Girl in the Walls

by A. J. Gnuse

  Just Before the World’s End

  ELISE SAT ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER, EATING NEARLY THE LAST OF the Raisin Bran from a bowl. A squirrel in the lawn cleaned its face with its paws. The animal paused as though nervous, sensing something moving nearby.

  The cat?

  Elise craned her neck to search the azaleas alongside the house, the monkey grass beside the attached garage—but she saw no sign of the calico. She hadn’t for weeks. She had even broken the promise she had made to herself weeks ago—to leave the cat alone—and had gone down below the house hoping to find it there. If she had found it, Elise had half-expected to turn the animal furious. Its back arching, swiping at her, growling in a voice not unlike the way Eddie’s had been. But, of course, none of that happened—the nest had been empty. The cat had come and was gone.

  Elise picked up a raisin between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed. Each day was a monotony of dry corn cereal. Just her. And a squirrel. And bran.

  Oh, Odin. It was going to be another long, long day.

  Some days she wished she could skip altogether, stay in her nook and doze, half-asleep, as the shadows stretched from right to left across the attic floor, and the heart pine grew warm then cool again against her. But as easy as it would be, and as nice as it seemed, she had come to realize that might be riskier than anything else. Skipping meals and water and bathroom breaks put her in a worse position later on, being in need when the Masons were all at home. And besides, two nights before, she’d had a dream she was a skeleton beneath the floorboards, motionless, watching as the roof rotted away until there were only stars above her, whirling wildly in the night sky. Freaked her out how much she had enjoyed it.

  So, Elise couldn’t allow herself to sleep in and to mope, to miss out on meals and chances to refill her water bottle. She couldn’t let herself get weak or sick. Had to keep pushing on with life, so she could keep pushing on with life. So she could keep on pushing.

  Outside, the squirrel lowered its paws and eyed her sadly.

  Elise didn’t need sympathy. Especially not from a squirrel.

  She hopped off the counter. Dumped the rest of her uneaten bran back into the cereal box. She went to the pantry and, climbing the shelves like a ladder, placed the box back where she’d taken it. Outside, the squirrel shot up to a higher branch, out of view, but she could still hear its nickering. Starlings called out from the granddaughter clock—she was behind schedule, had been slow to get up this morning. Elise washed her bowl in the sink.

  Another day, another dish. The hiss of the water faucet was like television static. The yellow sponge along the edge of the bowl, plunging into the white curve. She toweled the bowl dry and hummed as she placed it back in the cabinet. Distracted, so she hadn’t heard: that rattle of the library doorknob twisting in its loose socket, the movement through the library and foyer, halting footsteps over the living room carpet.

  Elise was thinking of birds, of real starlings she’d seen a year or so before. She’d woken in the morning to their noise out in the yard—cacophonous, all chittering and trilling at once, like a warning. Elise had never heard birds so loud. Her mom, passing through the hallway, had stopped when she realized Elise was awake. She had entered the room and opened a curtain.

  “Look.”

  The blue-black birds, hundreds of them, hopping across the yard, rustling in the branches, picking at their folded wings. And even more above the trees. Small clouds of them, flying in their tight, orchestrated circles. A murmuration, her mom had called them. She told Elise that she always wondered how they did it: fly so close without ever bumping into one another.

  The memory vanished when Elise realized someone was watching her.

  She turned and saw him there.

  He stood in the kitchen’s doorway. Real. He was looking right at her. He wasn’t a Mason. He blocked her way out.

  “Oh,” the boy said. “Wow.”

  Intruder

  OUT OF INSTINCT, ELISE TRIED TO HIDE. HER KNEES WENT LIMP, AND she slumped beneath the kitchen table. But among the chair legs, how ridiculous she was—his feet right there! She jumped up and threw open the silverware drawer and snatched the first weapon she could get her hand on.

  Elise turned to the boy to see him move only a few feet away. He fumbled with a small radio on the counter. He was young, younger than she was.

