Trick or Treat by Richie Tankersley Cusick

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Contains Spoilers!!!  This is a recap blog, which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/Halloween costume is.

Tag Line: Trick or treat, trick or treat, candy is dandy but murder is sweet.

From the Back of the Book: Dressed to kill.  Martha knew there was something evil about the house she was moving into.  It was so cold...and creepy.  And it wasn't just the house giving her a weird feeling.  Martha was sure someone was following her...watching her every move.  Then the practical jokes began - the scarecrow with the carving knife in its head, the fire.  And the phone calls: "Trick or treat, Martha...you're dead."  It was October, but these were no Halloween tricks.  Someone would be coming home this year with more than just a bag of treats.  And Martha was the prize.  Trick or treat.

(Note from future me: there's one pretty glaring error in this book blurb but I'm not going to tell you what it is.  Read the recap and see if you can find it. 😉)

This book was published in 1989 and I've owned it since the early 90's. Yes, folks, this one came off my keeper shelf and I think I've read it a couple dozen times (probably more). Is it a great book? Nope. Not even close. BUT........Conor. I have a feeling that this recap won't even come close to expressing the awesomeness of Conor . This might be one you actually have to read yourself in order to understand just how magical he really is. But I doubt you're going to do that so.............here we go.

I'm going to pretend this is my first read-through and I'm discovering things right along with you. It will be hard because I'm going into this already in love with Conor and already pissed off at Martha but I'll give it my best shot so the spoilers don't get spoiled before the spoilers should be spoiled. I'm not going to be able to do my usual “Odds of ________ being the bad guy” thing, though, because I already know who the bad guy is and I wouldn't be able to do it fairly.

PS I would love to live in the house on the front cover.

Speaking of Martha, we begin with her and her dad in the car on the way to a new house. Actually, it's kind of a whole new life. Martha's dad just eloped with a woman named Sally and they are moving into a new house in a new town to be with her and her son Conor. Martha isn't thrilled with any of this. Her dad didn't even talk to her before he made these life-changing decisions and she's sad about leaving the house where she has so many memories of her mom. She also feels weird about moving in with Conor who is only a year older than her.

Martha thinks Conor is aloof and “casual about everything” whatever that means. She tells her dad she never knows if Conor is laughing at her or disgusted by her. If you have to ask, sweetie, then it's probably both. She complains that he's “unreadable” “independent” and “maddeningly elusive”. She seems to have put a lot of thought into Conor.

The house is out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods. “The house looked strangely ghostlike, rising up through pale wisps of fog, its dark stone walls and chimneys interwoven with bare, twisted trees. Silhouetted there in the twilight, its gables crawled with dead ivy, its tattered awnings drooping like eyelids hiding secrets. Like something in a dream, not quite real. Not quite safe.....”

I have to hand it to Cusick here – that description made me want to live in that house.  Although, I don't think her intention was to make it attractive.

Someone has put a creepy scarecrow on the front porch and Martha feels like they're being watched. The house needs a lot of work but Sally and Martha's dad (we need a name, Cusick) are thrilled with it and can only see its potential. Martha hates it. She hates everything. She wishes she was on the other side of the world.

I can kind of understand Martha's attitude here. It would be pretty upsetting if my dad just walked in and said “Hey, I went ahead and got married and we're going to move to a completely new house in a new town tomorrow.” Still, she's being super-childish and self-focused. I mean, this happened to Conor too. He's in the exact same boat and she's continuing to see him as an annoyance rather than a fellow victim of their inconsiderate parents. In Martha's world, it's all about Martha.

Conor comes out and Martha tells us that she's “irresistibly drawn to him”. This is not a surprise, Martha. We could tell you were hung up on him by all those adjectives you threw his way a page ago. Clearly he's been on your mind a lot. Conor has a strong jaw and a mouth that is always curved slightly upwards as if he's amused by life and everyone in it but still brooding and thoughtful. His eyes are “piercing” blue and steady and his body is lean and strong. She goes on about his shoulders for a bit (broad and strong in case you're wondering), mentions his thick “burnished gold” hair and then rhapsodizes about how casually graceful he is.

This girl has it bad for her new brother.

Conor shows her up to her room. Along the way, he tells her that half the lights don't work and there's only one bathroom. The house has servant's stairs that run from the basement to the attic (and everywhere between I assume). Her room is near those stairs. It's a bit distant from the other rooms and she asks him why they put her there. He says he thought she might want some privacy. She acts like he has sinister motives here but I think he was giving her space so she could adjust to their new situation.

The room is run-down like the rest of the house with peeling wallpaper, old furnishings and a closet door that won't stay closed. Martha is gripped with terror as soon as she walks in. There are shadows everywhere and it feels cold. She grips Conor's arm (oh, admit it, girl, you just wanted to touch him) and tells him that something bad happened in that room. Conor looks at her for a long time and then tells her that all old houses have drafts.

