The Haunting of Hounds Hollow

by Jeffrey Salane

  “What’s the third rule?” he asked.

  “For you? Always flush. Now put that glass in the sink when you’re done,” Eartha instructed. Then she winked and left the kitchen.

  Lucas nudged the keys as if they might be alive. He felt the cold metal and weight against his knuckle. They were all different shapes and sizes, like an evolution time line of keys. There were old wide-toothed brass keys, short silver keys, even the credit card type of keys that hotels use for their rooms. A scent of grease and chimney fires loomed in the air over the keys, which made Lucas feel oddly relaxed and at home. The spell was quickly broken when he heard shredding buzz saws come to life outside. Shaking his head, Lucas downed the rest of his juice and brought his empty glass to the sink.

  Out of the window, Sweetwater Manor towered over the trees. The house was yellow with green shutters … or at least this side of the house was yellow with green shutters. It was the first time he’d seen the mansion in the daylight, and it was gorgeous.

  He washed the glass in the sink. Knowing how crazy Eartha was about no-flushers, he didn’t want to find out how she felt about dirty-dish-in-the-sink-leavers, too. He reached for a towel to dry the glass, when he heard a loud bang. The noise came from the base of the kitchen door, where a small metal flap was swinging open back and forth.

  “Is that a dog door?” Lucas got on his hands and knees to study it. As he pushed it open, the heat of the outdoors tumbled inside as if the morning was breathing on him.

  The forest was close to Eartha’s house. Lucas reached his hand outside and could almost touch the trees. He’d never in his life lived this close to nature. He stared at it like he was studying a statue in a museum. The wilderness was a mysterious work of art to him in the same way a statue was once a hunk of rock and then something new had blossomed from it. Just then, a shadow moved in the trees—or at least Lucas thought he saw a shadow.

  “Stop freaking yourself out,” he whispered. He heard a scuffling sound outside, and the bushes next to the back door bounced as if they were alive.

  “Hello?” asked Lucas, as if anyone was going to answer him. For a moment, the morning remained quiet.

  Until he felt something sharp dig into his leg.

  If Lucas’s parents had heard the gasp that erupted from him, they would have called an ambulance right away. It sounded like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

  He whipped around to find Lucky kneading away at the blanket around Lucas. The cat’s claws plucked carelessly at his legs.

  “Get off!” Lucas said, then he flapped the blanket and sent Lucky skirting across the floor and back upstairs with a hiss.

  “It’s not nice to scare the cat,” said Mom from the bottom of the stairs.

  “He scared me first,” Lucas argued.

  “That’s still no reason to scare the cat. What in the world are you doing?” She was putting on her shoes and wore a very determined look on her face.

  “Uh, exploring?” He went to stand up but slipped on the blanket and fell back to the floor with a smack. “Uh, exploring … gracefully?”

  “Congratulations, Einstein, you found a dog door,” said Mom. “Now if you really want to explore, let’s go see our new house. Your father seems to think it’s haunted. Wanna find out?”

  Lucas didn’t. But when Mom had her determined look on, it was best to follow her into battle. This was the face that launched a thousand bake sales for his school and single-handedly took over the PTA. Plus, Lucas wasn’t sure if he could handle another night at Eartha’s. It was time to confront his weird future home. “Yeah, I’d love to. Just let me get dressed.”

  As they headed to the giant home, the first thing Lucas noticed was how the house shone in the sunlight. It was almost too bright to look at.

  A small group of trees separated the two homes, but walking through it, he realized that every tree, plant, and bush had been cultivated to build an artistic barrier from the cottage. What seemed like a wild forest last night was actually an intricate garden that ushered visitors toward the house. As the wind blew, Lucas felt himself being pulled forward.

  A porch stretched across the entire front of the mansion. It was tucked under an extended roof that gave the open space plenty of shade. Arches jutted up and down along the porch to give the house a ski lodge look.

  “It’s a craftsman,” Mom said.

  “A what?” asked Lucas, wincing in the bright sun.

