The clicks of my shoes echoed ominously, bouncing off vaulted ceilings into unexplored hallways. On the ceiling, light exploded off cobwebbed crystal chandeliers into hundreds of tiny rainbows. I quickly discovered that the house had three floors and a cellar with too many rooms on each level to bother counting. After a half hour of aimless wandering, I drifted into one of the lifeless bedrooms to absorb the reality of our new home.
Sunlight filtered in through a long window, which also offered a pleasant view of the driveway. Because the room was situated within a corner of the house, another window provided a clear view of the side of my neighbor's house. For the first time, I clearly saw the weathered condition of the residence beside ours. What had once been a marvelous work of architecture now bore the scars of time in its cracking paint and sagging frame. Behind frosted glass, gaping blackness held the secrets of prior tenants.
In a passing glance, I thought I glimpsed a flash of a pale face in the downstairs window. My eyes probed the shadowy window for the face, but I never found it again. I shook my head briskly. My mind must have been playing tricks on me.
The more I forced myself to ignore the window, the more I felt with the strangest certainty that someone was watching me. But I was probably just being absurd. Sheesh, what was wrong with me these days? I fell onto the bed, the sheets of which matched the deep violet walls. While fiddling with the lacy sheets (somehow completely bug-free), I heard the floor creak behind me, and I turned around in alarm, my hand flying to my throat.
"Crap, Matt, it's just you. Don't surprise me like that!" I recovered my composure and kept the fleeting fear from my eyes. "The house, it's stunning. I can't believe it's ours."
"Neither can I. What luck, right?" Matt raised his eyebrows. "You know, if you want this room, you can have it. Heather's already called the blue one down the hall."
"What about you? Don't you want it?"
Matt shook his head. "Purple's not really my color. Besides, I'm probably going to end up taking the master anyway."
"Thanks," I shot him an appreciative smile. "I like this room." Well, except for the creepy window.
Finished staking out her sleeping quarters, Heather skipped into the room and let out a low whistle. "Wow, this room is big! Why didn't I pick this one?" She tossed her hair and scowled at her misfortune. "I'm going to try not to complain though. I'm in a good mood today." Or at least she was in a better one, now that she was no longer around Jess.
I was about to sarcastically thank her for her generosity when my stomach growled ferociously.
"Look who's hungry," Matt noted. "Where do you all want to go for dinner?"
Heather’s eyes lit up at the mention of food. "Italian!"
"Hold on," I broke in. "Jess is still downstairs, and we smell like the inside of our musty old car. Let Jess finish first, then let’s unpack and shower, and then we can go." I hesitated. Suddenly I felt as if I were encroaching on the authoritative position of my mother.
Frowning, Heather whined loudly and marched out the door. But I caught Matt grinning at me with a hint of pride before following her out.
Chapter Three
In oversized sweatpants and a t-shirt, I sat cross-legged in the fancy leather seat of the bustling Italian restaurant. Before leaving the house, I had quickly slid my wet hair into a messy bun, which now hung in damp tendrils around my neck. Since I had thrown on the first articles of clothing on the top of my suitcase, I was completely underdressed for the posh "Grande Ristorante Italiano." Hell, I probably would have looked sloppy at a McDonalds.
Biting my lip, I hastily chose a chicken dish from the extensive menu. As I was about to snap it shut, I noticed a group of friends sitting at a secluded table in the corner of the restaurant. From behind the shelter of my menu, I observed them laughing raucously at something an excited girl with bouncing pigtails had said. I sighed forlornly. Four months ago I would have looked like any one of them, chattering away with my closest friend over dinner at the mall. But all that had changed now. The only people I knew within a nine hundred mile radius were my sister and my brother.
One of the boys from the group caught me staring absent mindedly at their table and looked at me with peculiar amusement. Ashamed, I averted my eyes and ducked behind my menu.
The rest of the dinner proceeded quickly, and Matt, Heather, and I found ourselves back at home in our separate rooms within an hour. Just as I had contentedly plopped down onto my bed, my phone buzzed in my messenger bag hanging from the bed frame. Hoisting myself off the mattress, I stuck my hand into my bag and blindly grabbed for the device.
