by Sean Platt
Like in the car with Jacquelyn, Hazel knew Mara was about to say something important (and maybe scary) a second before she did.
“I’ve seen Savannah. Three times. The first time I was younger than you, once a few years ago, then again about two weeks after last Christmas.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the car?”
“Because I was told by my mom to never say anything about it.”
“So, why are you telling me now? Won’t your mom be mad?”
“Not if you don’t tell her, she won’t.”
Hazel smiled. “So, a secret?”
“The way I see it, you live there, too. There’s no reason not to tell you. I grew up here, and know what it’s like to see things. I don’t think it’s fair for you to have to keep everything in your head, wondering. I just …” Mara paused. “I just don’t want you to think you’re crazy.”
“Thanks.” Hazel felt lost for all other words.
“Mom’s biggest rules growing up were to never speak about what I saw with anyone other than her, and to never go anywhere near the cellar, no matter what.”
“Why? What’s in the cellar?”
Hazel vaguely recalled seeing the cellar door on their house tour — with its weird, oversized, thick metal circular lock above the doorknob that didn’t even have a keyhole — and Carter telling them it was a dangerous place for children, but she hadn’t thought of it as particularly scary.
Hazel didn’t know why Mara couldn’t answer, but could see her losing color. Hazel felt a presence behind her, then turned and found herself looking up into Jacquelyn’s eyes.
Hazel couldn’t tell how long Mara’s mother had been there, but was suddenly afraid that her sort-of friend might’ve got herself into trouble. Jacquelyn’s eyes quickly lit with their usual sparkle as she held up a box of brownies.
“Buying these will make Garza furious, but Mara will agree they’re totally worth it.”
Hazel laughed, then the three of them left the aisle together. Hazel couldn’t stop thinking about the cellar, or wondering what was down there. She told herself that the cellar had answers, and that it was time to find out what they were.
* * * *
HUDSON
Hudson woke in the darkness, startled by a thump.
But as he sat upright in bed, looking nervously around in the dim-blue moonlight from the partly open curtains, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The sound had seemed like it was in his room. But as he looked around, nothing seemed disturbed.
He listened again, perhaps for something in the hallway, but the manor was still. He thought about getting up to look, but was exhausted and figured the sound must’ve been born in a dream. He lay back down.
Nights when he woke and couldn’t fall back asleep were the worst. He wished he could just turn his mind off, stop the nervous chattering, the endless what-ifs, and all the other crap that seemed to wait until nighttime to percolate.
He tried to think of nothing.
But thinking of nothing was impossible. Your mind always found something to cling to, some fragment of a thought to untangle.
But, as he stared out his second story window at the moon, a terrible thought scurried into his brain.
I’m being watched.
His earlobes tingled, and all of his body’s tiny hairs stood on end.
Hudson sat up in bed, rubbing his temples, looking around his room again. He had the nagging thought that he’d forgotten something, but couldn’t remember what. Not remembering was worse than not being able to shut your brain off, because then you were preoccupied with a thought you couldn’t even recall.
Then he remembered.
The journal.
The words:
I need you, Hudson. Please help me.
He’d read through the journal again before going to bed. Went to sleep with the words humming in his head. And he was pretty sure he’d seen Savannah in his dreams, but couldn’t remember for certain.
In fact, everything that happened the past day or two seemed fuzzy. He tried to remember what he’d done earlier in the day, but couldn’t.
I must’ve done something. Dad wouldn’t have let me stay in bed all day.
Hudson got out of bed, scratching his head, hating the disorientation, a sense of lost time he couldn’t account for.
He turned on the lights and reached under his mattress for the diaries.
But they weren’t there.
None of them were.
Panic swelled inside him.
Oh, no.
Someone found out I took them, and I’ve been reading them.
They know I was in her room!
He tried to calm himself.
Maybe they fell.
He dropped to the floor and searched under his bed.
Nothing.
He looked in his nightstand, then behind it.
Still nothing.
Maybe someone came into my room and took them.
But who would do that? If it had been a staffer, wouldn’t that have said something? Maybe told Carter that he’d broken a house rule?
Maybe Hazel sneaked in here.
That had to be it. Hazel. She was always snooping through his things back home. She must’ve come into his room and taken them.
The idea of her going through Savannah’s diaries made him angry. Hudson felt, oddly, violated, as if his sister had broken some secret covenant between him and Savannah.
He looked at his iPhone. It was only 10:20 at night.
Maybe Hazel was still awake in her room, reading through the diaries.
He decided to find out.
He stepped into the hallway. Muffled voices from his father and Carter drifted up the stairs. And down the hall, a different sort of noise — the thump that had woken him.
Hudson swallowed as he looked toward the source.
Savannah’s room.
He slowly made his way toward her room, one tentative step at a time.
Another noise, quick movement, then silence.