  “A craftsman is a building style,” his mom answered. “Craftsman houses are known for their beauty and hand-built design. You see the arches over the deep porch, the stained-glass windows, the detailed woodwork that covers this house from top to bottom? Those were all created by hand. Probably by builders that were more artists than contractors.”

  Lucas could see exactly what his mother meant. The place looked like a living dollhouse, but not a plastic one. More like those weird, old, collectible dollhouses that people on TV showed to experts who guessed how much their dollhouses were worth. And they were usually worth a lot.

  The house didn’t seem like it belonged here, in the middle of the forest, hidden like a diamond. It was the kind of home that was made for a movie set or the cover of a magazine, the kind of house that’s supposed to make the rest of the world envious. Lucas counted three stories to the house. At least that’s the way it looked from the outside. The front of the house weaved in and out of the lawn and then disappeared behind a row of trees.

  Who knows, thought Lucas. It could be one hundred times bigger than it looks from the front. Then he remembered their long drive the night before just to get around the enormous building. Lucas had a feeling they were only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

  Mom held up the red key and walked toward the front door. “Let’s take this puppy for a drive, shall we?”

  Lucas followed, tiptoeing up the wide wooden stairs that had grown smooth but rickety over time. He could feel the house ease under him, creaking and sinking with every step. The front door was a deep brown slab of wood with a full stained-glass window set in the middle of it. The placement of the stained glass was eerie under the porch, where the bright sun almost disappeared. Lucas felt a cold breeze in the strange shade that made him shudder. The pattern on the stained-glass looked like a hooded figure lurking in the doorway—a shadow waiting for them just on the other side. In the folds of the figure’s cloak, Lucas thought he saw the shadow holding a whip trapped forever in a lashing motion.

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” said Mom. “Why would someone put a stained-glass window in a place where it would never see sunlight?”

  Then, as if by magic, a light came on from inside the house and the window was transformed. What looked hidden and dangerous to Lucas one second became beautiful the next. The design wasn’t a creepy demon holding a whip; with the light shining through the stained-glass, Lucas could see a sun with beams breaking through the clouds. It was heavenly and inviting. He felt himself drawn closer to the house again.

  As his mom set the key in the lock, the light pulsed brighter. It’s angry was Lucas’s gut reaction. The house is angry and it doesn’t want us here.

  Suddenly, the light flared into an explosive flash and the sound of shattering echoed from above them. Lucas’s mom practically tackled him out of the way as shards of glass rained down on where they had been standing.

  Then the worst possible thing happened: Lucas lost his breath.

  “No, no, no,” Mom said in a quiet but serious tone. “Not here, not now. It’s okay, just focus, relax, and breathe.” She rubbed his shoulders and took deep breaths with him. The low, haunting drone of white noise brought him back to the moment.

  “I’m okay,” Lucas wheezed.

  Her hands moved from his shoulders to trace over his face and scalp, looking for any cuts from the glass. Lucas looked past her and up to the ceiling, where a black mark charred the paint. It floated above them like a disturbed spirit.

  “Voilà!”

  Lucas and his mothe
r jumped at the sound of a voice behind them.

  “We have electricity!” Dad said, appearing out of nowhere.

  “KYLE!” Mom snapped, clutching her chest. “You blew up a light bulb and the light fixture exploded right above us! You could have given Lucas another serious attack!”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to,” Dad said with a shrug. “It looks like everyone’s okay, just a little spooked.”

  Mom shot him a glare. “No. Jokes. Kyle.”

  “What? I promise,” he continued. “It wasn’t a joke, it’s an old house. I had the electric company turn the power back on. Are you okay, champ?”

  Lucas’s mom stood up and slid the broken glass over with her shoe so that no one would step on it. Then she unlocked the door and turned the oblong, brass knob until it clicked. As the heavy door swung open, an unexpected odor drifted from the inside.

  “Is that … ,” Dad began with a sniff, “roses?”

  Lucas nodded. The house smelled like the cleanest, safest place he could imagine, like the Garden of Eden from the Bible, or his kindergarten classroom. He inhaled the scent deeply and the high-pitched whistle from his wheezing disappeared.

