Down a Dark Hall

by Lois Duncan

  “You couldn’t get out anyway,” Kit said. “The gate’s kept closed except when Professor Farley drives down to the town for mail. What about the people from the village who work here?”

  “What people?” Ruth said. “They all quit except for Natalie Culler, and she never opens her mouth.”

  “She does with me sometimes,” Kit said. “We got to be friends on that first day before the rest of you arrived.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to lose,” Ruth conceded, “if you want to raise the question to her. The worst she can do is refuse to answer.”

  “I’ll do it,” Kit said determinedly, “as soon as I get the chance.”

  That night it rained. It was a heavy, relentless rain that drummed upon the roof and slashed against the panes and poured in torrents through the rain gutters. Lying in bed, Kit closed her eyes tightly and tried to pretend that it was a city rain, and that she was in her room at home and the roof above her head was a simple partition that separated her from the next floor of apartments, and that her mother was in the room next door reading, wearing her blue nightgown, with a mud mask on. In a minute, Kit thought, she will put her book down and get out of bed and come into my room to check the window.

  But when the bedroom door did open, it was not her mother who slipped through and pushed it closed behind her.

  “Kit,” a voice asked softly, “are you awake?”

  “Yes,” Kit said. “What is it? Is something wrong? Wait a minute, I’ll turn on the light.”

  “No, don’t,” Sandy said. “I just want to tell you something. The woman—her name is Ellis.”

  “The woman in your dream? You’ve given her a name?”

  “Kit, it wasn’t a dream.” Sandy sounded definite. “It’s something else, something more than a dream. This isn’t something my mind has made up. Ellis exists. She’s a real person. I’m sure of it.”

  “That’s impossible,” Kit said. She reached out and began to fumble for the bedside lamp.

  “Don’t,” Sandy said, sensing her action. “Please, don’t. As long as it stays dark I can still see her like a picture on the screen of my mind. She’s young, even younger than I thought at first, and she has the most beautiful eyes, dreamy and filled with sorrow as though she’s been through a lot of suffering.”

  “You were afraid of her that first time,” Kit said. “You screamed.”

  “Not now. I’m not afraid anymore. I just wanted to tell you that.” Her footsteps brushed on the floor. “Good night, Kit.”

  The bedroom door opened and closed. Alone once more, Kit shivered and pulled the blankets up over her shoulders. The room was heavy with dampness and the slow, hard beat of the rain.

  The opportunity to talk with Natalie did not come immediately. It was not until several days later, in the evening after dinner, that Kit saw her chance.

  The meal had been a subdued one without the usual conversation. Jules had eaten early and driven into town for the evening. Professor Farley had not come to dinner, as he was engaged in doing some writing and did not wish to be disturbed.

  “This is how it is with professors,” Madame Duret explained lightly. “They must always be publishing something. Perhaps the day will come when some of you girls will be doing the same thing.”

  Lynda was not at the table either. She had sent word by Ruth that she was not feeling well, and Madame said that a tray should be carried up to her.

  “I’ll take it,” Kit offered, as they were being excused from the table.

  “That is kind of you, Kathryn,” Madame said. She paused, as though about to add something, and then evidently decided against it.

  As she climbed the stairs, Kit realized that it had been weeks since she had been inside Lynda’s room. The last time she had seen it, she had been impressed by its femininity. The bureau top had been a field of cosmetics; artificial roses had blossomed in a vase on the desk; and the mirror had been edged with a full circle of photographs, all of Lynda herself, smiling coyly up at a variety of admiring boys. The romance novels that Lynda loved to read had stood in a row on the bedside table, flanked by delicately carved gilt bookends, and a pillow shaped like a pink kitten had been propped on the bed.

  Now when she entered, she was startled to find that, as Ruth had stated, the room resembled nothing so much as an artist’s studio. An easel stood by the window where the morning light would fall. The canvas mounted on it was only partially completed; it was a warm, mellow-colored picture of a woodland scene in which a girl’s slim figure knelt by a winding stream. Trees bent above her in a great arc of green, and the reflection in the stream gave back the laughing face of a forest nymph.

  Other pictures, in various stages of development, leaned against the walls or were piled in a heap in the corner. It was hard to beleive that Lynda had created all of them in such a short time.

  “Hi,” Kit said. “I brought you some dinner. Madame said you weren’t feeling well.”

  Lynda was stretched out, fully clothed, upon the bed. She was wearing no makeup, and her hair lay oily and matted against the pillow, as though she had not bothered to wash it for a long time.

  She glanced at the tray and wrinkled her nose. “Thanks, but I really don’t want anything. I’m not at all hungry.”