Martha sulks all through dinner and has a generally crappy attitude. Her father (name this man, Cusick) is getting annoyed with her but Sally keeps rushing to smooth things over. It's clear that she desperately wants this whole thing to work. Conor is dry-witted and sarcastic and generally swoony throughout.

Things go from bad to worse when Sally inadvertently reveals that there's supposed to be a cemetery somewhere on the property. Martha just wants to get the fuck out. Sally quickly changes the subject to school and lets Martha know that she'll be meeting with an adviser on Monday. Conor gently teases that they'll send Martha back to elementary school if she's not careful and its not a comment on her intelligence or maturity level. Apparently she looks about 12 years old.

Martha spends the rest of the chapter complaining about the house and her life and Conor and how everyone just hates her and she might as well eat rocks. It's super charming. Conor tries to get her out of her funk by taking her on a tour of the house but that just leads to more complaining about how big it is and how she's never going to find her way around. For fuck's sake, Martha, it's a house not a shopping mall.

Martha is sure she sees drapes moving and doors that were opened are now closed and she's just generally miserable so she's trying to make the rest of us miserable too. Conor finally gives up on her and Martha heads for bed. She's in the middle of a fitful sleep when the ringing of the phone in the hall wakes her up. She calls for her dad and Sally but no one responds so she gets up and staggers to the phone.

At first she doesn't hear anything on the other end but then she hears raspy breathing and a sinister chuckle. The caller tells her to look outside and says “Trick or Treat” before hanging up. At first, Martha just dismisses it as a crank call. But she can't stop herself from looking out the window. Dangling outside is a body with a carving knife through its head.

So.....exactly how long have Conor and Sally been there? I thought this was all pretty new but now I'm wondering because they have phone service already. And while we're on that, how could some town crank get the number already? Is Conor handing it out like candy all around town? Also the body is hanging outside Martha's window so Martha was clearly the intended recipient of the call. How did the caller know that she would be the one that answered the phone? If Conor had answered, he would have looked out his window and seen nothing and the call would have been wasted. This all seems very improbable, Cusick.

Martha screams and Conor comes running. He looks out the window and tells her that it's the scarecrow from the porch. Their parents have gone out on a drive so he steps in and tries to figure out what happened. Martha is hysterical and can't manage to complete a sentence so the exchange is pretty frustrating to read. She finally gets out that there was a phone call and the voice on the other end was “throaty”.

Conor thinks it's probably just a joke on the new kids because Halloween is coming up and tells her that he'll answer the phone from now on. She bitterly tells him that this is all his stupid mother's fault for picking out this stupid house in this stupid town and she and her father were just fine without them, thank you. He tells her she's acting like a spoiled brat and she needs to think of someone other than herself for a change.

Seriously. Conor is all of us here.

She reacts in a mature fashion. She throws her purse at his head. Sleep doesn't come easy that night. She tries to convince herself that Conor is right and it was just a stupid Halloween prank but she can't shake all of her unsettling feelings.

When she wakes up to the smell of burnt bacon, she realizes she eventually got to sleep after all. The scarecrow is gone but Sally doesn't mention it when Martha goes downstairs, so she assumes that Conor took care of it on his own. He's out stacking firewood so she goes out to ask him about it. She asks him why he didn't tell and he says that he wasn't sure she wanted him to. She admits that her dad thinks she exaggerates everything and Conor says he got that vibe. He changes the subject and tells her that it's nice in the woods and she gets all bitter again about being there.

We know, Martha.  Let it go.

The moving van comes and they spend most of the day unpacking. Martha can't seem to make her room feel like home, though, and she finally goes outside where she finds Conor. Before they can have any kind of conversation her dad (WHO STILL DOES NOT HAVE A NAME) asks Conor to run to town to get some picture hooks. Conor asks Martha if she wants to go along and she agrees, eager to get out of the house.

The drive emphasizes to her how isolated their house is. When they get to town, she's dismayed to find how small and quiet it is. Conor takes them to the hardware store and Martha wanders around thinking how lame and outdated everything is.

Odds of Martha being the most annoying Point Horror protagonist ever: 90%

She stumbles across a boy her age and he pretty much just stops and stares at her in shock. Not creepy at all. He mumbles that she reminds him of someone else from behind and I immediately wonder if their ass shapes are the same or something. Martha stammers and stutters about for a moment, completely flustered by his odd attention but eventually introductions are made. The boy's name is Blake and he's helping out in his uncle's shop for the day along with his cousin Wynn who is also staring at Martha like some weirdo creeper. Nice town you have here.

Blake asks Martha where she lives and has another weird moment when she describes the house to him. He looks a little frightened as he tells her it's the “old Bedford place” and then hurries to change the subject. He asks if Conor is her boyfriend and she stammers around a bit more before finally communicating that they're brand new stepsiblings. Blake tells her that he'll see her at school and then he takes off.

