Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) by Allison James

moved toward the front door and tried to push it open. It would not budge. Perhaps the side door was open. I jumped down the front porch steps and went to the side door. It, too, was locked. Just when I was about to give up, I recalled that there was a sliding door that lead to the patio at the rear of the red structure.
    I headed toward the backyard.
    Somewhere in the distance, I heard what sounded like a cat’s meow coming from the garage. It must be Cuddy Boy, I thought. Cuddy Boy was only two months old when Catherine found him a few winters ago and decided to take care of him. One day I had gone to Catherine’s house to drop off a pumpkin pie. When Catherine had opened the front door to let me in, she spotted Cuddy Boy sitting on her front porch close to the window. The skinny, cold, and hungry cat had purred in such a mournful way that Catherine felt sorry for him and adopted him on the spot.
    After I am done looking inside, I will go back and get Cuddy Boy, I decided. He is probably locked in the garage, and Catherine won’t be back any time soon to let him out.
    I made my way to the sliding patio door and pressed on the handle. To my surprise, the door slid open with considerable ease. Without hesitation, I slipped inside.
    The interior was dark and smelled musty and damp and appeared unkempt. The layout of the inner rooms was familiar since I had been in the house numerous times over the past several years. I flipped on the light switch in the living room. A timeworn, brown couch occupied the west corner of the room, and next to it was a loveseat with similar worn out fabric. A wooden coffee table with a glass top sat in the center area adorned by an empty ceramic flower vase.
    Catherine was elderly and did not have the energy to clean her house much. She had once mentioned to me that she used to have a cleaning lady who showed up twice per week but that one day the cleaning lady quit without any explanation.
    Ever since Mom divorced Peter, I stopped having contact with Catherine. Actually, Mom and I just felt awkward visiting Catherine knowing that her son could pop in at any time. But I really respected Catherine and would have continued my relationship with her had Mom not left Peter. I just did not have any idea that Catherine had gone through so much turmoil with Edgar’s other personality stalking her. Catherine had never mentioned Edgar to me. I wonder if Mom knew about Edgar. There were so many questions that I wanted to ask Mom.
    I examined the living room a little more closely. It did appear sort of cozy with the beige shag rug at the foot of the couch adding warmth to the room. The fireplace was filled with freshly chopped wood. Who had cut up the wood for Catherine? I knew better than to assume that the old lady had completed the task herself.
    A bookshelf took up the entire east corner and was filled with books, magazines, and photographs. One of the pictures caught my attention, and I moved toward the shelf to get a better look.
    It was a photo of Catherine when she was in her mid- twenties with a man who was probably her former husband Sylvester, and two young children who appeared to be of elementary school age. The younger child had blond hair and resembled Sylvester with his narrow nose, small blue eyes, and high cheek bones. That’s probably Brandon, I thought. The older child had straight brown hair, dark brown eyes, thick brows, and a sharp chin. “And that’s Peter when he was a child,” I said in a whisper to no one in particular.
    As I stood there examining the old photographs on the bookshelf, I could not halt the wave of dread that was washing over me. I recalled reading a book that a psychologist had written which encouraged people to pay close attention to their intuitive feelings since those instincts warn of true impending danger.
    But I could not quite put my finger on what was causing me to harbor this sudden sensation of foreboding. The pangs of uneasiness and frustration at