The Secret of the Painted House

by Marion Dane Bauer

  For Kyra and Bailey

  —M.D.B.

  To curious Ellen

  —L.G.

  Contents

  1. The Playhouse

  2. See a Pin and Pick It Up

  3. Flowers for Mommy

  4. “Emily! Please, Come Back!”

  5. Into the Painted Woods

  6. Marshmallows

  7. Logan!

  8. A Flash of Red

  9. Fire!

  1

  The Playhouse

  Emily pushed out the screen door and let it slam behind her. She stood on the top step, gazing in every direction. Trees! Nothing to see except trees! Why did her parents think she would love it here?

  This place was just a few houses set in a patch of trees. Beyond the trees stretched Illinois cornfields. The nearest town, where Emily would go to school when school started, was miles away. The nearest kid must be miles away, too, except for her little brother.

  But Logan didn’t count. He was four years old. When you are nine, a four-year-old is almost a baby.

  “I’m going,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “Going where?” Her mother came to the door.

  Emily shrugged. Where was there to go?

  “I guess I’ll check out the ‘forest.’”

  That’s what Logan had called it yesterday. “Cool,” he’d said when they’d pulled up behind the moving van. “We’re going to live in a forest!”

  But “cool” was hardly the word for this bunch of trees.

  “Okay,” Mom said. She sounded a little uncertain. “Just be careful, will you? Don’t go too far.”

  Emily sighed. At home in Chicago, Mom worried all the time. She was afraid someone might snatch Emily off the sidewalk. What was she going to worry about here … bears?

  Emily set off without looking back. She didn’t need to. She could “see” her mother in her head. Mom was hot and tired. Her dark, springy curls were pulled into a ponytail. Her T-shirt was wrinkled. Moving a whole house was hard work. Boxes waited everywhere. Last night they had to search for sheets before they could fall into their beds.

  This morning Dad had gone to his new job. Before he went, he’d told Emily, “Be sure to help your mom.” And she was going to help. But not just yet.

  Emily stepped off the gravel road into the trees. The leafy branches closed around her.

  She rubbed at the goose bumps that sprang up on her arms. Should she go back? But then she thought of the piles of boxes. That kept her moving. This was just a patch of woods, after all.

  The land sloped down, so she followed the slope. At the base of the hill, a creek bubbled over a stony bed. Emily stopped at the edge of the water. Maybe she should go back. She had promised her father. And she didn’t much feel like wading.

  But then she saw stepping-stones. Flat stones crossed the creek right in front of her. She stepped onto the first one. It was solid. The next one wobbled a bit. The one after that was steady again. She made it all the way across the creek without even wetting her sneakers.

  The other side of the creek was the same. It was trees and more trees. Why cross the creek to see more trees? The creek itself would be fun to play in, though. Maybe she could bring a friend to play. But she had no friends here.

  Emily was about to turn back when she glimpsed something white. What was it? Even staring hard, she couldn’t tell. White seemed an unlikely color to be part of a tree or bush. She made her way toward it.

  She didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not what she found.

  A house stood in a small clearing. It was a real house, but small. Maybe it was a child’s playhouse. A girl her size could walk right into it. A grown-up would have to duck to get in through the door. The walls were painted white. The roof, the door, and the shutters at the windows were a rich royal blue.

  The playhouse wasn’t new, though. It had been standing here for a long time. The white paint had peeled. One blue shutter hung crooked. A branch had fallen and punched a hole in the roof.

  A rusted padlock held the door shut.

  Emily tried the handle, anyway. She couldn’t help trying it, even though she could see the lock. The lock hung there, saying, “Keep out!” The playhouse said something else. It said, “I’ve been waiting for you for a long, long time. Please come in!”

  Of course, the door didn’t budge.

  Emily circled the house. She found no other way to enter. The shutters were all closed. She circled a second time. As she circled, she opened each shutter. When they were all open, she peeked inside.

  Emily had already begun to imagine what she would find. A table and two chairs? A tiny sofa? A toy piano? Maybe a sink and stove for the kitchen.

  In her mind, everything was made just to fit. But her fantasy was wrong. There was nothing. Inside, the playhouse was empty.

  She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her nose against the window. And that was when she saw something more wonderful than child-sized furniture.

  Beyond the empty floor rose the walls. But these walls were special. Every single one was painted from top to bottom in a picture.

  Emily moved from window to window. She checked every wall. What a strange picture it was! The walls were covered with trees. It was as if the woods around the playhouse had moved inside!

  She tried one more window. Still, she saw trees, only trees. Trees grew outside. Painted trees grew on the walls inside. But wait! She spotted something else now. Something white showed through the painted trees. White, with a blue roof.

  A playhouse stood in the painted forest, too. The painted playhouse looked exactly like the one she was peering into!

  Emily backed away from the window. A small shiver scurried down her spine. How odd this all was! A playhouse in the woods. Woods inside the playhouse. A playhouse inside the woods inside the playhouse! If she could look through the windows of the painted playhouse, would she find more woods? Would she find another playhouse?

  The idea made her dizzy.