Martha is broody the rest of the day. After dinner she takes a walk around the house. She's convinced that she can see someone standing in the tree line. Then she hears the sound of crying. She ventures closer to find it's source and the crying stops. She can hear breathing, though, and she freezes for several seconds. Something further into the woods moves and walks away and Martha makes a run for the house.

We time hop to Monday morning. Conor and Martha are on their way to school. I know this is hard to believe, but Martha is complaining. Her dad (who is still unnamed) is some kind of reporter and he's been assigned to a story in Hawaii. He and Sally are taking off on an unexpected honeymoon leaving Conor and Martha alone in the house.

Protagonist finds herself parent-less? Check

Martha pouts and sulks the entire way because she's completely incapable of being happy for her father. Meanwhile, Conor is over in the driver's seat acknowledging that it's nice that the parents have this opportunity to have a honeymoon. I feel sorry for Conor here because I think Martha is going to be exhausting to look after.

Conor leads her into the school and into the office where she finds herself ushered into the adviser's office. He says his name is Mr Chambers but she can call him Greg when they're alone.

Hey, Cusick, this scene isn't supposed to give off a pedophile vibe is it? Because it kind of does.  Especially since she's supposed to look about 12.

She recognizes the last name and realizes he resembles Blake. It turns out Greg and Blake are cousins too. This is one of those small towns where everyone is related, isn't it? He also teaches creative writing and he wants her in his class because she's won a couple of small writing awards. It turns out to be the only class she likes that day. She feels like the entire school is starting at her and whispering about her.

Toward the end of the day, Wynn approaches her. They talk a bit about Martha's day at school and Martha's new homelife but very little about Wynn because Martha has to make every conversation about Martha. Wynn is surprised to hear that Conor is Martha's new stepbrother. She reveals that the entire school is lusting after him. Martha is skeptical and then annoyed. She throws herself another pity party because everyone loves Conor and hates her.

Martha invites Wynn over but Wynn looks nervous and declines. Martha assumes it's because she's skittish around Conor the love god. Before she leaves, Wynn gives Martha one last piece of information. She tells Martha that a murder was committed there and the house is evil.

Lovely.

On the ride home, Martha tries to explain to Conor how their house is evil and probably haunted and everyone in town is laughing at them. Conor feels like she might be overreacting but he tries to humor her. He asks for details which she cannot provide. She gets pissed at him and yells that she doesn't want to talk about it. Then why did you bring it up?

They get home and Martha stomps up to her room to throw herself across her bed in the most dramatic fashion possible. She hates her room and this house and Conor and her father and honeymoons and Hawaii. She's EXHAUSTING. At some point she gets up to look out the window and it's conveniently at the exact moment that Conor is walking into the woods.

Martha doesn't want to be in the house alone so she decides that walking out in the woods in cold drizzle is a much better idea. She doesn't even grab a coat. She clambers through the trees yelling for Conor and eventually he hears her and appears. When he sees she doesn't have a coat, he takes off his and bundles her up in it. This, naturally, pisses her off because she doesn't need his damn help. He tells her to follow him and he walks off again leaving her no choice.

When Conor stops again, Martha realizes they're in the cemetery. There's a large building that Conor says is a mausoleum. He heads over to it as Martha begs him to leave. Conor's acting weird here. Almost as if he's in a trance and Martha is getting super freaked out about it. She doesn't know how he even found the cemetery but she just wants to go back to the house. Finally she grabs his arm and it seems to snap him out of whatever it was. The two of them go back to the house. He offers to make her dinner but she yells at him for scaring her and heads up to bed.

That night Martha wakes to a strange creaking noise by her bed. She sees her closet door closing and opens her mouth to scream but suddenly Conor appears in her room and drags her out of bed. He tells her he smells smoke and she has to get out of the house. On their way out, Conor notices the kitchen door is closed and the fire appears to be in there. He goes in as Martha runs outside. It turns out a dishcloth was on a lit burner. Conor is able to put the fire out and then deals with Martha screaming at him for setting fire to the house.

She's still pissed and not speaking to him the next day. I don't think he minds.  I mean, I wouldn't.  It's probably the only break from her complaining that he's going to get.  Blake approaches her at school and invites her to eat lunch with him. She's completely dazzled by him and by his sports-star reputation and she can't even bring herself to eat. They talk a bit about her hating her classes and him being a sports god. Martha asks him about the house. When he hesitates, she tells him she can just ask Wynn and that spurs him into action. He tells her not to ask Wynn anything about the house and then he leads her out onto the football field so they can talk without being overheard.

He tells her the former owners were a family named Bedford. The daughter, Elizabeth, was Wynn's age and the two of them were best friends. Elizabeth dated a boy named Dennis for awhile. He was on the basketball team with Blake and known to be a dirty and aggressive player. When Elizabeth broke up with Dennis, he didn't take it well. He started stalking her and prank calling her. Telling her she'd never date anyone else. Your standard. One night he even started a fire.

