Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz Page A

Harris?”
    “Actually,” I say, noticing that my fingers are completely entangled in the cord now,
     “I think she’d like to speak to him. Did they have a fight?”
    “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “Well, maybe their falling out is something you’re unaware of, a recent argument,
     something about this whole contest trip perhaps…”
    “Harris is dead.”
    Wait. “What?”
    “My son was stillborn,” she continues. “Natalie was his twin.”
    “Are you sure?” I ask, thinking how stupid the question is—not to mention how insensitive.
    “I think I’d know if my own son had died. A word of advice: I’d be very careful around
     my daughter if I were you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

I VY FINALLY COMES BACK INTO the room, her face just as pale as it was after finding the message in Taylor’s closet.
    “I take it that things didn’t go so well with Project Natalie?” Shayla asks, searching
     through Taylor’s shoe rack.
    “I think that maybe we should get her some help,” Ivy says.
    “Help, as in calling the fire department to break down the door?” Shayla asks. “Because
     if that’s the case, you have my vote. I’m all for getting a few more hotties in the
     house.”
    “Her brother is dead,” Ivy says.
    “Hold up,” Shayla says, trying to squeeze her foot into a ballet slipper. “Not the
     brother that she’s been talking about…not her twin…”
    “Harris.” Ivy nods. “He died at birth.” She proceeds to tell us about the letter she
     found in Natalie’s room. “I know I shouldn’t have read it, but it was just lying there,
     and I had so many questions. And, anyway, in the letter, Natalie was apologizing to
     Harris for coming on this trip.”
    I raise my eyebrow in suspicion. “She apologized to a dead guy?”
    “Hold on,” Shayla says. “How do you know that he’s dead?”
    “I called her parents.” Ivy brings her bottle pendant up to her lips. “I pushed redial
     after she’d called them, hoping that her brother might pick up. But her mother answered.
     And when I mentioned Harris’s name, she told me that he was dead.”
    “Why would Natalie write letters to a dead person?” Shayla asks.
    “Maybe it’s because she’s deranged,” I say, stating the obvious.
    “It’s not just letters,” Ivy says. “She talks to him too. I’m thinking that Harris
     is the one she’s been mumbling to.”
    “Okay, well, I’ll second Parker’s notion: the girl is totally deranged…and I am totally
     depressed.” Shayla tosses the ballet slipper back at the rack. “I need to go find
     me some big-girl shoes.”
    Finally, she leaves, but now there’s an awkward silence between Ivy and me. I want
     to pick up where we left off pre–Shayla’s dessert invasion, but I also don’t know
     how to get there. After a couple more beats of silence, I pick up my mental camera,
     trying to imagine this as a shot.
     
    INT. BEDROOM — NIGHT
     
    Ivy sits down beside me on the bed. There’s a plate of desserts between us.
     
    ME
    That was really cool of you to want to help Natalie.
     
    IVY
    Believe it or not, it feels good trying to help her. Somehow she seems even more messed
     up than me.
     
    ME
    How so?
     
    Ivy takes a spider brownie from the plate and chews it down, bite after bite, making
     it difficult to answer.
     
    I eat too. But after six cream-filled finger rolls, I get up and call cut inside my
     head, frustrated that it seems Ivy no longer wants to talk.
     
    “Don’t be angry,” she says. There’s a smear of chocolate in the corner of her mouth.
     If this were a movie, I’d lean in close and kiss it away. “I really like you,” she
     continues. “And I really appreciate how sweet you’ve been to me. But I don’t want
     to ruin your time here with my drama.”
    I sit back down and venture to take her hand. “You’re definitely not ruining my time.
     Whatever the reason that you decided to enter Blake’s contest,