“Do you feel better now?” Dahlia asked him.
He scratched at the back of his neck, then started folding his towel. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t mean to yell at everyone. I didn’t mean to … dig.”
Gabe swallowed the rest of the bourbon fast, lest he be asked to share it. “It’s this place, man. It gets to you.”
“I still feel stupid for losing my shit. What if it’s all in our heads?”
“Oh, honey,” Dahlia said with honest sympathy. “If it’s all in our heads, then at least we’re going crazy together.”
11
THEY SETTLED IN for the night, leaving lights on in the foyer and in the kitchen. No one wanted to sleep in the full mountain dark, with all the lamps off and not a single streetlight for half a mile. Besides, when eleven o’clock came around, Bobby still hadn’t returned from the bar—so they might as well make things easier for him, and themselves. If he came back drunk and couldn’t see where he was going, he’d turn on every damn switch and wake them all up without even trying. If the rooms were dim, but navigable, perhaps he’d spare them.
Gabe and Brad dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Dahlia had a little more trouble.
She hated sleeping in unfamiliar places. Even the fanciest five-star hotel would’ve driven her crazy. For that matter, her new apartment still felt too new to be home yet.
Here in the Withrow house, she stared at the ceiling and the chandelier in the foyer, or the pendant above, or the cracks around it that radiated from the medallion and the corners of the room. It felt very Phantom of the Opera, very vulnerable staring up at that feeble ceiling and the heavy things that hung from it on ancient chains, held by vintage bolts. She wished she’d picked someplace else to put her sleeping bag. She wished she’d pressed her dad for a set of hotel rooms instead of this house with all its anger and unhappiness, though she would’ve felt bad for spending extra money.
Outside, the rain picked up. It smacked against the windows, whereas before it’d only spattered them in a friendly, easygoing spray. Upstairs, drops flew in through the broken panes in the master bedroom, and in the hall. They flew inside like bullets.
Upstairs, a door opened.
Dahlia’s eyes opened, too.
She listened hard, but heard only the vicious rain, and Brad and Gabe snoring in tandem, then the rustling shuffle of Gabe turning over inside his sleeping bag—which was almost too small for him. There were no footsteps on the hallway runner. No high-heeled shoes stepping down the stairs. No sound at all that wasn’t entirely expected, given the state of the house and the drive of the storm.
But a door had opened. A key had clicked, a knob had turned, and old hinges had squeaked softly.
Dahlia dug down deeper into her sleeping bag. “Nope,” she whispered.
If this was an invitation, she had zero problem ignoring it. If the door wanted to lock itself back up again before morning, that was fine. She’d cut it open with a power saw, just like Bobby had planned. But if the house, or Abigail, or whoever, thought she was dumb enough to accept that summons, those things or people were beyond wrong.
The warmth of the bag worked together with her bone-deep weariness to almost send her to sleep despite her fear and discomfort. She was almost there, almost out cold—drifting at the edge where it’s calm and dark, and a smattering of half-lucid dreams would kick up in another few minutes—when she heard Bobby’s truck pull up in front of the house.
The tires strained against the mud even as he parked it, and the slap-slap-slap of the windshield wipers said they were running full speed until he turned them off, cut the engine, and opened the driver’s door. She heard it all so clearly she didn’t need to sit up and see it. Sound traveled so strangely in that house, and around it, even with the rain running white-noise interference. Either you heard everything, everywhere, or you couldn’t even hear your cousin standing behind you, calling your name.
It must be something about the high ceilings, the plaster, and the wood. It was something about the dead.
If she were honest with herself, she’d admit to being relieved that Bobby was back, even though it meant she was wide awake again. She pretended she wasn’t when he came inside, got himself a glass of water in the kitchen, and crashed into his own set of sleeping bags and pillows—which had been left out and carefully arranged by his son, who was entirely too good to him.
In Dahlia’s opinion.
Soon Bobby’s snores joined the rest of them, and Dahlia wished she’d thought to bring headphones or earplugs. Once more, she did her best to relax, not listen to the guys around her, and drift off without thinking about the door upstairs or wondering if it was still open.
Bobby hadn’t turned off any of the low-set lights. She could get out of her bag and look. She could probably see it from the steps, if she went halfway up them and stopped.
“Nope,” she whispered again. “Fuck a whole bunch of that.”
And then she must have slept, because she was jolted awake by the sound of a toilet flushing on the second floor. But of course it’d be flushing on the second floor; there wasn’t so much as a powder room on the first floor, now, was there? With a groan, she cursed the Victorians and their lack of foresight regarding a future of indoor plumbing. She’d been so close to sleeping until dawn, and now there was no hope of it.
She roused herself up onto one arm and looked around. Gabe’s sleeping bag was vacant, so he was the one taking the midnight piss run. It was frankly impressive, how he’d gotten all the way up there without awakening her. It was somewhat unsurprising, how the ringing, throbbing rattle and clank of century-old plumbing had done the job for him.
She sighed and dropped her head back down, then changed her mind and refluffed her pillows before trying it again.
The bathroom door creaked open.
