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…
The rest of the day went by in a haze for Theo.
He and Alex hung around the Oakwood home, tossing a football up and down the garden (Alex insisted she knew how to do it but missed almost every catch) while Aunt Noelle busied herself in the vegetable patch, tending to her green beans and summer squashes. When the heat became unbearable, they all retreated to the cool of the house; there was a brief squabble between Alex and Tiffany over whose turn it was to control the TV (“You’ve been in here all day, freako!”) before Aunt Noelle ordered Alex to find something else to do. Tiffany smirked as Alex stomped from the room.
“Come on, let’s go play a board game,” Alex snapped.
Theo didn’t think he knew much about girls, but he did know to keep his mouth shut right then and there.
They actually got pretty engrossed in a game of Settlers of Catan and didn’t notice the sun dipping lower and lower in the sky outside Alex’s bedroom window until Uncle Kurt arrived home from work with a cry of “Holy smokes, that’s a scorcher!” and they heard Tiffany immediately ask to borrow the car that night.
“Tiff,” Alex said, looking up from the board. “Of course! She can give us a ride to town later. Mom and Dad won’t know we went anywhere near the woods.”
Theo stretched, groaning like he was a hundred. “Where’re we going again?”
Alex threw a board piece at him, missed. “Don’t chicken out now.”
“I’m not,” he replied. “But I’ve been thinking, what happens when we get there? What’re we going to do exactly?”
Alex shrugged. “Look around, I guess?”
“Yeah, but what if there’s… you know…”
“What?” Theo motioned towards The Alex Files and she nodded. “Oh, right. The monsters and stuff.”
“Yeah, that.”
“We’ll just look,” she said. “We can bring torches, maybe take photos. Just enough to document it for the binder, and then we’ll go. We probably won’t see anything at all.”
Or we’ll see way too much, thought Theo nervously.
Dinner was just as raucous as before. Alex - still sore about Tiffany hogging the TV - couldn’t help biting on every jibe her older sister dangled in front of her, so much so Theo feared they wouldn’t get that ride into town after all. Feared or hoped? When Alex did finally bring it up, Tiffany almost scoffed her mac n’ cheese across the table.
“No way,” she said. “Get your own way there.”
“Tiffany,” said Uncle Kurt, without looking up from his plate.
“Seriously?” Tiffany whined, sounding very much like Alex and not at all like the cool seventeen-year-old who’d picked Theo up just yesterday. “I’m seeing friends, I can’t chaperone these two all night.”
“We just need - want… to go into town, that’s all,” said Alex. “You can dump us wherever you like and pick us up when you’re done.”
“Dad, can’t you bring them?”
“I can,” said Uncle Kurt, reaching for another chunk of buttered bread, “but I won’t. One of us has been working in a stuffy office since nine this morning, and the other one’s you.”
Tiffany’s look of shocked incredulity drew a snigger from Alex. She quickly busied himself with her food when Tiffany’s eyes switched to her.
“Just bring them, honey,” cooed Aunt Noelle. “Theo’s only in town for a few days, he shouldn’t be cooked up here again tonight.”
“We might go to the movies,” Theo piped up.
Tiffany’s gray-blue eyes narrowed. “To see what?”
“Not another scary one, I hope,” said Aunt Noelle. “You didn’t sleep for a month after that last one, Alex, and I’m not having you waking me - ”
“Mom!” Alex cried, going tomato red.
Tiffany grinned across the table, satisfied.
At seven-thirty, Theo and Alex piled into the back of the station wagon behind Tiffany and they trundled down the hill from the house. Aunt Noelle waved them off from the porch. As soon as they reached the road, Tiffany stepped on the gas and the big car lurched eagerly towards Shady Springs, throwing Theo and Alex back into the seats.
Tiffany glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Why’ve you got a bag?”
Alex drew her backpack a little closer; inside were flashlights, two bottles of water and, at Theo’s urging, a bag of Twizzlers. He’d spotted it in Alex’s room and suddenly become concerned they might run low on blood sugar.
“Snacks,” Alex said, with some truth. “For the movie.”
“Cheapskate,” said Tiffany.
