Wolfhowl Mountain

by Dian Cronan

  After everyone eats a cookie or three, Letta gets down to business. She hands each of us a flashlight. She has two disposable cameras. One she slips into a pocket and the other she hands to Shane.

  “What’s with the flashlights?” I ask.

  “Oh, the power is most certainly going to go out,” she replies. “Always does when the storms come. Anyway, I figured this is a pretty big place, so we should split up.”

  “I think as the man of this little committee heeah,” Shane says with mock importance, pulling on the waist of his pants, “I should naturally investigate the basement. If there’s a ghost or a body tah be found, that’s where it’ll be.” I don’t tell him how right he might be.

  “I’ve always been curious ‘bout the basement of this place. I’ll go with you!” Patty says, a little too eagerly, and her cheeks redden.

  “I’ll come with you too,” Eileen says. Her face is emotionless, but I detect a note of jealousy in her tone.

  “Okay,” Letta says, rubbing her hands together. “It’s Team Rosetta then! Where should we start, Rose?”

  “Well,” I pause, the silence filling with the rat-a-tat of the rain on the windows, “There’s not really much on the main level. It’s pretty boring down here. I actually haven’t been to the third floor at all. I don’t think any of us have. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Great!” Letta’s excited. “We’ll take the third floor while you guys check out the basement. Oh! One more thing.” From the depths of her bookbag, Letta extracts two walkie-talkies. “Use these to communicate any interesting findings.” She turns them both on, hooks one onto a pocket and hands the other to Patty.

  There’s an uncomfortable silence as a miasma of anxiety permeates the air. Though we’d thoroughly talked about this moment, and even laughed at the idea, actually carrying it out makes it real. It makes Wolfhowl Manor real. It makes the idea there is something sinister here real. It makes our fear real.

  It takes a burst of lightning and thunder to bring us back to reality. Patty lets out a burst of nervous laughter.

  “Alright,” Shane says ominously, shining the flashlight under his chin. “Let’s see what Wolfhowl Manor’s all ‘bout. We’ll be riiiiight baaaaack! Mwahahaha!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Diaries

  “Oh, stop bein’ silly. C’mon.” Eileen tugs on Shane’s arm and Patty follows.

  “Good luck,” I say as I pass by them. I lead Letta into the kitchen and show her the skinny, rickety staircase leading up into inky darkness.

  “I haven’t been up here before,” I say. “I think they must have been meant as servants’ stairs or something.”

  “Why not?” Letta asks, sticking her head into the shadows of the stairwell, which envelopes her up to her shoulders, turning her into a headless ghost.

  “I mostly just take care of Liam or hang out in my room. I’ve been so busy trying to ignore the creepy feeling that I forgot about investigating the third floor. I do know this staircase only goes to the third floor, and the stairs in the foyer go only to the second floor. Isn’t that weird? This is such an odd house. Aside from the fact that it’s probably haunted, I mean.”

  Letta nods. “I don’t see a light switch. We’ll have to use the flashlights. Ready?”

  “As ever,” I say without enthusiasm.

  Letta takes the lead up the stairs, each footfall accompanied by a loud echoing groan that begins at our feet and reverberates throughout the house. Under the beam of the flashlight the wood is dusty and some of the slats are rotting away. I keep my feet to the outside of each stair, avoiding the iffy middle parts, afraid they might swallow my feet whole.

  We make three tight turns before emerging into a vast, dark space on the third floor. Letta waves her flashlight around the walls until she finds a light switch. One dingy light bulb in the center of the ceiling barely illuminates the long, rectangular space.

  At the top of the stairs stands a weathered door. Peering through a nearby window, we glimpse another balcony on this level, snaking around the back of the house toward my bedroom. Another set of windowed doors are set into the adjacent wall, allowing access to the balcony. Three windows look out onto the backyard and cliff, both invisible in the lashing rain and stormy darkness. A fourth lay in the far corner next to the balcony doors. The rain and wind rattle the glass panes in their decaying frames and the distinct sound of leaking air comes from the cracked caulking. The space is unremarkable; it’s just as rotten and dilapidated as the rest of the house.

