The Secret Bedroom

What am I doing here? Lea thought.

  Going to meet Don, she answered.

  The thought cheered her. The sound of the rain made the roaring in her head finally disappear. She pulled into a spot at the end of the first row, cut the engine and the headlights, the wipers sliding noisily into place. Then holding her jacket over her head as a rain hood, she ran across the puddled asphalt to the nearest entrance.

  The glass door was locked. Keeping the coat above her head, Lea checked in both directions and saw the signs for the movie theater to her left. As she jogged in that direction, the wind blowing a spray of cold rain onto her face, her sneakers splashed into a deep puddle. She felt cold water soak into the cuffs of her corduroy pants.

  I’m going to look great when I finally get there, she thought miserably.

  The rain let up a bit. The double-doored entrance beside the sixplex theater was open, and Lea eagerly stepped inside. She lowered her jacket and shook herself like a dog after a swim, water splashing onto the bright, patterned carpet.

  Pete’s Pizza was directly across from the movie theater. Lea could see that it was crowded, mostly with young people. Laughter and loud voices drifted out into the mall, along with the tangy aroma of cheese and tomato sauce.

  Straightening her hair with her hand, she half ran, half walked toward the restaurant, pulling off the down jacket and tugging her sweater down. As she stepped through the open entranceway, the voices grew louder.

  As she walked past the cashier in front, she saw Don. He was sitting in a booth in the middle of the restaurant, facing her. She gave him a quick wave, but he didn’t seem to notice her.

  “Hi, Don,” Lea called happily, stepping up to the booth and starting to toss her jacket down.

  And then she saw that someone was sitting across the table from him.

  Marci!

  “Oh,” Lea uttered weakly, her mouth dropping open.

  Marci turned to Lea. “What are you doing here?” she demanded nastily.

  “I …” Lea looked at Don. But he only blushed and gave a quick, almost imperceptible shrug before turning away in embarrassment.

  “I just wanted to say h-hi,” Lea stammered, feeling her face redden.

  Don was signaling her with his eyes now, obviously trying to tell Lea that this wasn’t his idea, that Marci had just shown up.

  “It’s great to see you,” Marci said sarcastically. “But Don and I really would like to be alone.” She reached across the table and put her hand over Don’s.

  Don seemed to be very uncomfortable, but he didn’t pull his hand away. “Uh—Lea, why don’t you join us?” he asked.

  He’s really weak, Lea decided.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got to go. Have a nice night,” Lea said, trying to sound cool and together. But her voice quavered when she said it, revealing how upset she was.

  She ran blindly toward the doorway—and collided with a waitress carrying a tray of sodas. The waitress screamed. The tray hit the floor with a clattering crash. Glasses shattered. A river of brown soda rolled over the floor.

  “Oh—I’m sorry!” Lea cried, much louder than she had intended.

  Everyone turned to gawk. Lea saw Marci and Don staring at her. Marci, craning her neck to see, had a broad grin on her face.

  Ready to burst with rage, Lea fled into the nearly empty mall and kept running, her jacket held out in front of her, until she was back in the rain.

  I could kill Marci, she thought. Kill her!

  How could Don do this to me?

  The steady rain felt cold on her hair, on her shoulders as it soaked through her sweater. But she didn’t put on the jacket.

  She walked slowly now, as if in a daze, not even sure if she was heading in the right direction. The rush of the rain drowned out all other sounds.

  But she could still hear Marci’s haughty voice repeating in her ears: “Don and I really would like to be alone.”

  I’ve never been so humiliated, Lea thought, rivulets of cold rainwater dripping down her forehead and cheeks.

  Still carrying her jacket in both hands, she didn’t bother to brush the rain away.

  What did I ever do to her, anyway?

  And what is Don’s problem?

  Is he totally terrified of her? Did he deliberately trick me? Did she make him call me tonight? Was it his idea?

