The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  Reluctantly, she changed direction and headed for Goldenrod. The wind was now at her back as she stumbled along the rutted, muddy road, covering her eyes and then her ears. She was relieved when she finally caught sight of the yellow glow of the new oil lamp in the distance, but then she was mad all over again. She was mad at the storm for making the creek rise and stopping her from running away. She was mad at her dad for lying. And she was mad at herself for being so stupid. How could she have believed for even a second that her mother was traveling the world until she was ready to come home?

  Suddenly the yellow glow from the oil lamp was gone. Trina slowed.

  In the next second, Trina heard the slam of her dad’s truck door. The engine revved and red taillights flicked on. Her dad was coming to look for her. But she was not ready to be found.

  When the wind pushed her forward, she let herself fall between the cornstalks, out of sight. She stayed there, hidden, as her dad’s truck raced by, headlights bobbing and the wipers flying across his windshield in the pouring rain. She waited until she heard the truck rumble across the bridge before she crawled out of the cornfield.

  Eventually, if her dad didn’t find her on the road, he would turn around and come back. What would she do then? He would want to talk to her, but she wanted to be alone. As she passed through the gate, she spotted the one place she could hide. She wiped the mud from her arms and legs, opened the back end of the trailer, and crawled inside, cold, wet, and defeated.

  She nestled herself in some old packing blankets bundled in the corner and soon her hide-out became stuffy and warm. She didn’t mind that it was pitch-black inside the trailer; it was safe and familiar. She swore she could smell all the places they had ever lived: spicy pine trees from Colorado; dry, dusty earth from New Mexico; and lots of salty breezes from Oregon.

  The trailer was the closest thing she had to home.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Trina woke up with a start in the dark trailer, wondering if the voices she heard were from a dream, or if the whooshing of wind and rain was playing with her imagination. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep. She crawled out of her nest of blankets and cracked open the trailer door for a peek outside. The storm had ebbed and the moon was struggling to show itself between the dark clouds. But if it wasn’t raining, then the voices she heard—

  “See, I told you she doesn’t live here.” A girl’s voice, deep but breathless. Charlotte! Trina put her hand to her mouth to keep from gasping. “The lights are off and there’s no car,” Charlotte said.

  Metal clanked as wet tennis shoes sloshed and squeaked outside the trailer. “I think she’s telling the truth.” A boy’s voice. Edward! But what in the world were Charlotte and Edward doing together after a day like today?

  Charlotte said something else and Trina strained to hear, opening the trailer door a little more. It gave a rusty squeak.

  “What was that?” Charlotte said.

  Trina held her breath. Then she heard the porch swing creak.

  “Just that old swing,” Edward said. “Here, lean your bike against this tree. Next to mine.” The porch swing creaked again. “Geez. You sure picked a great night for a bike ride. I bet you ten bucks the storm starts up again.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” Charlotte said. “You have the flashlight. Go in.”

  “Me go in? What about you?” Trina was impressed by how Edward could stand up to Charlotte. But what were they doing here?

  “I’m the one who dared you. Besides, you owe me,” Charlotte said.

  “You’re too scared, aren’t you? Charlotte’s a scaredy cat. Charlotte’s a scaredy—”

  “I am not. It’s just a stupid old house.”

  Trina cringed, hoping Goldenrod couldn’t hear. As the voices faded, she stuck her head out the trailer door. The air was strangely warm and still. She looked toward the house and spotted Charlotte and Edward, a pair of black figures on the porch. Edward had his flashlight aimed at the front door. He turned the knob and to Trina’s surprise, the door opened easily. Edward and Charlotte sneaked inside the dark house like cat burglars.

  Trina had an idea. If the Dare Club was being resurrected, she could help Goldenrod scare them away. And what better way to get even with Charlotte?

  Trina wrapped herself in one of the old packing blankets and climbed out of the trailer. Keeping low to the ground, she scurried across the yard, crept up the porch steps, and waited, crouching low outside the open front door.