Any minute, Gabe would come back down. He’d crawl back into his nest and start snoring, with that infuriating ability men seem to have to fall right back asleep the moment they drop horizontal. Any minute now.
She listened. She didn’t really mean to, but now that she’d heard him, she wouldn’t sleep through his return, so she might as well wait up for him. Or wait down. She looked at the stairs, wondering who had been standing there the other day, if it was a woman and she was wearing heels, holding the rail. Was it the older woman Dahlia had seen in the window’s reflection? She’d seemed harmless enough, or benevolent enough, if those two things are different when you’re talking about dead people.
Any minute now.
Except he wasn’t coming back. He was walking slow and quiet, but not toward the stairs. Not down them. He was walking down the hall—creeping down the hall, really. He was a big boy, but he sure was light on his feet when he wanted to be sneaky.
Dahlia sat up straight. “Oh, God, the door.”
She hadn’t heard it close, so it might still be open. He might have seen it. He might be on the verge of investigating, and what if he did? What would he find? Her chest tightened, stomped upon by the wild, unreasonable thought that the room might consume him, and refuse to give him back.
Writhing out from her bag, she scrambled to her feet. She couldn’t remember where she’d left her shoes, but she was wearing thick socks, so at least she wasn’t barefoot. “Gabe!” she loud-whispered, in case the magical acoustics of the house carried his name all the way up there without rousing anybody else. “Gabe!” she said a little louder, as it crossed her mind that there was no good reason to let Bobby and Brad sleep—and they were snoring so hard, she might’ve beat a snare drum without either of them noticing.
She was up the stairs fast, slipping only once on the mostly smooth wood, in her mostly soft socks that had owls on them—because she liked owls, that’s why.
At the top of the steps, she looked both ways and didn’t see Gabe. She didn’t see much of anything—not even the locked room, with its door that only opened when no one was watching. Was it open now? She
squinted. The shadows didn’t tell her much. She couldn’t bring herself to let go of the stair rail.
“Gabe?” she tried, in an almost normal voice.
No response. It was dark up there. No one had left a light on in the second story, since no one was expected to go there—except for the restroom, and that was immediately next to the staircase landing.
But Dahlia had left a lamp or two behind in the master bedroom before she’d abandoned it for the communal area below. In fact, if she remembered correctly, one of the big lanterns ought to be right beside the window seat. And there weren’t any curtains, so maybe there’d be a little light in there, even with the rain clouds hiding the moon.
Except that there wasn’t. She found the lantern by fumbling around in the dark, tripping loudly over everything in her path, and clicking it on as if it’d save her. It only gave her light, and something to carry. But the plastic housing was cool and solid in her hands, and the broad beam was enough to illuminate the entire room.
It brightened up the hall, too, and it showed quite nicely that—just as she’d feared—the locked door was not locked anymore. It was open.
“Gabe,” she said, not calling him so much as declaring that he must be there, somewhere, and informing him that she was on her way.
But she did not run to the door, not even in her concern. She tiptoed to it, lantern brandished like a weapon. She hoped it was a weapon. Dark things hated the light, didn’t they? No, that was nonsense. She’d seen dark things in broad daylight. They all had.
When she reached the room, she pushed the door open a little farther—then all the way, until it knocked back against the wall. No surprises. Nothing hiding behind it.
She swung the light into the room, sweeping for any sign of her young cousin. He wasn’t there. “Gabe? Where the hell did you go?” Did the room eat him after all? No, that was a stupid thing to think. He was only someplace else. That’s what she told herself over and over again, until she could pretend that she believed it.
She didn’t retreat. She didn’t close the door, or head back into the hall to check the other rooms, but she didn’t hear him out there, either. Why didn’t she hear some sign of him, somewhere else in the house? She hadn’t heard a peep, not since the bathroom door had groaned open, letting him out.
But this door was open. No saws required. For a limited time only, or so she strongly suspected.
She hesitated. She looked around and saw a bed, a dresser, an old lamp, and some old fixtures, old rugs. An old vanity. Old wardrobes—two of them, against the far wall on either side of an old window. Everything was old, but not the Victorian kind of old, like the rest of the house. Everything in the locked-up room was covered in dust that glimmered through the lantern beam, disturbed by this midnight intrusion. Except for that dust, it looked like someone had lived here just a few minutes ago. A time capsule, that’s what it was.
Near Dahlia’s feet, beside the door, she spied a trunk. A soldier’s trunk?
No, it was never used for military duty. It was more for decorative storage than rough-and-tumble transport, with a pretty paper design peeling from the sides, and a brittle latches that wouldn’t withstand even the gentlest prying.
One foot still in the hallway, Dahlia leaned forward and opened the trunk. Inside, she found a stash of books. Good. Books were heavy. She wanted something to stick inside the doorway so it couldn’t close up again behind her.
She grabbed the nearest handle and pulled the trunk across the floor until it rested between the door and the frame.
Logically, Dahlia knew that anything strong enough to slam a door (and climb around a room like a spider) was strong enough to move a trunk of books (and light enough to wear a cotton dress), but logic was well out the window by now. It’d flown out into the wet, windy night when she opened the bathroom window and the steam spilled out onto the mountain.
