The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe Read Free

into my trap.” The boy nodded at the ground a few feet away where a patchwork of leaves, sticks, and mud lay like a dirty welcome mat. “I covered up a hole to see if I could catch a rabbit.” Sheepishly, he added, “I wasn’t expecting anyone to come by. Mrs. Ashe doesn’t usually let people wander around on her land.”
    Gabe managed to release his shirt and brush himself off. “She’s my grandmother. I didn’t think she’d mind.”
    The boy looked surprised. “I didn’t know she had any family,” he said. “Me and my mom live in the cottage at the bottom of the hill, on the other side of this forest.” He wagged his thumb over his shoulder.
    “I’m Gabe. We’re staying with her for a little while.”
    “Seth Hopper,” said the boy, with a wry smile.

    Dangerous , his grandmother had said.
    “I wouldn’t go that far, Mother,” Glen replied. “The woods behind Temple House are no different from anywhere else around here.”
    “The trails are great,” Gabe offered. “It’s like a park.”
    “I know what it’s like,” Elyse said. “I was born in this house, remember?” She wore a look of disdain. The rest of them sat at the dinner table watching her quizzically. Silence bounced around the dining room for a moment. Then Miri laughed and slapped at the high-chair tray.
    The sudden sound broke whatever spell had fallen upon the family. Everyone jumped. Gabe slowly released his breath, unaware that he’d been holding it. Elyse shook her head and glanced at him, flustered. “I’m sorry,” she said with an apologetic grin. “I just don’t want you to get lost out there. That’s all.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Very good.” Elyse folded her hands and lowered her head, but she couldn’t hide the groove of tension between her eyebrows. “Now say grace, Gabriel.”
    “ Grace, Gabriel, ” Gabe whispered as his mother smiled and his father threw him a dirty look.

WHEN GABE AWOKE from a dream of the fire, he found himself tangled in sweaty sheets. He kicked them off.
    A breeze blew in from the open window, and he caught his breath. Even after weeks of sleeping nightly in his new bedroom, he still sometimes woke in a panic, wondering where he was.
    His previous room didn’t even exist anymore, but his brain continued to hold on to the image of his superhero figurine collection that had stood on the shelf over his old bed board, his abuelita ’s quilt that he’d hung on the back of his desk chair in case he got chilly at night, his father’s bullfighter marionette that had dangled from a hook above his dresser.
    Sometimes when he awoke in this new house, his pillow was damp with tears. He thought of what Father Gideon had said to him afterward—a quote from the Bible about leaving childish things behind. We still have one another , his mother had added. But Gabe wondered, if you have nothing left besides your family to remind you of your childhood, did it mean you had grown up?
    In his new room, the breeze cooled his damp skin, and Gabe was chilled. He knew if he tried to sleep, embers would drift up once more into the darkness behind his eyelids, arms of molten plastic reaching for him, marionette strings blazing. A chorus of voices whispering, This is your fault .
    Gabe needed a distraction. He kicked at the mattress, annoyed that his parents insisted on charging his phone in their bedroom sohe wouldn’t stay up late playing with it. He grabbed his T-shirt from the floor at the side of his bed.
    Downstairs, Gabe crept toward the back of the house through the labyrinth of dark halls. He found the door he’d been searching for and pushed it open. Inside was a small room. Moonlight shone through a paned window at his left, throwing a strange prison-bar pattern onto the Persian rug at his feet. Outside, the leafy tops of the trees glistened in the silver light. High above, the moon was nearly full.
    Down the meadow slope, something caught his eye. Standing a few yards from the edge of the