Then they were in Shady Springs, winding through residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of town. Theo recognized some streets and buildings, but most were new to him. Tiffany abruptly stood on the brakes and Theo’s face almost hit the back of her seat.
“Tiffany!” Alex said.
“Whoops,” Tiffany replied absently.
The passenger door opened and a guy got inside, bringing what smelt like the entire contents of a cologne bottle with him.
“Thanks for the ride, Tiff,” he said in a smooth, deep voice.
“No problem, Darren,” said Tiffany in a tone Theo had never heard before.
Darren grinned; as Tiffany pulled away from the curb and he reached for his seatbelt, he spotted Theo and Alex in the back.
“Um, Tiff,” he said. “There’s some kids back here.”
“There are?” Tiffany cried in mock surprise, glancing behind her. When Darren didn’t get it, she explained, “That’s my little sister Alex and my little cousin Theo.”
Not Theodore, Theo noted.
“Oh, right,” said Darren uncertainly, regarding them with dark green eyes. In the intermittent evening light, Theo saw his chin was stubbled and there was a tattoo of a dragon on his neck; he was all muscly beneath his unnecessarily-small t-shirt, but Theo guessed he couldn’t be much older than Tiffany, if he was older at all.
“They’re not coming with us,” Tiffany clarified, turning onto Main Street. “I’m picking them up later - they’re going to the movies.”
“Oh cool, the movies,” Darren the Dragon said, nodding. “The movies are cool.”
He turned away, muttering to Tiffany. Theo pointed at his own neck and Alex curled her fingers into claws, snarling silently. When they descended into giggles, Tiffany said, “Ok, I’m dropping you here”, and pulled over.
“Here’s fine,” said Alex.
They clambered out. Tiffany said, “Call me when you’re done” and drove off.
Theo thought Shady Springs seemed more awake in the evening than it’d been that morning. All the stores on Main Street were brightly lit, spilling warm glows onto the sidewalk; passers-by paused to peer through windows, or stepped inside to grab an ice-cream or frozen yogurt. It was twilight now but the air still held the thick heat of the day.
“How long to reach the woods?” Theo asked, adjusting the straps of the backpack.
Alex swatted a mosquito. “Not long,” she said, “but let’s not dilly-dally.”
“Dilly-what?”
They headed through town, sidestepping packs of raucous teenagers and parents hurrying after younger children. As with that morning, Theo noticed how Alex spoke to no-one else, and seemed to actively avoid eye contact with others their age. Maybe she just doesn’t know them, he thought. She doesn’t have to know everyone, even if it’s a small town.
He felt some eyes fall on him, too, but unlike Alex he simply stared right back. They looked away almost immediately.
Wonder what they think of me? he thought. And then: I wonder what Alex thinks of me? Does she even know why I’m here? Did they tell her?
“Hurry up!” Alex said, quickening her pace. “It’s almost dark.”
“I’m coming,” he replied, hooking his thumbs behind the backpack straps.
Soon, Main Street was far behind, and they found themselves in the park again. It was brightly lit and still full of people, even as the sun dipped below the rooftops and the sky went from purple to navy above them. They were in a different part of the park now and Theo spotted something he hadn’t seen earlier.
“Oh, cool,” he said. “There’s a fair here.”
“It opens tomorrow, for the holiday weekend,” said Alex. “We’re going with Mom and Dad. There’ll be fireworks and stuff. Should be fun.”
“I haven’t been to a fair in a long time,” Theo said, watching fairground staff making final preparations beyond the temporary mesh fence, setting up stalls, checking rides, and stringing colored lights between trees and lampposts. On the far side of the fairground, the park gave way to the woods; tall pine trees stood guard along its border, observing the fairground with invisible eyes.
“Do they have that one where you hit squirrels with a hammer?” said Theo.
“Whack-a-Mole? I’m not sure. Maybe.” Alex stopped and Theo, still peering towards the fairground, walked into her. “Ow!”
“Sorry. Why’d you stop?”
“Um, no reason,” Alex said. But the tone of her voice had changed slightly and Theo heard it. “This way,” she said.
