• Chapter One









    He stood there staring at the new house; its shingles rotting, and exactly six out of the fourteen visible shutters were hanging, most likely, by a rusty nail. Its screen door was more like a screen-less wooden frame covered in tendrils of peeling paint. The powder-blue floorboards making up the decrepit front porch were worn and moldy on top. In some places, boards were missing altogether, being replaced by black rectangles that seem bottomless. Not to mention the cracked, dimpled windows that eerily topped the whole scene. His car seemed out of place, surrounded by a dense forest of creaking pines and dry, rustling leaves.
    The wind that rustled those leaves wrapped around the boy and pushed his long, brown hair into his pale face. He absently pushed it back with his left hand, being as his right was occupied holding an old, leather suitcase, slapped with stickers from twelve different countries and labeled, Braden Adair, in faded, black, permanent marker right in between the two, rusty, brass latches. Right behind Braden, his mother and two brothers unpacked their beat up Volkswagen Rabbit. The top was let down and the interior stuffed with an assortment of similar, yet not identical, suitcases as the one in Braden’s hand. Braden’s brothers, Edmund and Connor, flew past and stampeded up the rotting porch steps only to have their feet absorbed by the black rectangles that Braden first noticed.
    Braden laughed while whispering, “Idiots.” under his breath. He finally heard the car door slam and leaves rustling as his mother approached from behind. As she plopped the last suitcase in his vacant hand, he could hear that she too was laughing. There was a moment where they, Braden and his mother, stood staring at their new home that wasn’t really all that new anyway. He had to admit, Braden liked the house. It was old and tucked on a small hill that over-looked a mountain river that ran steady yet cold. Then he remembered the closest town, a small little place called Blowing Rock, which was barely bigger than a post card and felt even better. He recalled coming here when he was little to see his grandfather and spending time in the river. At first, he was horrified that they were coming to live here, in this huge, memory-stuffed house. But the closer he came to actually arriving, the more ecstatic he became.
    At the reading of the will, when he heard that the house went to Kaitlyn Adair and her sons, his first response was that of surprise that quickly led to sadness and nervousness. At first, Braden didn’t want to live in the house that supplied him with memories and warm meals. A house that never seemed to fail his expectations: being a jungle gym, a pirate ship, or a haunted mansion whenever he wished. But the house he and his family stood before wasn’t the house that he remembered. It was a house that loomed in the woods for five years, sitting on the hillside rotting away until finally his grandfather died and the house was passed on.