She had a desk under the board, and she turned on her computer and adjusted the monitor a bit. Once it was into the operating system, she pulled up the web browser and started typing in keywords.
“Not much is coming up, but there are a few results.” Mandy said as she scrolled through the list.
“Click on that one.” Sasha said, her finger pointing to one search result that looked relevant. “Scroll down a bit.”
“Betsy Frankle, a senior at Everidge High School, was last seen inside the school by one of the teachers. An investigation was made and the teacher was cleared of any suspicion, but no evidence or leads have been discovered or made.” Mandy said, reading the contents of the article aloud.
“They didn’t mention the attic did they?” Sasha asked. Mandy squished her brow together as she scanned the page.
“Not that I can see. Do you want to sit down and look more?” Mandy asked.
“I can’t see well enough from behind you.” Sasha said, squinting her eyes. “You need to get a bigger monitor.”
“Bedroom first, monitor second.” Mandy said with a laugh. “My parents said they’d get me one for Christmas this year. I’ll have to wait on it. They did spend a lot getting this room decorated for me. I mean, there was no way I was going to have my bedroom still look like a pediatrician’s waiting room.”
“But it’s so tiny.” Sasha commented with a long dramatic sigh. Mandy just rolled her eyes, knowing that Sasha was milking the situation and not terribly serious.
“Sasha, it’s seventeen inches. It’s not that bad. I know...you’re used to a twenty-four inch.” Mandy chided.
“I can always look when I get back home.” Sasha mentioned.
Mandy nodded her head, reaching down to the power button on the tower to turn her computer back off. Sasha was just about to tell her that she should go through the shut-down in the operating system as a hard shut-down could lead to issues, but she was interrupted by Mandy. “Right. So I guess they did a police investigation and everything and couldn’t find anything suspicious.”
“It doesn’t say who the teacher was, though.” Sasha remarked, thinking over the contents of the article she had just listened to.
“Yea, I know. It’s not like the teacher was a minor. Usually they release the names.” Mandy agreed.
“Maybe I can work on digging that up and asking the teacher about where he or she last saw her.” Sasha commented.
Mandy flipped an errant hair out of the way as she got up from her computer chair. “We can talk about it later. You might want to start heading home. I think it’s supposed to rain tonight and it’s hard to see without street lights.”
“Living in the country sucks doesn’t it?” Sasha asked with a laugh.
“Sometimes.” Mandy told her.
CHAPTER 4
The next day at school, Sasha was walking in the hallway with Mandy, en route to their next class, when Simon strode up next to them on Sasha’s unattended side.
“Are you excited for class today?” he asked, hinting at their class in the attic. He repositioned the shoulder strap of the bag that he had over one arm.
“I’m more interested on what is behind the door.” Mandy replied.
“I wish they had Brit lit more than twice a week.” Sasha said. “It’s one of my most favorite subjects. Really I like any sort of British history.” In all reality, Sasha had always been drawn to British history. Plenty of places in England were rumored to be haunted. She wished she could go there, but with the economy the way it was and since the death of her father, her mother had been struggling to make ends meet. The real estate market was just now swinging back up.
“Why is that?” Kendra asked, coming up from behind. Mandy rolled her eyes.
Sasha was more vocal. “Thanks for evesdropping.” she muttered, angry and condescending.
“Not like anything you talk about is ever really that much of a secret.” the cheerleader said with a huff.
“Except the missing girl, apparently.” Mandy said, noting the lack of information she was able to find.
“Besides that.” Kendra smirked as the rest of the group continued on to their next class, which they had all together.
“Anyway...” Sasha said, trying to lead them out of a cat fight. “I find American history to be pretty void of any culture. Mostly everything has European roots, and with immigration it’s a cluster of everyone else’s culture. I like to read about the source.”
“What about Native Americans?” Mandy offered. “They are full of their own culture.”
“But what has changed in thousands of years?” Sasha asked, her tone serious.
“Casinos...?” Kendra said. Sasha just made a mental note of how intellectually shallow Kendra was to stereotype a race.
Mandy agreed with Sasha. “You have a point.”
“It’s nothing like the Crusades, the fabulous tales of Kind Arthur and Robin Hood...the scandalous monarchy.” Sasha said, excitement creeping into her voice.
Simon stopped at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading upwards. “Well here we are.” he said.
“The attic.” Sasha said in almost a whisper.
“You girls wanna go in first?” Simon asked, waving his hand up the stairs. He said this with a tinge of sarcasm to his voice, as if it was meant to scare them.
“I’m not afraid of a room.” Sasha said as she lightly pushed Simon out of the way. As soon as she got to the top of the stairs and opened the door to the room she was hit with a flood of emotions and something more. She stopped dead in her tracks, noticing figures walking in front of the door on the other side of the attic. This must be the door Simon was talking about.
“What’s wrong?” Mandy asked as she walked up and noticed her friend’s face had turned ashen white. She’d been with Sasha long enough to know something paranormal was happening. It didn’t happen very often. The last time was when they had visited a nursing home to go caroling. As soon as she had entered that nursing home, Sasha remembered a dream she had that depicted the very same building. Sasha later found out that her great grandmother was supposed to live there before she died unexpectedly.
