The Girl in the Locked Room

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Maisie’s eyes seemed to widen behind her glasses. “What do you mean? Like ghosts or something?”

  I hesitated. What if Maisie didn’t believe me? What if she thought I was lying? Maybe she wouldn’t be my friend, after all.

  She leaned closer. “Did you see a ghost, Jules?”

  A teenager pushing a library cart stopped next to us to shelve some of the books on his cart. I dropped my voice so low Maisie had to lean farther across the table to hear me. “I saw Lily.”

  “Lily? Who’s Lily?”

  Maisie spoke so loudly the teenager looked at us. “Stop shouting, Maisie,” he said. “You want Miss Hopkins to throw you out again?”

  “Get lost, Blake,” Maisie said.

  “You get lost.” Blake shoved another book into place and moved on. The sound of the cart’s squeaky wheels faded as he disappeared between two rows of tall shelves.

  “So who’s Lily?” Maisie asked.

  “The little girl who haunts Oak Hill.”

  Maisie stared at me, awestruck. “Where did you see her? Were you scared?”

  “Mom and I were in the field behind the house. Mom was asleep, but I was awake. All of a sudden I saw this little girl sitting near me, making a clover chain. I didn’t realize she was a ghost at first. She looked like a real girl. There wasn’t anything scary about her.”

  “Did your mother see her?”

  “No. She was asleep. When she woke up, she said I dreamed the whole thing. Maybe I did, I don’t know for sure, but—”

  Maisie interrupted me. “What do adults know? Lily was real, Jules. I feel it in my bones.” We were almost nose to nose now. “Have you seen anything else?”

  “The first night we were here, I saw the Bennett family in the field behind the house. Nobody believed that either.”

  “I believe you,” Maisie said.

  Encouraged, I told her about the horses and the midden and the dolls and my feeling that Lily was watching me. “I looked up at a window on the third floor—​I think it’s her room. I swear I saw her, just a glimpse, but definitely her. Then I looked down. There was a key lying in the grass. I think it opens her door.”

  With a sigh, Maisie sat back in her chair. “Oh, Jules, I am so jealous. I’ve always, always, always wanted to see a ghost.”

  “Come to Oak Hill,” I said. “And you just might get your wish.”

  It was a daring thing to say to someone I’d just met. What if she said no, she had lots of friends and she was busy with them most of the time.

  But Maisie looked as if she wanted to hug me. “Oh, Jules, I’d absolutely love to see Oak Hill—​and Lily. Just say when, and I’ll be there!”

  Before we could set a date, Mom appeared. “There you are, Jules.”

  “This is Maisie,” I told her. “We’ve been talking about books.”

  Mom smiled. “I’m glad to meet you, Maisie.” Glancing at the stack of Chrestomanci books, she said, “Oh, my goodness—​Diana Wynne Jones. She was my favorite writer when I was your age. I read every one of her books at least twice.”

  “Maisie recommended them to me,” I told Mom.

  “You have great taste, Maisie.”

  “I’ve read them over and over again,” Maisie said. “I adore them.”

  Mom smiled at Maisie. “Jules and I are about to have lunch at that little café around the corner. Would you like to join us?”

  “Oh, yes, that would be great,” Maisie said. “They have the best tuna melts in town.”

  We grabbed our rain gear, checked out our books, and headed for Mandy’s Café and Tea Room. All three of us ordered tuna melts. They were just as delicious as Maisie had said they’d be.

  While we ate, Maisie told Mom she’d always wanted to see Oak Hill. “My brother and his friends have been there lots of times, but they never took me. That was before Stonybrook bought the land and found the house and started fixing it up. I guess it’s really changed since Joe explored it.”

  Mom smiled. “Why don’t you come over one day next week? My husband will be happy to take you on a tour, and you and Jules can continue your book discussion.”

  “Maybe she can stay for dinner and sleep over,” I suggested.

  Maisie gave me a big grin, and I knew I’d said the right thing. We decided that Tuesday of next week would be a good time for Maisie’s visit. “We’ll pick you up,” Mom said. “The roads are a mess from all this rain. You need four-wheel drive to get through the ruts and puddles at Oak Hill.”