Wynn knew about it and she eventually told Blake who eventually told Greg but they didn't do anything about it. When Martha expresses her disbelief that no one tried to get Elizabeth help, Blake gets all defensive and says that the police wouldn't have believed them.

Character insisting that people in authority will refuse to help? Check

Elizabeth died on Halloween. She had been at a party and left with Dennis for some reason. Later Wynn found her body at home in her bedroom. Martha wants to know which bedroom it was and finds out that it's the room she's currently living in. Blake tells her the Wynn never got over it. She still has nightmares and bouts of amnesia. Dennis was never found. His car was located at the river along with the knife used to kill Elizabeth. It was assumed he committed suicide by drowning after killing her.

Martha treats Conor like crap for the entire drive home and then continues as he makes them both supper. She's antagonistic and blaming him for everything that's wrong with her life. He tells her that he knows about the murder. He skipped a couple classes that day to look up the back issues of the newspaper. She's furious that she doesn't get to give him her account and smugly tells him that she probably knows lots of super special details that the newspaper didn't know.

I hate her. So much.

She tells Conor Blake's version of the story and he wonders aloud how they're so sure Dennis committed the murder. Since he was never found, there's no way to really be sure. This infuriates Martha who starts screaming that Dennis was clearly unhinged.

Pot meet kettle.

Martha thinks Dennis' ghost is causing all the mischief in the house, including the fire. Conor is glad she's no longer blaming him for the fire. She asks if he set it and he says no. She immediately says she doesn't believe him. SHE CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS! Either the ghost set the fire or Conor did.

Conor volunteers to switch rooms with her. I'm not sure why that's necessary. We're told this is a massive house that Martha can't even find her way around. Surely there's another empty bedroom she can just move into without making Conor move. He tells her that it's only natural for a house to feel weird after something tragic happens. Tragedy causes energy to be discharged and the house absorbs it. He thinks Martha's room is always cold because it “remembers” the murder.

I'm not going to laugh at him here because I believe that too. I've been in places where you could just feel that something awful had happened. Energy remains.

Martha refuses to eat dinner out of spite. She's hella mature, y'all. She goes up to her room to sulk. The phone rings and she runs to it thinking it might be Blake. Did she give him her number?? The raspy voice is back. “You're dead, Elizabeth. Trick or Treat.”

Conor comes up and reminds her that he's supposed to answer the phone. She just gets pissed at him again. It actually says she “rages” at him because she doesn't think he's taking this seriously. She knows that what happened to Elizabeth is now happening to her and she's going to end up the same way and she hates him for not being scared enough. He continues to tell her that it's a prank because everyone in town knows about the murder and about Martha moving into the house. I'm not sure how some random person in town got the number, but otherwise he's making a reasonable assumption. I would assume it was a prank too.

The phone rings again and this time it's Blake. He, Greg and Wynn are going out for pizza and they want Martha to come too. She is happy to accept the invitation.

She bristles at the idea that she should tell Conor she's leaving. She doesn't think she owes him the courtesy. Angrily she opens his bedroom door and tells him she's going out. He's doing homework and doesn't even look up. He just nods and tells her to have fun. It infuriates her that he doesn't want to know where she's going or who she's going with, so she stands there glaring at him for a bit and then snaps that she might be out late. Again he nods and tells her okay. She actually slams out of his room but she's still pissed that he doesn't care where she's going because he should be all about her life, yo. So she barges in again to tell him she's getting pizza with friends. He says “lucky you” but still doesn't react and she slams out again thinking about how much she hates him.

Please, Martha. You doth protest too much. Getting irrationally angry that he doesn't care where you're going doesn't really come across as “hate”.

The Chambers cousins arrive and Martha can't help but notice that Wynn is nervous and won't look at the house. Greg asks how his “newest and prettiest student” is doing and it's SO INAPPROPRIATE. Sheesh, Cusick. The pizza place is busy and Martha has a good time with the cousins. The boys tease Wynn mercilessly about her crush on Conor.

They stay on the Conor subject for awhile. Blake says Conor is a genius and plays a “mean” game of basketball. This is all news to Martha. They ask her some questions about Conor which she can't answer. She's uncomfortable about knowing so little about him but says that he keeps to himself a lot. Wynn reminds her cousins that Martha and Conor haven't known each other very long and the subject is changed.

They finish their pizza, amusing Martha with family stories and then leave to take Wynn home. Greg tells Blake to drop him off and then he can borrow Greg's car to take Martha home. She's nervous to be alone with him but has a nice time as he drives her around, showing her the town and listening to tapes. He takes her home and walks her to the door, pulling her in for a close hug. She picks that moment to ask him if people in town like to play jokes on the new kid. She tells him about getting prank calls and he says it wouldn't surprise him if someone was messing with her. There's not a lot to do in town and people do dumb things when they're bored.