  “Hey,” he asked, “how do you do this?”

  “Stay away,” she said, thrusting the butter knife out between them.

  “Okay,” he said. Then he switched on the radio. He twisted the knob through several stations. Country. Rap. Soft rock. He shut it off.

  “Your house is really big,” he said, and walked out into the living room.

  Elise stood by the counter with the small blade still trembling in her hand. After a few moments, she went over to the doorway, but the boy was already gone. He must have turned the corner into the foyer. Elise darted to the kitchen window to look, as best as she could, at the driveway. But there was no car parked there.

  Elise slipped behind the side of the refrigerator and listened, her eyebrows scrunched tight enough to hurt. She placed the blade down on the floor and strained, trying to hear voices, adult voices. Some family friend of the Masons who had stopped by. Some contractor had been scheduled, one who had brought his child to wait while he worked. But she heard no one at all.

  Was the boy here alone? What was happening?

  And why had he looked familiar?

  Elise crept into the living room, leaning her upper body from side to side to see around the angles of the recliner and sofa. She pressed her back against the wall and peered into the dining room. Empty. She moved on and did the same for the foyer. First, around the tall white columns, then ducking low to see up the staircase. Inching forward, now on hands and knees, she looked into the library. He was there.

  The boy scratched the back of his neck and studied the old fireplace and shelves. Messy brown hair curled over his forehead. His blue jean overalls looked like hand-me-downs from a much taller person. Beneath their muddied cuffs, his feet were bare.

  And oh Lord his feet.

  They were caked thick in mud that must have dried against his skin, then cracked, then been remuddied with a wet, fresh second layer. The boy shifted them as he turned to her, leaving a pair of new musty prints on the polished floor beams. “Sneaky,” he said. “Didn’t know you were there.”

  Elise yelped. She jumped up and ducked behind the foyer columns. She had to get away from him—needed somewhere to hide. She peered around the edge of the column and saw him there, looking at her.

  “Hey.”

  “Go away!”

  Elise fled through the living room into the kitchen. She turned in a half-circle, panicked. The whole room seemed wide open, garishly exposed. She threw herself in the pantry and held the handle tight. Wedged her feet to either side of the doorframe. He would have heard the door shut, so she’d have to hold him out. Soon, a shadow darkened the crack beneath the door.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  The door handle tried to turn in her grip. “Why are you in there?”

  A sudden flash of contempt broke through her, for a moment overcoming her panic. Why wouldn’t she be in here?

  The doorknob jiggled in her hand, weakly.

  “Who are you?” Elise said. “Who’s with you?”

  She needed to know if there was someone else, someone bigger—or if it really was just this boy. She had the small access panel above her, which would lead up into the walls. One loud noise, one heavy footstep from the other side of the door, and she’d scramble up the shelves to escape.

  “Nobody’s with me,” the boy said.

  “You’re alone?”

  “No,” he said. “Not alone.”

  Elise’s heart lurched.

  But the boy followed with, “Because you’re here.”

&n
bsp; What was wrong with him? The idea of opening the door and thrusting the palm of her hand into his chest wasn’t unpleasant.

  Elise asked, “What are you doing here?”

  On the other side of the door, the boy hesitated. She pictured him pawing at the handle, slouching, with his odd, bowl-cut hair. And she realized where she had seen him before. “Wait,” Elise said. “A couple days ago. You crawled in Ms. Wanda’s window!”

  “You saw me?”

  “Why are you in my house? Are you trying to steal?”

  The boy mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “No?”

  “How did you get in?” Elise demanded.

  “The door was unlocked.”

  “You’re lying!”

  She had always made sure the doors were locked while the Masons were away. Locked doors proved none of them were still lurking in the yard.

  “The side door was open.”

  The side door? Whoever the kid was, he had gotten in the house the same way she had, months ago. That stupid, broken lock! It was enough to make her wonder how many other people had gotten in through that door over the years.

  “Are you coming out or not?” the boy asked.

  “No!”

