As Jacob Thistle laid down on the back porch of his family’s new house, he realized three things.

The first was that clouds could look like anything given enough time and boredom. The second was that an ice cream sounded really tempting in the blistering summer heat. The last, and most pressing, was that his parents had either lied to him or were lied to by someone else.

Their words echoed in his head. ‘You’ll love the place before you know it’ and ‘You’ll have so much more fun in the country then here in the city. Just wait and see, Jacob, you’ll be making friends and having fun before summer ends.’

It had been three days since they had moved in, and he couldn’t remember a time in his life more boring than right now. They had spent the first day just driving around, getting to know the tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. The plan had been for that to take up most, if not all, of the day.

They had been done by lunch.

With nothing much else to do, they had headed ‘home’ and gotten to work setting up all the furniture. With the exception of a single meal with the next door neighbors, an older couple whose kids had already moved out, nothing much of note happened.

And now they were done, for the most part at least. There were still plenty of boxes to unpack, including the one that had a good chunk of his stuff in it. So now he had nothing to do but lie with his back on the porch and watch the sky. He let out a sigh as his legs dangled over the edge, and yawned.

“I think I’ll put the pool over there.” Jacob snapped out of his drowsiness and saw his mother standing over him and looking over the backyard. People told him he looked just like her. They had the same shaggy, black hair, tanned skin, and high cheeks. “You know, the big elevated ones, like the kind your Tio Hernando has. Always wanted one of those.”  

Jacob couldn’t help but smile at his mother’s words. She had wanted to own a pool as far back as he could remember. Not only because she was jealous of her older brother who had one, but because she just loved swimming. Now that they no longer lived twenty minutes from the beach, she would have to find some other way to engage in her favorite form of exercise.

“Well,” he pushed himself up and sat at the edge of the porch. “It’s not like you would have to move anything around to fit it in.” He looked over the mostly-empty square of grass, taking in the barren sight. They had always lived in apartments before now, so they didn’t exactly have a hoard of lawn ornaments. The only things in the yard besides the grass were a few bushes scattered around, mostly near the back.  

“True, but I still think it would look best in the back right corner. Would have to get rid of those bushes though. I’ll talk to your father about it,” she pointed out before her eyes suddenly widened slightly. “Oh right, I just remembered. I need to call him to pick up some eggs.”

“He went out?” Jacob asked.

“You remember the small grocery store down the street on the corner?” He nodded as his mother dug into her pocket for her phone. “He decided to go grab a few things to help make dinner tonight. I figured some boiled eggs would go well with it.”   

She tapped her phone and placed it up to her ear. They waited for a second or two before they both heard a ringing phone from inside the house. Mother and son both sighed as Jacob got to his feet and walked past the sliding glass door into the house. In front of him on the living room table was his father’s phone, left behind and forgotten.

He picked it up and answered his mother’s call.  

“I think Dad may have left his phone behind. Not too sure though, just a hunch,” he spoke into the phone as he looked at his mother from across the glass door. He heard her hold back both a groan and a laugh as she hung up and put the phone back into her pocket.

“That sass of yours is going to get you into trouble someday, I swear,” she walked into the house and slid the door closed behind her.  

“As much trouble as Dad’s in for forgetting his phone for the seventh time this month?” He pointed out with a cheeky smile. Of course, he already knew full well the answer to the question, as did his mother.

“No, not today at least,” she finally said. “Now go give your dad his phone and tell him to buy a carton of eggs, a small one,” she told him before making sure he knew where he was going.

A few minutes later, Jacob found himself walking down an empty dirt road, his father’s phone in pocket. He looked around, a frown on his face.

“No one my age in sight,” he muttered as he thought over the two possibilities. Either this was a town with no children, or a town where everyone kept their children inside all day.

     For Jacob, both options would be nightmares, but nightmares which would have to be handled differently. Either he would have to make his own fun, or find a way to track these kids down.  

     He came to a stop, both in terms of walking and plotting, as he reached the shop.

     Jacob winced at the size of the place. Even the smallest store back home had this place beat. Was his hometown of North Palm City just bigger than this place in every possible way?

He shook his head; he couldn’t keep thinking that way unless he wanted to drive himself crazy. He had to think about other things, like the green bike parked on the bike rack outside of the tiny store.

“Am I going to need a bike?” he asked himself as he searched his brain for any memories of seeing a bus stop since coming to town. He came up empty.

He walked into the store, ready to give his father his phone, the message about the eggs, and ask about getting a bike.

“Jacob what are you doing here?” his father asked as he stood at the corner of the store, talking to a slightly older man.             

Instead of explaining himself, Jacob just walked forward, got his father’s phone out of his pocket, and handed it over without a word. It was strange watching his father’s face switch from so many emotions. Starting from confusion, then heading to realization, then to panic, before finally settling on resignation.

“So what did your mom want to talk to me about?” His father asked, skipping through the parts of the conversation both of them already knew.

“Small carton of eggs,” he looked down at the shopping basket in his hand. He had enough space to fit some eggs in there.

“Forgot your phone again, Steve?” the older man who his father had been talking to asked while sporting a knowing grin.

