The Girl in the Locked Room

by Mary Downing Hahn

  In her dream, she senses someone watching her. She turns her head. Jules is there, close enough to touch. She calls her Lily. The girl doesn’t know who Lily is. Once, she knew, but it was so long ago, so long ago.

  “Help me,” the girl hears herself say. “Help me.”

  Jules doesn’t understand her. When Jules moves, she vanishes, the way a reflection vanishes when you toss a pebble into water.

  The girl comes to herself by the window. She sees Jules walk out of the woods with her parents. Just there, just below her. She hopes Jules will look up and see her, but she hurries into the house with her mother. She’s not thinking about the girl.

  The girl sighs and backs away into the shadows. Jules can’t help her. No one can.

  15

  JULES

  We came home from the picnic after dark. The shadows made me uneasy. Something screamed in the woods, and I grabbed Dad’s hand.

  “It’s an owl hooting,” he said. “A barn owl—​the one with the pretty, heart-shaped face and the horrible screech.”

  I clung to his hand. Owl or not, the cry chilled me through and through. I became intensely aware of every sound—​the snapping of a twig, a rustle in the bushes, the wind sighing in the branches. Even the man in the moon looked anxious.

  “It’s lovely to walk in the night with a full moon to light our way home,” Mom said. “It makes me think of Byron’s poem—‘She walks in beauty, like the night . . .’”

  The night didn’t make me think of anything but galloping horses and angry shouts. What if the men came upon us here? Would I be the only one to see them? Would my parents believe me if I said we were in danger?

  I walked faster, tripping over roots and stones. Mom and Dad urged me to slow down and watch my step, but I walked even faster. And so did they.

  When we came out of the woods, I was actually glad to see the dark bulk of the house ahead of us.

  It was nine thirty by the kitchen clock. I was too tired to keep my eyes open, so I went to bed. Instead of falling asleep, I lay there thinking of Lily. When I’d called her name, she’d looked right at me. Had she really asked me to help her?

  * * *

  The next morning, after Dad left, I asked Mom if he’d said any more about finding permanent work in Hillsborough.

  “We talked last night after you went to bed, but he’s still unsure.”

  “Please make Dad understand how much I want to stay here.”

  “Your father seems stubborn to you, maybe even insensitive, but I’m sure I can convince him that it’s in your best interest.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a hug. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie.” She raised her coffee cup in a salute. “Here’s to our permanent home in Hillsborough!”

  I clinked my juice glass against it. “To Hillsborough!”

  Mom opened her laptop. “I promise I won’t give up until your father says yes.”

  While Mom worked on her novel, I washed the breakfast dishes. The sink was under a window that had a view of the field behind the addition. With my hands in warm soapy water, I watched a doe and a pair of speckled fawns move leisurely through the weeds and vanish into the woods. A pheasant flew up from the underbrush, and three or four vultures circled above the treetops.

  Vultures. High in the sky, soaring in circles, they were beautiful. But on the ground, up close, they were downright ugly. Scrawny red necks, black feathers, long, wicked beaks, they hunched by roadsides and gathered around dead animals, ripping them to pieces.

  Dad said vultures keep the world clean, but most people saw them as I did—​bad omens.

  Just as I set the last plate in the dish drainer, a group of men appeared at the edge of the woods. Their clothing was old-fashioned—​dark pants, white shirts, black suspenders. They wore wide-brimmed hats. They seemed to be looking for something. The vultures hovered over their heads and watched.

  A man shouted to the others. “Oh, Lord, come quickly. I’ve found them.”

  “Are they all right?” one called.

  “Dead,” he cried. “Murdered.”

  The others rushed to his side and took off their hats. They looked down silently. One of the men groaned. “It’s Henry and Laura.”

  Another said, “But where’s their daughter? Where’s Lily?”

  No one answered. As the vultures circled above them, the men stood silently with their heads bowed.