  “Well this is disappoiting.” Letta turns around and uses her flashlight to walk her eyes around the room. “Oho! What’s this?”

  “What?” I follow Letta’s gaze. Her light reveals several doors leading off of the space we stand in. I count four, three on the long wall and one off in the far corner that turns out to be a small, old-fashioned bathroom similar to the one by the kitchen.

  “Which door shall we try first?” Letta asks.

  I shrug and head for the door opposite the balcony. I reveal a small room that was probably intended as a second nursery. It’s fairly small and finished in light green wallpaper with tiny pink bunnies hopping along a chair rail. It has three dormer windows and a door leading to one of the more rickety balconies on the front. It has the turret cutout, but there’s no door in it like the one in my room.

  Trying the middle room, we find the mirror image of the first. This time the wallpaper is light blue with little trees sprouting from the corners. This room has a dormer window on the front and a door to the outside, sharing the balcony with the first room.

  Closing the door, we make our way to the far room, catty-corner to the bathroom. We notice a small hallway between the second and third rooms. It’s pitch black and a cold draft wafts toward us.

  “I wonder where that leads,” I say, my voice trembling slightly.

  “We’ll check there next… maybe. Let’s see what’s in here first.”

  The last room has a set of ornately carved double doors, similar to the front doors of the house. They are tall and painted in the same blood red, although not as recently; the paint has chipped away in places to reveal the original wood.

  “This room is special,” Letta says excitedly. “I can tell.” She pushes through the doors and flips a switch. When the room lights up, I’m amazed at what I see.

  ***

  Downstairs, Shane and the girls creep down the basement stairs as one. Shane is at the front, hunching down so his head doesn’t scrape the exposed ceiling. Patty crouches behind him, with her head poking out to the side so she can see where her feet are going. Eileen brings up the rear, clutching the walkie-talkie in one hand and Patty’s cold paw tightly in the other.

  “Don’t you gals need a scrid more space?” Shane says, stumbling near the bottom of the steps. “If we keep treadin’ the same steps, we’re gonna fall straight through.”

  “Nope,” Patty and Eileen say in unison.

  “It smells wicked gross down heeah,” Eileen adds.

  “It’s damp,” Patty says as they reach the bottom, and Shane flips the light switch.

  They find the basement as Rose left it weeks before: dark and cold, the walls shrinking away from one lonely light bulb.

  “Creepy.” Eileen lets go of Patty’s hand. “What’s back heeah?” Eileen finds the small bathroom with the black and white tiles between the laundry room and the mudroom under the stairs.

  “This door looks a mite bit more interestin’,” Shane says, pointing his flashlight at the small, rotten door of the mudroom.

  “I don’t think we should go in there,” Patty squeaks, holding onto Shane as if he were a lifejacket.

  “Don’t be stupid, Patty. That’s what we’re heeah for.” Eileen joins them in front of the door. “Well,” she looks at Shane. “What’re you waitin’ for?”

  “Me?” The small hairs on the back of Shane’s neck stand on end, every one of them silently telling him not to open the door, but he doesn’t want
to look like a coward in front of the girls. He hands his flashlight to Patty and steps closer to the door. He tries to twist the knob and is met with the same resistance Rose struggled with. “It’s warped,” he says. “Stand back.”

  Patty and Eileen take a few steps back, cowering close together as they watch Shane push his body against the door. After a few minutes of brute force and jiggling of the knob, Shane is able to push the door open.

  Patty wrinkles her nose. “It smells like dirt.”

  Shane hunches his tall form and passes through the short, misshapen doorframe. He walks to the center of the room and pulls the chain for the ceiling light. Patty and Eileen follow him, looking around cautiously.

  “You look like a giant,” Eileen laughs.

  But Shane isn’t paying attention to the low ceiling. He’s surveying the room with curiosity. “Look at all these toys,” he says. “They look like they’ve been heeah a long, long time.”

  “They’re so dirty.” Patty creeps up next to Shane and the hairs of their arms mingle.

