The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story

by Mary Downing Hahn

  “I’m not talking about planets,” I told her. “I mean worlds that astronomers can’t see. They don’t show up in telescopes. They exist in another dimension.”

  From the way Lily looked at me, I guessed she no longer understood what I meant. At this point I wasn’t even sure I understood. It sounded too complicated to be true.

  I tried again, hoping to convince myself as well as Lily. “It’s not easy to explain, but things can happen in one world that don’t happen in another world.”

  “Imagine there’s a world where Mr. Bailey didn’t kill anyone,” Maisie said. “In that world, you and your parents are alive and happy.”

  “Do you mean heaven?” Lily asked.

  “No, not heaven,” Maisie said. “Please just be quiet and let us explain. It’s really important, Lily.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” Lily folded her hands in her lap and sat up straight.

  “It’s all right. You weren’t rude,” I said. “It’s hard to understand.”

  “Just tell her what to do,” Maisie said.

  “Are you brave, Lily?” I asked.

  “I’m as brave as I can be,” she said. “I’m not scared of snakes or thunder and lightning. I’m not even afraid of Papa’s bull or Mr. Mason’s hunting dogs.”

  “Are you brave enough to run outside tonight when the horsemen come? Are you brave enough to fetch Aunt Nellie?”

  She hesitated. “Will you and Maisie be there?”

  “Yes,” we said together.

  “All right then,” Lily said. “I’ll do it. I’ll fetch Aunt Nellie. I’ll be with Mama and Papa no matter what happens.”

  I looked at the child sitting above me in the tree and knew I’d never meet anyone, living or dead, as brave as Lily.

  28

  Lily

  For a moment the two girls say nothing, and Lily is free to drift on the stream of memories time has returned to her. She looks across the field to the woods. The trees hide something in their shadows, something she should see. She can’t quite remember what it is, but she doesn’t want to be alone when she finds it.

  Perhaps Jules and Maisie will come with her. She leans down from her branch, still worried that they might smell her dirty feet, and whispers, “Will you walk in the woods with me? It’s cooler there.”

  “Of course,” Jules says. She and Maisie scramble to their feet, and Lily drops down from the tree. She lands without a sound and leads the girls down a narrow path. It’s so overgrown with weeds, Lily wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t known it was there.

  Somewhere ahead, mourning doves coo, but she doesn’t realize where she is until she sees the tombstones hidden in the deep shade. Weeds and ivy cling to them. Trees have grown up around them. The stones tilt and slant. Some have fallen. The graveyard looks very different from the last time Lily saw it.

  Jules and Maisie stop. They both look frightened. Have they never seen a graveyard?

  “Why have you brought us here?” Jules asks.

  “You’ll see.” Lily drifts ahead of them. Her feet barely touch the ground.

  She looks back at the girls. Maisie is making an effort to find a way through the weeds and brambles, but Jules hasn’t moved. Is she scared of the dead?

  Lily floats ahead. The grave closest to the path belongs to Grandfather and Grandmother Pettifer. Grandfather died before Lily was born, but she remembers Grandmother. Very old she was, wrinkled and worn, like clothing packed away too long at the bottom of a trunk. When her fingers clasped Lily’s wrist, she felt as if she’d been caught by a bird with long talons.

  Grandmother died when Lily was seven years old. Lily had stood where she is standing now, holding her parents’ hands and watching the coffin disappear into the earth. She’d cried, as much out of fright as of sorrow, for it was dreadful to think of Grandmother in that coffin, her sharp eyes closed forever.

  Mama cried too, for the old woman was her mother and she’d loved her. Papa comforted both of them.

  Lily walks farther into the graveyard. She looks under the ivy at the small headstones of Pettifer children who died when they were little and at the mossy stones where people older than memory are buried. Pettifer and a few other names appear over and over again. Her family is here, grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. All dead and buried properly.

  At last she spies an angel hiding in the honeysuckle and wild grapevines. Its marble skin is mossy green from age and spotted with lichen and moss. Beautiful in grief, the angel kneels with drooping wings on a tomb. Lily has found what she seeks.