  “See?” Dad whispered to Mom. “Lucas is better already. We made the right choice.”

  Mom’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit, then she smiled. “You’re still cleaning up this glass and replacing that fixture, Kyle.”

  The family entered a grand hallway that opened up to a double staircase. Everything around them was made of fine, dark wood that had been carved and polished to look as soft and regal as marble. The sweeping banisters flowed from the upstairs to the downstairs like arms reaching out to hug Lucas. Even the floor had inlaid designs that were gorgeous and intricate. It was like his mom said, the builders really had been artists.

  “Goodbye, tiny apartment,” said Lucas.

  “Hello, Great Gatsby’s house,” said Dad.

  Mom was speechless. She walked around touching the walls, the banisters, peeking into the rooms set off to either side of the hallway. “Kyle, is this real?”

  “If it’s not, then we’re all having the same dream,” said Dad. “And I think that’s impossible.”

  Lucas watched as his parents gasped at this and that: the chandelier, the lush furniture, the multiple fireplaces, the parquet floors (whatever that meant). As his parents moved from room to room, Lucas turned and closed the front door. From this side, the heavenly sunbeams in the stained-glass window were gone and the hooded figure returned. Lucas shuddered seeing the stranger again, but then he reminded himself that it was only glass. The hooded figure was all in his imagination.

  He could still hear his parents’ voices in the house but couldn’t see them. They had moved on to other rooms deeper in the mansion.

  “Mom?” Lucas called. “I’m going to take a look around, okay?”

  “Fine, but don’t go too far,” her voice reached back to him. Then he heard her say, “Where’s the kitchen? I need to see the kitchen.”

  Lucas roamed through the space, taking in everything from the widest rooms to the tallest ceilings he’d ever seen in his life. He walked up one set of stairs, running his hands along the banister railing. It was cold and smooth to the touch. The steps were deep, too—deeper than the hallway steps leading up to his old two-bedroom apartment in the city.

  At the top of the stairs was a long, wide hall lined with closed doors. It was more like a hotel than a house. Lucas tried the first door and discovered a luxurious bathroom that was bigger than his old kitchen. The second door led to a bedroom with a four-poster bed. There was a giant white bowl on the dresser, too, and the two windows in the room stretched all the way up the wall.

  The third door, though, was jammed.

  As he pulled it, a small scratching sound came from behind the door. “Lucky?” Lucas asked into the empty hallway. “Did you follow us over here?”

  Lucky was an escape artist. Lucas couldn’t count the number of times he’d found his cat perched on the fire escape outside their locked window. If that cat could sneak out of their apartment, getting out of Eartha’s cottage would be a cinch.

  “Come on,” Lucas muttered as he pulled harder at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The scratching became louder, then stopped. Lucas anchored his foot beside the door and pulled a third time. Violently, the door swung open and Lucas tumbled backward, clunking his head against the wall. It didn’t hurt, but it was embarrassing.

  “Why are you such a spaz?” he asked himself as he rubbed the back of his head. But when Lucas looked up, he was surprised. “That’s weird.”

  The open door didn’t lead to another bedroom. In fact, it didn’t lead anywhere at all. Lucas sat face-to-face with a red brick wall that filled and blocked the doorway. He gave the wall a solid knock and the rough, uneven bricks scraped against his knuckles. Someone had built a door here, but no room. Lucas studied the back of the door he’d just opened. There was no doorknob on the other side.

  Lucas shut the door and noticed a strange shape etched into the doorknob. He traced the shape with his fingers. It was a bone, and it was fashioned crudely into the brass knob, scratched like a kid had made it. Lucas wouldn’t have noticed it on a regular door, but this door was … unexpected … he thought it was worth a second look.

  As Lucas moved deeper into the house, the rooms became fewer and farther between. Dark green wallpaper lined the halls, casting a dull glow around him. Light fixtures hung like old lanterns on the walls. Lucas’s shadow pushed in front of him, then swung behind him as he moved in and out of their light.

