The Twisted Tree: Penn Files, #3

By L.R. Patton

"A terrifying story that will have you rooting for the heroes."

 

Goosebumps meets Lockwood & Co. meets Small Spaces in this middle grade horror story about amateur ghost hunter siblings who face two dangerous ghosts they can't ignore—because their lives are most definitely on the line.

 

Twelve-year-old Julian Penn and his eleven-year-old sister, Bella, just rid their house, Kingston Estate, of all the ghosts haunting it. Julian's hoping for a little ghost-free time as he concentrates on perfecting his first violin solo at his first orchestra concert. But no such luck—the crossroads tree they pass on their bike ride to school every day is showing the classic signs of a haunting—a blanket of hazy mist, cold spots, and what looks like a wild, angry ghost face with glowing green eyes, peering out from the canopy. But maybe it's just their imagination.

 

Then another ghost shows her ruined face—right inside Julian's orchestra room! And when one of the ghosts threatens Bella's life and rumors at school swirl about kids who have disappeared at the crossroads tree, Julian is forced to face his fears and take the lead on solving the ghost problem. Too bad he's never been great at cracking mysteries. Or being brave. Or solving complicated problems.

 

As the anniversary of the ghosts' death approaches, they grow stronger and angrier. One seems focused on possessing them. The other seems intent on touching them—which can kill. Julian feels way in over his head; he can't even do what he's supposed to be good at: playing the violin! Will he be able to trust himself and find his courage before someone gets hurt—or, worse, possessed or killed? Or will he disappoint everyone…and most of all himself?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Batlee Press
• Release date: Oct 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223570653

Book preview

In Which Julian Fails at the Worst Thing

Julian sat shaking in the orchestra room.

Nervous energy bolted through him. He could feel the strings on his violin vibrate. If he couldn’t calm himself, he was going to bomb his solo. And he’d practiced way too hard to bomb it.

Besides, Mr. Sanders was counting on him. He’d given Julian the solo over thirteen other violinists in the sixth grade. Nearly everybody had wanted to play the Pirates of the Caribbean featured melody, but Mr. Sanders had trusted Julian to play it best in the fall concert.

Now Julian could hardly remember how to play a violin.

The black music notes swam on the page in front of him. Julian had practiced the solo often enough to memorize it, but right now his brain provided only useless information. How flat Orlando’s cello sounded. How Paige’s voila seemed to whine instead of sing. How many kids here in the orchestra room would witness him fail at the coveted solo part it seemed everyone wanted.

How disappointed Mr. Sanders would be.

None of those things was productive.

The piece sped toward Julian’s doom. He raised his bow. He counted the beats. He tried his best to breathe.

He tanked.

He more than tanked.

The note he played didn’t even sound like it came from a violin. It sounded like it belonged to one of the creaky, ancient doors in his house, which had the kind of creaky, ancient name you might expect from an old, haunted mansion: Kingston Estate.

And, for the record, Kingston Estate had been haunted. But Julian couldn’t even use a lack of sleep due to troublesome ghosts as an excuse for his solo bombing, because he and his sister Bella, along with his friends Chase and Chelsea and an old woman named Hattie, had rid Kingston Estate of its ghosts before he’d even tried out for this solo.

Someone in the row behind Julian snorted. He figured it was probably one of the thirteen violinists who’d tried out and hadn’t gotten the part.

Thirteen was such an unlucky number.

A whisper confirmed Julian’s hunch. Looks like Mr. Sanders picked the wrong person for the solo.

His face flamed.

Mr. Sanders tapped his conductor’s wand against the music stand he always placed in front of him. Let’s try it again, he said.

Julian didn’t want to try it again. He wanted to get out of this class. Maybe even go home. Now that home was a safe place. Or safer. No telling what would come next. First, he and Bella had discovered the woods that practically swallowed Kingston Estate were haunted by a ghost and her ghostly kids. Then they’d found four ghosts—four!—inside their house. He hoped they were done with ghosts, but he knew better than to expect that.

For some reason, the universe kept sending more.

Mr. Sanders counted off the beats, and the orchestra started again. Orlando’s cello was still incredibly flat, and Paige’s viola still sounded like a teapot boiling.

This time, though, Julian played the solo perfectly, even with shaking hands and barely any breath in his chest.