  HERE LIE THE BODIES OF

  HENRY BENNETT

  and his wife, LAURA, daughter of

  JAMES and SARAH PETTIFER

  Struck down cruelly in the midst of life

  And in Memory of their Beloved Daughter

  Who was taken from us in her Childhood

  LILIAN ANNE BENNETT

  “Never more to find her where the bright waters flow . . . Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown.”

  Lily runs a finger over her parents’ names: Henry Bennett and his wife, Laura. The letters are faded and blurred from years of snow and rain. Even though she knows that Papa and Mama are dead, it’s something else altogether to stand here in the green shade and know they lie beneath the mossy earth at her feet.

  She touches her own name. Does the inscription mean that she’s buried with her parents, or does it mean that she’s dead but not buried here? She thinks “in Memory” must mean she isn’t here. No one found her. She hid too well.

  When she reads what’s written beneath her name, she smiles. The words are from a song Mama often sang to her. Lily is pleased to see its words on the tombstone.

  “‘I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair . . .’” Lily sings in a sweet voice. Maisie and Jules sing with her. They stop after the first verse, but Lily remembers every word. She sings all the way to Jeannie’s death at the song’s ending.

  Maisie stands beside her, and Jules stands on the other side. It’s a solemn moment, Lily thinks, like being in church. She wishes she were solid so she could hold their warm hands.

  “If Mr. Bailey and Ellis Dixon had found me, I’d be buried here with Mama and Papa.” Lily turns to the girls. She’s frightened, she needs their comfort. In a whisper, she adds, “Maybe it’s where I should be.”

  “No, Lily,” Jules says. “We found you—​Maisie and me. We’ll make sure you go where you belong.”

  “To that other world,” Maisie adds. “Where nobody dies at Oak Hill.”

  “I thought I was waiting for Mama and Papa,” Lily says softly, “but maybe I was waiting for you all along.”

  “Tonight,” Jules says, “everything will be the way it should be.”

  But Lily isn’t listening. She fades silently into the dense shade and disappears. She needs to be alone. Invisible to everyone now, she curls up on the ground and lies still. Willing herself to sink into the earth, she longs to join her parents.

  She hears the girls calling her, but she doesn’t answer. She’ll see them tonight. After a while they leave the cemetery. Their voices are so low she cannot hear what they say. She hopes she hasn’t hurt their feelings or been rude.

  Day slowly darkens into night. The air turns cold and damp. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Slowly, she follows the narrow path to Oak Hill.

  In the dark, the house looks the same as it did the night Papa carried her home from the picnic. She expects her parents to welcome her at the door, to ask where she’s been, but she sees nothing except shadows, hears nothing but the night breeze blowing bits of trash across the floor.

  Wearily she climbs the steps and enters Papa’s studio. Mama and Papa are not there. Lily is alone.

  29

  Jules

  I spun around and looked for Lily. “Where did she go?”

  “Lily,” Maisie called. “Lily!”

  No one answered but a mourning dove hidden in the shade.<
br />
  We called her name again and again. The mourning dove cooed its sad song over and over, but Lily didn’t answer, and she didn’t appear.

  “Where are you?” I called. “Please come out where we can see you.”

  “She’s hiding,” Maisie said. “We won’t find her unless she wants us to.”

  Maisie and I stood silently and waited. All around us the trees creaked and sighed, as if they were telling each other secrets. I thought of their roots tangled together under the earth, binding them together in the dark. They held the coffins as well, keeping the dead safe.

  The mourning dove cooed, but Lily didn’t return.

  At exactly the same moment, Maisie and I reached out to touch Lily’s name. Our fingers brushed against each other on the rough stone. Friends, we were friends, I knew without asking. Even if I moved to Alaska or Hawaii, Maisie and I would be friends because of Lily.

  “We should clean up the graveyard,” Maisie said. “It’s wrong for Lily’s family to lie here forgotten.”

  “If we tell Dad about it, maybe his work crew will do it.”

  “And after they finish the hard work, we can plant flowers and stuff for Lily,” Maisie said.