  He acted so embarrassed, so uncomfortable when I arrived. It couldn’t have been his idea, Lea decided. Marci must have arrived after he called me.

  Why did he just sit there? Why didn’t he do anything to help me?

  She opened the car door and tossed her jacket across the seat. Then she slid behind the wheel, totally drenched, shivering from the cold, but too angry, too furious to notice.

  Never again, she thought, fumbling in her jacket pocket for the car keys. Never again.

  Back to the dreary, empty house.

  Up to her bedroom, pulling the wet sweater off over her head.

  She took a hot shower and shampooed her hair, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

  I never would’ve gone if I hadn’t been so terrified to stay home alone, she thought.

  I never would’ve agreed to meet him if I’d been thinking clearly.

  Well, now Marci will have another hilarious story to tell her friends, Lea thought bitterly, climbing into bed. And everyone at Shadyside will have another big laugh at my expense.

  She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and fought back the urge to cry.

  I could kill Marci. I really could.

  Her bitter thoughts were interrupted just then by sounds above her head.

  Footsteps again.

  The ceiling creaked under their weight.

  They were footsteps. No doubt about it.

  Right over her head.

  Thud thud thud.

  Then back the other way.

  Thud thud thud.

  I won’t be stopped this time, Lea told herself. I’m going to find out who is walking up there—and I won’t be frightened away.

  She had pulled on her robe and rubber thongs and was climbing the ladder outside her room. A fat, black fly buzzed slowly around the light fixture in the hallway, one of the last flies of autumn.

  “Don’t you know you’re supposed to be dead?” Lea called to it, just to hear her voice.

  She pushed the trapdoor up and away and blinked, surprised to find the attic light on.

  Then she remembered that she must have left it on when she fled the attic earlier.

  I’m not going to run this time, she thought, pulling herself up into the yellow light of the attic and climbing to her feet, wrapping the robe around her, retying the cloth belt more securely.

  “This time I’m going to learn your secret,” she said loudly to the locked door. Talking out loud seemed to give her courage, to strengthen her resolve.

  She stood a few feet from the door, studying it, her eyes moving slowly from the top to the floor.

  No traces of blood. No iron spikes.

  No roar.

  She took a tentative step closer, the floorboard squeaking in protest beneath her. She leaned forward to examine the door in the strange yellow light.

  The boards crisscrossing the door were covered with a thick layer of dust, she saw. They were lined with deep ruts and cracks, and were warped from age and from the dryness of the attic.

  The nail heads protruding from the two-by-fours were rusted. One of the boards was nearly cracked in half and sagged in the middle, held up by only a few nails.

  It was obvious even to Lea, who didn’t have much knowledge or skill in carpentry, that the nails had been hastily pounded in. Many of them were crooked, the nail heads sticking out at odd angles. Some of the nails had been pounded in only halfway.

  Whoever put up these boards, Lea thought, wasn’t much of a carpenter or was in a terribly big hurry.

  Mrs. Thomas, the real estate agent, had said that the door had been locked and boarded up for over a hundred years. The boards looked that ol
d, Lea decided, but the door itself could have been put up the day before.

  The wood was smooth and unblemished. It didn’t appear the least bit warped or cracked. Nor did the brass doorknob show any age. It was bright, shiny almost, as if it were regularly polished.

  Studying the door carefully, scientifically, made Lea feel more confident. She stepped right up to the door and, pressing her ear against the smooth wood, listened.

  She pulled away quickly.

  It sounded as if someone was crying on the other side.

  Leaning both arms against the door, pressing her face forward, she listened again.

  Yes. It sounded like a young person in there. And that person was sobbing.

  “Hello!” Lea called excitedly. “Is someone in there? Can you hear me?”

  She listened.

  The crying stopped. There was only silence.

  Then a girl’s voice, muffled by the thick door, but clear enough to hear, called out to Lea. “Open the door! Please—open the door!”

  Lea leapt back in surprise.

  “Oh!”