  “Well, look at the floor,” Eileen says, “if that’s what you can call it. It’s nothin’ but dirt. Why?”

  “Why would you put in the concrete for part of the basement, but not all?” Patty bends down and picks up a wooden alphabet block. It’s so caked with mud she can only make out one letter, an E.

  “You wouldn’t,” Shane says, taking his flashlight back from Patty. “Look.” His long, slightly trembling finger points to the same back corner of the room that Rose noticed, where the dirt is uncluttered and seems particularly churned. “Look at the concrete there. See the edges by the wall? You can see where it’s been taken away with a jackhammer or somethin’.”

  “What are you sayin’?” Eileen asks.

  “Someone made this room for a purpose,” Shane says ominously.

  Together, they advance to the corner, stepping gingerly over the forgotten dolls, teddy bears, blocks, a train set. Shane bends down in the corner and puts his hand to the cold, moist dirt.

  “What’s this?” Eileen finds a door in the back corner. Her light touch pushes it open. “Oh, hey, it’s the bathroom again. Here, hold this.” She passes the walkie-talkie to Patty and disappears through the doorway.

  Patty watches Shane methodically investigate the dirt. He puts some in his hand and smells it. He rubs it between two fingers.

  “Why would you do that,” he says to Patty absently, thinking aloud. He puts his hand in his chin, smearing dirt on his face. “Why would you cut away the floor and then pile it with all this junk?”

  “I think the more important question,” says Patty as she crouches next to him, “is why is this corner so clear?”

  “Why does it seem...”

  “Recently dug?”

  “Yeah…” Shane nods and puts his hand back on the wintry dirt. He closes his eyes and concentrates. A clap of thunder pries his eyes open and he looks at Patty, alarmed.

  “Do you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  Shane grabs Patty’s cold hand in his and places it flat on the ground next to his. “That.”

  Patty stares into Shane’s blue eyes, feeling the ground beneath their hands. “That’s so weird,” she says. “It’s like the ground is...”

  “Pulsin’,” Shane finishes.

  “D’you think there’s somethin’ under there,” Patty asks, beginning to forget her fear and feeling a little excited.

  “Let’s find out. We need somethin’ tah dig with.” He turns around and paws through some of the nearby toys until he finds a small beach shovel. He laughs, “Hey, look at that!”

  “Convenient.”

  Shane begins to dig with the tiny shovel and Patty helps, clipping the walkie-talkie to her belt and pushing the dirt away with her hands. The dingy light above them flickers a few times and then goes out.

  “Perfect,” Shane says sarcastically.

  “Heeah,” Patty stops digging and aims the flashlight into the small hole they’ve made. It’s only about six inches deep but something’s definitely there.

  “What is it?” Patty asks.

  Shane pulls the small object out of the hole. He clears the grime away with his hands. “It’s a book,” he says, dumbfounded. He turns it over a few times, trying to make sense of this discovery.

  “That’s not just any book,” Patty says, taking it from him. “It’s a diary! And look! It has initials. A. B.”

  Shane reaches his hand into the hole again. “Here’s another one.” He wipes off the cover and reads, “B. O.”

  “Look, there’s one more.” Patty retrieves it and sets it on top of the other in her hand. Swiping the dirt away with her shirtsleeve, she reads, “E. L.”

  “Bizarre,” Shane says, opening the one still in his hand and staring at the old-fashioned cursive writing inside. “Why so many?”

  “And why are they buried?” Patty’s uneasiness returns.

  “Lonely Jew to Three Kings.” Patty and Shane both start as Letta’s voice crackles through the walkie-talkie.

  Patty puts a hand on her chest to stifle a yelp. She hands the diaries to Shane and reaches for the radio.

  “Lonely Jew to Three Kings, over.”

  “Three Kings tah Lonely Jew,” Patty says. “What’s up?”

  “You’ll never guess what we found up here!”

  “She sounds excited,” Shane says.

  Patty nods. “We’ve found some interestin’ thins down heeah ourselves.”