  A second later they were gone. Men and vultures both. I stared at the dark shadows between the trees and twisted a dishcloth in my hands. My legs trembled, and I leaned against the sink to steady myself. What was wrong with me? Was I hallucinating—​or was I seeing ghosts from the past?

  I backed away from the sink and bumped into a chair. Mom looked up from her laptop. “What’s wrong, Jules?”

  “Nothing. I just tripped over the chair.” To hide my shaking hands, I crammed them into my pockets.

  “But you look so pale.” She got to her feet and peered at me. “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “I was about to fix coffee. Shall I make a cup of tea for you? It’ll only take a moment.”

  “That would be nice.” I sat at the table. My legs were still shaking, and my heart was beating too fast. I was surrounded by the ghosts of Oak Hill, and I wanted to know why.

  A few minutes later Mom set a teacup in front of me. “I put honey in it.”

  “Thank you.” I picked up the cup and smelled bergamot. Earl Grey, my favorite.

  Mom sat beside me. Her laptop was closed. “Something’s bothering you, Jules. It’s more than the old house, isn’t it?”

  I stared into my cup. The tea was so clear I saw the flowers on the cup’s bottom. “I’m fine, Mom, really.”

  Mom turned her cup as if it had to be in a certain spot, its handle facing just the right way. Touching it lightly with her fingertips, she said, “Are you still worrying about the Bennett family?”

  “Don’t you want to know what happened to them?”

  Mom sipped her coffee and then set her cup down carefully. “Not really. Some things are best left unknown.”

  “But what if you could change the past, so what happened in this world didn’t happen in another world?”

  “Like the Chrestomanci books?”

  “Well, yes. What if it’s true? What if—”

  “Oh, Jules, I love those books as much as you do, but the Almost Anywheres don’t exist.”

  “Maisie’s father told her that some people believe in alternate universes. They think—”

  “And some people believe the earth is flat.” Mom opened her laptop. “Now, I really need to hit the keys. I promised my agent I’d have the manuscript ready last week, and it’s still far from finished.”

  I lingered at the table, wishing Mom had more time to talk, but she was already engrossed in her novel. She wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

  I walked outside and sat on the deck. Inside, Mom typed away on her laptop. In the old house, Dad and his crew hammered and sawed.

  A wind came up. The trees swayed and the sky darkened with heavy clouds. It looked as if it might rain again.

  I thought of Lily in her room on the third floor. Was she at her window watching the same stormy sky?

  I walked around the house and looked up at her window. Hoping Lily was there, I waved. I glimpsed movement behind the glass. It might have been a response. It might have been a reflection. I waited for a while, but when I saw nothing else, I went back inside and wrote an e-mail to Maisie.

  “So much has happened,” I told her. “I saw paintings of the Bennetts in a Roanoke museum, then we had a picnic by the stream, and I saw the Bennetts again, all three of them this time. They were having a picnic too, and Lily looked at me and she saw me and said something, but I couldn’t understand what—​maybe help. And then there were these men on the edge of the woods behind the house and they were looking for the B
ennetts and they found their bodies, but Lily wasn’t with them. Why do I keep seeing these things from the past? I wish you’d been there, Maisie.”

  16

  The Girl

  The girl sees Jules wave. In a reckless moment, she waves back. Frightened by what she’s done, she ducks away into the shadows. She still isn’t sure she wants Jules to see her.

  After a while, she crosses the room and looks at the paintings. She’s been avoiding them. They make her both sad and angry, a strange mix, she thinks.

  Slowly, she turns the ones facing the wall around so she can see the man and the woman. She stares into their painted eyes. They want to speak to her. They have something to tell her. Something important.

  She waits patiently for them to open their mouths. She’s used to waiting, she’s used to being patient. But they remain silent.

  She touches their faces. “I’m sorry I don’t remember who you are.”

  They do not answer.