They cut across the park lawn at an angle, skirting soft pools of light beneath park lamp posts now buzzing with evening insects. Couples snuggled together on benches (Where did Tiffany and Darren go? Theo wondered), impatient dogs dragged their owners from one sniff-spot to the next, and gaggles of other kids their age laughed and jostled their way along the asphalt paths, licking snow cones or slurping energy drinks. Theo was staring enviously at a delicious-looking raspberry snow cone and didn’t notice the tall, dark-haired girl holding it until she brought it up to her mouth and their eyes met, and he promptly walked into Alex again.
“Ow! Quit doing that!” she said.
“Sorry,” Theo repeated.
The dark-haired girl grinned at him, her green eyes catching the lamppost light as she and her friends passed under it. Those eyes flicked briefly to Alex, narrowed a little, and then she was gone.
“If you walk into me again I’m going to kick you in the shins,” Alex said. Theo said nothing, but he saw the wary glance she cast towards the dark-haired girl and her friends on the path.
They carried on across the grass, eventually rejoining the path near a slightly worse-for-wear bandstand surrounded by wilting dahlias. They walked a little further to a point where the path forked left and right. Alex chose the left path, which took them under a wooden archway with ‘Woodland Trail’ carved into it, and into the forest.
After about a minute, the twilight hues in the sky were all but gone. Alex stopped and Theo walked into her a third time.
“Ow!” she cried in the gloom.
“Ow!” Theo exclaimed, as Alex’s heel connected with his bare shin. “You actually kicked me!”
“I told you I would.”
“I know, but still.” He rubbed his shin. “I can’t see.”
“Turn around,” said Alex.
He did, and heard her unzip the backpack. A moment later, one of the flashlights bloomed. She pushed the other one into his hand and zipped the backpack closed again.
“Ready?” she said.
He flicked on his flashlight and muttered, “Ready.”
“Don’t be like that, I didn’t kick you that hard.”
The woodland trail was easy to see under the glow of their flashlights. It began as gravel, crunching noisily beneath their sneakers as they walked deeper into the woods, before transitioning into a bed of soft pine needles and dried-out leaves. The path wound between the trees, sometimes rising, sometimes dipping, always taking them further and further from the light and safety of Shady Springs Park until their footfalls were the only sounds they heard.
That, Theo thought, and his own heartbeat.
“How much further?” he asked, trying to disguise the apprehension in his voice. He was sure Alex heard it, though.
“Nearly there,” she replied. “I think.”
“You think?”
“I haven’t actually been here before, you know. Well, I’ve been on this trail, but not to where the lights are. But I think I know where it is.”
When she said “the lights”, Theo felt a cold shiver travel up his spine. Somewhere to their left, a bird burst upwards through the trees and he jumped.
“Oh, there it is,” said Alex brightly.
Theo followed the beam of her flashlight to where the path branched off to the right. The new trail, from what he could see of it, wasn’t much more than a gap between the trees.
“Come on,” Alex said, heading for it.
“Wait,” said Theo.
She did, staring at him in the near-darkness with her flashlight pointed at his feet. The upward glow threw strange shadows over her face; her ice-blue eyes and white-blonde hair stood out in sharp contrast to their surroundings, giving her a ghostly appearance. Theo did his best to shove the word “ghost” from his head.
“Yeah?” she said. “Why’re we waiting?”
“I just…” Theo began, his eyes flicking from her to the narrow trail leading off the main path. “It’s just… I mean…”
“You’re scared,” Alex said plainly.
Yes.
“No.”
“You are,” she said. “That’s ok - so am I.”
“You are?”
“Of course. We’re in the woods at night, trying to find some creepy, weird lights, and who knows what else. There’re no adults here, but there could be monsters. Probably are, since it’s this town. ‘Course I’m scared, dummy.”
“You’re the… you don’t look scared.”
Alex shrugged. “What d’you want me to do, start shaking?” The flashlight began trembling in her hand and her teeth clacked together theatrically.
“Quit it,” said Theo.
She smirked, and in that moment he thought she looked exactly like Tiffany. “Being scared is fine,” she said. “We’re just kids, we’re supposed to be scared sometimes. But it doesn’t mean we can’t go on. That’s what bravery’s for.”
With that, she turned and headed for the narrow path.
“I’m brave,” Theo muttered, as much to himself as to her, and followed.