The front hall was small but ornate, with walls of pale wainscoting beneath navy blue and gold wallpaper that felt like cloth beneath my fingertips. The ceiling was high and hung with a simple brass chandelier. I flicked the heavy switch on the wall and the globes illuminated. The dim light dispelled few of the shadows.
I had the urge to touch everything, morphing back into the little girl I was when I spent those brief summer visits with Granny and my great-grandparents. Nothing about the house was familiar, no matter how hard I reached for dusty memories. I ran a palm over the white wicker telephone table to the left of the front door, and picked up the receiver of the old-fashioned rotary phone, pressing it to my ear. I listened to the steady dial tone for a moment before replacing the handset.
A pair of French double doors led off to the left into a large, open living room. I fumbled blindly on the wall in the darkness until my fingers connected with the light switch, and then flicked it. The same wallpaper covered the walls, and heavy mauve draperies covered three floor-to-ceiling windows along the front of the house. A stone fireplace dominated the outside wall; it was black with soot, and several charred logs still rested on the andirons above gray river rock. Picture frames lined the mantel, dusty memories of my family—I recognized my grandmother in many, although she was young and different from the woman I had known.
“What do you think?” Rachel passed through the room, clutching her paperback to her chest with one elbow as she pulled her wild red hair into a ponytail.
“I think it feels like trespassing.”
“Why?”
I nodded to the worn oak end table. Sitting perfectly centered on a cork coaster, an open can of Coca-Cola gathered dust. “When do you think Granny opened that? A day before she died? A week?”
Rachel stood over the table, face unreadable. “Oh.”
“Granny’s ghost is here.”
“Not literally,” Rachel murmured.
“No. Well, not what I meant, anyway.”
Without another word, my sister drifted from the room, and I turned back to the sitting area. The couch faced the fireplace and it oozed relaxation after eighteen hours on the road. I had a flash of memory: I sat on that pink, floral pattern eating popsicles made out of cherry Kool-Aid while playing Scrabble with my cousin, Beth. We hadn’t been the neatest of eaters; red droplets splattered the letter tiles, and Granny had made us wash them when we were done. In the present, the sticky liquid was phantom-like on my hands
I crossed the creaky hardwood and settled onto a cushion. It sank like the much-loved piece of furniture it was, and I lay my head back, closing my eyes and inhaling the scent of eucalyptus.
“Susan? Hon? You in there?”
I cracked open an eye. My mom’s silhouette floated in the illuminated doorway to my right, where I caught sight of a corner of the dining room table. Her springtime dress was the same yellow as sunflowers, belted at her tiny waist with a fuchsia ribbon. She tapped over in her red high heels. “Darling? Are you okay?”
I smiled, reveling in the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her bobbed chestnut hair framed a long, angular face and highlighted the deep blue of her eyes. The beauty she’d carried her entire life had only matured over time.
Everyone who knew my mom and me said I looked just like her. My hair is a little longer, and I usually wear it up, plus I’m curvier, thanks to Dad’s genes. It was hard for me to believe I was as pretty as my mom, but I always took it as a compliment.
“That’s unsightly, don’t you think?” I asked her, pointing at an exposed pipe high up in the corner of the room. It jutted from the wall and disappeared through the ceiling.
My mother laughed. “It’s some kind of flue. Probably for the kitchen. You’re evading my question.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, Momma, I’m fine. Just thinking of Granny.”
Mom leaned over and brushed a lock of my long, dark brown hair from eyes. “Mmm. I miss her too, baby. Why don’t you come see the rest of the house? I can’t imagine you remember too much, you were only six the last time we were here.”
Heaving myself from the plush cushions, I followed her from the room.
In the foyer, Matt and Sam flanked Dad at the bottom of the stairs. All three were staring intently at the floor, hands shoved in pockets and hips cocked to the left. The similar postures were eerie considering Dad had like eighty pounds over each of my brothers.
Camille flew out of nowhere and threw herself dramatically around my hips. “See that? Dad says it’s bloooood.” She drew out the word like it was a mythological piece of nonsense.
