No. I cried out as I saw the tears in her eyes. Sophie’s tears ran down her face. I glimpsed the tears just for a moment, and I thought my heart would break.
My sister … my poor little sister …
And then she whipped her head around. As if she didn’t want me to see. As if she didn’t want me to see the true emotion, the teardrops sliding down her face.
“Goodbye, Emmy,” she uttered. “Goodbye. I have to go now.”
“No. Sophie—wait,” I pleaded. “Where are you going? Where?”
She didn’t answer. She arched her spine again. And her face disappeared. Sophie’s face melted back into the face of a wolf. She turned to gaze at me for one more brief moment, her eyes peering at me behind the long wolfen snout. Then she coiled her hind legs—and leaped out of the pit.
“Sophie? Where are you going?” I called. “Sophie? Come back!”
Eddie and I stared across the pit at one another and listened to the thunder of her paws as the wolf ran away.
41.
Eddie and I started to scream for help. But we knew it was of no use. We were too deep in the cemetery for anyone to hear us. After a few minutes, we gave up. We hugged each other, held each other tight. We were both trembling … from the fright … from the horror … and from the shock.
We both cried out in surprise when two confused police officers appeared overhead. They quickly pulled Eddie and me from the pit. They lifted Mac carefully and stretched him out on his back on the ground. Then they called for emergency medical help.
One of the officers was having a hard time with the overpowering odor, and once we were rescued, hurried away to throw up against a tree.
Eddie and I held onto each other, shaken but okay. Sophie’s hoarse wolf voice lingered in my ears, and I gazed around the cemetery searching for her. But she was gone.
Gone forever?
The two officers had been called by a neighbor who had been walking her dog by the cemetery wall and had heard our screams. Of course, the officers had a million questions: What were we doing here at night? How did we get down in that pit? And why did the pit exist? How did Mac get so badly injured?
To my surprise, Mac was still alive. His neck and chest were caked with blood. His t-shirt and pants had been clawed to pieces. He raised his head, his eyes dazed. He tried to focus on Eddie and me, but I don’t think he saw us clearly.
“That wolf…” he murmured in a whisper. “That wolf…”
One of the officers, a tall young guy with short blond hair, blue eyes, and a nice tan, gently pushed Mac back down. “Don’t try to talk. The EMT will be here in a minute or two.”
Mac settled back with a sigh and shut his eyes.
The officer turned to Eddie and me. “Did he say a wolf? Maybe the same wolf that attacked that dog in Shadyside Park?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see a wolf,” I lied.
“Me, either,” Eddie said, lying, too. “We heard some kind of fight. Above us. But we couldn’t see anything from down in the pit. Then Mac came falling down, all bloody and messed up.”
The cop squinted at us. “You didn’t see a wolf?”
We both shook our heads. “No wolf.”
“The guy must be delirious,” the cop concluded.
Later, as we walked through the pet cemetery to the patrol car parked outside the gate, I gazed at the wolf tracks in the dirt path. Followed them with my eyes as we walked—and wondered if I would ever see Sophie again?
* * *
The police called for our parents, and we spent the rest of the night in the Shadyside precinct station. Of course, Mom and Dad were beyond horrified to learn that Eddie and I were in so much danger. They didn’t ask about Sophie. They didn’t know that Sophie had been with us.
I tried my best to answer all the questions. But the whole time, I had only one thought in my head: How will I ever tell Mom and Dad the truth about Sophie?
Agent Fairfax from the Feds showed up near morning. The money had been retrieved from Mac’s desk drawer. He said that would make things easier for Lou. And Fairfax surprised us by announcing that Eddie and I would receive a five-thousand-dollar reward for the return of the money.
I guess they expected me to be excited about that and shout for joy or something. I mean, it was a nice reward. But, where does five thousand dollars compare to losing your sister?
I could see that Eddie felt as exhausted and numb as I did. By the time we had answered all their questions, all the horror of the night before was just starting to sink in. I wanted to cry and scream and go berserk all at once. I honestly felt like I was going to burst apart.
Outside the precinct station, I hugged Eddie, a long hug, pressing my cheek against his. “Talk to you later,” he whispered, and he turned to follow his mom.
“I—I—” I wanted to start to explain about Sophie. But Mom put a hand over my mouth to silence me. “You’ve been through so much, and you’ve been up all night. We’ll talk about everything later,” Mom said, holding the car door for me.
Dad slid behind the wheel. “Eddie’s stepfather is going to prison for a long time,” he said. “He was foolish to think—”
“Not now, Jason!” Mom cried, slapping his arm. “Stop it. This isn’t the right time.”
We drove home in silence. The whole while I was thinking, when is the right time to talk about Sophie? When?
I didn’t want to cry in front of my parents. I couldn’t bear to sit there crying in the car. But the tears formed in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks, and I bit my lips to keep from making a sound.
I dreaded stepping into the house, walking into a house with no sister. But I pulled open the kitchen door and stepped inside—and stared at Sophie standing at the sink, washing off a dark purple plum.
She turned as I walked in. She must have heard me gasp.
“Where’ve you been?” Sophie asked. “I’ve been texting you for hours.”
“Huh?” I stared at her, stared hard as if she was some kind of mirage. Like I had lost my mind, or I was dreaming again. “Sophie? You’re really here?”
Sophie dried off the plum with a paper towel. “I told Mom and Dad I was staying over at Libby Howard’s last night. Didn’t they tell you?”
“With everything that went on, I forgot,” Mom said.
Sophie raised her eyebrows. “What happened? I miss everything,” she whined.
What an awesome actress she is! I thought. Our parents think she was having a sleepover. They don’t know anything.
“You missed everything,” Dad told her. “Emmy nearly got herself killed at the pet cemetery last night, but she’s okay now.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Mom said. “Emmy, go to your room. Take a long nap. I know you need it … you’ve been up all night”
Sophie followed me to our bedroom. She grabbed me and pressed her face close to mine. “I decided I don’t want to live in the woods,” she whispered, her hot breath brushing my ear. “I want to live at home. I don’t want to live outside like an animal.”
“That’s good,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
She squeezed my shoulders, holding me tightly. “I just have one important question to ask you,” she whispered, her eyes locked on mine.
“Question?” I repeated in a tiny voice.
She nodded. “Can you keep a secret?”
Also by R. L. Stine
SERIES
Goosebumps
Fear Street
Mostly Ghostly
The Nightmare Room
Rotten School
INDIVIDUAL TITLES
It’s the First Day of School … Forever!
A Midsummer Night’s Scream
Red Rain
Eye Candy
The Sitter
About the Author
R. L. STINE is one of the bestselling children’s authors in history. His Goosebumps and Fear Street series for young people have more than 400 million books in print and have been translated
into thirty-five languages. Other popular children’s book series include Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room, and Rotten School.
Stine’s anthology TV series, R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, recently won an Emmy Award as Best Children’s Show. His Goosebumps series is the basis for a feature film of the same name, starring Jack Black as R. L. Stine. Stine says that he is proud to have frightened several generations of young people, and he is delighted to be back on Fear Street to deliver even more scares.
R. L. Stine lives in New York City with his wife, Jane, an editor and publisher. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part Two
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Three
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Also by R. L. Stine
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? Copyright © 2016 by Parachute Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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Cover design by Danielle Christopher
Cover photographs: tree © Mark Wickens/offset.com; knife © shutterstock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-05894-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-9295-8 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466892958
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First Edition: April 2016