  We drove Maisie home to a big brick house on Third Street. A tabby cat sat on the porch, and a boy’s bike lay on the sidewalk. A swing hung from a big tree in the side yard. The house looked friendly, not fancy, but just right. If Dad bought a house for us in the same neighborhood, Maisie and I could walk to school together.

  Maisie thanked Mom for lunch and the ride. To me, she said, “I can’t wait to see you next week!”

  She waved and ran up the sidewalk, mindless of the rain puddles.

  “Well,” Mom said, “Maisie is delightful. I’m so glad you two got together.”

  “Me too.” I leaned back against the seat. I had a friend. For once, I’d know someone when I started a new school in the fall. I’d ask Maisie what kind of clothes to wear and how to do my hair. I’d fit in right from the first day.

  On the way to Oak Hill, I told Mom what Maisie’s brother had said. “I told you something terrible happened in that house,” I said. “Do you believe me now?”

  Mom glanced at me and shook her head. “That’s a good example of an urban legend. Every deserted, spooky old house has a story just like it. It’s a cliché, Jules.”

  “But Mom, I’ve heard things, seen things—”

  Mom frowned. “Oak Hill is simply an old, abandoned house. I admit it’s creepy, but nobody was murdered there, nobody is buried there, and the Bennetts are not haunting it.”

  “You have to believe me! The girl I saw in the field, the one you said was a dream—​it was Lily Bennett. She’s in the house, she—”

  Mom braked and pulled to the side of the road. “Stop it, Jules, right now. That sort of talk is irrational. You’re just scaring yourself.”

  “What do you mean? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “No, of course not. Just calm down, think, use your common sense.”

  “Fine. Believe what you want to believe.” I slumped in my seat and turned my face away.

  Mom sat behind the wheel as if she’d forgotten how to drive. At last she sighed and started the car. For the rest of the way, we rode in silence.

  12

  The Girl

  That evening, the girl stands at her window and looks down at Jules’s window. The room is empty.

  She longs to see Jules. There’s a place she needs to go, a safe place where people will love and protect her. She thinks Jules might help her find it.

  The moon rises slowly behind the mountains. So many moons, she thinks, so many years. So much waiting.

  The sky darkens. Colors fade. Stars pop out, just as they always do, just as they always will.

  A light goes on in Jules’s room. The girl watches her pass the window and get into bed with a book. The girl thinks that she once had a book. Someone read it to her. The person had a deep voice. She sat on his lap and rested her head on his chest, just under his chin. She was safe then.

  “When will you unlock my door?” she whispers to Jules. “When will you free me?”

  After Jules turns out her light, the girl curls up in her nest in the wardrobe. She strokes the silken rags. She’s so tired, but she cannot sleep. How long will she lie here?

  13

  Jules

  That night, I dreamed of the horses again and woke to hear their hooves pounding the ground. On they came, louder and closer than ever before. The men cursed and pounded on the door of the old house. The woman cried out in fear.

  Where was Lily? Where were her parents? Why didn’t the hired help come to their aid?

  Then, as quick
ly as the riders arrived, they vanished into the dark. Who were they? Why did they come? What did they want?

  * * *

  In the morning, the sun shone and everything sparkled as if it were brand-new. Water drops shone on spiderwebs and blades of grass. Mud puddles reflected the cloudless sky.

  To celebrate Dad’s day off, we took a slow drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Roanoke and ate lunch at a little restaurant in the old part of town. It was too hot for walking, so Dad suggested going to the Taubman Museum of Art to cool off in air-conditioned comfort.

  In the American Art section, all three of us stopped in front of a large oil painting. Even though Oak Hill looked very different now, the painting was definitely Oak Hill as it must have been many years ago.

  Dad leaned down to read a small plaque on the wall beside it: HENRY BENNETT. OAK HILL, CIRCA 1883. OIL ON CANVAS.

  “Isn’t that the artist you found on the census?” I asked. “The man who lived at Oak Hill?”

  “That’s right, Jules.” Dad studied the painting. “He was an amazing artist. So much detail, yet not stiff or overdone. His brushwork is especially nice.”