Knowing my father, it could have been. He was known for spouting tall tales to scare/impress/embarrass his children.
I stared down at Cam. She had recently begged for a boy’s haircut, and my mother had eventually consented. Now my sister’s long hair was replaced by a shorn brown cap. With the flat chest of pre-pubescence, my beautiful baby sister could now pass for boy.
“I doubt it’s blood,” I answered her, hugging her skinny shoulders to my abdomen. I dragged her the last few feet to where Dad stood.
He furrowed his bushy gray eyebrows at the stain on the floor and shook his head. “Someone must have spilled something. Wine, maybe. I remember a cellar.”
“It does look a little like blood,” I murmured. The nasty, rust-colored stain spread in a circular arc on an otherwise pristine hardwood floor.
“Cool,” Matt said at the same time Sam muttered, “Gross.”
“It’s not blood.” Dad put his hands on his substantial hips and frowned. In the dim light that filtered through the window on the second floor landing, the stain looked particularly foreboding.
Mom sighed. “We’ll throw down a rug. It’s probably just wine like you said, Tom. Mother always had a thing for a glass of Merlot. Where are the girls?”
Dad cocked his graying head at the stairs. “They went up.”
Matt bumped me affectionately with his shoulder as we mounted the stairs. At fourteen, the twins were already taller than me. Their bodies were as long and thin as overextended Stretch Armstrong dolls, topped with shaggy black hair and penetrating dark eyes. I tried really hard not to think of them as men; it was weird enough that they were already shaving.
At the top of the stairs, the Florida sun shone warmly through the six-foot window so that sunlight touched all corners of the foyer. A left turn put us up another short flight of steps—lined with portraits of dour ladies in severe black dresses and men with ridiculously high, white collars—there’s no way we were going to keep those things up—and we continued to the second floor.
A long, straight hallway stretched to the left and right, lined with oriental rugs so worn from use that the colors had faded beyond recognition. I trailed fingers down the creamy, textured walls, following the parade of parents, twins, and Cam, and absently wondering how many bedrooms the ancient house held.
I hoped there would be enough for all of us. At twenty-four, I was definitely old enough to be living on my own and caring for myself, but I had spent the previous six years in college getting my Master’s degree. Mom and Dad supported me while I went to school, so when they told me they were planning on moving into Granny’s old house in Florida, I hadn’t yet saved enough money to live alone. Which was why I ended up hauling my stuff cross-country with nothing but a prayer that once we settled in, I could find a job. But, I certainly did not plan on sharing a room with any of my younger sisters.
Or, God forbid, my brothers.
Izzy stood in the doorway of a small bedroom at the end of the hall, thin arms wrapped over her chest. One lock of her platinum-dyed blonde fauxhawk fell over her cheek as her dark eyes stared at the ceiling. The brunette fuzz on either side of her head contrasted deeply to the bottle-peroxide.
“Darling?” Mom asked gently, shaking her shoulder.
Izzy jumped, accidentally landing on my foot in her thick-soled combat boots.
I yelped and hopped away in a
haze of stabbing pain. I shoved her. “Jesus, Izzy! Watch what you’re doing.”
“Sorry.” She gazed at me with a weird mixture of apology and…what was she afraid of?
“Iz? What’s the matter?” I grabbed her wrist and stared uneasily into her eyes. She was shaking.
“There’s something up there.” Her breathy voice was barely discernible as Matt and Sam bickered behind us. At her gesture, I looked up at the ceiling in the bedroom, where an attic door was set in the plaster. “I heard voices.”
“What’s that?” Camille asked, tugging on Mom’s dress.
I stepped around Izzy and into the room, its warm, green walls like a cocoon around me. It was small—barely big enough for the old fashioned twin bed in the corner and the single dresser. A white ladder was built into the wall beside the single, warped glass window to the right of the bed. I tilted an ear towards the ceiling.
“I don’t hear anything, Iz,” I called to my sister over my shoulder.
“There were voices…and…” she trailed off. “Clanking.”
