Imposter Syndrome: Chapter 2, Part 3
Imposter Syndrome: Chapter 2, Part 3
Welcome to Shady Springs
Imposter Syndrome is my fourth novel. It’s a spooky young adult mystery set in the weird town of Shady Springs, where nothing’s ever quite what it seems. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing serialised instalments of the story exclusively on Substack. If you like it, consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support my fiction writing. Annual subscribers will get a free physical copy of the novel when it’s published in full.
Previously…
“I started making it about a month after we got here,” Alex said, as they pushed their bikes along the sidewalk. “That’s when I first started noticing.”
They’d left The Inky Dungeon shortly after Alex’s revelation about the binder. Fintan had watched them all the way to the door, muttering under his breath about Alex not buying anything, yet again. She’d promised to bring Tiffany next time - Fintan stopped complaining immediately.
Now, as they walked along Main Street, part of Theo wished they were still in the cool shade of the comic book store. They hadn’t been inside long and it was already hotter than before.
Alex didn’t seem to notice. She was alive now, talking fast: “Have you ever been in a place, or around a person, and afterwards wondered if you’d just imagined it’d happened? Like it was a dream, or something? That it wasn’t real? It’s like that here, in this town. All the time, everywhere you go. Look.”
She pointed across the street. Theo followed her finger to a coffee place with a big cartoon mug above the door. The mug grinned toothily as coffee sloshed from his head. The sign next to him read Bean In Shady Springs.
“That place,” said Alex, “uses coffee made from crickets.”
“What?” Theo laughed. “Crickets? Like, bugs?”
“Not like bugs,” Alex replied, her helmet swinging on her bike’s handlebars. “Bugs. Crickets. Big, chirpy, crunchy crickets. They grind them up to make their coffee.”
“No they don’t,” said Theo uncertainly.
“They do. I saw it once, and so did someone else I know. They have the crickets out back, feeding them until they’re nice and fat. Then they go into the coffee. I think the owner isn’t totally human. And when people come out of that place, they have a weird spring in their step. See?”
She pointed again as a man in a crisp navy suit left the coffee place with a takeaway cup in one hand, his phone pressed to his ear with the other. Sure enough, as he hurried down the sidewalk, Theo saw him skip a little.
“Like a cricket,” said Alex.
“I don’t think… there’s no way…”
“Way,” Alex said, with an air of that’s-the-end-of-that. They arrived at an intersection and she pointed down another street. The arrow-shaped sign on the corner building read ‘Spring Boulevard’; it was much quieter than Main Street. “See the store down there? The big one with the blue sign?” Theo nodded. “It’s a vampire coven.”
Theo scoffed then. “Vampires? Are you serious?”
“Yes!” said Alex defiantly. “I’m deadly serious. It’s a grocery store - a really big one - and it’s been there for years and years. Way before I was here. And no-one is ever inside it, apart from the people who work there.”
“Because they’re vampires?”
“That’s my theory.” A car stopped at the intersection, and once again, the driver smirked at Theo’s pink bike. “I was there a couple of times with Mom and there was almost no-one else inside. I went back again by myself and I was the only person there. And there were, like, eight store workers, just lurking around, watching me. It was super creepy. I stayed about five minutes and then got the heck outta there.”
Theo wasn’t convinced. He’d been to plenty of quiet stores back home and never once saw a vampire inside. Right?
“I think their lair is out back, or underground. They use the store to hide it and they never leave the building in daylight. When it’s dark and the store’s closed… that’s when they come out. That’s when they look for more victims, maybe even the ones who visited the store during the day.”
Alex’s eyes were bright with purpose. Theo scratched his chin and said, “Can we go inside again?”, then quickly added, “Not the vampire store, though.”
She grinned. “Sure, I wouldn’t want you getting scared.”
“I’m not scared.” He glanced down Spring Boulevard as they crossed the street, and shivered. “I’m just hot, is all.”
“Ok,” said Alex, mounting her bike again. “We’ll go to Mr Morgenstein’s now. Maybe he’ll have us in for some lemonade, he does that sometimes.”
Lemonade sounded like a dream to Theo. He swung back into his bike saddle and followed Alex along Main Street. They passed more stores and offices and municipal buildings. They were all open by now, and Alex seemed to have a conspiracy theory for every single one of them: slimy swamp creatures nesting in the bowels of a bank basement; a withered old librarian whose shush lulled you to sleep so she could eat your brains; more vampires in an abandoned downtown apartment (“Not the same ones from the store - they got kicked out”); a certain mailbox at an intersection that was liable to bite your fingers off if you lingered too long. She talked as fast as she pedaled and Theo wasn’t sure he heard her draw breath.
They passed through the town square, skirting around a statue of some pioneer from long ago (surprisingly, Alex didn’t have a story about him), and zig-zagged their way along a network of increasingly-quiet streets. The storefront hustle and bustle soon petered out, and they found themselves heading steadily uphill again. Shady Springs, it seemed to Theo, sat in a kind of bowl in the landscape surrounded by forest - the Oakwood house was on the west side of the bowl, and they were now heading towards the east end. Here, there were fewer houses and many more trees, all densely packed together along the side of the road, silently observing them as they zipped by.
Theo’s legs were burning by the time Alex finally called back, “It’s just up here.”