  “Oak Hill was beautiful then,” Mom said. “The house, the trees, the stone walls . . . And those flower gardens. Take a picture of the painting, Ron. Maybe Stonybrook can hire a landscaper to recreate the grounds as they once were.”

  While Dad got busy with his camera, I studied the painting. A little girl sat in a swing that hung from a tall oak tree. Her hair was blond and her dress was blue. A woman stood behind her, ready to push the swing.

  The little girl was definitely Lily, but the woman was too old to be her mother. Maybe she was her grandmother or her aunt. In the background, a younger woman watered the flower garden. Lily’s mother, I guessed. Every detail was so perfect, I felt as though—​if I tried hard enough—​I could step into the picture and visit Lily’s world as it was before the robbers came.

  I thought of the Chrestomanci books and the Almost Anywheres. What if alternate worlds really existed? Maisie’s father said they might. Suppose there was a world where the robbers don’t kill the Bennetts, a world where Lily grows up and lives a happy life. Suppose Maisie and I discovered a way to send Lily to that world?

  Mom interrupted my thoughts. “Henry Bennett was so talented. It’s a shame he’s not better known. I wonder what happened to him, why he stopped painting.”

  Because he was murdered, I wanted to say, just like I told you yesterday. But you didn’t believe me then and you won’t believe me now. So what’s the use of saying it again?

  We walked around the room, looking for more of Henry Bennett’s paintings, and found a few small landscapes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While Dad and Mom admired the detail and brushwork, I discovered a picture of Lily making a clover chain. She sat in the field, her doll beside her, just as I’d seen her on the day Mom insisted I’d been dreaming.

  Mom paused beside me to look at the painting. She glanced at me, and I hoped she’d say, Oh, Jules, you really did see Lily. But no. She frowned and turned her attention to a watercolor of an old barn.

  I was disappointed, but I didn’t say a word. If the painting didn’t convince Mom, she’d never believe I’d actually seen Lily.

  * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, Mom suggested that we have a picnic dinner by the stream. She put me in charge of carrying a chocolate cake she’d gotten from the bakery. Dad was responsible for a heavy picnic basket filled with food and drinks, and Mom carried an old quilt and a bowl of potato salad.

  Dad gazed across fields of tall grass and wildflowers rolling off toward the mountains. Here and there, old stone walls and hedges divided the land. “Just look at that view,” he said. “I haven’t seen anything except that house since we arrived. We should do this every Sunday.”

  Mom took a deep breath. “The air’s so fresh. All I smell is grass and honeysuckle.”

  Dad grinned. “I could live in a place like this.”

  I almost dropped the cake. “Dad, do you mean that? We’d stay here and not move anymore? Live like normal people? No more new schools?” In my excitement, my words tumbled over each other.

  Dad looked at me. “Well, no, not now, Jules. I was thinking ahead to when I retire.”

  “Oh.” I actually felt my heart drop like a stone.

  I looked away, and Mom realized I was upset. Putting an arm around my shoulders, she said, “It would mean so much to Jules, Ron. This area is full of old houses in need of work. Surely you could find enough projects to keep you busy.”

  Dad turned from the view to look at me. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll take some time to drive around and see what’s what.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to settle down.”

  I put the cake down and hugged him. “Please, Dad, please.”

  “Okay, okay, Jules. Like I said, I’ll do some reconnaissance.”

  “Let’s not forget what we came here for,” Mom said. “We have some serious eating to do.”

  From the look she gave Dad, I guessed they also had some serious talking to do.

  “Please, please, please,” I chanted to myself. “Settle down, buy a house, plant boxwood.”

  We spread the quilt in the willow’s shade, and Mom opened the picnic basket. After we’d eaten all we could—​which was just about everything—​Dad wandered off with his camera, and Mom and I lounged on the quilt, too full to wade in the stream or do anything but lie still and listen to our insides rumble.

  I’d brought The Lives of Christopher Chant with me, and Mom insisted on reading aloud from it. In the scene she chose, Christopher was in another world, one of many Almost Anywheres. I closed my eyes and surrendered to the magic of the second Chrestomanci book. No matter how old I was, I still loved to listen to Mom read out loud. It freed my mind somehow.