  2

  See a Pin and Pick It Up

  Emily didn’t tell her mother about the painted house. She didn’t know why exactly. The whole thing felt too new to talk about, and too strange.

  Besides, her mother would worry that the playhouse belonged to someone. She would say Emily shouldn’t have peeked in the windows at all. She would certainly say that Emily shouldn’t go back.

  Emily spent the rest of the morning unpacking boxes. Logan even helped … if it could be called “helping.” He emptied boxes with lightning speed, but he didn’t put anything away. Not even his own toys.

  Once Emily caught him tucking a box of matches into his pocket. When she took them away, he howled. Logan loved matches. He had even learned to light them. He was the kind of kid who had to be watched every minute. Anything he wasn’t supposed to mess with thrilled him.

  Lunch was bottled juice and peanut butter and jelly on crackers. Mom hadn’t found a grocery store yet.

  After lunch Mom put Logan down for a nap.

  “I’m going to lie down, too,” she said to Emily. “I’m tired. Do you want to rest?”

  Emily shook her head. “I’ll read,” she said.

  She took her book out to the front steps. It was a ghost story, one of her favorites.

  But before long she put it down. She’d read it several times, and it was getting boring. The ghost showed up in the same place every time. And the girl seemed pretty dumb to be so surprised to see it. Hadn’t she gone into that old house looking for ghosts?

  Emily didn’t know what else to do. Go back to the playhouse? She couldn’t without telling her mother. Besides, it was a long walk, and the afternoon was growing ho
t.

  A woman with white hair came out of the house across the way. She wore white slacks and a flowered blouse. She wore a smile, too. The woman smiled all the way to Emily’s porch.

  “You’re Emily,” the woman said.

  It was more of a statement than a question, so Emily didn’t reply.

  “I’m Grandma Rose,” she said. “That’s what everybody calls me here—Grandma.” She held out a hand.

  Emily shook her hand. She felt funny doing it, though. Usually only grown-ups shook hands with each other.

  “May I?” Grandma Rose asked.

  At first Emily didn’t know how to answer. May I what? Then she figured it out. Grandma Rose wanted to sit down.

  “Sure.” Emily scooted over to make room.

  Grandma Rose settled herself. They sat there, side by side, looking off into the trees.

  “My mom’s taking a nap,” Emily said. “Should I go wake her?”

  “Goodness, no! Let her sleep.” Grandma Rose looked into her eyes. “It’s you I came to see, anyway.”

  “Me?” Emily was so shocked that “me” came out as a squeak.

  Grandma Rose nodded. “I saw you go off into the woods this morning. Did you find it?”

  Find it? What was this woman talking about? But before she even had a chance to ask, Emily knew. “You mean the playhouse?”

  “What else?”

  Emily took a deep breath. “Yes. I found it.”

  Was Grandma Rose going to scold her? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to go near the playhouse. Maybe it belonged to Grandma Rose or to some long-ago daughter of hers.

  “It’s …” Emily didn’t know what to say about it, really. “It’s nice,” she said finally.

  “Nice!” The word exploded with a laugh.

  Emily stared.

  “Weird would be more like it.” Grandma Rose shook her head. “Built over there across the creek. Practically lost in the woods. All that painting on the walls.”

  Emily took a breath. “The woods inside the house,” she said.

  “And the house inside the woods,” Grandma Rose added.

  Emily sighed. She wasn’t the only one who found the painting strange!

  “It’s like they go on forever,” Grandma Rose said. “Each one gets tinier and tinier.”

  So Grandma Rose got the same feeling from the painting she did. “Who built it?” Emily asked. “Who was it for?”

  “It was for Pin.”

  “Pin?”

  “Her name was Penelope. Penelope Hanson. But folks called her Pin. ‘See a pin and pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.’” Grandma Rose paused. She seemed to be thinking.

  Then she added, “She didn’t, though. Have good luck, I mean.”

  Emily held her breath. She knew the beginnings of a story when she heard one.

  “Pin’s dad had money … as you might guess. Building a whole house like that for a child. Not that his money did him much good.” Grandma Rose folded her hands in her lap. They were wrinkled in a friendly way.

  She turned to Emily. “His wife ran off and left him, you see. She left them both. She was an artist—a painter. They say she went off to be with her own kind. She just left that girl behind. Nothing to remember her by but the paint on those walls.”

  So Pin’s mother had done the painting. And then she had left. Somehow that made everything even stranger.

  “What happened to Pin?” Emily asked.

  “She died.” Grandma Rose’s voice grew soft. “Her dad’s fancy mansion burned down, and she died in the fire. Some folks even said she started it. Nobody knows, really. She was just a girl, no older than you.” Grandma Rose’s eyes were a sad blue.

  Emily leaned forward. “When did it happen? The playhouse and the fire? Was it a long time ago?”

  “Yes. It was a long time back. In the fifties. They are probably all dead by now. It seems I heard about her mother dying recently. She must have been pretty old.”

  Emily looked around the small circle of houses. “So there used to be a mansion here.”

  “Right here,” Grandma Rose agreed. She swept a hand to take in the whole area. “There used to be just one big house in all this space.”