Blake leaves and Martha moons on the porch about him for a bit. When she tries to go inside, the door is locked. She begins banging on the door, shouting for Conor to let her in. He doesn't answer right away and she's pissed at him. Surprise, right?? She can't figure out what Wynn sees in Conor but decides she'll “help Wynn out” and try to get the two of them together. It seems weird to me....if she truly hates Conor as she would have us believe....that she's thinking of matching him up with her new friend. I mean, I don't know about you, but I tend not to match up my friends with people I hate. Again I say she doth protest.

Martha screams at Conor's window for a bit and then decides to see if he might be in a room at the back of the house. The only light on this side is in her own room. To her horror, she can see the shadow of a person walking around in her room. Then the figure comes to her window and looks out at her. She's sure it's a murderer.

Martha runs back around to beat on the front door again. When Conor answers it, she screams at him to call the police because there's a killer in her room. He's 100% confused. He goes upstairs to find Martha's room empty. Martha turns on Conor and accuses him of doing things to scare her. She thinks he locked her out on purpose and then stood in her window to scare her. MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND, MARTHA! Either there's a ghost or a real-life killer or it's Conor. You can't just say it's all three.

He tells her that they should talk about this in the morning when she's not so upset an offers to change rooms with her for the night. She thinks it's the least he can too and she's neither grateful nor gracious about it.

The next day, Wynn meets her at her locker. They talk briefly about Wynn's crush on Conor and then Wynn mentions Elizabeth. She says she can't remember anything about finding the body. She's been to doctors and hypnotists and all she can remember is fear and “the long dark”. She doesn't even know what the long dark means. She tells Martha that people are all wrong about Dennis. He wasn't always the nicest guy and he got pretty intense at times but he loved Elizabeth and he would never have hurt her. She seems oddly vehement in her defense of him and it sets off warning bells for me. She sounds as hung up on Dennis as Martha is on Conor. Wynn also reveals that Elizabeth dated Blake after Dennis and that Martha resembles Elizabeth quite a bit (personality, height/build, hair color/length).

That night Martha dreams she's Elizabeth being murdered in her bed. She screams out in terror and Conor appears. She tells him that she's dead. He holds her close and rocks her and soothes her until she is calmed down. As she's falling asleep again, she tells him she's scared and he tells her that he'll stay with her.

Swoon.

At breakfast the next morning, Martha announces that she's never going back to school because she looks like a dead girl and she's doomed. Conor tries to calm her down again. He tells her that she's not Elizabeth and she's not living Elizabeth's life. He must be so tired of this. I hope he writes his mother a strongly-worded email about leaving him in charge of this brat. There was email in 1989, right?

Martha is flunking quizzes and reading the wrong chapters and forgetting to write papers, so she decides the best thing to do is to skip her afternoon classes to go to some farm with Blake to pick up decorations for the Halloween dance. She's a model student, this one. On the way to the farm they talk about Martha's mom dying and about her new family. Blake points out that at least she got a good one. Sally is okay and Conor seems like a person she can depend on.

It's raining when they get there and they both get soaked on the way to the barn. Blake wraps her up in a blanket and then takes her up into the hayloft to “see the view”. He talks about how much he wants to get a basketball scholarship and move out of this dead-end town. She asks him why he never mentioned that she looks like Elizabeth and he tells her that she doesn't really. That first day from behind he thought there was a resemblance but it never went deeper than that. He presses her down into the hay and they kiss for awhile before leaving the barn to gather up the hay bales, straw, corn stalks and pumpkins for the dance.

On the way into town, they pass the cemetery and talk turns back to Elizabeth and Dennis again. Blake says he wonders sometimes if Dennis is still alive. They never found his body, so it's possible.

Blake drops Martha off at home, inviting her to be his date for the Halloween party as she's getting out of the car. Conor isn't home from school yet and she's annoyed. She goes up to her room and puts a record on.

This is 1989, Cusick. Most of us had moved on to tapes and CDs by 1989. Not a lot of records and record players still around at that point.

Martha dozes off. When she wakes up, she has no idea how long she's slept. She feels like she isn't alone in the room. She slowly opens her eyes and sees someone standing just inside her closet door. Thunder rattles the house and then the figure in the closet disappears.

The phone rings. It's her favorite prank caller again. He calls her Elizabeth and asks if she likes being alone in the house. Then he says “You're mine, Elizabeth.....trick or treat.”

Martha is running out the front door as Conor is coming in. She shrieks at him a bit for not being home sooner and he tells her he had car trouble. She tells him about the person in the closet and the phone call. She doesn't think he gets upset enough and she runs up to her room to scream into her pillow.

EXHAUSTING

She's laying in her room when her closet door opens and Conor steps out into her room. She rushes him, hitting him with her fists and screaming that she hates him. He pins her down and calmly tells her there's a secret passageway from the butler's pantry into her closet. She accuses him of all the bad things that's been happening to her. He tells her that she obviously doesn't know him and she counters that he doesn't know her either. He proves that to be false by spouting off all kinds of Martha facts. He knows her favorite food, flower, color, etc. He knows the names of her friends she left behind and her childhood pets. He knows about her writing and her lack of confidence in herself. And he knows she feels like no one listens to her or takes her seriously. That momentarily shuts her up.