“You probably just heard the wind, darling.” Mom sighed, pressing the fingers of one slender hand to her forehead. “Come on, we need to count bedrooms and figure out how many we have. If I remember correctly, there are only five.”
Only five. Damn. There would definitely be some doubling up. Mom and Dad plus six kids? Ugh.
I stayed in the room as my parents and siblings disbanded in the hallway. Their voices grew distant, and heavy feet pounded down the stairs. I was alone in the small, cool room.
I wandered closer to the ladder and laid my hands on the metal. It was cold and the reverberation of my touch made an audible humming sound. I stared intently at the door in the ceiling, wondering what it was my sister heard.
Nothing.
“What are you doing?” Rachel’s voice floated into the room, startling me. She stood in the doorway with her book tucked under one arm and an inhaler in the palm of her other hand. She took a couple of deep breaths from it, her chest rising and falling. Her round glasses reflected the sunlight coming through the window so that I couldn’t see her eyes. Her brilliant red hair was a halo of curls around her face, already spilling from her earlier ponytail.
“Just looking.” Tucking my arm through hers, and with a backwards glance at the empty bedroom, we ran to catch up with the rest of the family.
Chapter 2
“Five rooms, troops,” Dad’s voice boomed in the kitchen, bouncing off the stone floor as if he were using an amplifier.
The kitchen was by far my favorite room in the house. It was painted in warm shades of orange and rust, and the cabinets were inlaid with glass panes to showcase all of Granny’s beautiful dishes. Double glass doors led to the backyard where the sun was thinking about setting.
The small, pale oak table only had four chairs, and the twins and Mom sat in three of them. I tapped Izzy on the arm, and she slid over to make room for me on her chair.
Dad met our eyes one by one as he said, “One room for Mom and me leaves four for you guys. That’s four of you rooming up. I vote Susan, as the oldest, is allowed her own room.”
There was a chorus of groans and “Aw, come on!”. I preened and fought the urge to throw myself on his feet in gratitude. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I want to room with Izzy,” Rachel murmured without looking up. She was propped against the granite counter with her nose in her latest thriller novel.
Izzy nodded glumly beside me. Back home in Kentucky, she’d had to share with Camille, so I knew it was a tough pill for the sixteen-year-old to swallow that she would have to share again.
Hell, we all had to share at some point. Before I left for school, I shared a room with Rachel. Teenage years are such a private, volatile time. Having a little sister underfoot isn’t easy. But I knew neither teenager wanted to room with the kid sister, either.
“Of course, the twins will room together,” Mom said, nodding at Matt and Sam.
They nodded in agreement, freakishly identical motions only made weirder by devious grins on their freckled faces.
“Camille—are you okay with sleeping alone, sweetie?” Mom turned her gaze to Cam.
“Yep!” Cam didn’t take her eyes from the Nintendo DS in her hands, where a dog barked from the speakers. She would probably line her stuffed animals up around the perimeter of the room and call it a fort. The kid was weird.
I was startled by a loud trill from Dad’s pocket. The man was legally deaf in one ear, so he really needed a hearing aid but was too stubborn to get one. He dug out his cell phone and answered with a loud, “Hello?”
“You’re still freaked,” I murmured to Izzy, leaning against her. Her bare arm was warm on my own.
“I know what I heard,” she whispered back. “There were voices.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a jarring blast of thunder that shook the walls. Izzy jumped and almost landed in my lap, her skinny arms wrapping around my bicep.
“What? Why?” Dad barked, perturbed. He listened for a moment, one hand leaning on the table. Finally, he sighed. “I understand. Thank you.” He flipped his phone shut and sighed, rubbing the irritated squiggle line between his eyebrows. “Moving truck won’t be here until the morning.”
Mom rested her elbows on the tabletop with a groan. There was exhaustion etched in the dark circles beneath her eyes. “Why?”
“Storms.” Dad shrugged. He wandered over to the French doors, hands clasped behind his back as he looked to the west. “Driver said it’s headed this way. They pulled off the highway in Georgia.”