  “Well,” he said. “Okay.”

  The shadow pulled back from beneath the crack in the pantry door. Elise held the knob tight and waited. She didn’t hear his footsteps, or the front door open and close, but it was hard to hear anything in the pantry. Her ears rang from her shouting in the closed space. Her fingers tingled from gripping the pantry’s doorknob so tight. Eventually, when she thought it was safe, Elise stepped out into the kitchen.

  Keep the Gates Closed

  IN THE FOYER, THE FRONT DOOR WAS SHUT, AND SO WAS THE SIDE one in the library. Elise looked around for something she could push in front of the library’s door as a barricade. Alone now, and she had to make sure it stayed that way. Keep him out. Keep whoever else out who might come in that way. Whatever Elise used to block the door, she would have to remove before the Masons came home, but right now, she needed to have it. Another wall where the hole had been discovered. Block it off.

  She grabbed hold of the coffee table and dragged it to the door, careful the wood wouldn’t scratch. She looked around her at the stillness of the room and realized she didn’t feel alone. The spine of each book of the shelf seemed like its own separate eye. The photographs grinned placidly out.

  Then she heard them. Footsteps above her. She wasn’t alone—the boy was still in the house.

  Tactics

  ELISE RESISTED THE URGE TO STORM UPSTAIRS, TIGHTEN HER small hands into smaller fists, and tell the boy to—Go! He’d looked pudgy around the waist, but he couldn’t have been more than her height. Elise had a chance.

  No. First, she needed to calm herself. Needed to think. Use her head.

  Elise could hide. Tuck herself away in the walls. Dissolve from the world and from whoever the boy was upstairs—no problem. The Masons could take care of him. The Girl in the Walls stays safe because she hides. She doesn’t meddle in problems she can avoid.

  But what was he doing up there? Touching things? Moving them? The thought occurred to her: what if the kid made a mess, then decided to leave before the Masons came back? If Elise let him do whatever he wanted to the house, Eddie might see it, and think it had been her—not good. Might be enough that he would tell the others. She couldn’t let that happen. That stupid kid upstairs! She’d have to clean up whatever mess the boy made before they got home.

  But then Elise remembered: the footprints. Those filthy feet! She’d have to track them all down and figure out every last place the boy had stepped. Everything he touched, as well. His hands were probably filthy, too.

  Above her, something fell and rolled along the floor.

  Maybe she might not be cleaning up after all. So, then, what? Hope the Masons would find him here? They’d come home, see him, chase him, catch him—and then Eddie would know the intruder wasn’t her. It might work. Maybe Eddie would think it had been him all along; on his birthday, Eddie hadn’t looked at her in his bedroom, didn’t know whether she was a boy or girl. So, this was a plan, but—Elise checked the clock in the foyer—no, they wouldn’t be home for hours! And Elise couldn’t exactly call the police to catch him beforehand.

  Hello, sir, I’d like to report a trespasser.

  Of course, young lady, may I ask who’s placing the call?

  Oh, just . . . another trespasser.

  Well, then, could she stop him from leaving? Wrestle him down? Trap him, or drag him into a closet? How does one realistically drag another person, anyway? By the shirt collar? By the hair? Maybe if she tied him up with the bungee cords from the garage?

  Elise knew that none of this would work. Even if the boy left, and by some gift of fate, everything appeared as it should be when the Masons returned home, the biggest problem would still remain.

  He knew she was here.

  Confronting

  FOR A TIME, ELISE THOUGHT HE MIGHT BE HIDING. HER HOUSE WAS large, rambling; it could swallow even a stranger. She stepped slow through the upstairs hallway, arms pinched against her sides, not sure what to do with her hands. The AC system rumbled to life, and the cold air from the ceiling vent brushed across her hair. The parents’ bedroom was empty. So were the guest room and office.