Someone had to be messing with him. But who? He could see Hazel writing the I need you, Hudson message in the journal — payback for calling her a liar, even though she was — but the handwriting looked nothing like hers. It could’ve been one of the live-ins, maybe Mara. Sometimes, Hudson thought she gave him weird looks. But why would anyone want to trick him like that? It wasn’t funny and didn’t make sense. Besides, Mara had been nice to him.
He stopped in front of Savannah’s room, hand on the doorknob, pausing without the courage to turn it.
He counted to five, then to ten when five wasn’t enough.
A beat after eleven, he used everything he had to turn the knob and step into the icy room.
It was empty, though he still had the odd sensation that he was being watched. Just bright enough from the moonlight bleeding through the open curtains that he didn’t need to turn a light on.
His eyes fell on the bookcase, and the diaries, all put back in place — including the last one he’d found in Savannah’s closet.
How the hell did they get here?
Someone is definitely messing with me.
Heart racing, Hudson reached for the last diary and flipped it open. He thumbed through the entries to the end, looking for his message.
It was no longer there.
Nothing but blank pages.
He opened the book all the way to try and see if a page had been ripped out. He couldn’t tell. It was possible that someone used a razor to remove the page, but he couldn’t be certain.
It was there.
I know it.
Hudson hated feeling crazy. Or toyed with. If this was Hazel, she’d be sorry. He’d had it with her endless crap through the last half year. It ended now.
He returned the diary to its shelf — no way was he giving Hazel the satisfaction of thinking he saw it — then approached the door. Halfway there Hudson heard heavy footsteps coming from the hallway.
Crap! I can’t let Dad or Ca
rter find me in here.
He fell several steps back from the door, then turned and ran toward the closet.
He hid inside, sliding the door shut.
Just as it was nearly closed, he noticed that he’d left Savannah’s bedroom door ajar.
Crap! Crap!
It was too late to get out of the closet and close it.
He slid into the darkness, behind the clothes and boxes in Savannah’s closet, hoping that whoever was coming down the hall wouldn’t enter the room, or search the closet. If it was his father, he’d probably be punished. Or he’d think Hudson was a freak for snooping through a dead girl’s bedroom that was supposed to be off-limits.
If it was Carter, though, what then?
Was this a violation of their contract?
Would this get them kicked out of the house?
Would this lose them their fortune?
Would this mean Dad wouldn’t be able to pay for the new investigation into Mom’s disappearance?
Hudson awaited discovery, hating his weakness.
Why did I have to come in here?
Why did I have to read those stupid diaries?
Please, God, don’t let them catch me.
He couldn’t hear the footsteps from inside the closet, which turned waiting into torture. He had no idea where his father, Carter, or one of the other staffers was, nor when the coast was clear.
He was also standing in an uncomfortable contortion, hunched over, one leg on top of a box, his back pressed against the wall.
He was about to shift when Savannah’s door creaked open the rest of the way.
The light went on.
He froze in his uncomfortable spot.
He held his breath, watching the thin sliver of light along the bottom of the closet doors.
A shadow fell over part of the light.
No, no, no.
Turn around.
Do not open the door!
Someone was in the room, but Hudson couldn’t tell who it was.
Footsteps were light but confident. Female. Not Hazel, and definitely not Jacquelyn. Probably Mara: The person Hudson least wanted it to be. She’d probably think he was a pervert, snooping through a dead girl’s closet.
The footsteps approached his hiding spot.
Hudson wanted to exhale and draw new breath, but couldn’t.
His back was screaming, demanding that he get out of his awkward position, but he didn’t dare move.
The person outside his door was close enough to hear him.
The shadow stopped as if the person was standing there, staring at the closet, debating whether to open it — or maybe waiting for Hudson to emerge.
He had to exhale.
Needed to breathe.
Just go!
The shadow moved.
Footsteps retreated.
He chanced it, exhaling then drawing a deep breath, and sighing with relief as the light went off.
He shifted in the tight space, then felt the boxes beside him began to topple.
No!
He threw his hands up and prevented the pile from falling on top of him, but in doing so made a loud noise.
A whisper of metal as something dropped onto the carpet.
The light in Savannah’s room went back on.
Crap!
The boxes stable, he fell to his knees, planted his palms into the carpet’s plush fibers, and tried to make himself as small as possible behind the boxes.
Hudson suddenly had the oddest sensation that someone was sharing the darkness beside him.
Impossible, given the space, but he couldn’t ignore it any more than the sound of that someone breathing.
No, no, it’s just my imagination. Stay put. Do NOT leave the closet or you WILL get busted!
His fingers suddenly brushed something on the ground. Small, metal, and cold.
He pulled it into his fingers, trying to tell what it was from touch alone. He palmed the disc-shaped object and slid it into his pocket.
Outside the closet, footsteps drew closer again.
Here we go.
I’m so busted!
Something slid across his back — cold and wet.
To his right, something skittered in the darkness.
Hudson screamed and launched himself from the closet, crashing into Mara, then falling on top of her.
She cried out in pained surprise. Hudson kept screaming, now for his father as Mara scrambled to her feet.