  “A memorial garden,” I said, and she nodded.

  Slowly we made our way out of the graveyard and followed the path uphill through the woods. In the damp shade, gnats swarmed around our heads and mosquitoes attacked us.

  “Do you think our plan will really work?” I asked Maisie. Now that I knew Lily, I felt as if we were sending a real live child into terrible danger.

  When Maisie didn’t answer right away, I asked her another question. “Aren’t you afraid Mr. Bailey will kill Lily?”

  “It’s so complicated.” Maisie wiped the sweat from her forehead. “There could be a world where Mr. Bennett didn’t fire Mr. Bailey. There could be a world where he hired some other man. There could be a world where Mr. Bennett never met Lily’s mother, and Lily was never born. There could be—”

  I covered my ears. “Stop it! You’re driving me insane.”

  “Sorry.” Maisie squashed a mosquito on her arm. A bright bead of blood popped up and she smeared it away. “Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where nothing bit you?”

  We walked on, swatting gnats and mosquitoes, our shirts soaked with sweat despite the shade.

  From somewhere ahead I heard voices. “Your mother must be here. Do you think she’ll let you stay tonight?”

  Maisie turned to me, red-faced from the heat. “She has to. I’m not letting you go in that house alone.”

  “That’s a relief!” I laughed as if it were no big thing, but for the first time, I knew what it was like to have a good friend. I felt like doing a row of cartwheels all the way home, but I wasn’t very good at gymnastics. And besides that, it was way too hot to try.

  When we came out of the woods, we saw our mothers sitting on the deck, talking like old friends.

  Maisie’s mom saw us first and waved for us to join her and Mom on the deck. We collapsed on the picnic table, too hot and tired to take another step.

  “How about a big glass of ice-cold lemonade?” Mom asked.

  Maisie and I drank ours in about one minute, and Mom poured us seconds.

  “Have you girls had fun?” Maisie’s mom asked.

  Maisie nodded and took another gulp of lemonade. “We’ve had a great time. Can I stay another night?”

  “Of course,” our mothers said in unison, and laughed at their unplanned duet.

  The two of them went on with their conversation, and Maisie and I went inside to cool off in air-conditioned comfort. We had things to talk about and plans to make.

  30

  Jules

  After dinner that night, we kept ourselves from thinking about our plan by playing a few games of Clue with my parents. I won the first round by accusing Colonel Mustard of murdering Mr. Boddy in the library with a knife. Maisie won the second by accusing Mrs. White of killing Mr. Boddy in the kitchen with a wrench. Mom won the third game, and Maisie won the fourth.

  “Poor Mr. Boddy,” Dad said. “Always dead before the game even begins.”

  We started a fifth game, but Dad insisted that we use the British words. We had to call the wrench a spanner and the knife a dirk.

  He also said that Mr. Boddy shouldn’t always be the murder victim. “Give the poor man a break, and let that old bore Colonel Mustard be the one to die.”

  I was already having trouble paying attention to the game. With Dad making up new rules all the time, I was too distracted to keep playing.

  I glanced at Maisie and caught her looking at the window, as if she expected to see the horsemen galloping toward Oak Hill.

  “I’m so tired,” I said. “How about you, Maisie?”

  She yawned so widely the fillings in her back teeth showed.

  “Oh, girls, for heaven’s sake, go to bed before you fall asleep on the couch,” Mom said. “We’ve played enough Clue for tonight.”

  “More than enough,” Dad said. “It’s time to bury poor departed Mr. Boddy.” He dumped everything into the box and closed the lid. “Rest in peace, old boy.”

  I kissed him and Mom good night and left them arguing over what TV show to watch.

  In my room, Maisie and I checked our flashlight batteries and settled down to wait for my parents to go to bed. After Dad began snoring, we tiptoed into the kitchen and opened the door to the old house. At the same moment, we heard the horses galloping toward us.

  “Hurry,” I whispered. “We’ve got to hide.”