He played it perfectly the third and fourth time they ran the piece, too. Mr. Sanders beamed at him, and Julian allowed himself to beam back and even go so far as to think, See? He didn’t pick the wrong person.

Just as the thought slipped into his mind, Julian tanked again. This time his violin sounded like a deflated old bird, wheezing out its last squawk.

Even Mr. Sanders’s jaw dropped. But Mr. Sanders recovered much faster than Julian did and said, Again. He counted off the beats while Julian tried to ignore the snickers and whispers behind him. He didn’t dare meet any other violinist’s eyes.

His fingers worked this time. The solo came out perfect. But the next time, terrible. Something was wrong with his hands or his brain or...with him.

He had no idea what was going on. Papaw, his first violin teacher, always said consistency was the most important thing when you played in an orchestra. That’s why practice was so vital. And Julian had practiced. Over and over and over again. He had always worked hard to be consistent. To play well every time he got a chance to play.

Why couldn’t he do that now?

He couldn’t be unpredictable. People were depending on him. He couldn’t let them down!

After the next bombed attempt at the solo, which came out sounding like one of Dad’s whining farts—it wasn’t even in the octave the solo was supposed to be in!—the room erupted into laughter, which faded into murmurs. And even though Julian couldn’t pick out the words being said, he didn’t have to. He knew what everyone was thinking.

Julian Penn is the worst soloist ever.

Mr. Sanders tapped his baton on the music stand. That’s all the time we have today, he said. Be gentle with your instruments as you put them away.

He made sure to always remind them of this, because some kids banged their instruments on every chair they passed on their way to their orchestra lockers, or they set them down on the floor where they could get stepped on.

Julian was always careful with his violin. Mom and Dad had just gotten him a mid-level Scott Cao violin for his twelfth birthday in October. It was not a cheap violin. It played like a dream.

Well, usually.

But today wasn’t the fault of Julian’s violin. It was the fault of his fingers. And that made him feel even more nervous. You could fix a broken violin. But how could you fix untrustworthy fingers?

Julian was so preoccupied with wiping down his violin using his special microfiber polishing cloth that he hadn’t noticed Mr. Sanders make his way over to him until Mr. Sanders said, Hey, Julian.

Julian felt all the dread in his stomach move up to his chest. Some of it even leaped into his throat. He felt sick.

Mr. Sanders would take away Julian’s solo now, after today’s disaster. And how would Julian tell Mom and Dad that he’d failed at something he was supposed to be good at, something that was so important to him?

Everything okay? Mr. Sanders said. You seem a little... Mr. Sanders looked like he was searching hard for the right word. Terrible? Inconsistent? Incompetent? Distracted.

Yeah, Julian said. He tried to think of something to say beyond that, some excuse that could explain his unexplainably terrible performance. He fell back on the old excuse. I didn’t get much sleep last night. But he had. There was no reason he shouldn’t have been able to play that solo perfectly every time, just like he did in practice. Unless he was the wrong person for the job.

Well, don’t beat yourself up about the solo, Mr. Sanders said. We all make mistakes and have off-days. We both know you can play it beautifully.

Did they both know that?

Julian made himself nod. He made himself say, I’ll practice more tonight. Tomorrow will be better.

He didn’t believe it, really. Words were easy.

Mr. Sanders nodded and patted Julian’s back. I don’t have any doubts, he said.

Derek Franklin, who’d been one of the fourteen to try out for the solo, glared at Julian from across the room. He looked like he doubted tomorrow would be better.

Well, that made two of them.

Julian snapped his violin case closed and headed out the door of the orchestra room. He felt eyes following him, but he didn’t turn back.

He didn’t need anyone reminding him he was a failure.

In Which Julian Learns Some True Crime He'd Rather Not Know

What’s with the scowl? Chelsea said when Julian sat down across from her and Chase in the noisy cafeteria. Her question made him scowl more.

Nothing, he grumbled.

Did you fail a math test? Chelsea said.

No.

Trip on your way into school?

I wish. Then he could have possibly broken something and called Mom to pick him up and he never would have humiliated himself in front of the entire sixth grade orchestra.

Did you forget your lunch? Chelsea said.

Julian held up his orange cloth lunch bag. It was hard to miss, it was so bright.