  “You need to eat,” Kit said. “You’re getting thin.” The words were true. Lynda’s eyes seemed huge in her pretty face, and the delicate tracery of her cheekbones stood out beneath the normally perfect skin. Now that skin had a yellowish cast.

  “I said, I’m not hungry,” Lynda said peevishly. “I’m just tired. I’ve been working hard.”

  “I should say so, from the looks of things.” Kit nodded toward the picture on the easel. “That’s going to be nice.”

  “Is it?” Lynda said. “I guess so.”

  “What are you going to put over there?” Kit gestured toward an unfinished area in the foreground.

  “How should I know? It’ll come to me when I get the brush in my hand.” Lynda turned her face away and threw an arm across her eyes. “Take that food out of here, okay? I can’t stand the smell of it.”

  Kit regarded her with concern. “I hope you’re feeling better tomorrow.”

  “I will be,” Lynda said. “I’ll have to be. There’s so much to be done. He wants so much. There just isn’t any stopping.”

  “He? ” Kit caught at the word. “What do you mean? Who is it who wants so much?”

  “Please,” Lynda said, “just let me be, won’t you? I’m so tired. We’ll talk another time, okay?”

  “Okay.” Kit stood a moment longer, gazing down at the slender form on the bed. Was this Lynda Hannah, the bright-faced girl with the lilting laugh, whose sole worry less than two months ago had been the fact that there was no Internet connection and she couldn’t chat online? She’s changed, Kit thought. Not just a surface change, but all the way down inside. She’s not the same person.

  “Lynda,” she said softly, “please, tell me. Something’s happened. Can’t you tell me about it?”

  The girl on the bed did not answer. Her breathing was slow and deep, and Kit realized that she was already asleep.

  Natalie was scraping plates when Kit brought the tray back down to the kitchen. She glanced at the untouched plate and shook her head.

  “Won’t eat, huh?”

  “She says she’s tired,” Kit said.

  “Funny,” Natalie said. “Nobody’s eating the way they used to, except for the men, maybe, and Madame herself. What’s with you girls? All coming down with something?”

  “I hope not,” Kit said, setting the tray on the counter. She paused, knowing that this was the opportunity for which she had been hoping. “Natalie, can I ask you something?”

  “You know I’m not supposed to spend time talking to you girls.” Natalie was silent a moment, then her curiosity got the better of her. “What is it you want to know?”

  “About Blackwood. It’s been here a long time, hasn’t it? You must have heard a lot of th
ings about it.”

  “It’s an old place, sure,” Natalie said. “But Blackwood is the new name for it. It used to be called the old Brewer place. Nobody lived here then. It was all grown over so you could hardly see through the fence, just the roof sticking up.”

  “How do you know?” Kit asked. “Did you look through the fence and see?”

  “Well, we all did,” Natalie said, with a note of defensiveness in her voice. “All of us kids, I mean. There were so many stories about it. Teenagers used to come up and park in the driveway.”

  “Did you?”

  “Once or twice,” Natalie said, flushing slightly. “Nothing happened. We didn’t see anything. I figured the ones who said they did were just making up stories to scare the rest of us.”

  “What did the others see, or pretend to see?” Kit persisted. “Did they ever tell you?”

  “Lights in the windows. Shapes moving around. Things like that. Of course, old man Brewer was supposed to have been pretty strange himself back when he lived here. Anybody who’d live alone in a place this size would have had to have been a little bit off.”

  “He lived here alone?” Kit exclaimed. “Just one person in this huge place?”

  “Well, not in the beginning,” Natalie said, as she loaded the dishwasher. “When he first moved here he had a nice family, a pretty wife and three or four children. The place was kept up fine then with servants and gardeners, and what Madame Duret has made into an apartment for the professor, that was a real carriage house. Then one night there was a fire. Mr. Brewer was away on a business trip at the time, and they never did find out how it started, but it was in the bedroom wing where the family was sleeping. They had to bring the volunteer fire department up from the village, which took a long time because it was a Saturday night and a lot of the firemen couldn’t be located. By the time they got up here and got the fire under control, it was too late.”

  “You mean Mr. Brewer’s whole family died?” Kit asked in horror. “His wife and all the children?”

  “They say it was the smoke that did it,” Natalie said. “There wasn’t that much damage to the house. When Mr. Brewer got home and found out what had happened, he got rid of all the servants and barred up the gate. From then on he lived here alone.

  “He’d go down to the village for church on Sundays and talk about the family like they were still there, still living in the place with him. Or he’d go to the grocery store and say, ‘The missus wants me to pick up some things for her,’ and he’d buy candy and stuff for the kids and cereal for the baby.”