  Next she notices a portrait of a yellow-haired girl wearing a pale blue dress. She’s sitting in the shade of a tree that has long, drooping branches. Her bare feet dangle over a stream. She holds a doll in her lap. She knows that she has been in that exact place, but she can’t remember when.

  She stares into the yellow-haired girl’s painted eyes. That girl also has something to tell her, but like the man and the woman, she doesn’t speak.

  “I knew you once,” she tells the painted girl, “a long time ago, before . . .” She hesitates. Before what?

  She continues to walk around the room, looking at the paintings. Many show the same three people. Some are portraits, and others show the woman and the girl with yellow hair going about their daily life.

  She finds several pictures of a house. It might be the one in which she’s trapped. Summer, fall, winter, and spring, flowers and gardens and a swing in a tree, snow and bare trees, trees with leaves of gold and red. The artist must have lived in this house once. Why else had he painted it so often?

  The girl studies the landscapes. She counts the cows and the sheep in the pictures. Dim memories stir—​the smell of hay in the barn, the large brown eyes of the cows, milk spurting into a pail. The scenes comfort her.

  Last of all, she turns to the drawings scribbled on the wall. They’re poorly done, childish and clumsy. They tell a story she knew once but doesn’t want to know now. They do not comfort her.

  She turns away. Her mind is a jumble of half-formed images and memories. Fear hides in the shadows. She wishes she could escape into dreamless slumber.

  17

  Jules

  At last it was Tuesday. I got into the truck with Mom,  and we drove to Maisie’s house. Mrs. Sullivan met us at the door and welcomed us inside. She was tall and plump, and her hair had turned gray already. It was wild and bushy, untamed. I liked her right away.

  “I’m so glad to meet you, Jules.” Maisie’s mother gave me a hug. “Maisie tells me you love to read. I hope you enjoy those Chrestomanci books as much as she does. Otherwise you’ll be sick to death of them long before you’ve read them all.”

  “I love them,” I assured her. “After I read the last one, I plan to read them all over again.”

  At that moment Maisie came clattering downstairs, followed by a little girl—​her sister, I guessed, because she looked just like Maisie. Maisie was carrying a suitcase and a pillow.

  With a huff and a puff she dropped them on the floor. “Hey, Jules, I’m so glad you’re here!”

  “Are you planning to move in with the Aldridges?” her mother asked.

  “Why?”

  Mrs. Sullivan laughed. “You’ve packed so much. That suitcase holds two weeks’ worth of stuff.”

  Maisie looked embarrassed. “Well, a person has to be prepared,” she said.

  By now the little sister was walking around me, studying me in great detail. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Ellie.” She smiled, revealing a big gap where her front teeth used to be. “They both came out at once,” she told me. “I tripped over our stupid cat and landed on my face and swallowed them. Not the cat—​I didn’t swallow her, just my teeth. But the tooth fairy came anyway, which was pretty nice of her, don’t you think?”

  “Now, Ellie,” Mrs. Sullivan said, “don’t talk Jules’s ear off.”

  “Could that really happen? Could I talk someone’s ear off? Wow. That would be amazing.”

  Maisie gave her sister a not-too-gentle push. “Get lost, Ellie. We’re leaving now.”

  Ellie laughed. “Don’t let the ghosts get you!”

  “We’ll send them to get you,” Maisie said.

  “I’m not scared of ghosts. If I see one, I’ll hit him on the nose and tell him to scram!”

  After a round of hugs and a flurry of goodbyes, we got into the truck and left for Oak Hill.

  As soon as Mom parked outside the addition, Maisie jumped out and looked at the old house. She must have taken in every detail—​the scaffolding the workmen had erected, the sagging roof, the shutterless windows, the weeds growing wild.

  Turning to me, she said, “This is so cool. It’s like something from a horror movie. I love it.”

  We followed Mom into the addition, and I led Maisie to my room. She plopped her pillow down on one twin bed and dropped her suitcase on the floor. “Which window is Lily’s?”

  I pointed. “The little one on the top floor.”