  She passed the attic door, leaving that space alone for now. The attic’s old staircase was unvarnished, and dead bugs collected along the sides of the steps. The light wasn’t until you were already up there. The boy shouldn’t have gone up alone so quickly. Growing up here, it had taken Elise years to build up the courage. She turned the corner of the hallway, past the linen closet, and went down to the boys’ bedrooms. She opened Eddie’s door.

  With all its furniture moved, the room felt like it belonged in someone else’s home. It even smelled different, pungent with the odor of spray deodorant he’d gotten for his birthday. Even from the doorway, she could see it was empty. The dust ruffle had been folded up and tucked under the mattress, exposing the bed’s underneath. The closet door left open, with the hanging clothes parted down the middle. The laundry hamper had its lid removed and was angled against the closet’s doorframe, showing that only pajamas pooled at its bottom.

  Elise passed through and opened the door to the bathroom. Nothing behind the shower curtain. Empty. She went into Marshall’s room, and the smell of sweat filled her nostrils. She checked the crevice behind his door. For whatever reason, the fear had formed in her that she’d find not the boy but the older brother hiding there, waiting to snatch her by the shoulders. She felt the house was yawning wide around her. Deepening beneath her feet, hearing her as she moved. She searched the rest of Marshall’s room, but it turned up empty as well.

  Elise retraced her steps, wondering if maybe he’d made it into her walls, and now tracked her, step for step, through the narrow dark. But on the second look through the rooms, she found him in the corner of the office. She’d completely missed him earlier. He stood with his back to her, holding one of Mr. Nick’s computer CDs to the window, catching its iridescent bottom in the light. Sweat darkened the armpits of the boy’s shirt, and when he turned, it was beaded also along his prominent upper lip.

  With him in front of her, standing there, looking at her, Elise again had to fight the urge to turn and run.

  “No,” Elise said. Her tongue now felt thick and dry in her mouth. The thought occurred to her: How long had it been since she’d spoken to anyone? “Where do you live?” she asked. “Where are you coming from?”

  “Delacroix Street,” he said. “The little brown house with the rescue dogs in the pen? It’s just past that field and through the woods.” He pointed in the direction of the levee, then thought about it, and pointed toward the backyard. “You know, I like your house. I think anybody could get lost in here.”

  He squinted at the CD, watching the colors slide across the plastic. Crescents of dirt beneath his fi
ngernails. He waved the disk in her face to show her what he was looking at. He’d left oily fingerprints on its bottom.

  “I’m Brody,” he said.

  And with the boy looking at her, and the oddness of that feeling again—being seen—the girl forgot, for a moment, what else she had planned to say.

  “So,” he said. “Which one of these is your room?”

  Haunted House

  A HOUSE IS LIKE A TREE, AND ITS ROOMS ARE BRANCHES. EACH movement along them causes the smallest tremors across the length of its bark. In the Masons’ house, no one was supposed to be home, but it was as if a hummingbird flitted between the rooms: a door opening and shutting again, a patter of feet along the hall and stairs, a television switched on, a set of children’s voices quarreling.

  A girl telling a boy, “No.”

  She said to him, “Leave.”

  Downstairs, Elise shouldered the screen door open and pushed a hand into the boy’s soft chest, ushering him down the back steps.

  “You don’t talk about me to anyone.”

  “Okay,” Brody said. “But then I get to come back tomorrow.”

  Elise latched the screen door shut.

  The Girl in the Walls needs her secrecy. The Girl in the Walls stays alone.

  “Never come back,” she knew she must say, and then the boy might listen. Say it cold, with the voice of a ghost. Say it with the certainty of someone who is already dead. Declare it as much to the world outside as to him, and he’d leave.

  Stay away from me. You’re dangerous.

  But instead, Elise’s shoulders sank, her back bent. She leaned against the screen door like a cat, bone-tired, buckling in the cold.

  “Earlier,” Elise said. “Early, but not too early. Tomorrow, ten in the morning for you. Meet me here, at the back. And no one can see you come.”

  She shut the door and twisted the dead bolt.

  When he was gone, Elise stood there in the porch. What exactly had she just done?