Unearthly Things

by Michelle Gagnon

  Taking in my expression, he said, “Relax. It’s just stuff about Marion throwing tantrums, or Richard drinking too much at a party. And—” Abruptly he stopped. “Man, listen to me. I’m just as bad as the rest of them. Anyway, if you want, I can come check it out.”

  “What, like . . . sleepover?” I asked, startled. I’d wanted to ask more about the rumors, but the thought of smuggling him into my bedroom swept my mind blank.

  “Well, I was thinking we could check it out in the afternoon. But if you’re offering . . .” Daniel waggled his eyebrows in a way that was more mocking than suggestive.

  I tried to laugh it off, as if the thought of him sleeping over was hilarious. “Yeah, right. I never hear anything in the daytime anyway. And the attic door is always locked.” I didn’t add that the Rochesters would probably freak out if I had a guest over; even Georgina never brought friends home.

  “I can get in,” Daniel said, sounding surprisingly self-assured.

  “You can?” I raised an eyebrow. “How, by picking the lock?”

  “Something like that. So how about it? Think you can sneak me in tomorrow?”

  I turned his offer over in my mind. The next day was Sunday, and Georgina was supposed to compete in an equestrian event up near Sacramento. When the family discussed it over breakfast, it definitely sounded like all the Rochesters would be going. Since the Napa fiasco, Marion didn’t insist on my presence anymore, so it would be easy to beg off. Alma would still be lurking around as usual. But the rest of the staff was gone on Sundays.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “It’s a plan.”

  “Awesome.” Daniel gave me a once-over. “You look cold. Let’s head back to the fire.”

  I walked as slowly as possible, dragging my heels. But he didn’t even move closer to me. By the time we reached the bonfire, I was forced to conclude that in Daniel’s eyes, we were just surf buddies. Surf buddies who went ghost hunting, apparently.

  “Sounds quiet up there,” Daniel said in a stage whisper, one ear pressed to the attic door.

  I couldn’t respond at first. My palms were sweating so badly, I kept having to wipe them on my jeans. We’d both taken our shoes off, and the cold seeped through my socks. I couldn’t repress an overwhelming sense of foreboding. “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” I hissed.

  Daniel dropped into a crouch to examine the lock. “Easy,” he said, throwing me a grin. “I was hoping it would be an old door.”

  “Why is an old door easy?” I asked, perplexed.

  “You’ll see. It would be faster if we could use a hairdryer on it, though.”

  “Too loud,” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t imagine explaining the situation to Alma if she stumbled across me and a strange boy in the hallway, giving a door a blowout.

  “It’ll take a little longer, but I think I can manage it.”

  My eyes widened as Daniel opened a small pouch and started sorting through the metal rods inside. “Are those lock picks?”

  “Yup.” He sounded completely nonchalant, like everyone carried around a set of breaking and entering tools.

  My mind was reeling. “Um, okay. And why do you have those?”

  “My grandfather was a locksmith,” he explained. “I locked myself in a closet once when I was eight—scared the hell out of me. So he gave me this set and taught me how to use them.”

  “I didn’t know there were locksmiths in high society,” I joked.

  Daniel threw me a look. “That’s why everyone thinks my mom was a gold digger.”

  “Oh.” I cleared my throat. I can’t seem to stop saying the wrong things around him. “Sorry.”

  Daniel didn’t answer, but his jaw had tightened. He held up a long, narrow piece of metal appraisingly. “This is a half diamond pick, it usually does the trick.”

  I slid down the opposite wall until I was sitting on my heels. “I didn’t realize locksmiths knew how to do this.”

  Daniel chuckled. “How did you think they got doors open?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling stupid. “I just figured they had some sort of skeleton key thing.”

  “A bump key works for modern doors, but something like this?” He patted the keyhole affectionately. “Gotta go old school.”

  “Of course,” I mumbled. “Silly me.” At least his voice didn’t sound strained anymore. As he eased the metal rod into the lock and started methodically twisting it, I tried to ignore a swell of dread in my gut. Doors were kept locked for a reason, right? I flashed back to the time Kaila and I had snuck into a foreclosed house when we were eleven.

  –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

  What’s that? Kaila hissed, clutching my arm even tighter.

  Ow! I said, shaking her fingers loose. The afternoon light in the bedroom shone on a pile of rags in the corner. I crept across the room to peer at it. Looks like a body, I commented. At the time I considered myself an expert, thanks to the Law & Order reruns my mom and I were obsessed with.

  Ohmigod! She gasped.

  I was kidding, but then the lump of clothing shifted slightly. Kaila spun and ran, but I was frozen in place. All I could do was stare as a small kitten poked its nose out, followed by another . . .

  –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

  “What's so funny?” Daniel demanded.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just remembering the last time I broke into a place.”

  “Former life of crime, huh?” He winked at me. “What happened?”

  “My best friend ended up with a kitten.” At his puzzled look, I laughed. “Never mind.” At least the memory had shaken off some of my nerves. We probably wouldn’t find anything but a raccoon’s nest up there, and I’d have proof that I wasn’t losing my mind.