  Charlotte and Edward were in the foyer, talking in whispers. The flashlight beam moved from the stairway in the foyer to the dining room archway. As Charlotte and Edward neared the fireplace in the parlor, Trina sneaked into the foyer and kicked the front door shut.

  SLAM!

  Charlotte screamed.

  “Shh!” Edward hushed her. “Do you want someone to hear us?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte’s shaky voice answered. “I want someone to save us.”

  Their footsteps shuffled in the dark. The beam of light turned and bounced from the parlor floor to the banister to the baseboards, across their wet footprints toward the front door. Trina hid beneath the dark blanket and pressed herself flat against the wall, hoping she wouldn’t be seen.

  “See. The front door blew shut. That’s all.” Edward was spitting distance from Trina now, but he didn’t see her.

  “We did it. We made it inside. Now let’s go home,” Charlotte said.

  “But we just got here,” Edward scoffed as he pointed the light at the staircase. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “No!” Charlotte shrieked. “We already proved she doesn’t live here. Nobody lives here. The house is empty.”

  “We should look for food in the refrigerator,” Edward said, and Trina could hear his footsteps moving away from her. “C’mon. If they live here, they’ll have food.” He moved through the parlor toward the dining room. Charlotte’s footsteps finally followed.

  With Charlotte and Edward headed for the dining room, Trina knew it was the perfect chance to make her move. She tiptoed across the foyer and then she scurried all the way to the smoking room and felt the wall for the secret doorknob to the secret passageway. She wrapped the blanket tightly around her, made her way between the rooms in the dark, turned the knob as silently as possible, and opened the door to the dining room. The flashlight beam just missed her as it swept past the French doors.

  “The kitchen must be somewhere over here,” Edward said. And then their footsteps stopped and the massive mahogany table lit up. “Milk, sandpaper, bread, nails, oatmeal, and chocolate pudding,” Edward read from a list. “And a picture of an igloo taped together. See, Charlotte? They do too live here.”

  “That’s not an igloo, you dope. That’s the Taj Mahal. You better sharpen up if you want Latrine to like you.”

  Latrine. Trina steamed beneath her blanket.

  “So that’s it,” Edward said, shining the light in Charlotte’s face. “You’re jealous of her.”

  Charlotte put her hand over the flashlight, which made her face look incredibly creepy. “Why would I be jealous of a wimpy know-it-all?”

  Revenge. It was sounding better than ever as Trina huddled in the dark, waiting to make her next move.

  “I think she’s nice. And she’s not afraid of anything. She helped me catch a ton of flies for Prince’s dinner.”

  Wow. Edward was sticking up for her. To Charlotte, of all people. But if he liked her, then what was he doing here? Was he planning to steal something?

  “So what?” Charlotte said. “That doesn’t mean—”

  Trina shifted the blanket around her and the floorboard creaked beneath her feet.

  Charlotte stopped in the middle of whatever she was saying.

  “Let go of my arm,” Edward yelled, yanking it free. In the tussle, the flashlight smacked to the floor and rolled away, blinking out when it came to a stop.

  The house was pitch-black and silent.

  No one moved.

&nb
sp; No one breathed.

  The time for revenge was now.

  “WOO-HA-HA,” Trina howled in her deepest, scariest voice, waving her arms under the blanket like an enormous bat as she ran across the dining room and swooped around Charlotte and Edward, but mostly Charlotte. “WOO-HA-HA!”

  “Help!” Charlotte screamed. “Help!” Trina chased Charlotte around and around in the dark. The wet floor squeaked. Charlotte fell. A yowl. She scrambled to her feet and ran through the parlor to the front door. The doorknob twisted and clinked.

  “It won’t open!” Charlotte screamed.

  Edward went running after her.

  Trina smiled to herself, pretty sure Goldenrod was holding the door shut.

  “Let me try,” Edward said.

  Thumps and kicks resounded, and more twisting of the doorknob, but Goldenrod wouldn’t let them go.

  “YOU BELONG TO ME!” Trina roared, sweeping into the foyer.