“Something.” Sasha answered hesitantly. Mandy was the only one that knew her secret and she didn’t want to let on. The conversation would have to wait until later.
“What do you mean ‘something’?” Simon wondered as he came up from behind them.
“Nevermind.” Sasha told him, though through a barely audible whisper, she turned to Mandy and said, “I’ll tell you later.”
Kendra walked past Sasha, more like pushed past as Sasha was still blocking the door. “They did an excellent job with the remodel in here.” They all walked into the classroom.
“Yea they did.” Simon said, looking around quickly, before asking, “Wanna open the door?”
“No.” Sasha said solidly. “Not now. Later.”
“Hype-killer.” Simon said jokingly.
Mandy looked up at the clock in the classroom. “Class is going to start soon. We can talk about it later. It’s not like we have to mess with it right this minute. It’s not going anywhere.” Since this was still the first week of classes, all the desks were unclaimed.
“I call the seat in the back corner!” Kendra exclaimed, running towards the desk.
“Go for it.” Mandy said, nonchalantly. Mandy didn’t really care where she sat, but knew something was wrong with Sasha so she left the seating arrangements up to her.
“I’m taking the seat up front, closest to the exit.” Sasha said, wanting to be as far away from the attic door and the ghostly figures as possible.
“Why?” Simon wondered, taking a seat in between the front and back. The middle was safe. Far enough from the front where all the “goody-goody’s” were, but close enough that the teacher didn’t think you’d be a slacker for sitting in the back and call you out.
“I like being in the front sometimes.” Sasha commented. Mandy took her lead and found a spot behind her.
It was easier to pass notes that way.
“Oh...kay.” Simon stated, raising his eyebrows in consternation.
CHAPTER 5
Sasha joined up with Mandy as they headed into the cafeteria. The clattering of plates and utensils was almost musical if it wasn’t overcome with talking and eating. Being frugal, Sasha’s mother never gave her money for a school lunch, so she always had a packed one. Mandy didn’t want Sasha to feel bad, so she packed one as well. It was probably healthier anyway.
As they said down on the picnic-table styled seating, Mandy plopped the contents of her brown bag onto the table. She turned to Sasha and asked, “So now that we are ‘alone’, what happened in there?”
“I know I tried to not make a big deal out of it, but it seriously creeped me out.” Sasha said with a long deep breath.
“Did you feel something?” Mandy asked. Sometimes Sasha had uneasy feelings, ominous sensations that something bad was going to happen or had happened.
“I saw something.” Sasha said under her breath.
“You did?” Mandy wondered, almost excitedly, as Sasha began to rummage through her lunch bag. “Have you ever seen things before?”
“No. That’s why it took me off-guard. You are the only one who knows about my ‘other’ sense and I didn’t want anyone to freak out — especially Kendra. The last thing I need is for her to go around telling the whole school I’m nuts.” Sasha said, taking a bite of the sandwich she’d made.
“What did you see, then?” Mandy asked.
“People.” Sasha said, describing her encounter in more detail. “Almost as if they were shadows. They were hovering around that door. It looked as though they were lost.”
“Did you recognize any of them?” Mandy asked.
“Some of them were older, and some younger. Weird clothes. I was wondered if anyone could have been Betsy, but I didn’t know how she looks.” Sasha explained. Mandy finished off her lunch quickly. Chips, a sandwich, and an apple didn’t take long to eat. She had a bottle of water with her that she could take throughout the school, so she wasn’t keen on downing it all at once. Sasha was almost done with her lunch as Mandy said,
“We could go through the yearbooks now if you want. We still have a bit more time of lunch. We could go over to the library.”
“That’s a good idea.” Sasha commented. “I’m sort of afraid of what I’ll find out, but excited at the same time.”
“It’s a new experience for you.” Mandy said sympathetically. “I can understand that.”
No, Mandy couldn’t ever really understand. She’d never had to live with what Sasha had for so many years since the accident. That’s when everything started up.
“They were scared.” Sasha said, remembering the flood of emotions from the classroom. “I could feel it.”
“Let’s just go to the library.” Mandy dismissed Sasha. “Refocus yourself.”
“Yea.” Sasha said, knowing that Mandy still believed her and she just wanted her to calm down.
CHAPTER 6
As Sasha and Mandy sat down in the library, Indian-style on the floor, they browsed through a small stack of yearbooks. For some of her years in high school, Betsy had apparently missed the class photo sessions and was just listed under “photo unavailable”.
“Okay, so I’ve got last year’s yearbook. I don’t remember what her last name was.” Mandy said, flipping open the book and shuffling through the pages.
“Frankle. I remember you reading it from the news article online.” Sasha offered. Realization struck Mandy and she nodded.
“Oh yea. Let me see...” Mandy started. She shuffled through some more pages until she found what she was looking for and stopped. “Here she is.”
“Woah.” Sasha said breathlessly, and her heart raced.
“You recognize her?” Mandy asked.