  “Are you about done down there? You should join us in the kitchen for a nightcap,” Letta says.

  “Think we’re done?”

  Shane nods as they get to their feet. “Where’s Eileen?”

  “She went through that door, into the bathroom I think.”

  “She’s been in there a while – ”

  A bone-chilling scream rips through the basement, in perfect time with a clap of thunder and a flash of lighting.

  ***

  “I can’t believe this!” I shout, my voice echoing in the vast space. “I’m in heaven! I can’t believe this sanctuary has been up here all this time and I had no idea.”

  “It is impressive,” Letta says.

  The double doors open onto a huge library. All four walls are covered floor to ceiling with chestnut shelves, the shelves themselves filled to the brim with ancient volumes and first editions, only interrupted by a couple of dormer windows on the front of the house. Voltaire, Shakespeare, Milton, Hemingway, Homer, Rand, and yes, even several first editions of Jane Austen’s works. It’s quite an eclectic collection. The books are dusty and worn from eagerly reading hands, but are otherwise in good condition. This room feels different, special somehow. It must’ve been well maintained by some, or possibly all, of the previous owners; some of the titles are too recent to come to any other conclusion.

  The library is directly above the fire room on the second floor. I feel the energy of that room pulsating beneath my feet, and the far wall of library shelves are charred and burned. Here, the books lay carelessly heaped on the floor, some covered in soot; someone tried to protect the books before the fire got to them by taking them off the shelves.

  “Wow,” Letta says, staring up. “That’s pretty.”

  I follow her gaze to the ornate chandelier shining its soft light down into the room. Each flash of lightning throws rainbow refractions against the shelves, as if showing off each book. As if saying, Look! Look! These are here for you! Read them!

  I sigh and smile. “What a wonderful place.”

  “Check this out,” Letta calls from the corner with the octagonal cut running through it. Instead of a funny little room being blocked off by a tiny door, it opens into a cozy little reading alcove. There’s a small table with a dusty stained glass lamp on it, and a plush, wing-backed chair.

  I plop into the chair, sending a plume of dust airborne. Letta coughs, waving away the dust motes. I feel something hard underneath me and, reaching into the crease between the cushion and a
n arm of the chair, I pull out a small book with yellowed pages.

  “What is it?” Letta asks.

  “I think,” I say as I open it, revealing tiny print in smudged ink, “it’s a diary.” I wipe the front of the diary on the arm of the chair to dust it off and discover a set of initials. “A. C. It looks really old.”

  “Interesting. What does it say on the inside?”

  As I’m about to reply, a deafening crack of thunder echoes throughout the house and we’re thrown into a sudden and eerie darkness, broken only by the dimming swath of light from Letta’s flashlight. Letta shakes like a leaf and the beam wavers. The darkness weighs down the air, making it hard to breathe.

  “Do you want to check out that hall?” I ask tentatively.

  “Uh, sure.” Letta wastes no time leaving the library and I quickly follow her with the diary, closing the doors behind me.

  We rounding the corner and find ourselves in a short, dark hallway. Shining the flashlight down it, we see another door at the end. It’s open, revealing a stairway.

  “Sheesh!” Letta says. “This place has more stairs than The Washington Monument. Where do you think these go?”

  “The attic. Should we check it out?”

  Letta rallies her courage. “Of course!” She wraps her arm through mine and we proceed as one.

  Several portraits hang on the walls, each of a different married couple. The first looks to be the oldest, with two severe looking people in black and white, wearing clothing from the late eighteen hundreds. The man is clearly older than the woman, who looks miserable. His beard makes him look like a wild bear. Her belly is swollen with life and ready to burst. His stiff hands rest on her shoulders and she clasps hers under her belly.

  “Look,” Letta says, pointing at the baby bump. “She’s gotta be nine months pregnant, but she looks so…sad.”

  Another portrait shows a similar looking couple. Judging by the clothes, this photo isn’t much older than the first. This man looks even more severe than the first with his deep, wrinkly frown and a thick unibrow. But the woman is pretty and wears a small smile, like she knows something her husband doesn’t.