“Pretty much,” he said before putting the phone in his pocket. “So Jacob, I might as well introduce you. This is Daniel Miller. Call him Nick if you want, everyone else does.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Daniel told him, both of them accepting his father’s attempt to change the subject. The older man reached his hand out for him to shake, and he saw the slight annoyance in the man’s eyes. Jacob’s father thought he was a funny man, and giving people nicknames they didn’t like was a common gag for him.

Feeling sympathetic, he took the man’s hand and was about to greet him with his real name when his father opened his mouth one more time.

“Nick here is an old friend of mine and your mom,” he explained. “He moved from North Palm while you were still a baby. He’s actually the one who got me the new job that moved us out here.”

Any sympathy Jacob had for the man evaporated like a drop of water on a red-hot iron.

“Nice to meet you, Nick.” He shook the man’s hand, the sympathy steam already drifting away in the wind. Silently, he vowed to forget the man’s name as quickly as possible and to only call him Nick from then on.

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Nick let out a long suffering sigh before wishing them well and walking out the door with a carton of milk.   

“Alright, anything else?” His father asked as he grabbed a carton of eggs from the shelf and placed it in the basket.

“Do you think I should get a bike?” he said, deciding on the indirect route. Instead of just asking his father straight up, he would introduce the idea by asking if he should ask at all. “Mostly because I haven’t seen a single bus since we drove into town.”

“That is a good point,” he said, mulling the idea over in his head. “I’ll talk to your mom about it.”

Jacob bit back his grin as the idea of getting a bike planted itself into his father’s head. All had gone exactly as planned. 

“Got it. I think I’m going to go walk around town for a bit, see what’s around,” he said, mostly so he could later say getting around would be a lot easier on a bike.

His father told him to stay safe and soon he was on the empty roads once more.

“There is just nothing here,” he said to himself as a summer breeze blew past him. Coming from a town where movie theaters, parks, stadiums, shopping malls, and more were all just a short bus ride away, this place was stifling.

“What kind of town has one mini mall in the center of town and a single ‘shopping street’ anyway?” he asked, remembering the tiny strip of shops they had driven past in a few minutes the day they arrived.

He wandered around for a little while longer before reaching the edge of town. Past the street he was standing on, there was nothing but dense forest as far as he could see. The forest wrapped around most of the town actually, including his house. On the other side of the wooden fence marking the edge of his backyard, there was nothing but woodland.

As he looked at the green maze in front of him, his eyes were drawn to a nearby sign painted yellow and covered in big, black letters. On it was written ‘Warning: Bears Ahead,’ along with a picture of a bear underneath.   

“Thanks for the warning,” he muttered before hearing something coming from his right. He looked over and saw a small wooden structure hidden among a few of the trees. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear voices coming from inside.

Young voices.

He tried to contain his excitement as he approached the structure, the voices slowly becoming clear as he got closer.

“I heard it was bought by a witch,” a voice that sounded like a kid his age trying to sound tough said.

“Well I heard it was a creepy old man with one eye,” said another voice, sounding like a tomboyish girl.

Jacob smiled as he listened in. It sounded like there was a creepy old house somewhere in town. It wasn’t much, but in a town like this he would take any kind of entertainment.

“Okay, now you guys are just making stuff up,” a third voice that sounded like it was coming from a different girl said. “Listen, my older brother saw the car that came into town. It’s a family of three, two parents and their kid. Plus, a while back I heard my mom say they were going to hire some expert from the city to work at the mineral mine. One of the adults is probably them,”

Jacob started dying inside. The most interesting thing going on in town at the moment was him moving in. Still he had to wonder if rumors his parents were witches was going to cause any trouble in the future.

“Still, if he’s moving out here from the city, I feel a little bad for him,” another voice said. “Not only is he probably bored out of his mind, but he has to deal with living in ‘that’ house.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to sleep in that house, let alone live in it,” the first voice said.

Jacob started to sweat.

“Why are we even still talking about this kid,” a new voice said. “If he’s really living in that house, then he’ll be gone long before we get a chance to meet him.” And that sounded like the chance for him to make his entrance. Now the only question was how. He thought about it for a moment before making his choice.

He walked up to the door and took the direct approach.

“Is someone knocking on the door?” he heard one of the voices ask from inside.

“Yes,” he answered from outside. He heard people moving around a bit before the door opened to reveal a girl around his age with short blond hair wearing a sundress and a straw hat.

“Hello, who are you?” she asked politely in the voice he’d heard earlier.

“Name’s Jacob Thistle,” he told them before smiling. “I’m the kid who lives in ‘that’ house, who would very much like to know why it’s called ‘that’ house. If you could also tell me why I’m going to disappear while you’re at it, that would be great.”

“Were you listening in on us?” a kid in the back with glasses said in the voice that talked about him vanishing earlier.

“Wasn’t planning to,” he explained. “I was wandering around town when I heard voices of people my age for the first time since getting here. You guys are pretty loud, so I heard you on the walk over.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. We are all pretty loud,” the girl in the sundress said. “I’m Ellie. So, Jacob, where you from?”