  A click, and the door slowly creaked open. It bumped lightly against Daniel, as if someone had pushed it from the other side. “Hey!” he exclaimed, jumping up.

  “Wow. I didn’t think it would be that quick. I’m impressed,” I said.

  “I don’t think that was me. I hadn’t even made it through twenty revolutions, and it usually takes a lot more.” He stared down at the pick in his hand. “That was weird, right?”

  “Really weird,” I said, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

  We gazed at each other across the hall. Daniel said slowly, “This is starting to feel like that scene in a movie where you’re screaming at everyone for being idiots.”

  “Because they’re going somewhere that no one should ever go?” I nodded vehemently. “Definitely.”

  Daniel carefully rewrapped the picks and stuck them back in his pocket. He eyed the door, frowning. “So what do you want to do?”

  That should have been an easy decision: Close the door. Go downstairs and ply Daniel with leftover chocolate mousse. Or even better, we could go out for something to eat, somewhere far away. Like Los Angeles.

  But I felt an inexorable pull toward the attic, like there was something up there that I desperately needed to see. “Maybe we should take a quick look.”

  “You’re sure?” Daniel gazed into my eyes, and I felt the last shreds of resistance crumbling. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s broad daylight, and there are two of us. Two teenagers, against what’ll probably turn out to be a couple of raccoons. I pictured Marion’s face if I returned with a report of animal droppings; that clinched it. “Let’s go.”

  Steeling myself, I mounted the stairs behind him. The staircase was reassuring in its banality: plain and unassuming, with a banister in desperate need of varnish. The wooden stairs had a slight groove worn down the center. I was struck again by how much older everything was in San Francisco; Richard Ro
chester had told me that this was one of the only houses to survive the 1906 earthquake and fires.

  Judging by the dust, it had been nearly that long since someone cleaned up here. Our feet kicked up small clouds of it, making me sneeze.

  “Huh,” Daniel said, stopping at the top. “I gotta admit, it’s a little disappointing.”

  I peeked around him: we were in a narrow hallway that mirrored the one downstairs. It extended in both directions, with doors lining either side. Light filtered in through dusty, cobwebbed skylights overhead.

  “Which side?” he asked.

  “Want to start with the left?” I suggested.

  “You’re the boss.”

  I repressed a nervous giggle. Creeping along behind Daniel, I nearly walked into his heels when he stopped in front of the first door. “Looks like this used to be the servants’ quarters.”

  It was a tiny room, barely eight feet long and six feet wide, basically a windowless prison cell. And it was completely empty. The same with the room across the hall. We continued down the corridor, ducking our heads inside each room. They were all identical. “Well, we know one thing for sure,” Daniel said when we reached the end of the hallway.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Rochesters aren’t hoarders. If my folks had this much space, it’d be filled top to bottom with labeled boxes.”

  “Labeled?”

  “Oh, yeah.” We headed back to where we started, our voices not quite as muted. “My mom loves to pack things away in plastic bins, then label them. Christmas, Easter, you name it. We have three whole boxes marked, ‘Tiki Party Props.’”

  “So your folks throw a lot of tiki parties?” I asked, feeling slightly giddy. I’d imagined a lot of terrible things up there, but in the end the attic had turned out to be like everything else: disappointingly mundane.

  “Never. But you gotta be prepared, right? Never know when the urge for a volcano bowl might strike you.” He jerked his head toward the right. “You want to check this side, too? Or should we head back down?”

  Emboldened, I said, “Let’s check it out.”

  We proceeded down the opposite end of the hallway—directly above the wing of the house I shared with Nicholas, I realized with a flutter of trepidation. Why Nicholas had been banished to the far reaches of the mansion was beyond me; I couldn’t imagine waking up from a nightmare as a kid and being forced to trot down a long, dark hallway to reach my parents’ bedroom. Then again, Marion was his mother. She wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for comfort.

  The thought sobered me. I had yet to see anyone coddle him the way my parents did when I was his age. He was never at the “family meals,” and Alma walked him to and from school. Georgina always referred to him as “the brat,” and Richard and Marion never referred to him at all.

  Ever since the doll incident I’d been avoiding him, claiming I had too much homework and couldn’t play. From here on out, I resolved to spend more time with him. It wasn’t his fault that he thought his dead twin was still hanging around. After all, I’d almost managed to convince myself of the same thing.

  The rooms on this side were equally barren. By the time we reached the end of the passage, my eyes burned from the dust, and the back of my throat was coated with it. Cobwebs were tangled in my hair, and my socks were filthy.

  “That’s it,” Daniel said, sounding deflated. “Empty. It doesn’t even look like there are animals up here.”

  He was giving me an odd look, probably wondering if I’d made the whole thing up just to come across as more interesting. Or maybe he did think I was nuts. “I heard something,” I insisted, immediately wishing the words hadn’t come out sounding so shrill.

  Daniel nodded sympathetically, which made it even worse. He scanned the hallway. “Which of these is above your bedroom?”

  I mentally constructed a map of the house in my head. “I think it’s that one,” I said, pointing three doors down.

  “All right. Let’s take a look.”

  I stayed close as he marched toward the room. He stopped on the threshold and said, “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?” I asked, trying to see around him.