I’m out of guesses, Chelsea said. She gave Chase a look that said, Your turn to interrogate Julian.

Chase and Chelsea were twins, but they were nothing alike. They didn’t even look alike. Chase had eyes the color of a tree trunk, hair that looked like a curly glob of wet mud on the top of his head, and a shy smile that never seemed too far away. He used to wear glasses, but he’d gotten contacts recently. His brown eyes still looked huge. Chelsea had blue-green eyes with brown flecks in them, hair the same shade as Chase’s, and new serious-looking purple glasses (she didn’t like contacts, she said), which she pushed up regularly with her right hand. She’d stopped wearing her hair in braids after Halloween. For some puzzling reason that made Julian’s face feel hot, he’d noticed her change of hairstyle.

Chase was quiet, Chelsea was loud—which sort of made sense when you considered that Chase wanted to be entomologist when he grew up (he knew all kinds of random facts about bugs) and Chelsea wanted to be a journalist. Questions were her specialty.

When Chase only blinked back at Chelsea, she shrugged and said, Tell your mom her article about that place teaching kickboxing to at-risk kids was really well developed and engaging.

Chelsea was always giving Julian complimentary messages to pass along to Mom. Julian was pretty sure Chelsea wanted to be Mom when she grew up.

He was glad for the change of subject, though. He didn’t want to talk about his failure in orchestra.

Since Chase and Chelsea had joined Julian and Bella on their last successful ghost-hunting mission (which was really just a mission to send ghosts on to wherever ghosts go so they’d get out of Julian’s house), Julian had been working hard to open up to his friends. Because even though Dad had told Julian to just give it a year when they’d moved from the only home he’d ever known in Pflugerville to Kingston Estate on the northeast side of San Antonio, Julian had decided he liked it here and might even like to stay. And a person always needed friends—even if it was only for a year.

Leaving friends was hard and painful. But not having friends was lonely—and hard and painful. Friends could help you through hard things—like ghosts haunting your house and losing grandparents and missing old friends at your old school.

Maybe even bombing an orchestra solo and being on track to humiliate yourself in a very public concert performance.

But the anxiety was too fresh for Julian to mention it to his friends. He wanted to steer clear of anything that had to do with violins, music, or solos.

Fortunately, Chelsea had plenty of words to make up for Chase’s and Julian’s silence. She reminded Julian of Bella when her mind was knitting together scientific details and theories. She hardly ever did it quietly.

Chelsea was the same with news. And since Halloween, when they’d sent along the ghosts at Kingston Estate, she’d been obsessed with true crime.

Guess what I found out last night, Chelsea said.

Did Julian really want to know? He exchanged a worried glance with Chase. He wondered if that look meant Chase already knew what Chelsea had found out or if he just knew, the same way Julian knew, that whatever Chelsea had discovered wouldn’t be good news, in the purest sense of the term.

Chelsea didn’t wait for either of them to respond.

One of the teachers here was murdered.

What? Julian’s startled question sounded like a yelp.

He hadn’t heard about any teachers dying.

Years ago, Chelsea said. Before we were born.

Julian’s breath whooshed out of him. He tried to do it quietly, but it whistled. It sounded like relief. And that embarrassed him just a little.

Chelsea gave him a funny look. Anyway, she said, like he’d interrupted her story. There was this young teacher, like, fifty years ago or something, who died in a house fire.

Julian felt his anxiety crawling back up his neck. He didn’t like these kinds of details. They got stuck in his brain and unlocked all the carefully locked boxes in all the darkest corners and before he knew it all the Worst Case Scenarios popped out of their places and yelled, What if?!!

Anybody could die in a house fire.

What if?!!

Julian shook his head, hoping to clear away the dark thoughts. Hoping, especially, that Chase would remember Julian didn’t like details. Maybe he could stop Chelsea from spilling the most gory ones, which she definitely knew. She had a brain like a cabinet. She collected true crime facts and put them on shelves, for later use. Julian didn’t know how she could sleep at night.

But Chase looked frozen, eyes unblinking, chip-clutching fingers halfway to his mouth. It was not a good sign.

Her grandfather died with her, Chelsea said. But here’s the best part.

The best part or the worst part? Julian was starting to believe best meant very different things to different people.

It wasn’t an accident. Chelsea clasped her hands in front of her. She beamed.