“I’m from the big city of North Palm. Nice to meet you.”

“Name’s Carrie,” the tomboyish girl said cheerfully.

“Ryan, nice to meet you,” the boy next to Ellie said politely.

“Chip,” the boy in the glasses said.

“And the kid over there hiding behind the shelf is Max,” Ellie pointed out as a kid a few years younger than the rest of them poked his head out.

Finally, the only one left was the tall boy who Jacob had pegged as the kid who tried to make himself sound tough. The rest of the kids all looked at him, waiting for him to say something. He just sat back and said nothing.

“So what’s the city like? You’re probably bored out of your mind here,” she asked with a sweet smile on her face that put him on edge for some reason he couldn’t explain.

“You’re not getting out of telling me about my house, by the way,” Jacob told them before he sat down and started telling the rest of them about living in North Palm, and all the amazing things that could be found there. As they spoke, he couldn’t help but notice the tall guy staying silent. After long enough, he finally spoke up.    

“You don’t look like the kind of guy who’d live in a haunted house,” the tall kid said with a smirk.

“For the last time, Jack, just because the last person to live in the house died in it, doesn’t mean it’s haunted,” Ellie said before Jacob could say anything. “Plus, it’s not like ghosts are real anyway,” she finished, making sure to give Chip a slight glare while doing it.

“So what exactly is the story there?” Jacob asked, wondering if this was how his parents had gotten the house so cheap. Chip straightened and gave him a strange look.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he adjusted his glasses so the glare would reflect off them. The harsh light let the short boy still come off as somewhat intimidating.  

“I live there so… yeah pretty sure,” he said as Chip gave him a wide grin.

“Alright, so settle down and hear the story of Old Lady Makenzie,” he said with a lower voice which gave him a feeling he was going to be unable to sleep in his new house anymore.      

“They say Old Lady Makenzie who lived in the old house down the lane had been around since the founding of Oakwood. She was a grouch, famous among the children of Oakwood for her icy heart. Any ball which landed in her yard was lost to time. She would never give them back and a pair of large dogs kept anyone from sneaking in for them. However, there came a young girl, new to the town. She was lonely and she wanted to make friends with the other kids in town. The other girls said she was too boyish for them, while the boys said they didn’t want to play with a girl.

She was angry and ready to prove herself to them. Just as she was about to walk away, someone threw another ball into Old Lady Makenzie’s yard. The girl saw her chance; she went after the ball.

They tried to warn her, tried to stop her. They told her of the dogs, of the crone who carried a wooden umbrella, ready for any kid who would intrude into her home.

She didn’t care, and started to climb the fence. To her surprise, the ball was right there in front of her, far away from the dogs who were tied up for the day. The dogs noticed her presence and started to leap at her, only to be stopped by a pair of rope leashes. She jumped down and walked to the ball, only for her eyes to widen when she heard a snapping sound.

The ropes which had kept the dogs leashed were old and worn. The leaping of the dogs had finally been enough to break them. The girl grabbed the ball and ran back to the part of the fence where the other children were waiting to help her back up. She reached out to grab the outstretched hand of the boy who had mocked her. She brushed his fingers, and felt one of the dogs grab her pants leg and pull. The terrified look on the boy’s face was the last thing she saw.

Her parents were furious they’d lost their daughter, the crone was angry she’d to give up her dogs, the children were angry they’d accidently lost themselves a friend. However, none were as angry as the girl’s older brother. For he was angry in that way only the young can be.

He was angry Old Lady Makenzie was free to live out her days, complaining about the stupid girl who had cost her her dogs. One day, about a month afterwards, he heard her speak badly about his sister with another townsperson.

That was the final straw for him. He planned that night and for the next two nights after. On the fourth night, he entered her house with a hatchet. He slunk into her room and did the deed. Old lady Makenzie never spoke badly of anyone after that.”

Jacob gulped as Chip’s story came to an end. He fought back the urge to jump as the rest of the kids started to clap around him.

“Still can’t believe he manages to tell it the same way every single time,” Ellie said as the rest of the kids nodded in agreement.

“As for the haunting,” Chips continued despite the applause. “A lot of people have gone into the building over the years, and a lot of them have reported seeing the ghosts of both the girl and Old Lady Makenzie.”

“Due to the two deaths, the house’s been empty for years,” Ellie cut in as Chip sank back to allow the more charismatic girl to take over. “We all thought the place would be vacant forever, until you and your parents came around anyway.”

“Well I’m not going to sleep tonight,” Jacob joked as he leaned back in his chair. “Chip, you have any other stories to keep me up at night?”

“Nothing except some weird fireworks that appeared over the town a few months back no one set off,” Chip said, not getting his sarcasm. Or maybe getting it just fine and just not caring.

“And how does that one go?” Jacob asked, figuring he might as well hear the second story anyway.

“Not much to say there. A few months ago, there were a bunch of explosions over the woods outside of town. No one knows where they came from, and no one knows who set them off. There were also rumors of people in black suits skulking around the woods for the next few days,” Chip finished, leaving him feeling a bit jumpy.