  Darting into the old house, we flattened ourselves against a wall near the stairs and stared about us in disbelief. Instead of the ruins we expected to see, Oak Hill looked as it must have when Lily lived here. The walls were papered, and the floor gleamed with polish. A kerosene lamp on a small marble-topped table lit a group of portraits—not of Lily and her parents but of people from even longer ago, Lily’s ancestors probably, dark with age.

  Upstairs, Lily whimpered, and Mrs. Bennett ran down the steps. As she passed us, her long skirt brushed against me, but she didn’t notice me or Maisie. It seemed we were invisible witnesses to what was about to happen.

  We watched Mrs. Bennett join her husband in the kitchen. Fists pounded on the kitchen door.

  “Don’t let them in,” Mrs. Bennett cried.

  But the men forced the door open and entered the kitchen, shouting and cursing.

  Mr. Bennett faced the men, his back to us. Mrs. Bennett stood beside him. “Go home,” he told them. “You have no business here!”

  “I worked for you more than five years. You owe me more than a week’s salary.” Mr. Bailey was a big man, taller and heavier than Mr. Bennett, and just as ugly as he’d looked in Lily’s drawings.

  Ellis Dixon pushed his way forward. He looked like a ferret, short and skinny, with a narrow face and close-set eyes. “Money,” he said. “That’s what we come for. Give us what’s in your safe.”

  “You’re a pair of drunken fools,” Mr. Bennett said. “Get out of my house.”

  “Please,” Mrs. Bennett said. “Leave now.”

  Mr. Bailey pointed a gun at Mr. Bennett. “Don’t tell me what to do. I ain’t your tenant no more. You listen to me now!”

  At the same moment, Ellis Dixon twisted Mrs. Bennett’s arm behind her back. “Take us to the safe and open it.”

  Flattening ourselves against the wall, Maisie and I watched the killers force the Bennetts past us and into the parlor. They were close enough for me to smell the whiskey on their breath and the sour odor of sweat and stale tobacco, but they didn’t notice Maisie and me.

  Mr. Bennett struggled to free himself, and Mrs. Bennett pleaded with the men to let them go.

  We heard a faint noise overhead. Lily stood at the top of the steps. She wore a long white nightgown and her yellow hair hung in loose curls around her face.

  For a moment it seemed as if she might turn and run back to the studio.

  “Lily,” I
whispered, “we’re here. Be brave.”

  She didn’t seem to see us, but she gripped the banister and inched down the steps. She was pale with fear, but determined.

  “Fetch Aunt Nellie. Change what happens,” Maisie said.

  Holding our breath, we watched Lily take one step down, then another. From the parlor, we heard Mr. Bailey shouting. Mr. Bennett shouted back. Mrs. Bennett sobbed softly.

  Lily hesitated at the foot of the steps and looked toward the parlor.

  “No, no,” I whispered. “If you go in there, you won’t save anyone. You’ll all die.”

  She took a step toward the parlor. Her mother was still crying. Her father spoke angrily. The killers shouted about the safe and the money.

  Lily was at the doorway now. She paid no attention to us. It was as if we didn’t exist—​in this world, maybe we didn’t.

  We had to stop her, but even when I grabbed her arm, she didn’t react.

  “Lily,” we shouted. “Don’t let them see you! Go outside. Get Aunt Nellie! Change what happens!”

  Sill ignoring us, Lily listened at the door for a few seconds. Maisie and I shouted at her. She didn’t hear us. And neither did anyone else.

  Suddenly Lily cocked her head like a cat who’s just noticed a mouse. She looked at Maisie and me, not exactly with recognition, and backed away from the doorway.

  Outside in the dark, a horse whinnied. A woman spoke in a low voice.

  “Go,” we shouted to Lily, “get Aunt Nellie!”

  Without looking at Maisie or me, Lily ran down the hall and into the kitchen. A moment later a door opened and a breath of cool night air stirred the window curtains.

  31

  Lily

  From the top step, Lily watches her mother run downstairs. It’s hard to disobey Mama, even though she has a very strong urge to do so. So instead of locking herself in the studio, she clings to the banister. Below her, Mama hurries to the kitchen. The men are in the house now. She hears them cursing Papa.