by K. J. Emrick
“Hello?” she called out in a hushed voice. “Jennifer? Swanson?”
The air stirred, and pulled at her long hair, but no one answered her. The ghosts of the Hideaway Inn were still…well, hiding away.
This had to be the way up to the third floor. Between Maxwell’s tour and her own wanderings, she’d seen everywhere there was to see and hadn’t found the way up yet. So. This had to be it. The revelation she’d had at the fun center was bearing out to be true.
With her cellphone lighting her way, she stepped into the stone hallway. Even the floor was stone, she realized, and tilting her light down showed her the pale red color of Potsdam Sandstone. These were larger sections fitted together, and Darcy could only imagine the manpower that had gone into building it this way. This was incredible. There were sconces on the walls here, but not the electric kind like the ones out in the public areas of the Hideaway Inn. Those had been added after renovations to the existing building. These looked original, streaked with rust, and were probably meant to hold candles. There weren’t any candles to be seen, though. Just the empty sconces, dusty and unused.
It wasn’t that this secret passage looked abandoned. On the contrary, Darcy quickly noticed that even though there were cobwebs along the ceiling, and a film of dust on the stones of the wall, the floor was clear of both. Someone must walk through here on a regular basis to keep it that way.
Not only that, but there were more sprigs of mistletoe hung from several of the candle sconces. They were real, and they smelled fresh. They hadn’t been here long. She couldn’t begin to imagine why anyone would decorate this area of the house for Christmas when no one would see it. Well, not no one, she corrected herself. There was one person who would see it. That was the person responsible for taking care of the Hideaway Inn. The same person who was proud of his festive Christmas decorations in the main room.
Which meant Maxwell Bylow had to be the person using this passage.
Darcy’s thoughts raced ahead of her as she explored her way slowly forward. Why would Maxwell come through here, and up to the third floor so often? Was it just to clean the third floor? Then she had to wonder why the upper floor was only accessible by a hidden door. She remembered the article on Jennifer Bylow’s death. It said the police came to investigate, and they checked the door on the room up there and found it locked from the inside with the chain in place. They had to break in. So back then, at the time that she plummeted to her death, there must have been a regular set of stairs that went up there. There had to be. Since that time, the house had gone through several renovations. The electric lights, for instance, and the gas fireplace. Obviously the renovations must have closed off the previous way up, but why? Why block off that third-floor room at all?
Why?
The other thing that struck her was that this part of the building was obviously part of the original construction, Potsdam Sandstone and all. That meant there actually was two ways into that upper room, at least back then. That was at least a partial answer to the mystery. The door was locked from the inside, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t have gotten out. All she had to do was follow this hallway around to find the way upstairs, and she would have her proof.
The light from her phone showed her she was coming to a corner. A right turn. Still no stairs, but it was possible the passage had to follow along the back of the house before it could lead upward. It was bizarre, how something like this could be here right under their feet this whole time, and they didn’t even know it. She couldn’t wait to show all of this to Jon. She couldn’t wait to confront Maxwell with the existence of this secret tunnel and the truths it revealed. She couldn’t wait to find the answers to the mystery…
Behind her, she heard a solid thud and then a clang of metal on metal. The air around her went still. A sudden and overwhelming sensation of claustrophobia settled around her like a massive, weighted blanket.
Darcy turned around and aimed her light back the way she came. It wasn’t a long passageway. She’d come maybe thirty steps all told, slowly and steadily, and she could see from one end to the other.
She should be able to see the room past the open bookcase, too, but she couldn’t.
The bookcase had closed again, shutting her in.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” With a heavy sigh, Darcy retraced her steps.
From what she understood, secret doors had mechanisms for opening them from both sides. What would be the sense in making a hidden door if you were just going to get stuck on the wrong side of it? This wouldn’t a problem, it was just an inconvenience. She would just go back, open it again, and prop it this time with something. She’d told Jon what room she was going to be looking in. If he came to find her, she wanted him to know how to get to her.
From this side, the bookcase looked solid. The top shelf that she had pushed in to open it had slid its way back into place. With her phone’s light she easily found its slot, but there was nothing else to see but smooth, flat surface. She couldn’t find a lever, or a button, or any sort of catch at all. She tried reaching into the narrow slot for the shelf, thinking she could pull it her way and open the door again, but there wasn’t enough space for her fingers to get ahold of anything.