  “That’s horrible!” Kit gasped. “The poor man! How long did this go on?”

  “Years and years,” Natalie told her. “Talk got started around the town that his family was living here with him, as spirits. Once he called a man to fix the plumbing, and the man said that somewhere in the back of the house he heard a baby crying. After that, he couldn’t get people up here to do anything.

  “When he died, it was weeks before anybody knew it. Finally they started wondering about his missing church one Sunday after another. So they came up here, and there he was, on one side of the big bed. They say there was a hollow next to him, as though somebody had been lying there.”

  “After he died,” Kit asked, “what happened then?”

  “They got hold of some distant cousins who came in to bury him. They didn’t want the place, and after the funeral they listed it with a real estate agency. It was really weathered down when Madame Duret bought it. She’s had a lot of work done—the grounds landscaped and the roof repaired—and, of course, she had the sleeping wing fixed up so you girls could live there.”

  “The sleeping wing,” Kit said slowly. An icy shudder went down her spine. “You mean the wing where we’re sleeping is where the fire took place?”

  “That’s right,” Natalie said. “But you’d never know it, she’s got it remodeled so nice. The help she hired from the village, though, they didn’t like cleaning up there. Said it gave them the creeps. That’s why they quit.”

  “Natalie!” A low, strong voice spoke from behind them.

  Kit turned quickly to see Madame Duret standing in the kitchen doorway. The woman’s face was pale with anger, and her black eyes were blazing.

  “Natalie, you had your instructions not to spend your time talking with our students!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Natalie said contritely. “I don’t do it often.”

  There was ice in Madame’s voice. “Your instructions were not to do it at all.”

  “It’s not Natalie’s fault,” Kit said. “I’m the one responsible.”

  Madame’s eyes shifted to rest upon her, and Kit felt the power of them touch her with the force of an electric shock. It was as though two needles had thrust themselves through her body.

  “You must have homework to do, Kathryn,” Madame said. Her voice was like steel. “I would suggest that you go upstairs to your room and get started on it. Natalie is responsible for her own actions. She does not need you to defend her.”

  “But she only—” Kit began, and the words faded from her lips under the penetration of that black stare. She tried to look at Natalie, but she was unable to move her eyes. Against her will, she found herself moving from her position by the kitchen sink.

  As though of their own accord her two legs began to carry her step by step across the kitchen and through the door into the dining room.

  And into the outer hall.

  And up the stairs.

  And down the dark hall to her room.

  When she closed her eyes the music began. No longer did it hold back until she slept; it seemed now to lie just behind her eyelids, waiting for them to drop, so that as soon as she went into inner darkness the music was there. With increasing power, it took over the edges of her mind and crept relentlessly toward its core.

  I’m dreaming, Kit told herself firmly, but she was not completely sure that was true. She was too conscious of the pillow beneath her cheek, of the blanket across her shoulders. She knew that she was cold.

  If I open my eyes, she thought, it will be gone.

  But will it? an inner voice whispered. Are you certain?

  DEAR TRACY,

  THIS IS GOING TO SEEM LIKE A CRAZY LETTER. I WISH YOU WERE HERE SO I COULD TALK TO YOU IN PERSON. YOU’RE ALWAYS SO RATIONAL, I’M SURE YOU COULD COME UP WITH AN ANSWER, AND YET, WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT, I CAN’T EVEN TELL YOU THE QUESTION.

  ALL I KNOW IS THAT SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG. SOMETIMES I LOOK AT MYSELF IN THE MIRROR, AND IT’S LIKE LOOKING AT A STRANGER. THE FACE IS THE SAME, EXCEPT THINNER—WE ALL SEEM TO BE GETTING THINNER—AND THERE IS AN ODD LOOK TO IT. IT MAY BE THE CIRCLES UNDER MY EYES.

  BUT IT’S NOT JUST PHYSICAL. WE’RE CHANGING IN OTHER WAYS TOO. TAKE LYNDA, FOR INSTANCE. SHE HAS STOPPED COMING TO CLASSES AND JUST STAYS IN HER ROOM ALL DAY, AND HALF THE TIME SHE DOESN’T EVEN COME DOWN TO MEALS. MADAME DURET HAS A TRAY SENT UP TO HER, BUT WHEN IT COMES BACK THERE’S HARDLY ANY FOOD GONE FROM IT. WHEN LYNDA DOES COME DOWN, ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE, SHE LOOKS LIKE A LITTLE WHITE GHOST, ALL SKIN AND BONES AND BIG STARING EYES. AND THE EYES DON’T SEEM TO FOCUS ON US. THEY LOOK THROUGH US OR PAST US, AS THOUGH THEY ARE SEEING SOMETHING THE REST OF US CAN’T.