  There really was someone on the other side, someone locked in, boarded up.

  But how could that be?

  Taking a deep breath, Lea moved back to the door. “Who are you?” she shouted loudly.

  Silence.

  “Who are you? How did you get in there?” Lea asked.

  Silence.

  Then the girl’s voice pleading again, sounding very frightened, very unhappy. “Open the door. Please— open the door.”

  Lea stared openmouthed.

  Should she do it?

  Should she open the door?

  “Please open the door!”

  The girl on the other side of the door repeated her desperate plea.

  “Please!”

  Lea was frozen by indecision. A frightening picture flashed into her mind. She saw a hideous monster with red eyes bulging out of its sockets and green slime drooling from its fang-filled mouth. The monster was hulking on the other side of the locked door, disguising its voice, using the voice of a frightened girl in order to fool Lea. Once the door was opened, it would growl in its natural, disgusting, horrifying voice—and pounce.

  Lea closed her eyes tightly and forced the gruesome picture from her mind.

  “Please open the door!” the muffled voice, now even more frightened and desperate, called out to Lea.

  “I-I’ll be right back,” Lea replied.

  She had made her decision. She had decided to unlock the door.

  Down the ladder. Through the hallway and down the stairs, her heart pounding, her mind racing crazily from thought to thought, wild pictures forming in her head of what the girl inside the room looked like. She found her father’s big metal tool chest in the back pantry behind the kitchen. She shuffled through it, her hands moving rapidly, randomly tossing things aside, until she found the biggest claw hammer she could find. She found a small sledgehammer behind the chest and grabbed it too.

  And then back up the stairs, tools in hand. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen stove as she passed. Nearly midnight. Her parents should be home soon.

  What a surprise for them, she thought.

  What a surprise for everyone.

  Cradling the heavy tools in her arms, Lea struggled back up the metal ladder and hurried to the locked attic door.

  “Are you still there?” she called loudly, dropping the sledgehammer to the floor.

  “Yes.” The voice sounded so tiny now, so far away. “Will you be so kind as to open the door?”

  “I-I’ll try,” Lea said uncertainly.

  “Please open the door!”

  “I’m going to try!” Lea repeated as loudly as she could. The girl sounded so distant, Lea wasn’t sure she could hear her.

  Lea reached up and pulled on the highest two-by-four. It gave slightly and pulled away from the doorframe.

  Not bad, Lea thought, encouraged. This may not be as hard as I thought.

  She changed the position of her hands on the board, gripped it tightly, and tugged. The board was dry and had weakened over the years. It cracked and squeaked as one end pulled completely off the frame, leaving the nails in place. Lea used the claw hammer on the other end and pried it off quickly, almost effortlessly. She let the board fall to the floor at her feet, then bent over and tugged it out of the way.

  One down, two more to go, she thought, pleased with herself.

  The old boards were practically rotten, she realized. She pulled the remaining two off as easily as the first—she didn’t even need the hammer—and dragged them to the center of the floor.

  “Are you okay in there?” Lea called in.

  Silence.

  “Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  “Please open the door,” the voice called.

  “I’m trying!” Lea shouted. “I’ve pulled off the boards. Now I just have to figure out how to unlock the door.”

  “Please hurry,” the girl called.

  Lea bent down to examine the doorknob and the lock beneath it. To her shock, she saw a brass key in the lock.

  “There’s a key,” Lea announced excitedly to the girl on the other side. “I can unlock the door now!”

  “Please—unlock it!” the voice pleaded.

  Lea paused for a brief moment, her hand gripping the metal key. Once again she pictured a hulking monster, covered in hair and slime and blood, waiting eagerly on the other side, cleverly calling to her in its best imitation of a girl’s voice.

  But Lea hesitated for only a second. Then she turned the key. The lock clicked softly.

  Lea turned the knob and pulled open the heavy door.