  Maisie stared so hard I expected the glass to break. “Can you see her? Is she there?”

  I joined her at the window. We pressed our faces against the glass and willed Lily to appear. We even tried chanting her name softly.

  Maisie sighed. “I’ve heard that ghosts only appear to people who don’t want to see them.”

  “That could be true. When we first moved here, I was terrified of ghosts. And then Lily came.”

  “And you didn’t even know she was a ghost at first.”

  “And when I figured it out, I wasn’t scared of her.”

  Maisie smiled. “Just think, we’ll see her together tonight.”

  We high-fived each other just as Mom called us for lunch, saying, “Dad’s made his special grilled cheese sandwiches in Maisie’s honor.”

  After one bite, Maisie told him they were just as good as the tuna melts at Mandy’s Café. “Maybe even better!”

  “That’s a huge compliment,” Mom told him.

  “Well, the next time I’m in town, I’ll be sure to try one,” Dad said.

  After we’d eaten, Dad asked if we were ready for our tour. Maisie jumped up so fast, she knocked over her glass of cola.

  Mom told her not to worry. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll clean up.”

  Dad unlocked the door and ushered us into the old house. The crew was sitting on the parlor floor, eating lunch. Except for their voices, the building was quiet.

  As Dad took us from room to room, Maisie stared at the unfinished walls and the roughed-in stairs. She practically sniffed the air for traces of ghosts. The only things I smelled were sawdust and fresh-cut wood.

  Dad stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “We have more work to do on the second story, but come on up and take a look. The holes in the floor have been patched, so there’s no danger of falling through.”

  Upstairs, I walked carefully around several stepladders, but Maisie walked under them, as if daring bad luck to find her. We both took care not to trip over tools scattered on the floor and tangles of extension cords snaking everywhere. In the corners, piles of trash waited to be swept up. The crew had left water bottles and soda cans all over the place.

  Dad took us through six large bedrooms. Each one had its own fireplace and several big windows, with views of fields and mountains. Even with the walls stripped of plaster, it was easy to imagine how nice the rooms would be when Dad’s work was done.

  Maisie pointed at a dimly lit, narrow stairway. “What’s up there?” she asked.

  The hall at the top was dark. I pictured Lily hiding somewher
e, her ear pressed to a door, listening to us. Was she afraid of us? Or eager to see us?

  Dad shrugged. “Nothing that I know of. We’ve been hard at work on the first and second floors. A few of the workmen have gone up to take a look. They didn’t find anything interesting—​just more dirt and rotten floors and spiderwebs.”

  “Can we see it?” Maisie’s foot was already on the first step.

  Dad shook his head. “It’s not safe, girls. We haven’t stabilized the stairs, and the floor’s weak.”

  Maisie and I looked at each other. Tonight we’d see the third floor for ourselves.

  Once we were back in my room, I showed Maisie the key I’d found in the midden. She examined it with attention to every detail.

  “It’s magic,” she whispered. “I can feel it. Like something from a fairy tale.”

  “Not ‘Bluebeard,’ I hope.”

  Maisie shuddered, and so did I. Neither of us wanted to find a room full of Bluebeard’s dead wives.

  “Tonight we’ll see if it fits Lily’s door,” I said.

  Maisie looked around my room. “Where are those little dolls you told me about? I’d love to see them.”

  “I left them in the midden,” I confessed. “They scared me.”

  “How can dolls be scary?”

  I put the key back in my box. “Wait till you see the bald one,” I said.

  18

  The Girl

  The girl hears Jules’s voice. She goes to her window and sees her walking on the grass below. Another girl is with her. Or at least she thinks it’s a girl. Her hair is cut shorter than a boy’s. Like Jules, she wears boys’ short pants and a baggy shirt. A pair of spectacles bigger than Grandfather’s perches on her freckled nose.

  They stop at the midden. Once more, the girl wonders why Jules is so interested in trash and broken things.