  WHEN YOU TALK TO LYNDA SHE ANSWERS IN THIS ODD, VAGUE WAY, AS IF HER MIND IS SOMEWHERE ELSE, AND SOMETIMES THE ANSWERS DON’T GO WITH OUR QUESTIONS. THERE ARE OTHER TIMES WHEN SHE DOESN’T SEEM TO KNOW WE’RE HERE. IT’S JUST PLAIN SCARY, AND YESTERDAY RUTH WENT TO MADAME DURET AND SUGGESTED THAT LYNDA MIGHT NEED A DOCTOR.

  MADAME SAID SHE WAS SURE THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG. SHE SAID LYNDA HAS JUST AWAKENED TO THE DISCOVERY OF HER TALENT AS AN ARTIST AND IS WORKING VERY HARD, AND THAT IT’S NO WONDER SHE IS TIRED, BUT THAT IT IS A GOOD KIND OF TIRED, THE SORT THAT COMES WHEN YOU REALLY ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT SOMETHING “GOOD” CAN MAKE A PERSON LOOK AND ACT THE WAY LYNDA DOES NOW?

  AND THEN THERE’S SANDY. SHE, TOO, IS CHANGING. SHE DREAMS A LOT, AND SHE TELLS ME THAT IT IS ALW
AYS THE SAME DREAM, THE ONE ABOUT THE WOMAN WHO COMES AND STANDS BY HER BED. AT FIRST IT USED TO FRIGHTEN HER, BUT SOMEHOW IT DOESN’T SEEM TO ANYMORE. SHE SAYS THE WOMAN’S NAME IS ELLIS, AND SHE SPEAKS OF HER AS THOUGH SHE WERE A REAL PERSON.

  TRACY, AM I LOSING MY MIND? BECAUSE I DREAM TOO. IN MY DREAMS I AM AT THE PIANO PLAYING, NOT PLAYING POORLY THE WAY I USUALLY DO, BUT VERY WELL, AND THERE’S NEVER ANY SHEET MUSIC IN FRONT OF ME. IN THE BEGINNING THE MUSIC WAS ALWAYS SOFT AND BEAUTIFUL AND THE DREAM WAS A HAPPY ONE, BUT IT’S NOT LIKE THAT ANYMORE. NOW THE MUSIC TEARS THROUGH ME WITH SO MUCH POWER THAT IT IS A PHYSICAL PAIN. WHEN I WAKE UP, I’M TIRED. MY ARMS AND HANDS ACHE AS THOUGH I REALLY HAVE BEEN PLAYING FOR HOURS.

  I’VE FOUND OUT SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT BLACKWOOD. I DON’T LIKE IT, ANY OF IT. TRACY, I DON’T WANT TO STAY HERE ANY LONGER. I DON’T CARE IF THIS IS ALL IN MY IMAGINATION, I STILL DON’T WANT TO BE HERE. I’VE WRITTEN MOM AND ASKED HER IF I CAN’T LIVE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY UNTIL SHE AND DAN GET HOME. WOULD THAT BE ALL RIGHT WITH YOUR PARENTS? I HOPE SO.

  WRITE TO ME. IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I’VE HEARD FROM YOU, AND YOU NEVER ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS OR COMMENT ON ANY OF THE THINGS I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT. IS IT BECAUSE IT’S A PAIN TO WRITE BY REGULAR MAIL? OR ARE MY LETTERS TO YOU GETTING LOST IN THE MAIL? MAYBE THEY AREN’T GETTING MAILED AT ALL. PROFESSOR FARLEY MAKES THE TRIP INTO THE VILLAGE EACH DAY AND CARRIES OUR LETTERS TO THE POST OFFICE. HE MUST MAIL THEM, RIGHT? I MEAN, IT WOULD BE AGAINST THE LAW FOR HIM NOT TO, WOULDN’T IT? I’M SO CONFUSED. TRACY, PLEASE, PLEASE, WRITE.

  “I’ve written another poem,” said Sandy.

  “Oh?” Kit did not meet her friend’s eyes, but she felt her stomach begin to tighten in nervous anticipation.

  “I’m not doing this alone,” Sandy said. “Ellis is helping me. She’s a wonderful writer. She’s even published a novel.”

  “Sandy, please,” Kit said wearily. “I wish you’d stop talking about this woman as though she were a real person.”