Martha asks him if he's been tormenting her and he swears he hasn't. She goes over THE ENTIRE BOOK telling him every weird thing that's happened to her since she moved in. Wasn't he there for most of it, Martha? And the things he wasn't there for, you've accused him of doing so he's aware.

Martha asks Conor if he believes that the dead come back to the scenes of their tragedies and he admits that it's possible. She flips out, raging that she looks like a dead girl, she's living in a murder house, Dennis might be alive and Halloween is in three days. Conor admits that the house has always felt weird to him and that her room has always been colder than the rest. She's furious that he didn't tell her before and he says he didn't want to scare her more than she was already scared. She asks him why he didn't believe her and he tells her that he always did. He never said he didn't. She realizes he's telling the truth but gets pissed off anyway.

EXHAUSTING

Conor points out that there could be more secret passageways or hidden rooms in the house. It might not be ghosts giving them problems. A flesh-and-blood person might be coming in and out of their house. It's not comforting.

Greg pulls Martha into his office the next day. Her grades are awful and her teachers are concerned because she's not doing her work. He asks her what's going on and she tells him about some of the weird things going on in the house. She mentions the secret passage and he tells her that the house was a hideout for runaway slaves back in the day. There are supposed to be tunnels and secret rooms all over it. There's rumored to be a passageway that runs from the house to the cemetery as well.

Martha goes on and on about how much she hates the house and Greg encourages her to talk to her parents about it. She says it wouldn't matter because they love the house and wouldn't understand why it bothered her. He tells her she has to do something because she looks like hell and her grades suck. She asks him if he thinks Dennis is really dead because her new theory is that he's been hiding out waiting for a new petite blonde teenage girl to move in so he can kill her too. He's very specific, this Dennis. He has a type and he's willing to wait for YEARS if he has to for that petite blonde teenage girl to move in. Fortunately for him, he only had to spend a year in limbo before Martha conveniently arrived. THIS MAKES NO SENSE, MARTHA.

After school Wynn meets Martha at her locker. She offers to help Martha catch up with her work and says she wants to try coming to Martha's house. Martha protests that Wynn doesn't have to do that but Wynn says it's time. Of course, the fact Conor lives there too is a huge bonus. Martha still doesn't understand Wynn's infatuation with Conor and Wynn says that he's “tall and rugged and mysterious”, plus he has very strong shoulders.

Wynn and Martha want to get some hot chocolate and hang out for a bit, so Conor agrees to come pick Martha up in front of the school at 5:00. Over mugs of hot chocolate, Wynn and Martha discuss the murder again. Wynn insists that Dennis wasn't responsible. No one could ever prove that he was the one making the calls or following Elizabeth. Dennis loved her. Wynn remembers parts of that night. She remembers going upstairs and seeing all the blood. She remembers hearing Blake and Greg calling her name from downstairs. And “the long dark” but she doesn't know what that is.

Wynn tells her about the rivalry between Dennis and Blake. Dennis had a bad temper and would do anything to win. Blake was very jealous of Dennis' athletic ability. The two never really got along. Wynn gets herself really worked up and then Martha starts thinking that she sees people in the shadows outside the shop. They're quite the pair.

At five, Wynn and Martha walk back to the school. Conor isn't there yet but Wynn has to babysit and she can't wait around with Martha. Martha needs something from her locker so she goes into the empty school. She's headed up the stairs when she hears a footstep behind her. She stops and listens, but hears nothing, so she continues up to the second floor. As soon as she has her history book from her locker, the lights all go out. In the darkness she hears footsteps deliberately coming up the stairs. She thinks maybe the custodian turned out the lights in preparation for locking up the school, so she yells that she's in there getting a book and asks for the lights to be turned back on. No one answers.

Martha is scared now because she can still hear someone coming up the stairs. There's another set of stairs at the other end of the hall so Martha goes running that way in the dark. She reaches the doors at the end of the hall and finds them locked. She tries the light switch but nothing happens so she assumes the power has been cut to the entire building. The footsteps are still coming so she ducks into a classroom and tries the window. It's locked as well and won't open.

Her pursuer comes into the classroom and there's a few tense moments as Martha tries to hide behind a desk. She feels a hand close over her shoulder and she takes off running again. She hits the doors at the end of the hall again but this time they open. Why? No clue. Cusick just needed them to so they did. Martha spills through the doors and falls down part of the stairs, breaking her arm. The first doors she tries to open are locked so she runs through the teacher's lounge and out the door there.

The station wagon is running in the parking lot with the lights on but Conor isn't in it. She's so terrified and in so much pain that she starts to feel faint. The last thing she remembers is seeing the ground rushing up toward her face but then Conor is there catching her and swinging her up into his arms.

Swoon.