Upon activating the screen, I discovered three text messages from Dylan, my best friend. I guess I wasn't checking my phone enough. The messages read 1. Just a heads up, I'm using ur old locker 2 store my comic collection 2. Seen any cowboys yet? 3. AMBER! Steve Jobs did not invent ur phone 4 u 2 ignore it!
Blowing my hair out of my face, I typed out, Sorry, gosh. Patience, please. No cowboys -- this may be Texas, but it's still the twenty-first century.
Immediately Dylan texted back, How about longhorn cattle?
Before I had a chance to respond, a picture I had taken of him sleeping in math class popped up on my screen, alerting me that I had an incoming call. I answered it without having to think.
"So, did you see any cattle?"
I was taken off guard by the wave of relief I felt just in hearing the familiar tone of his voice. With spotty cell phone coverage along the highway and the rush of moving, I had barely heard from him for two weeks.
"Well, yeah," I admitted. "But no cowboys."
"Who do you think are raising the cattle?" Dylan said slyly.
"Uh, ranchers. Don't be silly, Dylan. Anyway, I'll need to Skype you so you can see our new home, because it looks like it fell from the pages of a fairytale."
"Tomorrow, maybe. I've got an exam to study for. Speaking of which, when are you going back to school? It's already, like, the middle of the first semester."
I tensely wound a strand of hair around my index finger. The inevitable approach of school always made me panic in a way that I felt was fairly close to a premature mid-life crisis.
"In two days, I think. Matt still needs to call and get Heather and me enrolled." I sighed sadly. "I can't believe I live in Texas now."
"Yeah, imagine how boring your life's going to be without me," Dylan teased, trying to lighten my mood.
"But we'll still keep in touch, so not everything's changing, right?" I asked seriously.
"Right, of course. We'll still be friends," Dylan confirmed. I could tell he was surprised that I even felt the need to ask. "No matter what. But, hey, aren’t you two hours ahead? You should probably get to bed –er, sorry, I meant hit the hay. What with you being a cowboy and all."
I groaned. I had completely forgotten about the time difference. "You're right, it's pretty late.”
“I wish I knew the antonym of howdy,” Dylan mused thoughtfully. His obsession with stereotypes was incorrigible.
“I’m going to sleep.” Even though I tried to sound upset, I still ended up smiling.
I hung up and collapsed onto my bed with a loud huff. I couldn't believe that I was going to have to suffer through the rest of high school separated from my best friend by a thousand miles.
Chapter Four
The next morning I awoke to a resounding metallic crash. I leapt out of my bed half unconscious and stumbled over my own feet as I hunted for what had pulled me from the depths of my first good dream in days. Of course, what with my terrible sense of direction, I ended up getting lost before I was finally able to follow the racket into the kitchen. I was greeted by a mess of pots and pans strewn all over the floor, with Matt muttering under his breath as he knelt to pick them up.
"Morning Matt. Uh, what happened here?"
Matt looked up, startled. Obviously he had not noticed me. It only took him a moment to regain his constantly sunny disposition, one I could not help but suspect he forced for the sake of Heather and
me.
"Morning Amber!” he chirped. He even looked like a bird when he said it, with his bright eyes and singsong inflections. “I was just moving a box of kitchenware I found in the pantry. It was heavier than I thought it would be."
Behind him, an abused cardboard box lay sideways on the floor, a gaping hole through its base. I crouched to help him collect the explosion of pots on the ground.
"You know, before we can use these dishes, we're going to need to buy food first."
"I'm about to go to the store. You can watch yourself and your sister here for about an hour, right?" Matt placed the last pot on the counter with satisfaction and brushed his hands on his pants.
"Matt. We've stayed home alone before. You don't need to worry about us," I looked at him earnestly, ceasing the opportunity to minimize his responsibilities. The last time we had all lived together, I had been a little older than ten. Heather and I didn’t need a babysitter anymore, and he wasn't our dad.