They turned off the road and started up a lane that was a little like the Oakwoods’ but with more potholes. Tree branches dangled above them like skeletal arms, rustling their leafy fingers. Somewhere nearby, Theo thought he heard a woodpecker knocking at a trunk.
“Here,” Alex announced.
She stopped at a rusted mailbox with the name Morgenstein painted on one side in faded silver letters. It was jam-packed with envelopes, so much so that the door could no longer close. Alex swung off her bike, nudged the kickstand out with her foot and began unfastening the box of strawberries from her basket. Theo clambered gracelessly off his bike and propped it against the mailbox.
“Nice place,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow.
Beyond the mailbox was a once-white picket fence, and beyond the fence was a little square garden bordered by hedges. A gravel path led up to the front porch of a wooden two-storey house that had seen better days. Curtains had been pulled across the inside of every window and the whole place was completely silent, apart from a jingling wind chime in the shape of an owl hanging next to the screen door. The forest leered close to the house on three of its four sides.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Theo said, shielding his eyes to peer at the upstairs windows.
“It always looks like that,” Alex replied, pushing through the garden gate. But Theo had seen her glance doubtfully at the mailbox as she passed it.
They crunched up the path to the porch. The lawn was overgrown and thick with weeds, and the porch steps creaked wearily as they went up the door. Alex shifted the strawberry box to her left arm and pushed the doorbell. Theo didn’t hear anything.
“Is it broken?” he said, casting a nervous glance back to the road and their bikes. What are you worried about? he thought. His inner voice answered immediately: brain-eating librarians and swamp monsters, that’s what.
“You can’t hear it from out here,” Alex said, pushing the button again.
“Who is this guy, anyway?”
“He’s an old man who lives by himself. His wife died a long time ago and he’s been alone ever since. Mom sends him extra stuff from our garden sometimes.”
“Oh,” said Theo. “That’s… nice of her.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Alex pushed the doorbell a third time and frowned. “He normally answers after the first ring.”
“Maybe he’s not home,” Theo said, glancing at the curtain-covered windows on the ground floor. “I don’t see his car. Maybe he’s out?”
“He doesn’t go out. I don’t think he has a car anymore.” She stepped back and called, “Mr Morgenstein?” The abrupt rise in volume sent a bird fluttering from the trees nearby. “Mr Morgenstein! It’s Alex Oakwood, are you home?”
She stopped. They both waited, listening. Theo heard nothing but the rustling of leaves and the faint knock-knock-knock of the invisible woodpecker.
“This is weird,” Alex admitted. “Here.”
She handed Theo the box of strawberries and went to the window on the left. He watched as she pressed her face to the smudged glass, cupping her hands around her eyes. There was a thin crack between the curtains, but surely she couldn’t see much through it?
“I can’t see much,” Alex confirmed. “It’s all dark inside.”
“That’s ‘cuz the curtains are closed,” Theo noted. His stomach rumbled. “Can I have one of these strawberries?”
“No. You eat so much.” Alex went back to the door, briefly hesitated, then pulled it open. “Come on, let’s go look.”
“Wait, you’re going inside?” Theo said. “Isn’t that, like, breaking and entering?”
“It’s not locked,” Alex replied, not really answering his question. “I just want to check he’s ok. You can stay here if you want, you baby.”
“I’m not… hey!”
She was already inside. Theo hurried after her, almost dropping the strawberries in his haste. The interior door banged noisily off his heel as he entered the house.
Vampires, he thought again. Man-eating mailboxes…
“Mr Morgenstein?” Alex called. “Are you here?”
Her voice echoed around them. Inside, Mr Morgenstein’s house was bathed in shadow and smelled distinctly of unsettled dust. Theo could see it floating in the sunbeam cutting through the crack in the curtains. The air was stale, like no-one had breathed it in a while.
“This is creepy,” he said softly.
They were in what must be the living room. An old TV, much like the one in the Oakwoods’ den, sat dormant in the corner in front of a sagging armchair. A little end table next to the chair was covered in coffee mug rings. Logs were stacked neatly in the fireplace, though they wouldn’t be needed for a while.
“Have you… been in here before?” Theo almost whispered.
“Yes,” said Alex. She was in the corner by an ancient-looking record player; Theo watched her gingerly raise and lower the tonearm. “Let’s try the kitchen. Maybe he’s in there.”
“Alex,” said Theo hesitantly. “You don’t think…?”
She looked at him, brushing white-blonde hair from her eyes, frowning. Then, very gradually, understanding dawned on her face. She shook her head and said quickly, “Let’s try the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?”
“Yeah, through there.” She pointed to a swing door Theo hadn’t noticed in the dim light, set between a bookcase and a wonky-looking corner lamp. “Come on.”
“Are you sure? Maybe we should just… leave these and go. You know, in case he doesn’t like people breaking into his house.”
“We didn’t break in, the door wasn’t locked,” Alex said, bunching her fists. “Why’re you being such a wimp? You’re the older one of us.”
“Yeah, by like a few months. And you’ve been talking about monsters all morning!”
“I talked about vampires, actually,” Alex retorted, “not monsters. There’s a difference. Monsters are - ”
She stopped. She swiveled towards the swing door.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” said Theo.
Then he did hear it: a creak, like an old cupboard door closing.
Or a footstep on a floorboard.
VAMPIRES!
“Alex,” he said, “maybe we should - ”