Chase stared at his sister, eyes almost as wide as his mouth. He looked comically horrified.

At least Julian wasn’t the only one.

What is wrong with you? Chase finally said. How is that, in any world, the best part?

Chelsea narrowed her eyes. It was never solved, she said. Who started the fire.

That’s not even remotely good, Chase said.

Some people say it was her boyfriend, Chelsea said. A crime of passion. She tilted her head. Actually, everybody says that, even the police. But the boyfriend died before they could arrest him. In a car accident. Leaving the burned-down house.

Unbelievable, Chase said. You are the weirdest person I know.

Speak for yourself, Chelsea said, her eyes narrowing even more. She pushed up her glasses, which now covered her drawn-low eyebrows. Just because I think true crime is interesting doesn’t mean—

The dismissal bell drowned out the rest of Chelsea’s words. Julian was more than happy to get out of there. He didn’t like talking about dead people. He’d seen way too many of them in the last few months.

Eight, to be exact—but that was more than enough.

Hey, Julian! Chelsea called as Julian swung his backpack to his shoulder and began to move away. You haven’t seen any ghosts in the orchestra room, have you?

Why would he—

The woman who died in the fire was the orchestra teacher here, Chelsea said. They say she haunts the school because it’s where all the things that mattered most to her are.

Julian felt an icy drop snake down his back. His stomach clenched. His left arm went numb.

He didn’t need something else splitting his attention in orchestra, making him slaughter his solo. But Chelsea had dropped a Very Big Thing.

Julian sucked in a huge breath, sighed in such a way that it could have been a groan, and wondered if he would ever live in a world where he didn’t have to think about ghosts.

In Which Julian Gets Annoyingly Outsmarted

Bella was chatty on the way home, which meant Julian didn’t have to talk about—or think about—Chelsea’s disturbing news. Bella would probably find out soon enough, anyway. Even though Bella was still in elementary school (fifth grade), and Julian, Chase, and Chelsea were at the middle school (sixth grade) that sat right beside the elementary, Bella and Chelsea still seemed to find time to talk. He knew it was only a matter of time before Chelsea told Bella the story she’d told him at lunch.

And knowing Bella, she’d be just as interested—and delighted—as Chelsea was. Because dead people, in Bella’s mind, might mean ghosts. For some reason, she loved ghosts.

Julian hardly remembered biking home, much less anything Bella said. Fortunately, Bella didn’t ask any questions that required Julian to pretend—and probably fail at that, too—he’d been listening.

As soon as they stepped through the back door, which led into the kitchen, Bella sighed an exaggerated breath and said, It’s hard to believe this place was full of ghosts less than a week ago. It’s so quiet.

Julian preferred it quiet.

I almost miss them, Bella said. Julian certainly didn’t. Those ghosts had thrown plates at him, almost pushed him down the stairs, and, in the end, nearly killed them with a tornado-like wind that sucked everything toward it. They were very powerful. And dangerous. Julian and Bella hadn’t even known ghosts could do things like throw objects and push people and trap them in a murderous wind.

Julian would be happy if he never had to see another ghost again. They were too unpredictable, and he didn’t like unpredictable. He liked things he could count on. Be certain about.

Like Mom’s notes on the counter, which always waited for them when they got home.

Casserole’s in the fridge, she’d written today. "350 for 45 minutes. We’ll be home at 6. Make sure you clean the bathrooms. Love, Mom.

P.S. I love you both more than I love Truman Capote.

True crime, Bella said, pointing to the end of Mom’s note. Mom and Chelsea would get along so well.

They already did get along so well. Chelsea had been over at Kingston Estate for a sleepover after Halloween, and she’d ended the night staying up late with Mom, watching documentaries.

Julian read the note again.

Mom had been leaving those postscripts on the end of her notes for as long as he could remember. Even when they’d lived back in Pflugerville and Papaw had been home with them after school, she’d left them notes on the days she went into the office. She always listed something she loved—a person, a book, a favorite activity—and then told them she loved them more.

Julian wondered who Truman Capote was. Bella clearly knew, but probably only because Chelsea knew, if it had anything to do with true crime. Bella had tried to be as interested in true crime for about a week, but her brain preferred science. Before ghosts she’d loved astronomy. He didn’t