When our parents had died, Matt was only twenty-four and had just graduated from the University of Iowa with a writing degree. Although he had originally aspired to go to New York, he immediately moved back to California and assumed guardianship of my sister and me. Singlehandedly keeping Heather and me afloat, he took care of all the responsibilities that used to belong to our parents, including paying the bills. Fortunately, what with their sizeable life insurance policies and savings, our parents had already prepared for the worst-case scenario and left us with more than sufficient funds to support ourselves. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel as if Matt were restraining himself for the sake of Heather and me. He should have been making mistakes with his other writer friends in New York City, being young and stupid and reckless. But here he was – a middle aged man at twenty-four, with no parents and two kids to take care of. I couldn’t even remember the last time he had been on a date.
"Well, I guess you're right. I'll be back in a bit." Matt absentmindedly swung the keys to our beat-up minivan around his finger. "Tell Heth I'm gone."
"Sure. Take your time.”
When I found Heather, she was snoring under a mountain of covers, and I knew better than to wake the sleeping beast. With nothing better to do, I decided that I might as well familiarize myself with the house so that I could avoid getting lost like an idiot again. I roamed the hallways, tediously exploring every nook and cranny. The unbroken pin drop silence of the house was deafening, and my ears rang.
In the upstairs hallway I came across a locked slender door. As much as I pounded and jiggled the handle, it wouldn't budge. I probably would have left it alone and forgotten about it, had it not been for the disturbing face engraved on the knob. A gaping mouth with an unhinged jaw had been molded into it to make it look like it was screaming. The people who had built this place must have had a rather dark taste in décor. Upon further inspection, I found that it also possessed the “absurd little metal doohickey" Jess had claimed to be a second lock. Except on this door, it was the only lock.
Although I suspected that it was probably just a linen closet that the old tenants had forgotten to unlock, I felt an inexplicable urge to open it. Inspired by Jess' success with our locks, I retrieved a paperclip, a butter knife, and my emergency credit card. Laying the utensils in front of the door, I assessed the best way to attack the situation. Stabbing the doorknob with the butter knife didn't work, and the door only chipped the edges of my credit card. Clearly, lock picking in television shows wasn't very reliable. Since the door lacked a normal lock, I would have to find a way to pick the unusual cavity, something Jess couldn’t even do. With a sigh of impatience, I jammed the paperclip into the space, effectively snapping it in two. I swore softly and bent over the knob to make sure that I hadn’t damaged it. As I leaned toward the door, my mother’s necklace slipped out from under my shirt, and I jumped back at the sight of its unnatural radiance.
A soft bright haze was emanating from the center of the orb, similar to the liquid inside a glow stick. For a second I was afraid that I had broken it. It was fully intact, though, and dimly shining in some ethereal way I did not even realize was possible. After all, I had never seen the necklace do such a thing when it had belonged to my mother.
My eyes went to the locking cavity in the door, and then back to the necklace. Something in my brain clicked. As crazy as it seemed, their shapes seemed to complement each other. I removed the chain from my neck and placed the orb into the orifice.
It fit perfectly.
I turned the orb clockwise until it popped out in release. A chemical hiss emerged from within the door, followed by little clicks and clangs. After a final metal sliding noise, everything became silent.
I gingerly placed my hand on the knob. The piercing sting of insanely cold metal shocked me, and I jumped back in surprise. It hadn’t been like that before. Anticipating the temperature, I grabbed the knob again and twisted. The door seemed heavy, like metal, and the instant I cracked it open, a freezing gust of air burst out from behind it, slamming the door against the wall and knocking me onto the floor. Dazed, I peered inside the room, half-expecting the door to have led directly out into open air. But the room inside was windowless, and therefore pitch-black. Where could that gust have come from?
While I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, my stomach squirmed uncomfortably. The room appeared too deep to be just a closet. I shuddered at my memories of corny horror movies in which serial killers and monsters lurked in every shadow. Although Dylan and I had always laughed at the ridiculous plots and ignorance of the main characters, now the films seemed a little closer to reality.