Panic began to set in. Well, she thought, maybe the release on this side was somewhere else. She turned to the rough surface of the walls, feeling up and down as far as she could. There was nothing there. Nothing but stone, and the sprigs of mistletoe. She tried the floor, and found nothing there, either. Anxiously, she went back to the rear of the shelves. Nothing. Nothing at all. If there was a way to open the hidden door from this side, she couldn’t find it. That meant…she was trapped.
There was no way out.
“Get a grip,” she told herself, bracing a hand against the wall, taking a deep breath. “This isn’t the worst situation you’ve ever been in. Knowing you, this won’t be the last time you find yourself trapped, either. Just think your way out. Do what needs to be done. And…now you’re talking to yourself. You should probably stop that.”
That allowed her to laugh, and when she laughed she realized she was being silly. So this end walled itself off when it closed. There had to be another way out. Nobody would want a secret passage that sealed them in forever like a tomb. Nobody voluntarily re-enacted The Cask of Amontillado, right? So, all she had to do was find the other end. Hopefully, she’d find a way out that didn’t involve falling out a window like Jennifer Bylow.
She was just wondering if she should take some pictures of this place to show Jon later when she came to the other end of the passageway again. Of course, instead of pictures it might just be easier to bring him down here, now that she knew how to get in.
At this end the hallway made a sharp right turn and went out of sight. There weren’t any Christmas decorations down this far, she noticed, and the barren walls were giving her the sensation of being in a dungeon. It was creepy. She wished Jon was with her now, truth be told. Some company would make this place less creepy.
Maybe once Maxwell knew they had discovered this part of the house, he’d be willing to tell them the whole truth about what happened here. Or, he might kick them out and call the police claiming they had trespassed.
Either way, she wouldn’t mind. Not as long as there were answers waiting at the far end of this—
She turned the corner…and found herself facing a wall of tightly fitting gray stones with thin lines of mortar between them.
Darcy took a step back, and looked over her shoulder, shining her cellphone light all around. There was that part of the passageway, with the bookcase at the end, and then this short section here, and a wall. She hadn’t gotten turned around. She hadn’t missed a turn or a doorway or anything at all. This was simply all there was.
She was trapped.
Trouble.
There was trouble…
The panic Darcy had shaken off before surged up in her again now. Had she been wrong? Was this an old section of the house that had been
closed off during all the renovations to turn it into the Hideaway Inn? Was the other end—her escape—on the other side of this stone wall?
Darcy swallowed, and tried to get ahold of herself. It must be another secret doorway, she told herself, just like the bookcase was. One of these stones must be the release trigger.
By the time she had pushed against every one she could reach, both in front of her and to each side, she was ready to admit she was really, truly trapped.
This was not good.
Darcy was honestly scared now…but this wasn’t a scary story. It was Christmas, for Pete’s sake, not Halloween. And besides, she was not one of those terror-stricken women in the movies who screamed their way through the film while making bad decisions like walking into the dark basement alone without her cellphone.
She had her phone with her.
Tilting it up to her face made the light from the back shine down at the floor, but she didn’t really need to see the blank stones again. They were just stones, and she was alone here. Nothing to see.
Darcy made a few swipes and pulled up her text messaging app, tapping out a few words to Jon about her current situation. He was going to poke fun at her for getting herself in trouble again, no doubt about it, but it would be worth a little teasing if he could get her out of here.
A red triangle showed up next to her message, with a black exclamation point in its center. That text hadn’t gone through.
She had to get to Darcy Sweet.
She tried again, and then once more, with the same result. The red triangle showed up next to each one.
That’s when she noticed she didn’t have any signal.
It must be all the stone, she thought to herself. Cell signals still had trouble getting through certain kinds of materials, didn’t they? From what she understood, it was nearly impossible to get good signal in the middle of the Adirondack forest of New York because of how close the trees grew together. If too many trees could block cell signals, then all of this stone must be doing the same thing.
Fantastic. Darcy threw her head back and tried to decide whether to laugh or cry. “I just got back into using a cellphone, and now that I need it, I can’t even use it?”
She decided to laugh after all. Things like this could only happen to her. Maybe she was living in a horror film after all—
Through the wall in front of her, a ghostly head appeared.
Startled, she stepped back.
In front of her, the ghost of Swanson the handyman startled as well, arms waving wildly in the air, his eyes wide and his mouth wider. His feet caught on themselves, and he tripped, and he fell…right back through the dead end from where he’d appeared.
Darcy stood there, staring, flashlight app swinging around at nothing. “Um. Swanson? Are you…are you okay?”