  Charlotte screamed again. And then lightning flashed. In that millisecond, Trina could see them both cowering by the front door as thunder rumbled over the house. But if she could see them, they could see her. Lightning flashed again.

  “Citrine, is that you?” Edward yelled.

  “I AM THE MIGHTY CITRINE,” Trina howled. And then she started to giggle.

  “I’m telling my grandma!” Charlotte yelled.

  “You can’t or she’ll know we were here,” Edward shouted over the thunder.

  “You shouldn’t scare people like that, Citrine. It’s mean!”

  Trina could hear tears at the edge of Charlotte’s voice, but that didn’t stop her. She threw off the heavy wool blanket and said, “Then what are you doing sneaking into my house?”

  “It’s not your house. It belongs to the Roy family. You’re just fixing it up so someone else can live here.” Trina might have apologized for scaring Charlotte if Charlotte hadn’t turned right back into her nasty self. Now she was glad she had given Charlotte a taste of her own medicine.

  “At least I’m not afraid to live here,” Trina said.

  “That’s different,” Charlotte said. “You have to live here.”

  “Then why are you here?” Trina asked, even though she already knew.

  “We’re here because we had a bet,” Charlotte said.

  “Wait a minute,” Edward said. “You mean you had a bet. You’re the one who wants that old coffee can of money and you know it. And you didn’t want Citrine to do something you couldn’t.”

  “That’s not true,” Charlotte stammered. “My grandma has talked about this house my whole life. I wanted to see if it really was haunted.”

  The house lights flickered on the word haunted. In those few seconds of light, Trina spotted the flashlight on the floor across the room. “You could have asked to come in,” she said. And then she couldn’t resist taking her prank a little further. “Of course, if Goldenrod lets you stay, she’ll want you to mind your manners.”

  “What does that mean?” Charlotte asked, sounding alarmed again.

  “Goldenrod wouldn’t want you to call her a stupid old house—or break in, uninvited.”

  “But I didn’t mean it like that.” Charlotte’s voice was shaking again.

  It was easy to stand up to Charlotte in the dark, so Trina kept going. “The truth is, she wouldn’t want you to call anybody any names, like Latrine or wimpy know-it-all or dope.” She looked toward the shadow of Edward.

  “Yeah,” Edward said.

  “But I was just kidding,” Charlotte said.

  “Goldenrod didn’t think it was very funny. That’s why she held the door shut.”

  “Maybe we should go home now, Charlotte,” Edward said. “Where’s my flashlight?”

  “I’ll get it,” Trina said. She hurried toward the dining room, found the flashlight on the floor, and was hitting it against her palm as she returned to the foyer. The bulb blinked on and then off, leaving them in the dark again, with the wind howling and thunder rolling in.

  Squeak.

  Creak.

  Charlotte grabbed hold of Trina’s arm. “What was that?”

  “It sounded like it came from upstairs,” Edward said.

  “It sounded like the attic door,” Trina said. “My dad says old houses creak with the weather and make all kinds of noises. That’s why people think they’re haunted. Right, Goldenrod?”

  Charlotte tightened her squeeze on Trina’s arm. “Are you talking to the house?”

  “Yes,” Trina said.

  Bump . . .

  Bump . . .

  Bump . . .

  “What’s that noise?” Charlotte asked.

  Trina didn’t answer. She was concentrating on the noise; she had never it heard before.

  “It sounds like someone coming down the stairs,” Edward said, moving closer to Trina and Charlotte. “Someone really small.”

  The hair on Trina’s arms began to stand on end, but she was more confused than she was scared. She had made up the story about a ghost walking the halls. Goldenrod hadn’t scared her in a long time—not since the day in the library when Trina figured out Goldenrod was sad and frightened. And it couldn’t be Augustine. It was nighttime; she would be sound asleep. Besides, Augustine was too small to make that much noise. What in the world was coming down the stairs?

  Bump . . .

  Bump . . .

  Bump . . .

  Bump . . .

  That mysterious feeling was back again. Trina wasn’t afraid, but something was wrong. She had the feeling Goldenrod was urgently trying to show her something again, and she just couldn’t understand.