“At least we have furniture,” I pointed out, leaning back in the seat. My butt was hanging half off the chair, and it wasn’t very comfy. “Beds and such. We can go without our pajamas for one night, right?”
“We can sleep naked!” Matt and Sam chorused.
Mom rolled her eyes and looked pointedly at Dad.
He chuckled. “Boys, sleep in your boxers. At least if only for the sake of the rest of us.” His statement was highlighted by another rumble from the sky.
Silence fell, and we all turned to the glass doors. Black clouds rolled towards us from the horizon, thick and daunting. We came from the outskirts of Tornado Alley, so one would think we’d be used to this kind of weather.
But there was something about this storm. This house. I shivered.
“We should get our stuff out of the car before the sky opens,” Rachel suggested, turning the corner of a page down in her novel and closing it.
A closer crash of thunder startled us into motion.
*
As the baby, Mom wanted Cam’s room close to hers, so I got the smallest of the selection. It happened to be the one with the attic door.
I stared at the strange white door in the ceiling and thought of Izzy’s adamant claims that she’d heard something up there. I wasn’t sure what to think about it. With the storm coming in and the strange creaks and groans of an old house, there could have been any number of explanations. Definitely nothing weird, though.
The sage-green walls, clean and bright when the sun was out, looked dingy in the growing twilight of the storm. I ran a finger down the paint—my skin felt like it should come away unclean. There was a tall dresser against the wall to the left of the door and a closet in the right wall. Small and simple. Like me.
I stepped over to the ladder and wrapped one hand around a rung. It was cold, white metal, and it rang hollow like a pipe. I eyed the horizontal slabs of white that marked the attic door.
The paint was cracked, revealing pale, scarred wood. It was easily almost ninety degrees outside, but I could feel a draft push down between the boards. It sent a chill through me, and I tried not to think of what Izzy could have heard.
If we had bats, I’d die.
I dropped my duffel bag onto the knitted white coverlet. The entire bed shook under its weight, and seriously, there wasn’t that much in there. Which meant the bed wasn’t in the best c
ondition and would probably collapse beneath me during the night.
Dislike.
I unzipped the bag and started pulling out my belongings in the hope that unpacking might make me feel a little at home. The four paperbacks got stacked on my nightstand, and I threw my favorite stuffed teddy bear on the pillow. I changed out of my blue jeans and into the pink-and-white candy-striped shorts I’d brought from home, and then shrugged off my button-up shirt. Tossing the bag to the floor at the foot of the bed, I gingerly crawled beneath the covers.
The storm had really kicked up outside as I settled into bed and opened my current read. Intermittent rumbles of thunder and lightning illuminated the room through the curtains and shook the walls like some kind of movie magic. I angled the lampshade on the bedside lamp for optimum light; it made me feel a little safer.
I had only managed a few paragraphs into the mystery novel when I noticed a steady scratching sound. I glanced up and around the dusky room, brow knitted. What the hell was that? It sounded like a dog’s claws on the floor, but thanks to Dad and Rachel’s rampant allergies, that was impossible.
I shoved back the covers and stood up, hesitating. Izzy’s voice flashed through my head—I know what I heard. There were voices.—and I realized maybe I didn’t want to find out what was scratching in my bedroom.
How asinine. I chuckled, shaking my head. I couldn’t let my little sister’s overactive imagination scare me.
I wandered towards the wall, my teeth worrying at my bottom lip as I cocked my head towards the sound. The scratching led me to the window next to the ladder.
An old pine tree grew close to the house just outside the glass. Its long limbs were brushing against my bedroom window with every gust of wind. I laughed out loud, more relieved than I probably should have been.
Back in bed, I got used to the sound of the window being scratched by nearby branches. The rain poured, which did a little to block the sound, but it also made my eyes heavy. I sank against the pillow and fought to keep them open as I read.
I must have dozed with my book in hand, because I shot awake sometime later. The paperback had ended up on the floor, and my fingertips dangled above it. The small lamp was still lit, but it was so dark and nasty outside that the shadows stretched through my room.