I breathed deeply and forced myself to take control of my wild imagination. What would Matt think of me if he knew I was afraid of a dark room? Monsters didn't exist. Serial killers didn't live in people's houses. I was being juvenile.
With my narrow beam of phone-powered light to guide me, I entered into the room with extreme caution. Almost immediately a cloud of dust infiltrated my lungs, sending me into a violent fit of coughing, during which I entirely forgot about monsters and murderers. Before continuing, I made sure to place the sheer fabric of my shirt sleeve over my mouth. With such little light, it was impossible to tell if mold or asbestos was up here.
I shined my weak light into the darkness and prepared myself for anything that might jump out and attack me. Waves of fear rolled through me, and my brain screamed at me to leave. But I didn't leave. I didn't want to carry the personal shame of being afraid of something so ordinary. Some innate, irrational hunger for self-confirmation urged me forward. I narrowed my eyes at the darkness, trying to search for anything I might recognize.
At first, based on the wooden beams, whitewashed walls, and scuffed floor, I assumed that the door must have just lead out into the attic. However, as I ventured further inside, I realized that I was not standing in an attic, but a barren, unfinished room. Could previous owners have built this room, and then simply lost the motivation to finish it? I couldn't remember Matt telling me anything about an unfinished room. As I was about to take leave of the mysterious room, my eyes caught sight of a ladder that I had initially overlooked as part of the wall. Propped up in the corner, the top of the ladder led to a square opening in the ceiling. Well, hell. Now where did this lead? Finding rooms folded within one another was just bizarre.
I stared wide-eyed at the ominous blackness above me, and for a while I considered abandoning the expedition altogether. Then I remembered what Matt would have done in my situation. Instead of visualizing malicious red eyes peering down from the opening, Matt would have confidently scaled that ladder by now in order to prove to his younger sisters that their new house was safe. Once again, I suppressed my fears, and, holding my phone between my teeth, climbed the noisy, groaning ladder. As soon as I was up, I knew that I was in another unfinished, monster-free room identical to the one I had just emerged from.
I rewarded myself with long, relaxing breaths of musty air.
Then I distinguish
ed the muffled scrapes originating from the room below me. Surely my brain was playing tricks on me. I had been everywhere in this house, and I had found absolutely nothing definitively supernatural. Yet the scrapes continued to grow louder until they became discernible clicking. My heart slammed against my ribcage, and I was shoved back into my panicked state of mind. Something was definitely moving down there. I could clearly distinguish footsteps skidding along the unclean, gritty floor of the room below me. With trembling fingers, I prepared to use my precious phone as a deadly projectile. Moments away from releasing a bloodcurdling cry for help, I heard a familiar sleepy voice in the darkness inquire, "Amber, what are you doing up there?"
Chapter Five
"What the hell, Heth!" For emphasis, I slammed down my fist on the kitchen counter, a decision I instantly regretted when I felt the throbbing sting. "You almost gave me a panic attack!"
"Relax, Amber. To be honest, it was kind of your fault for choosing to hang out in a creepy room in the first place." Heather shrugged indifferently and lifted her slender body up onto the granite countertop.
"Well, it's more productive than sleeping for half the day," I muttered. "How did you even know I was there?"
She tapped her head with her forefinger. "Sister's intuition. Also you're not very quiet, and you left the door open behind you."
I scowled. "Well, next time I'm in a sketchy, pitch-black room, would you mind, oh, I don't know, announcing your presence a little sooner instead of shuffling around like a zombie?"
"Noted." Heather stared out the window and thoughtlessly ran her hands through her tangled morning hair. "Where's Matt?"
"At the store. He should be back any minute."
For a while, we just sat in the kitchen in tense silence. It all felt so bizarre, trying to carry on with our lives as, for the sake of one another, we forced ourselves to keep up the illusion that the house felt like home. But it did not feel like home. It felt empty, temporary – like one more rest stop on the side of the highway on the way to our final destination.
Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) Page 2
