When Wyatt imagined his Uncle Hal's house, he pictured a rundown farmhouse with chipped white paint, glowing yellow lights shining through cracked windows, and a barn out back with chickens squawking across the yard.

It turned out that he was exactly right.

Wyatt hiked his duffel bag higher onto his shoulder and took a few steps closer to the house, avoiding the curious chickens pecking at his shoes.

He clenched his thumb and pointer finger together, which was his only tell that said he was nervous.

Marigold, the girl who'd driven him here, had given him little comfort at the prospects of his new life.

She'd explained the clearing and the ghosts, which was fortunate, considering Hal lived right on the border of it.

Outside the fence, just a few yards away, was a vast field. It was too dark to see much else besides the silhouette of the Appalachians in the distance and a blanket of fog that seemed to be isolated in the clearing alone.

Though Wyatt couldn't see any ghosts, there was static in the air, like invisible energy.

Marigold had spoken as if it was all perfectly normal, which in turn made Wyatt feel perfectly out of place.

Wyatt Best was not used to feeling out of place. It was something different, he decided, and he would deal with it accordingly.

Maybe Hal had some books on the history of Nowhere or something else he could use to educate himself.

For the present, though, he was without an uncle, which seemed like a bigger problem than anything he'd encountered so far.

"Hello?" he called, but his cheerful greeting was only replied to by the coo of chickens.

Wyatt's sneakers crunched against the gravel of the driveway, then creaked up the porch steps as he made his way up. Curiously, there were no lights in the cracked windows.

"It's Wyatt Best," Wyatt called after knocking twice on the door.

When there was still no response, he sighed in frustration. Had Hal not received the letter telling him when Wyatt was coming?

Deciding to cut his losses, Wyatt turned the golden knob and pushed it open. Unnaturally cold air spilled through, chilling his legs as he stepped inside.

The only lights on inside the house was one in the kitchen, but it flickered on and off.

Someone needs to change out these lightbulbs, he thought.

It seemed like the house creaked every time Wyatt breathed too hard, so he listened closely.

Upstairs, he heard what he thought was a rocking chair careening back and forth.

"Hal?" Wyatt called.

He decided that Hal must've suffered from a hearing disability, so he trekked up the stairs and marched down the hall, making as much noise as possible so as not to scare the man.

Faint light leaked from beneath one of the several doors in the poorly wallpapered hall.

Wyatt didn't bother to knock on his door, but when he opened it, he almost vomited.

The smell coming out of the room was disgusting, like rotten eggs mixed with gasoline.

Wyatt's eyes were beginning to water. He'd never smelled anything so pungent before.

He nudged open the door the rest of the way with the toe of his shoe.

The wood creaked back to reveal what he assumed was a bedroom, except that the bed was not what Wyatt noticed.

It was the drawings and the papers and the notebooks illuminated by a single candle on a cluttered desk.

The flame was blue.

The floor was covered in books and more papers and more journals.

Hal finished whatever he was writing with a generous flourish and stood up to face his nephew.

Wyatt only blinked, surprised by the age of this man. He was only in his early thirties. Wyatt had pictured an aged man with crazy hair, but instead, Hal looked like the slightly older version of himself.

Wyatt said, "I guess this is home sweet home?"

"You what?"

Wyatt firmed his jaw. "I'm Wyatt Best. Your nephew."

This seemed to ease Hal's mind. "Oh. Right. My hearing..." his voice trailed off before he finished.

"What's that smell?" Wyatt asked, trying not to grimace.

"Thioacetone. Keeps the ghosts away. They always wander in here uninvited."

Wyatt scanned the clutter. "I don't think the ghosts would even be able to get to you even if they tried," he replied.

Hal crossed the room and all the books in three strides. He was tall and willowy, much like Wyatt had been before joining the tennis team at Brambleby.

Wyatt thought Hal did not seem like the type of man who would write in journals all day--a businessman, maybe, but not a researcher.

The terrible smell from the room was even more fermented on Hal's breath as he said, "You hungry?"

What made Wyatt flinch was not the stench. It was Hal's striking resemblance to his father as well as himself.