The next chapter opens up with Martha in the hospital whining that she doesn't want to go home. Her arm hurts and she's sure someone is trying to kill her. Conor tells her that he called the police and they checked out the school but didn't really find anything. She accuses him again because he wasn't in the car when she reached the parking lot and he explains that he'd gone to look for her when she wasn't where she said she'd be but the school was locked so he headed back to the car and found her.

Blake and Greg come rushing into the room. Conor isn't happy to see them and tells them that Martha really needs to rest. He asks how they found out Martha was even there and Blake vaguely says that someone told them. Suspicious, yes? Greg asks to talk to Conor out in the hall. He brings up Martha's troubles in school and her erratic behavior. He recommends that Martha get professional help which just irritates Conor. He tells Greg that Martha is fine and Greg reluctantly drops it.

The next day Martha sleeps past noon. When she wakes up, she can hear hammering and coughing going on outside the window of Conor's room where she's staying. Conor is outside trying to repair some shutters he promised her dad he'd fix and he's clearly sick – coughing and sneezing the whole time. They chat a bit and then he tells her that he sees Wynn approaching the house.

Wynn has heard about the accident and she feels guilty for leaving Martha alone at the school. Martha asks Wynn to help her get dressed and it's clear from the onset that Wynn is very nervous about being upstairs. Luckily she doesn't have to go into Elizabeth's old room, though, since Conor and Martha have switched. She's still very tense and keeps glancing toward the other room.

Wynn wants to know why Martha has been asking so many questions about Dennis and Martha is unsure how to proceed. Conor appears in the doorway and asks Wynn if it's possible that Dennis is still alive. She says no because she would know if he was. Conor asks her what she thinks happened to Dennis and Wynn asserts again that there's no way Dennis would have killed Elizabeth. She thinks he either discovered the body or heard about the murder from somewhere else and killed himself in his grief. Or maybe the person that killed Elizabeth killed him too. Or maybe it was a weird coincidence that he happened to have an accident at the same time Elizabeth was killed and the two have nothing to do with each other.

Conor doesn't think any of those scenarios are very likely. Wynn desperately wants to remember so Conor gets her calmed down and relaxed and then he very gently starts to question her. He starts by asking her about the secret passages. She admits to knowing about a couple but doesn't know if there's one that leads outside. BUT THEN she says that Elizabeth told both Blake and Dennis about the one in her room so they could use it to sneak in. WHICH DOESN'T MAKE SENSE if there's not a way to access it from outside. If that passageway only goes to the Butler's pantry, Dennis and/or Blake would have to be INSIDE the house to use it and the whole purpose was for them to be sneaking in. THINK, CUSICK!

Wynn starts to talk about the previous year's Halloween party. It was a costume party and everyone was masked. Dennis came up to her and asked where Elizabeth was and Wynn told him that she was with Blake. He was angry. A little while later, Blake and Elizabeth got into a fight and Blake stormed out of the gym. Greg went to look for him. Wynn tried to find Elizabeth to find out what happened but Elizabeth was gone too. Wynn stepped out into the parking lot and saw Elizabeth in Dennis' car. Elizabeth said they were going back to her house to talk and to settle some things but not to tell Blake.

Wynn told Greg that Elizabeth wasn't feeling well so they were going to go back to Wynn's house for awhile. I'm not sure why she did this. It seems unnecessary. Anyway, Wynn DID go home for about an hour and then she came back to the school to wait for Elizabeth to return. But she never went inside. She sat in Greg's car in the parking lot. This confuses me. She was away for an hour. Elizabeth could have returned in the meantime and gone back to the party. Wynn didn't even go inside to check and see if that happened. It's almost as if she KNEW Elizabeth hadn't come back and there was no way for her to actually know that.

Wynn tells Conor and Martha that while she was sitting in the parking lot, she saw Blake come back. He was soaking wet and seemed upset. He eventually went inside. Wynn waited awhile longer and then went inside to tell Blake and Greg what happened. Blake was furious with her for letting Elizabeth leave with Dennis.

They all headed for Elizabeth's house. It was locked and the only light on was in Elizabeth's room. Greg broke a window and they all got inside. Blake was screaming for Greg to keep Wynn away from Elizabeth's room (WHY???) but she got away from them and went upstairs.

During this recitation, Conor and Martha are gently leading Wynn along so she's acting out the story. When she gets to Elizabeth/Martha's room, she stares into the closet and mentions “the long dark” again. Clearly she's talking about the secret passageway but no one else makes that connection.

We time hop to the night of the Halloween party. Conor is really sick and can't go. He's back in his room because it's warmer and he looks like hell. Martha is nervous about going to the party because she still thinks she's going to end up like Elizabeth. Conor is a little worried about it too and wants to come along but he's too sick to even get out of bed. Martha plans to go the party with Blake and then spend the night at Wynn's so she doesn't end up dead. Screw Conor I guess.