Mara, looking down at him as he started to stand. “What were you doing in there?”
“There was something inside the closet,” Hudson yelled, then turned toward the open closet doors and repeated his earlier bellow. “DAD!”
Before Mara could ask anything else, or Hudson could explain further, Dad ran into the room, followed by Carter. “What’s going on?”
Mara spoke first, to Carter. “He was in the closet.”
The old man turned to Hudson, his eyes red, his voice shaky. “Why … why are you in here?”
“Because I heard some noise, and figured it was Hazel. When I couldn’t find her I thought she was trying to scare me, so I wanted to scare her first. I heard footsteps,” he pointed at Mara, “and thought it was Hazel, so I hid in the closet and was going to jump out and scare her. But there was something in there.”
“Hazel?” Dad asked.
Hudson said, “No ...”
The old man exploded.
“I told you to never go in this room! You have demonstrated either a total lack of understanding about the established rules, or have complete contempt for them. Which is it, Hudson Dawson?”
The old man didn’t wait for Hudson’s response. Carter spun to Dad. “A few simple rules, that’s all that we ask in exchange for everything you could possibly want, and yet—”
“That’s bullshit,” Hudson cut in, yelling. “If this is our house, we should be able to go wherever the hell we want. And why is this room even off limits, anyway? What are you all hiding in here?”
Hudson pointed to the shadows in the closet and shuddered. “What the hell is going on here?”
Carter glared. Hudson thought it looked like the old man might blow smoke through his nostrils. “You have violated your Great-Uncle Alastair’s rules, and that is unacceptable. You don’t have to understand them, but you must honor them. If you do not, all will be lost.”
“The fortune?”
“That, too,” Carter said, marching toward the closet.
He flicked on the closet light, peered inside, then looked back at Hudson and asked, “Well, what am I looking for? All I see are Savannah’s belongings.”
Hudson, unable to stop himself, said, “Why the hell are we even keeping a shrine to a dead girl?”
Something in Carter’s face changed immediately. His eyes flashed, and for a moment, Hudson thought the old man might hit him.
Instead, Carter swallowed, turned away, and stomped out into the hallway. Mara followed, leaving Hudson alone with his dad.
Hudson said, “Something’s going on here.”
Dad stared at him, clearly restraining himself. Hudson had seen this face too many times. He had to be careful. The right sequence of words would soothe things, but the wrong ones would set Dad off, and make things weird for a week.
“There’s something off about this place, Dad. You have to feel that.”
Dad, in a very deliberate, almost unnaturally calm voice, asked, “What do you think your consequence should be, Hudson? What do you think is fair punishment for this nonsense?”
“You’re not listening, Dad! There’s something weird going on. Why won’t you talk to me about that first?”
“Because that is irrelevant. Of course, the house is weird. It’s a fucking old castle, and has had generations of Galloways and their staffers living here. That’s the kind of weird that’s bound to breed weirder. But that doesn’t excuse your doing things you know you’re not supposed to do. So, what do you think your consequence should be?”
> Through clenched teeth Hudson said, “How about I have to live in a haunted mansion, and wait my turn to leave?”
Then he stormed from Savannah’s room, marched down the hall to his room, and slammed the door behind him.
Alone, he fished out the metal object from his pajama pocket, opened his palm, and stared at the small copper medallion attached to a thin matching chain.
His mind hammered a single word like a nail into his thoughts.
Cellar.
* * * *
SCOTT
Scott woke up exhausted, wishing that for once he could sleep through the night without any drama.
He looked at the blinking clock.
Power must’ve gone off again.
He reached for his phone on the nightstand, flipped it on, and was startled by the time: 1:12 p.m. He’d slept straight through breakfast, and lunch!
Scott hadn’t overslept in years, not since he’d stopped drinking like a fish after Hazel was born.
He looked at the whisky bottle he’d emptied last night, to calm himself after Hudson’s bullshit. He couldn’t remember how full it had been when he started.
How much did I drink?
His head was swimming, and light coming through the sheer white curtains hurt his eyes. If he didn’t have children to check on, he would’ve pulled the covers over his head and gone right back to sleep.
Scott rarely allowed himself to swim in self-pity. He’d had a shitty childhood, but hell, so did a ton of people. Plenty had it worse than him. Despite his father’s abuse, the old man did love him in his own fucked up way, which was more than a lot of people could say. He never let that stop him from starting a family.
He’d also had shit luck when the economy tanked and killed his business. But hell, a lot of people lost their businesses then. At least Holly’s business didn’t suffer as much. And while he did surrender to the depression for a while, Holly had helped him see the bright side — that he could now be a stay-at-home dad and actually be present while his children grew up. And though she didn’t say it, because she wasn’t a martyr looking for praise, he was certain that she would’ve traded places with him in a moment, so she could stay home and watch her kids grow. But, no, now she had to work even more hours to support the family. No way Scott could complain when she was the one doing the heavy lifting.