It was his father's hazel eyes that stared at him, but they were hollow as if Hal hadn't slept in years. There was a twist in his mouth like a perpetual frown. His skin was papery and white, but otherwise, he looked exactly like Mr. Best. Wyatt felt unsettled deep in his stomach.

Hal must have sensed this because he backed away a step.

"Hungry?" he repeated.

Wyatt nodded. "Starved."

Soon they were having an awkward dinner of beans and rice. It was awkward because they didn't have much to say to each other and also because it was very dark.

There didn't seem to be any electrical outlets in the house, and the only evidence of any electricity at all was the flickering lightbulb above the sink.

"So do you just write in your bedroom all day?" Wyatt asked.

"I grow tomatoes," Hal replied. He said it like "tuh-matus".

"Then what is it you write about?"

"Tomatoes." Tuh-matus.

Wyatt frowned. What he'd seen in the bedroom was not drawings of tomatoes, though he wasn't exactly sure what he'd seen, nor did he think that all of the piles of notebooks were full of horticultural literature.

Before Wyatt had finished half of his plate, Hal was already finished and he stood up, gesturing to the door. Had he even eaten at all?

"I'm afraid I ain't got room enough in here for you, so you'll have to sleep in the greenhouse. It's really better than it sounds."

Wyatt couldn't see how sleeping in a greenhouse could possibly be "better than it sounds", but he got up and wordlessly followed Hal outside.

How was there not enough room in the farmhouse for him?

In the yard, barely illuminated by the blue moonlight, a figure was stooped down, watching one of the chickens that was busily pecking at the ground.

Wyatt stopped, blinked, then stared.

"Evenin' Louis," Hal called.

The ghost, a man of about eighty-years-old, looked up and lifted a hand in greeting before dropping it back to his side and fixing his gaze back on the chicken.

"They got mites again?" Hal asked, more concerned this time.

The ghost shook his head.

"Alright then." Hal continued across the yard and Wyatt had to tear his gaze away from the ghost to follow him.

"Louis has been hanging around here ever since the last eclipse," Hal explained. "He was a chicken farmer in Kansas before he came here."

"How do you know?" Wyatt asked, glancing behind him again. "Does he talk to you?"

"Not to me, but he can talk to the Penny girls. He's the only ghost I keep around the property."

Wyatt nodded, though he was far from understanding.

"He'll be gone in about three months, though," Hal said.

"Why?"

"The next lunar eclipse is happening in August. That's why there's so many ghosts around here. There's always more of them during the eclipse year."

Wyatt had to keep himself from asking more questions, though his mind was reeling with them.

They came to a giant glass structure that was almost as big as the farmhouse itself.

Window panes made up the facility and Wyatt could smell the fertilizer from outside.

Inside, there were trellises of tomatoes lined up in twenty rows.

It was beautiful, but Wyatt couldn't help but decide that it was certainly not a bedroom.

Hal took him to a utility closet. The bed inside was made out of wooden pallets stacked on top of each other with a lawn chair cushion laid over the top and blankets on top of that.

Wyatt raised his eyebrows, too surprised to be upset.

"It ain't much," Hal said.

"No, it isn't," Wyatt agreed, because it was true.

He let down his duffel bag outside the utility closet and turned to shake his uncle's hand. He didn't know what else to do, as he felt that this was more of a business deal than some sort of family adoption.

Hal had a firm handshake, which Wyatt appreciated.

"I'm sorry about your dad," Hal offered, though there was something other than an apology in his eyes. Wyatt couldn't place it. Maybe it was the strange twist in his mouth that made everything Hal did seem crueler.

"Thank you," Wyatt replied.

Once Hal was gone, Wyatt turned towards his "bed". He'd once slept on the roof of his Cadillac after locking his keys inside and being stranded for the night in the middle of a Californian valley.

He assumed this couldn't be as terrible.

Then again, if he'd been surrounded by ghosts that night, he might have been more frightened.

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Hey everyone! Home sweet home...ish XD I hope you're all staying safe and healthy!

~What do you think of Uncle Hal?

~General thoughts so far?

Thank you SO much for reading, don't forget to comment, vote, and share!