  That’s when he saw it. No—not it. Him.

  Standing at the end of the long hall was a boy. Or at least Lucas thought it was a boy. The two of them froze in place, like they had caught each other doing something wrong.

  Lucas smiled and waved, and the boy waved back.

  “Oh, thank goodness! I was beginning to think I’d seen a ghost,” Lucas said, not even wondering why there was a strange kid in his new house. “My name’s Lucas. My family just moved in.”

  The boy didn’t answer. He looked to be the same age as Lucas, though at this distance and in the murky light, it was hard to see anything. Slowly, Lucas moved forward. “Are you with the workers?”

  The boy started to tremble nervously. Then the lights on the walls began to dim. Without thinking, Lucas jogged forward to meet the kid at the end of the hall as the lights flickered into a dull brown.

  “Are you lost?” Lucas asked as he closed the gap between them. “Do you need help?”

  The kid’s head flicked up and down, then left and right, searching in all different directions—almost as if he was looking for a way to escape. Then the boy tensed up like he was about to run away.

  “Don’t run! There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Lucas, but as he came closer, he could tell that the kid was about to bolt. Had Lucas caught someone breaking into the house?

  Suddenly all the lights clicked off and the sound of heavy footfalls echoed through the hallway. The other kid was running right at him! In the darkness, Lucas braced himself and put his hands up to tackle the stranger, but then the footsteps … stopped?

  Lucas called out, “I’m really just trying to help! Are you still there?”

  His heart pounded in his chest as he strained to hear anything beyond its crazy thumping. That’s when the footsteps ran away from him. Quickly, Lucas followed the sound, running with his hands outstretched and—WHAM! He crashed into the back wall at the end of the hallway and nobody was there.

  Lucas jumped up as the lights flickered back on. A carbon copy of Lucas stared back at him through a mirror that reached from floor to ceiling. He let out a slow, deep breath. It hadn’t been another kid in the house. It was only his reflection.

  “Seeing things again,” Lucas wheezed. He grabbed his inhaler and shook it before taking a deep breath. Once his breathing steadied, he stuck his tongue out at the mirror.

  The doctors had told his parents th
at it wasn’t unusual for Lucas to “mistake things” in his condition. That’s how they said it: mistake things. It had to do with the amount of oxygen that reached his brain. Who knew that weak lungs could be so weird?

  But this was one situation where Lucas was happy to be wrong about the other kid.

  Lucas stared in the mirror. He didn’t quite look exactly like himself. Lucas scratched his head. In the mirror, his reflection scratched its head, too.

  But a different person stood in the mirror. The Lucas who lived in the city would have gone back to the safety of his room and his parents after a scare like that. The Lucas in the mirror had a chance for a new beginning in Sweetwater Manor. Wasn’t that why his parents had moved him here?

  The hallway split off into two directions from where Lucas stood. One headed to the left and one headed to the right. The way back was behind him. Lucas decided to go left.

  Every step in the new hallway echoed with a soft creak from the wide, wooden floorboards. Lucas was deep inside the house now, perhaps in an older part of the building. The wallpaper in the hall was a yellowish cream. Lucas imagined that it was once a bright white, but time had dampened its color. The sweet rose smell faded here, replaced by an earthier scent, like cinnamon. Lucas coughed as if grit was catching in his throat.

  He wanted to go back downstairs. There was no need to discover all the secrets in Silas’s house today. He was going to live here for years. That was plenty of time to find the lost gold or treasure maps or whatever else was probably hidden in this screwball place.

  Lucas turned to leave, when he heard a clicking noise. It came from down the hall and sounded like someone typing slowly on a keyboard.

  “Hello?” Lucas leaned in closer and listened.

  Meow.

  The call was faint, but Lucas knew it anywhere. “Lucky,” he said with exasperation. “You crazy cat. Where are you?”

  Meow, the cat answered from farther down the hallway. Lucas could barely make out a set of doors in the shadows. One of them slowly opened. “Stay there, I’m coming.”