Haunting of Lily Frost by Nova Weetman Page A

Dad thinks that it’s just because it’s in the country, but they obviously paid almost nothing for it, and the only reason no one wants to buy a super-cheap house, even in the boring old town of Gideon, is because something terrible happened there or because it’s haunted.
    Normally I’m quite brave, but right now I’m scared. I thought a haunting might be fun, might be a distraction from living in this town, but I don’t want the haunting to be too terrifying. Maybe I just need a break. Go outside, grab some fresh air, as Mum would say, or actually even a drink of water.
    Backing out seems to be the way to go, less likely to disrupt whatever’s happening here. But as my foot tries to move, something grabs it. I can feel it wrapping around my ankle, my heart’s leaping out of my chest and I’m balanced on one foot.
    â€˜Dad!’
    Someone’s screaming.
    â€˜Dad!’ It’s me .
    Loud, too. So loud that whatever’s stopping me lets go and I tumble over and hit the floor. Weirdly, my ankle feels wet and that doesn’t make sense.
    As I go to get up, I notice something on the floor where I’m lying. It’s a bunch of capital letters that look like they’ve been roughly carved into the timber. I run my finger over them and as I do, a shock charges up my fingers. I snatch my hand away. I’ve got to leave, go downstairs to my family, but I don’t. Can’t. I trace over the letters again, but this time in the air without touching them. There’s an L, Y, I, R, L, O, S, T, and an F. They don’t make sense. But if they don’t mean anything why would someone bother taking the time to carve them into the floorboards?
    My dad’s always doing those letter puzzles in the paper in the morning. I’ve watched him. He writes the letters down in a circle and tries to find words. I’m pretty average at it, but I have to give it a go. I poke around in my bag and find a piece of paper and a pen. The paper is the school camp notice and for a second it drags me out of this house and back to Ruby and the camp that I’m going to miss out on. I don’t want to think about that right now, so I copy the letters from the floor into a circle and start rearranging them. Every combination I can think of. The longer I try, the more determined I am that they will spell something. They have to.
    Then I realise what they spell and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to see it.
    LILY FROST. My name.
    I feel a rush then. A weird cold breeze prickles up my legs and I almost vomit. I jump up fast. Away from the letters that seem to be snaking around the floor, alive. But they can’t reach me if I’m up high. Thoughts fly. How? Why? Who?
    Maybe Dad’s playing a trick or my brother’s mucking around, but I don’t think they’ve been up here. And the letters don’t look like they’ve been scratched recently. So how did someone know I was coming? Or is the message meant for someone else?
    I start rearranging the letters, hoping I can spell another name. There’s LIL FROSTY, FI TROSLLY and FRILLY OST. I try MATILDA, after the name on the wall downstairs, but there’s no A so that can’t be it. I give up after that because there could be lots of different possibilities. Even though I’m dreadful at maths and statistics, I know it must be pretty long odds that two people with the same anagram could come to be in the same room. So someone has definitely left me a message. And as creepy as that is, I kind of like it.
    There’s a scratching noise at my door. It sounds like someone’s fiddling with the lock. Maybe Max has come to explore too. I don’t want him up here, though. Not yet. Not before I’ve checked out everything properly. Taking off my shoes, I tiptoe across to the door. Looking through the keyhole, I half expect to see his eye blinking back. But there’s nothing. It’s just