  Lea found herself staring into a beautifully decorated, old-fashioned-looking girl’s bedroom. The room was lit with candles, two on a tall, mahogany dresser flickering against the back wall and one inside a glass hurricane lamp, glowing brightly from a low table in the corner.

  The walls were papered in dark maroon wallpaper that appeared to be textured, like felt. A large canopy bed, all pink and satiny, with a heavy, quilted pink bedspread, practically filled the room.

  And sitting on the canopy bed, her hands folded in her lap, was a girl.

  The girl appeared to be about Lea’s age. She was beautiful in a very old-fashioned kind of way.

  Her hair was a mass of golden ringlets, worn without a part, the tight yellow curls tumbling onto her forehead and down the sides of her perfect oval-shaped face. A black velvet hair ribbon was tied across the crown of her head.

  She had white skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun, and tiny features, small blue eyes, a perfect, straight nose, a tiny mouth.

  She was wearing a high-necked white blouse that seemed as if it would be stiff and uncomfortable. Ruffles ran down the front, and the sleeves were long and puffy at the shoulders. Her black wool skirt came down over her shoes. It looked heavy and cumbersome.

  She’s like a little Victorian doll, thought Lea, staring in from the doorway. She’s even smaller than Deena, and more angelic looking.

  The two girls stared at each other for a long time without speaking. The girl on the bed sat very erect, keeping her hands in her lap. Nothing moved except for the flickering shadows caused by the candlelight.

  Finally Lea got over her shock well enough to break the silence. “Who are you?” she asked. She was still standing with one hand on the door.

  “This is my house,” the girl said. Her mouth widened into a smile. Her eyes sparkled in the candle-light.

  “What?” Lea gripped the door tightly.

  “This is my house. I live here,” the girl repeated. Her voice was tiny and sounded like a small child’s voice.

  “But how did you get in here?” Lea insisted. “I mean, up here? In this room?”

  “Do you like my room?” the girl asked eagerly. She slid off the pink quilt and stood up. She moved her hand in a sweeping motion, showing off her room. Her hand, like a small, white dove, fluttered in the long
candlelit shadows.

  “Yes, it’s very nice,” Lea said uncertainly, fear beginning to creep up her spine. “But I don’t really understand.”

  “I’ve been so terribly lonely,” the girl said, tilting her head to one side, the golden ringlets falling with it. “So terribly lonely, for so many years.”

  She’s a ghost, Lea realized, staring wide-eyed as the girl slowly began to move toward her, a strange smile on her lips.

  A ghost.

  But that’s impossible—isn’t it?

  “I’ve been so very lonely,” the girl said, stretching her arms out toward Lea as she walked toward her. Her expression was so needy, so—hungry.

  The girl shimmered in the candlelight, her image fading in the shadows, then growing bright again when she moved into the light.

  A ghost, Lea thought.

  Coming toward me, her arms outstretched.

  “No!”

  Lea hadn’t even realized that she had uttered the cry. She began backing up, backing toward the safety of the attic.

  “Please don’t go,” the girl pleaded in her tiny voice.

  “You’re a ghost,” Lea mumbled, taking another step back, gripped with fear, heavy fear that weighted her legs, that made every step a struggle.

  “I’m so lonely,” the girl said, forming her small lips into a child’s pout. “Can I touch you? Can I touch your hair?”

  “No!” Lea screamed again, her terror making her voice high and hoarse. “No—please!”

  “I won’t hurt you,” the girl said, her arms still outstretched, her face glowing in the dim candlelight, her eyes sparkling like pale jewels.

  “No!”

  Lea slammed the door shut and, struggling to control her trembling hand, turned the key in the lock.

  Then she stood staring at the smooth wood of the door, licking her lips, swallowing hard, her mouth dry, her throat choked with fear, trying to catch her breath.

  I never should have pulled off the boards, she thought. I never should have opened that door.

  “Please don’t go away,” the tiny voice called from the other side of the locked door, “I’m so lonely. I just want to touch your hair.”