“Totally.” Sasha said, a slight shiver drawing up through her spine. “Even though the people I saw were pretty faint, I remember the face. It was like she turned to look at me. Almost straight through me.”
“So why do you think they were lost...or looked lost?” Mandy inquired. Sasha just threw up her hands lightly.
“I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know if all of them even disappeared from here. Some looked old. I’m not just talking facial appearances. Their clothes looked old. Like they were out of our time.”
“What do you mean, ‘out of our time’?” Mandy wondered. Sometimes Sasha gave cryptic explanations.
“Like they were from the early 1900s. Victorian-style clothes.” Sasha said in remembrance.
“That’s about when our school was built. They’ve obviously added on since then. I know the attic would be at least that old.” Mandy noted.
“It’s so weird. I wonder if they could see me.” Sasha said, her mind foggy with all of the details of the past few hours.
“Now I know why you wanted to sit up in the front.” Mandy chuckled and Sasha turned to face her.
“With my back being that close to them, that’s exactlty why I was up near the front.” Sasha shuddered as Mandy laughed.
“You are like never near the front.” Mandy said.
“Which is why Simon was surprised.” Sasha recollected.
“Should we tell him?” Mandy asked tentatively. She hung out with Simon a lot and she wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, especially from her friends.
“No.” Sasha stated.
“What are you going to do then?” Mandy wondered.
“I’m going to see what’s on the other side of the door.” Sasha said, getting up off of the floor and taking some of the yearbooks with her to put back. Mandy got up soon after.
“Alone?” Mandy asked, her face twisted in puzzlement. Why would Sasha exclude her?
“I mean, you guys can come with if you want. I’m not going to tell him about what I’ve seen. Like I said, I don’t want to freak people out.” Sasha said as she inserted the yearbooks back on the library shelf, making sure they were in the right chronological order.
Sasha worked in a library the previous year as her mom demanded she make some money to help with the bills. It was boring work, but it did create a bit of OCD when it came to visiting libraries. The Dewey Decimal System was a hard one to forget and it did come in handy when she was looking for topics for research projects as she could just buzz directly to the correct section. Still, she was glad her mom let her quit once she got more clients.
“It could just be nothing, right?” Mandy inquired.
“Oh there is something going on, all right. What that something is — totally beyond me.” Sasha told her as she finished putting the last book into place.
“Then why do you want to open that door?” Mandy asked as she leaned on a bookcase next to Sasha.
“I have to.” Sasha stated. “I have to find out what’s going on. Why those people are drawn to the door. What happened to them.”
Mandy was frusted at Sasha, as she didn’t understand the connection between the attic and the door on the far end. Why would they be connected to each other? “The answer just has to be on the other side, then?”
“Yes.” Sasha told her. They walked out of the library as Mandy started,
“But Simon said the door leads nowhere. Don’t you remember him saying that?”
“I don’t believe it.” Sasha said with a sigh. “It’s not like he’s opened the door and walked through.”
“True.” Mandy conceded. “So when do you want to do it?”
“It will have to be after school. When don’t you have band practice?” Sasha asked, a little unnerved as well with Mandy’s constant questioning.
“We are off on Wednesdays. Tomorrow?” Mandy offered.
“Works for me. It’s not like you can prepare for this stuff.” Sasha said to her.
“What stuff?” Mandy wondered.
“Investigating the unknown.” Sasha said, as though it were common knowledge.
“We should tell Simon. He’s going to wonder.”
It was true. Simon would have the time off from soccer practice on that day as well and they all hung out together at the dairy shed in town on their day off. He’d wonder where they had gone.
“You can. I’m not.”
“Fine.” Mandy said, crossing her arms after putting her backpack on. “I’ll talk to him after school. He’s got soccer practice and we always have some time to chat before practice starts for both of us.” She paused in thought. “What about Kendra?”
Sasha huffed. Why was Mandy considering dragging along little miss loud mouth? “What about her?”
“Are we going to tell her about it?” Mandy asked sweetly.
“Do we need to?” Sasha groaned.
“Well she’s annoyingly persistent. Like Simon in a way. I’d rather invite her than hear her whine and complain about us investigating the door without her.” Mandy approached her locker, a few feet away from Sasha. She fiddled with the lock and opened it up as Sasha replied,
“She did sound interested in it.”
“That’s what I mean.” Mandy said, binders in hand as she shut the locker door. At almost the exact moment, the warning bell for class rang.
“I’ll see you later.” Sasha said, with a wave.
“Bye.”
CHAPTER 7
The sound of students warming up on their instruments mingled with the atheletes outside. The softball team was on a diamond near the band field, bats cracking with the impact of the ball. The soccer players were getting ready for practice by juggling.
Mandy walked over to Simon, who was alternating juggling kicks on either leg. She held her clarinet behind her in case the ball decided to fly somewhere it wasn’t supposed to. “Hey Simon.” she said to him.
“What’s up?” Simon asked, picking the ball out of the air and holding it while he conversed with her.
“Sasha wants to go and investigate the attic tomorrow. After school.” Mandy told him.
“I don’t have practice tomorrow.” Simon realized. Mandy nodded, knowing full well he didn’t.
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