“What are you doing?”
“Jesus Christ!” Dahlia shrieked, in a whisper that was hardly any softer than a scream. Her light caught Gabe square in the face. Hitting him from below because she was short, it made his eyes look sunken and his chin look craggy. He was a funhouse version of himself, and it horrified her.
“It’s only me!” he pleaded quietly, holding up his hands like she might shoot him.
“I know it’s only you!” she hissed back. “I’ve been looking for you!”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t come down from the bathroom, and I heard the door open … I heard this door open…” Her breath pumped in and out of her chest so hard, she was mere seconds from hyperventilating. She clutched her own throat with her free hand, closed her eyes, and opened them again—counting backward from five. A therapist had told her that counting and breathing could be calming, and he was wrong about almost everything, including that particular tidbit of information. But it gave her something to do until she could pat Gabe down, and make sure that he was alive, warm, and very much present. “Are you all right?”
He looked past her, into the room. “I’m fine.”
“Where were you?”
He looked back at her again. “In the attic.”
“What? Why?”
Between clenched teeth, still trying to keep his voice down despite Dahlia’s climbing volume, he said, “I thought I saw that boy again. I tried to follow him, but I lost him on the attic stairs. I feel like … like he wants to tell me something. But he doesn’t talk. He never talks. Do the ghosts ever talk to you, Dahlia?”
“One of them did,” she admitted. She immediately changed the subject. “But check it out—this door is open, now. It’s amazing. No one’s been in or out in ages.”
“Why did you drag this trunk over here?”
“To hold the door open. It opens and shuts on its own. I didn’t want it to close me in here so one of y’all had to cut me out.” She shrugged off his skeptical expression. “Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.”
He nudged past her, stepping over the trunk and into the room. “You’re right, this feels like it’s been boarded up forever. Or … not forever-forever.”
“Why would you say that?”
He picked up something from the nightstand, and answered her with a question. “How long has Victoria Holt been writing books?”
“Um … I don’t know. I think she died back in the nineties.”
“You ever read this stuff? Ladies in fluffy dresses … I bet there’s romance in here.”
She took the paperback away from him. It was covered in dust so thick, she had to wipe it away to read the title. “The Legend of the Seventh Virgin,” she announced. “I’ve read some of these. I was a teenage girl once, and gothic romances are kind of awesome, so you can shut right up. This one was published in…” She checked the inside cover. “1965.” She thought about it as she shined her light around. The beam’s reflection caught a mirror, and she winced against the glare. “Which Withrows were still living here in 1965?”
“You tell me.”
“I would if I could.” She ran through her sketchy knowledge of the Withrow family tree, but drew a blank. “Augusta lived here when she was a girl, but that would’ve been … well before the sixties. Someone else, then. A woman. This is obviously a woman’s room.”
“Because of the book?”
“Because of the curtains, the bedding…” Dahlia opened the nearest wardrobe and found a row of hangers. Some were still loaded with long, wispy dresses. The rest had disintegrated with moisture, moths, and time. They rested on the floor in wrinkled little piles. “And the clothes. It’s a shame these are mostly gone.”
“Why would a ghost want to keep this door closed?”
“For that matter, why would a ghost open it again?” she asked. “Why do ghosts do anything?”
“Good point. Why would that boy try to send me up to the attic?”
She shined the light at him. “Did you bring a flashlight up there?” A look at his empty hands answered her question. “Righ
t. So if the boy did want to show you something, you might not have been able to see it.”
“Can we go check?”
“After I poke around in here for a minute…,” she told him. “Or, go ahead and get a lantern from downstairs, and then I’ll come with you.”
“Are you okay in here all by yourself?”
“Sure,” she said. She even meant it. Something about the relative normalcy of the place reassured her. This was a comfortable room, a refuge for a reasonable woman. Dahlia might be angry and unhappy and insomniatic on top of everything, but she was still reasonable. “I’ll be all right. If for some reason the door shuts and locks me in, your daddy’s Sawzall’s lying on the floor just outside the door. I’m trusting you to bust me out.”
He disappeared into the hall and headed down the stairs.
She sat down at the vanity and started opening drawers.
In the top right drawer there was another gothic romance, plus a couple of antique Harlequin paperbacks that might actually be worth money to the right reader, somewhere. In the next drawer down, she found several pairs of gloves and a couple of small hats—fascinators, really—with their accompanying pins. “Nice,” she said, pulling one out and letting it sparkle in the light.
Thank you.
Dahlia jumped, and this time her heart nearly stopped. It couldn’t take two shocks that bad in such a short span of time. She dropped the hat pins and lifted the light, blinding herself in the mirror again, and leaving blobs of yellow, green, and purple swimming in her vision.
She pulled the light down into her lap, away from the mirror.
“Hello?”
The only reply was the sound of Gabe stomping gently back up the stairs again. Out in the hall she saw the harsh white glow from another LED lantern. Then she saw a hand in the mirror behind her. A raised finger, and a pair of lips behind it.
Gabe stuck his face around the corner. “Still good?”