  Bump.

  Bump-bumP-buMP-bUMP . . .

  BUMP!

  And then, whatever it was stopped.

  Close enough to breathe on them.

  Trina pounded the flashlight against her fist. She shook it and twisted the handle and finally its small bulb glimmered. She pointed it toward the sound. There, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, barely visible in the dimming light, was the striped red ball, the one that had been in the attic.

  Why did Goldenrod want her to see the ball? And why now? She had found the ball days ago. And how did it get out of the attic anyway? Did Poppo leave the door open? Or was it possible Annie Roy really did walk the halls?

  “It’s just a ball,” Edward said. “I’m not afraid of a ball.” He ran up to it and kicked it into the dining room. It bumped against one of the folding chairs, but it didn’t roll back.

  Zaa-huh-zaa-huh.

  The breathing noise? What did it mean? Trina’s mind was racing, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. What was going on with Goldenrod?

  “Is that the ghost?” Charlotte whispered.

  “You mean you can hear that?” Trina asked. “My dad has never been able to hear it.”

  “It sounds like someone sighing really far away,” Edward said. The sighing sound drifted through the house.

  “You’re just tricking us, aren’t you?” Charlotte ran for the front door again and pulled on the doorknob. When the door didn’t open, she kicked it.

  Outside, the storm raged. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled around them like a hundred combines.

  “I’ll open it,” Trina said, but no matter how she fiddled with the knob, the door wouldn’t open. Except this time she didn’t understand why. Why would the house want Charlotte and Edward to stay?

  “Goldenrod,” she begged, as if she could actually see the dusty old lady she’d only sensed blocking her way when she entered the house the first time. “Please.”

  Zaa-huh-zah-huh, the air responded.

  “What is it, Goldenrod? Tell me!” Trina asked desperately.

  This time the air did not respond, but the French doors did. They burst open with a loud creak in a gust of wind. “I think she wants us out of the house. Follow me! This way!” Trina shouted. She ran through the parlor and into the dining room. The French doors were swinging wildly on their hinges, open and shut, open and shut, beckonin
g them outside.

  Trina ran around the dining room table and out through the French doors, with Edward and Charlotte dashing after her.

  Outside, Trina kept the lead, running through the sodden field, stalks of goldenrod grabbing at her legs. When she glanced back at Edward and Charlotte, she felt the hair on her head lift for the sky.

  “Down!” Edward shouted. He charged for Trina’s knees, tackling her as he grabbed Charlotte’s hand and pulled her to the ground with them.

  Down Trina went, slapping into the wet weeds. Charlotte landed on Trina and Edward landed on Charlotte, pushing all the air out of Trina’s lungs. A second later, lightning burst from the menacing clouds and the field lit up like a sunny afternoon—and then a booming crash shook everything around them.

  They lay there in a heap of legs and arms. Wedged under Charlotte, Trina wheezed, “I can’t breathe.”

  “Edward, get off my leg,” Charlotte said, and slowly they untangled themselves.

  The lightning had struck so close, Trina was certain Goldenrod would be on fire. She sat up as quickly as she could and looked at the big old house. Between the shifting clouds, in a haze of moonlight, Goldenrod’s majestic outline stood tall. No flames were licking at the roof. And the turret was still intact. Trina breathed a sigh of relief but she couldn’t take her eyes off the grande dame. She hadn’t been destroyed, but something about her was different. Something Trina couldn’t explain.

  “Is that all the thanks I get for saving your lives? We almost got struck by lightning,” Edward complained.

  “I had no idea what was happening,” Trina said, finally catching her breath. She used a big rock next to her to push herself up and stopped when she noticed it was a flat slab of stone. She immediately knew what it was Goldenrod had been trying to tell her. “Of course,” she said. She saw the flashlight glowing in the weeds near her foot. She reached for it and shined the light on the stone.

  Charlotte crouched next to Trina, and Edward leaned over her shoulder. “Of course, what?” Edward said.

  “It’s a gravestone,” Trina said.

  Chapter Eighteen