heck?" she mumbled, looking at the window and finding it closed. How odd.

Sure that the old hardware must have just allowed the pane to slide back down, she went to the window again, reached down and pulled upward. But it wouldn't budge.

Sarah checked the latch and gasped. It had been turned to the 'locked' position.

She stepped back in surprise. What in the world was going on? There was no one in the house besides her and Jane, and neither of them had been back in the parlor since she'd first opened the window. Could it have both slid closed and automatically locked itself?

Sarah knew it was impossible, but what else could explain it?

After inspecting the newly open window one more time to make sure that it was securely up and unlocked with nothing in the way, she returned to her book. Although the bang of a pan or the sound of the mixer from Jane's latest baking endeavor occasionally broke the silence, Sarah finished two more chapters before looking up again.

While the sun was now lower in the sky, the window was still open and it was still raining.

A glance at the fire told her it was time to throw a few more logs on to keep it from dying, so she reluctantly left the cozy seat and fed the diminishing flames.

Bang.

Sarah snapped her head toward the loud sound, dropping the piece of wood in her hand in shock. The window had shut so vehemently, the drapes were now swaying from the disturbance. And Jane was definitely not the culprit because from the chopping and humming coming from the other room, she was clearly still in the kitchen.

"Jane!" Sarah frantically yelled out as she rose from her crouched position at the hearth.

Her aunt ran over, butcher's knife in hand. "Is everything okay?" she asked as her eyes scanned the room for signs of an intruder or any other evil based on Sarah's panicked call.

Sarah pointed to the window, which now appeared to be as ordinary as any other in the house. "The window," she said, unsure of how she should describe what she thought just happened, without sounding like a complete nutcase. "I think there's something wrong with it."