Martha is dressed as a fortune teller and Blake is wearing a Death costume, complete with a mask that entirely obscures his face. I'm sure that won't be important later or anything. {{eye roll}} Greg is in a black hooded robe (executioner) and Wynn is a witch. Greg lights a candle and then hands Martha the matchbook, telling her to keep it as a souvenir. Again. {{eye roll}} Cusick isn't really being subtle here.

Martha and Blake dance for awhile and then he wanders off to get some food. As soon as he's gone, Wynn appears and tells Martha that she just saw Dennis. Wynn is panicked to the point of being physically sick and she goes running for the bathroom as Martha starts a frantic search for Blake or Greg. Everyone is in costume, though and she can't figure out who is who. An announcement comes from the stage that Martha has a phone call in the locker room and she goes running.

Why does the locker room have a phone capable of receiving outside calls? That's odd. Unless it's in a coach's office or something. Weird.

The raspy voiced bad guy is on the line. He calls her Elizabeth again and tells her that no one is home because everyone is dead. Martha runs from the school but is intercepted by Blake and Wynn before she gets very far. She tells them that she has to go home because Conor's dead. Wynn tells Blake about seeing Dennis and Martha adds that Dennis has been tormenting her because he thinks she's Elizabeth....which seems......very thin to me. That doesn't seem probable at all.

Blake runs in to get Greg and then the four of them race to Martha's house. She gets inside first and starts screaming for Conor. He answers her and she runs into his room. She hears a strange sliding sound but can't place it until she realizes they are no longer the only two in the room. There's a sudden motion and Conor groans before grabbing her hand. He tells her they have to get out of there and the two of them stumble into the secret passageway. Conor closes the door behind them and the bad guy can't get through.

They go down a flight of stairs and then reach a wall. Martha is pressed into Conor and she suddenly realizes his shirt is wet and sticky. He's bleeding. Somehow he finds a way to open the wall and they spill out. They end up in some kind of underground storage room. Luckily Martha has those nifty plot devices....I mean matches....that Greg gave her earlier and they find a door. It's locked and they can't seem to budge it. Suddenly they hear the voice of the bad guy from the other side.

He tells them that no one will hear them and no one will find them. Then: “I'm the one who really loved you...don't you see? I would have loved you best of all...But no – you always wanted to be together. And now you will be. Forever.”

Martha and Conor smell smoke and realize the bad guy has started a fire. Conor is getting weaker and weaker and Martha can tell he's lost a lot of blood. He tries to go back up the passageway but the door won't open on the other end. Martha is super helpful as she laments about the fact they're going to die and does absolutely NOTHING to help poor Conor find a way out. He tells her to get down on the floor where it's easier to breathe and she feels him touch her hair and put his cheek on her head. She hugs him tight and apologizes for being a gigantic pain in the ass.

Conor asks her to break the shelves off the wall to try to open the door. She doesn't think it will work but she figures she owes him, so she goes to give it a try. She moves a few things and then realizes there's a tunnel behind the shelves. They go down it, getting further and further away from the house. Martha worries it will be a dead end again and help will never find them. At one point Conor stops moving and Martha thinks he might have died but he's really just come to a door and he's trying to open it in his weakened state.

They end up in the mausoleum. Lit candles and dead flowers are surrounding some kind of an altar. Conor takes a peek and tells Martha that he thinks they just found Dennis. Suddenly a person dressed as Death jumps out of the shadows and stabs Conor in the shoulder. Conor collapses to the floor. Death calls Conor “Dennis” and asks how he got out. Then Death turns and calls Martha “Elizabeth”, asking her why she's making him do this again. Death raises the knife and then all hell breaks loose.

Blake grabs Death, screaming for Greg to call an ambulance. Martha realizes that the bad guy is actually a girl – Wynn. She's hysterically screaming and struggling in Blake's arms, wanting to get loose to kill Elizabeth again.

Wynn does a little bad-guy monologue-ing here. She loved Dennis and after he and Elizabeth broke up, Dennis “dated” Wynn for a bit in an effort to get intel on Elizabeth. Wynn is the one who made the phone calls to Elizabeth and followed her around in an effort to make her mad at Dennis so the two of them wouldn't get back together. She followed them from the Halloween party and used the secret passage to spy on them. She made noise to make them think there was a prowler and then she hit Dennis over the head when he came down to look. She went upstairs and made quick work of stabbing Elizabeth to death. She says Elizabeth was so surprised that she didn't even fight back much. When she went back downstairs to tell Dennis they could finally be together, she discovered he was dead.

Wynn makes one last-ditch effort to kill Martha but she is unfortunately unsuccessful. The book ends as Conor is being taken away in an ambulance and Martha is thinking that it isn't so bad having a brother after all.

So....did you find the error in the blurb???

P.S.  Cusick NEVER NAMED THE DAD!!!!!!!!!  He deserved a name.  Or maybe he didn't since his parenting skills....or lack thereof....led to the creation of Martha.

Exhausting.