  “There’s less dust in here,” he pointed out. “See?”

  Daniel stepped inside, and I joined him. He was right; this room had been swept clean. There were grooves in the wood where a twin bed must have stood.

  “What’s that?”

  I followed his pointing finger; something was scrawled on the wall in the far corner. I crossed the room and bent low to examine it. It was dark inside; the light from the hall barely penetrated. But I could make out two crude stick figures, drawn in what looked like bright red crayon. A girl and a boy. Their hands overlapped, and their mouths were small round Os, as if they were screaming.

  A chill crept up my spine. “Maybe Nicholas plays up here sometimes.”

  “Maybe,” Daniel said. “That could be why they keep it locked.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably it.” Mystery solved, I told myself firmly. It was just an empty, dust-filled, creepy-as-hell attic. But nothing to be scared of.

  “Do you feel better?” Daniel asked. He was staring down at me, his brown eyes full of concern.

  “Much,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

  “Good. Then we should probably—”

  I held up a hand to silence him. “Do you hear that?”

  He’d already frozen, head cocked to the side. The sound was unmistakable. And it was coming from the hallway right outside the room.

  I scrambled to my feet, my heart in my throat. Daniel cast a quizzical glance at me, then stepped into the hall. I followed and froze, catching my breath.

  It was a tiny pink rubber ball. As it bounced down the hall toward us, it picked up speed. But instead of continuing past, it skittered to a stop at our feet.

  As I stared at it, the ball rolled in a slow circle, batting against my toes.

  Chapter VI

  “So I think: you have no ghost, then?”

  “None that I have ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.

  “Nor any traditions of one? No legends or ghost stories?”

  “I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time . . .”

  I slowly turned my head to look at Daniel; he appeared every bit as terrified as I felt. Without exchanging a word, we both tore toward the stairs. My feet were moving so fast, I stumbled and nearly went flying. Daniel, with his longer legs, made it down ahead of me. He came to a dead halt at the landing. I slammed into his back.

  “No attic!” a shrill voice yelled. “Very bad!”

  I edged around Daniel to discover Alma glaring at us, hands on her hips. Her features were twisted in rage.

  “I’m sorry, we just—” The words tumbled out of my mouth, but Alma didn’t seem to be listening. Muttering to herself, she pushed past us and slammed the door shut, then drew a key out of her pocket and locked it.

  “What’s going on, Alma?”

  A boy came out of a room down the hall. He was nearly as tall as Daniel, with wavy blond hair. Square jaw, features straight off a Greek statue. He was dressed in jeans and a blue sweater that matched his eyes.

  “Who the hell are you?” I blurted.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Nice manners. I can see why Georgie likes you.”

  “Rochester,” Daniel spat.

  I turned to him, surprised. He was glaring at the boy, looking completely enraged.

  “Hey, Fairfax,” the boy replied coolly. “Looking for something else to steal?”

  Daniel’s whole body had gone rigid, and a flush extended down his neck. I put a hand on his arm. “Daniel. Chill.”

  “Yeah, Daniel,” the kid mocked. “Wouldn’t want to have to call the cops on you.”

  Alma s
napped something in Filipino. Without taking his gaze off Daniel, the boy said, “Alma doesn’t want us messing up her carpet. So it’s probably time for you to go.”

  “I’m sorry, who are you, exactly?” I demanded, stepping forward. He understood Filipino? What were the chances of that?

  “So sorry,” he said with exaggerated formality. Extending a hand to shake mine, he continued, “I’m John Rochester. I’m guessing you haven’t heard about me?”

  “No,” I said, ignoring his hand. “You live here?”

  “Not very quick, are you.” He tilted his head to the side. “Funny, Nicholas said you were smart.”

  I frowned at the insult, but was too dumbstruck to respond. What kind of family neglected to mention by the way, we’ve got another kid. Even Nicholas never talked about him. “So where have you been?”

  “Boarding school, in New Hampshire.”

  “Got kicked out of another one, huh, Rochester?” Daniel snarled. The sweet wannabe-surfer with the easy laugh had vanished. Daniel’s voice was thick, his hands curled into fists at his sides. I hadn’t seen this side of him before. And I definitely didn’t like it.

  John shrugged. “What can I say? It wasn’t for me.”

  Alma pushed past us, flapping her arms and speaking quickly.

  John sighed and translated, “Alma wants me to tell you that she’s very angry you went into the attic, and you’re not to go up there again.” He glanced at Daniel and added, “No strange boys in the house, either.”

  “That’s okay. I’m going.” Daniel stormed down the hall, shoving past John.

  I hurried after him. “Daniel, wait . . .”

  He didn’t stop until he reached the front door. Even then, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Looking past me, back toward the stairs, he said, “Janie, you should stay away from him.”

  “I don’t even know who he is. Will you please—”

  “He’s trouble,” Daniel interrupted. “Just . . . trust me, okay? I’ll call you later.”

  He headed for his car at a near sprint, and then pulled out of the driveway so fast he nearly clipped the curb.

  “Well, that was certainly interesting,” a smooth voice remarked over my shoulder.