That night, I stay up longer than I should on a school night, but my encounter with Evie and the failure at the Warren House have me bristled, and the only cure is Netflix. I turn on a cute movie about Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret on V-E Day, and try to get lost in the stupidly cute plot and fun swing music to no avail.

I sigh, and look at my phone. I have a snapchat from Nick, who's documenting something silly that his dog is doing. A few texts from Jase, still curious about the Warren House, but I'm too tired to answer.

Exasperated, I exit out of the movie, plunging myself into silence. I'm met with my background screen, a photo of my family one month before my father died. We're all sitting on the front porch, Evie and I on the bottom step with our parents behind us. My mom's smiling brighter than she ever does now, because my dad is standing beside her, a soft, knowing smile on his lips.

I feel a twinge of pain behind my sternum as I look at my dad's face, wondering if behind his knowing brown eyes, he knew what would happen in a month.

My dad died when I was ten. For a few weeks before his death, he'd plunged himself into some new hunch of his--he was a history professor at the community college--and locked himself away in his office. He got like that sometimes; he'd have an idea and then barricade himself with his friends the textbooks until he figured out an explanation.

But this time was different. Any time I saw my dad in the days leading up to his death, he'd look like he'd gone days without sleep, and he jumped at the slightest noise. He refused to go anywhere if there wasn't a light on. He'd go out at night and come back in the early hours of morning, dredging in the earth behind him.

My mom was scared. Evie was worried. I was just curious.

What was driving my dad so crazy that he'd practically become another person to find the answers? What was scaring him?

I remember the night before he'd died, I couldn't sleep. I'd left my curtains open, and I was watching as the moonlight danced like shadows along my bedroom floor. I'd wondered if the ley line enchanted everything, even the moonlight, so far away, to bring it to life before my eyes.

That's when I'd heard my father sprint up the drive, his footsteps like thunder. I'd ran to my window, and from my little turreted window, I could see him dart to the front door, fumbling to get it open. I could hear him when he did, but it was like some strange two-way mirror when he did, like when you replace a video feed with a loop and watch what's really happening in place of the loop.

From my window, I'd watched as my dad had struggled to get the door open, he'd seemed to be fumbling in his pockets for his key. He'd look over his shoulder at the street as if he was waiting for something to appear, but the only thing awake this late had been him, me, and the full moon.

Eventually, he got the door open, and I could hear calm footsteps in my house followed by the door closing shut behind them.

But my dad was still outside the front door, struggling with the lock.

If he was outside, then who was in the house?

I remember getting scared, and I hurried back to bed, blaming it all on dreams. I'd fallen asleep quickly after that, and when I woke up, it was to police officers and CSIs. My father had been found unresponsive in his study. They'd blamed it on a heart attack. They'd said he'd been dead since midnight.

But how could he have been in his study at midnight when I was watching him outside the door that whole time?

Of course, my family had always held beliefs in the supernatural and the legendary: my mother was named for the moon, my sister named for the night, and myself named for the stars. We lived on a ley line. My mother had dabbled in wicca to make a living during and after college into my early childhood. We were no strangers to strange things.

So of course, neither of us believed that my father had died from a heart attack. My father, who hardly ate anything too high in cholesterol and went for runs every morning and night. It simply wasn't practical, no matter how many times they lamented the dangers of heart disease in his obituary.

Since my father died, the house seemed to change, as if the ley line was strengthened by the odd circumstances surrounding it. My mother would try to talk to mediums for any answer from beyond, she'd go through everything Dad had left behind in his study, she'd search when she thought I wasn't home. My sister knew something was up, but by the time she'd graduated high school, she'd been wanting to let it go, wanting all of us to let it go. She'd forced herself to believe that Dad had really had a heart attack that night.

So where did that leave me?

It left me on a bridge between two realities, just as I had been that fateful night. I had seen something imperative, something that my ten-year-old brain couldn't process without fear. I still had so many questions, but the only person that could answer them was dead.

My father always used to tell me that just because I couldn't see something, doesn't mean I couldn't see it someday. He'd say that we lived in a world full of magic in secret places, and Willow's Crest was the biggest of the secret places. If I knew how to find its magic, if I could learn to read its unwritten histories, I could unlock those secrets.

My father loved secrets so much that he buried all of his with him that night.

Sometimes, when the moon's full like it was when my dad died, I feel like I can still hear his thunderous footsteps, amplified by the silence of night, racing up our driveway.

Sometimes, I wonder if it's a trick from the beyond to make me feel like I'll find the answers this month, next month, the month after that. Like I'm on an endless repeat.

My father loved secrets so much that he'd ripped up all his clues and he'd scattered them to the wind, as if he'd wanted me to find them.

And I will.