  Gradually I realized that Mom’s voice had been replaced by a voice softened with a southern accent. The book she read aloud had changed to Little Women.

  In my drowsy state, the change didn’t bother me. I relaxed and let myself sink into the grass, into the story, into the warmth of the summer day.

  A fly buzzed around my face, and I opened my eyes to swat it. A few feet away, a woman sat on a quilt, reading aloud from Little Women. Lily lay beside her, the doll nearby. Not far from them, a man stood behind an easel, painting the scene.

  Doing my best to ignore the fly, I lay still and listened to Mrs. Bennett read about Beth’s death. Mesmerized, I hung on every word of the story, as if I’d never read it.

  Lily sat up. Tears ran down her face. “Mama, please stop reading. I don’t want Beth to die. It frightens me to think about it.” As her mother turned to lay the book aside, Lily looked at me. She saw me just as clearly as I saw her. “Lily,” I whispered. “Lily.”

  She said something that sounded like Help, but her voice was low and indistinct, a whisper in a keyhole, a sigh under a closed door, a rustle in the leaves.

  I leaned closer to hear better, but the moment I moved, Lily and her mother and father wavered like a reflection in a pond and vanished.

  I looked at Mom, hoping she’d seen Lily at last, but she lay on the quilt, sound asleep, the Chrestomanci book face-down on her stomach. Dad slept nearby, snoring softly, a smear of chocolate icing on his upper lip.

  The place where I’d seen the Bennetts was empty, the grass undisturbed. But Lily was still here, trapped in the house, waiting for me.

  I walked to the stream and sat on the bank. Below my feet, the Gerridae skated in circles, and the minnows flashed beneath them, just as they had when Lily was alive. When Maisie came, we’d find a way to rescue her.

  14

  The Girl

  The girl sits on the floor watching a bird fly around her room. Birds have come in before. Usually they flap about frantically, seeking a way out.

  This bird is different. Instead of being in a hurry to leave, it hops around, investigating things. Perhaps it hopes to find a juicy bug to eat. She woul
d like to help him, but even if there were a bug in her room, lately she’s been having trouble picking things up. She’s not very strong, perhaps because she hasn’t been outside in the fresh air for a very long time. She can’t remember when she last ate. She’s never hungry, but maybe not eating has weakened her.

  She stretches out her arms and looks at them. How thin she’s become. Why, she can scarcely see her arms. The sun seems to shine through them, and they cast no shadow.

  The girl contemplates the bird. “I wish you’d stay with me and be my pet,” she says. Her voice is low and raspy. Maybe she should talk more. But what’s the point of that? She has no one to talk to.

  Suddenly the bird spreads its wings and flies out the window. The girl watches it dip and soar, dip and soar, and finally disappear into the woods. If only she could spread her arms and fly after him.

  After the bird leaves, she’s lonelier than ever. The day before, Jules and her father and mother had gotten into their ugly tin thing and driven away. They were gone all day. She was afraid they might be gone forever, but late at night, she saw the lights of their tin thing. She was glad they’d returned.

  Today the three of them left the house again, on foot this time. Jules carried a cake. Cake—​she remembers cake. It’s soft and sweet; it melts in your mouth. Once, in some other time, she ate cake. Chocolate cake. Outside in a field—​a picnic, that’s what it’s called. There was a stream, a tree, wildflowers, butterflies. She ate until she thought her stomach would burst. Eating like that now might put some flesh on her bones.

  Maybe Jules and her parents are having a picnic by that stream with the tree and the wildflowers and the butterflies. She hopes so. It’s a happy place. She wishes she could go there herself.

  The girl drifts into a dream. She’s outside near the stream and the tree, lying on a quilt in soft grass. Someone is reading to her. It’s a voice the girl knows and loves. She lies still and listens to a story about four sisters. She’s heard it before, but she can’t remember what happens to the sisters. She thinks one dies. She remembers crying. She’s not sad now. She can’t remember what dying is.