  “And a playhouse,” Emily added.

  “And a playhouse,” Grandma Rose agreed. She stood up and slapped dust off her white slacks. “I’m not sure anybody ever played in it, though.”

  There were a hundred questions Emily wanted to ask. A thousand, maybe. But she didn’t know where to start. And before she could ask a single one, Grandma Rose was gone. She waved good-bye. Then she marched back across the gravel road.

  3

  Flowers for Mommy

  “Where are you going?”

  Emily turned back. Her mother stood on the porch. “Just for a walk. I won’t be long.”

  Yesterday she had worked all afternoon. Today she wanted to see the playhouse again.

  She had to see it.

  Mom wiped her flushed face with the back of her arm. “I told you, Emily. I need you to watch Logan this morning.”

  “But—”

  Her mother wasn’t listening to any “buts.” “I’m trying to set up the kitchen. And Logan is underfoot. You can go for a walk. Just take your brother with you.”

  “Mother-r-r!” Emily knew she was whining. She also knew her mother hated whining. But how could she explain? Mom needed her to watch Logan. But she needed to go back to the playhouse just as badly.

  Emily had thought about nothing else since yesterday. Last night at dinner she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out her secret. That’s all she had been able to think about … the playhouse.

  The screen door snapped shut. Her mom had gone back inside. The argument was over. Her little brother waited on the porch.

  Emily made a face at him.

  Logan had dark curls like their mother’s. He also had her huge green eyes. But Mom never stuck out her lower lip the way Logan was doing. If he started bawling, their mother would be out here in an instant.

  What could Emily do? She couldn’t take Logan to the playhouse. He was a blabbermouth. If he saw it, he’d tell Mom and Dad everything. Then she’d never be able to go there again. And she couldn’t wait until his nap time. She simply couldn’t!

  “Come on,” she said to Logan.

  Emily took his hand. They came down off the porch and began walking. Emily didn’t have a plan yet. She’d get one, though.

  “Where are we going?” Logan asked. He dragged his feet through the dusty gravel.

  “We’re going to the forest,” Emily said.

  “What are we going to do in the forest?” Logan’s sneakers sprayed gravel with every step.

  Emily thought fast. “We’ll get flowers for Mommy. Let’s find some pretty ones.”

  Were there flowers in these woods? She didn’t know. Yesterday she hadn’t been looking for flowers.

  Logan brightened at the idea and picked up his feet. That was good, anyway.

  Emily left the road and headed into the trees. He stayed close at her side.

  “I have an idea, Logan,” she said. “We’ll break up.”

  “Break up?” His forehead wrinkled. “What are we going to break?”

  “We’re not going to break anything, silly. We’ll look for flowers in different places. I’ll take you to a special place where you can pick flowers. Then I’ll go on to another place and find some more.”

  That should give her time to check out the playhouse.

  Logan scowled. “Why can’t you pick flowers in my special place?”

  “We can find more if we look in two spots. Don’t you think?” Emily held her breath. Would he agree?

  Logan’s face looked like a thunderstorm brewing. But as suddenly as his mood had gone bad, it got better again. He even took a little skip at Emily’s side. “We’ll get Mommy the prettiest flowers ever,” he sang. “Won’t we, Emily? We’ll get her a big, big bunch. It’ll be so big she’ll have to use the ba
thtub for a … for a …”

  “Vase,” Emily finished for him.

  He beamed. “For a vase,” he agreed.

  They came to the stream. Emily stopped at the edge. She didn’t want to cross it with Logan. He might see the playhouse.

  “Oh, look!” Logan cried.

  She looked, holding her breath. Had he spotted it?

  But no. Logan pointed at a clearing on this side of the stream. Violets dotted the grass.

  She smiled down at Logan’s round face. His cheeks were flushed. His eyes sparkled.

  “Flowers for Mommy!” he exclaimed. He ran and dropped to his knees. He tugged at a purple flower.

  In an instant he had half a dozen in his hand. The stems were only about an inch long.

  “Not like that.” Emily knelt beside him. “You have to get the stem, too. A long stem. As long as you can.”

  Logan nodded. Very carefully, he picked another. He pulled it up, roots and all. Emily didn’t say anything. There were lots of violets in the clearing.

  “I’m going to go find some more. For Mommy,” she told him. She stood and looked down at her brother’s dark curls. “I’ll be right back. So you stay here. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Logan agreed. He didn’t even look up when Emily slipped away.

  It’s all right, Emily told herself. I won’t be long.

  4

  “Emily! Please, Come Back!”

  Emily stood back from the playhouse. She studied it carefully. The padlock still hung from the door. The shutters still were open, too. All was as she’d left it the day before.

  The windows were tightly closed. In fact, they were the kind that didn’t open. How could she get in?

  She wanted to look around inside. Nothing more. Then she would go back to Logan. She tugged at the padlock. Some rust fell off. The door didn’t budge.

  At the front of the house, the windows were large and low. She wished she could open them. If she could, she could easily climb through.

  She pushed on one of the windows. It gave a little. She pushed harder. The frame was rotten. Each time she pushed, the whole window moved just a bit.