He didn’t answer her. She was left alone in her silence.
“Well, great,” she muttered to herself. “Now even the ghosts are scared.”
There. Darcy Sweet was in there.
She had to find a way to her. She had to warn her.
It had taken her a long time to get this far. She couldn’t stop now.
She was here to help.
It might be just her imagination, but Darcy was sure that it had gotten noticeably colder in this stone hallway in the last few seconds. She was alone in here, with no way out.
Maxwell would realize what happened to her when she didn’t turn up again, wouldn’t he? When Jon woke up in the morning and she was nowhere to be found, he’d go to Maxwell and ask him if he knew anything, and then the caretaker of the Hideaway Inn would know to come searching for her in here. Surely, he would.
But would he admit that he knew this passageway was here? Of course he would. He wouldn’t let her stay trapped in here.
Unless he was the one who shut the bookcase on her because he didn’t want anyone to find out the secrets that were hidden in this place. If he did this to her, then would he ever open that door to let her out?
That wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. Darcy was going to have to get out of here by herself. Somehow.
She slapped her hand against the stones of the dead end. “Swanson! Jennifer! You know, if any of you were going to show yourselves, this would be a really good time!”
Instead of helping the spirits in this place, now she was asking for their help. Funny how the tables could get turned around like that.
Although, she really didn’t find anything funny about this. She needed to get out. Maybe if she screamed really loud, Jon would hear her? The door on the one end was nothing but a wooden bookshelf. Granted, it was thick, solid wood, but it certainly wasn’t soundproof. She might even be able to break through it, right? Sure she could. If she hit it hard enough. Several times. With all her weight…
Okay, fine, she would most likely break her shoulder before she ever got close to getting out that way. That still left screaming her fool head off as a possibility, until Jon heard and came to help. But Jon was upstairs, sleeping. She could holler until she was hoarse, but he would never hear her. Not until he woke up and noticed she was gone. If Maxwell heard her first there was no telling what would happen. If he was trying to keep his secrets, what would he do to keep her silent?
Darcy sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and tried to think of a way to solve this. This, right here, was a real pickle, as her Great Aunt Millie might have said.
“Millie, I could sure use your help now.”
Darcy knew her great aunt’s spirit wasn’t anywhere close enough to hear her. That wasn’t how it worked. She was the only one here, and she had to rely on herself. A shiver ran up her spine.
She told herself it was from the chill in musty air.
But she knew better.
Getting to Darcy. That was all that mattered.
She had travelled across a vast distance to be here, in the Hideaway Inn, and now that her goal was in reach, she found herself stopped by a wall of stones.
There had to be a way through.
There was always a way.
Unable to come up with a better idea, Darcy got up and went back to the dead end where Swanson had appeared to her, however briefly. Sighing out a deep breath, she reached up, and knocked on the wall.
“Swanson? Are you in there?”
She felt absolutely silly doing this. He could be anywhere in the Inn by now. For all she knew he’d tripped out a window and was now stuck in a snow-covered tree outside the house with his ghostly feet dangling in midair. Or he was bumping into a door somewhere, forgetting he was a ghost and solid walls couldn’t stop him.
Or, he could be right here on the other side of these stones, waiting for her to reach out to him.
She knocked again.
There. She’d found the way.
Life had taught her there was always a way through. Even in this place, that was true.
If she could reach Darcy in time, everything would be all right.
She kept moving.
Swanson hadn’t appeared after her fourth time knocking.
Well, if he wasn’t going to answer her, then she was going to have to do something else.
The question was, what else was there to do?
She could try a spirit communication, but without something she could use to connect to Swanson or Jennifer or one of the other ghosts, she would just be casting out blindly into the other side of the veil. That was where all of the dead waited, hoping someone would come to talk to them. It wasn’t Heaven, and it wasn’t life. It was the in between place where spirits waited to cross over, or where they came to visit sometimes when they were checking in on loved ones who were still alive.
Could she do it? Yes, she could, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. Like she’d taught Colby after her daughter’s gift had started to manifest itself, doing a spirit communication that way was like standing in a room full of people and shouting out a single question. You never knew who was going to answer you. It might be the right person, but c
hances were better that it was going to be some random stranger with bad advice.
But, if it was her only choice to get help, then she was willing to try.
It was too bad she didn’t have her spirit communication kit with her. That would make this a lot easier. It was out in the car, however, and wishing for it wouldn’t make it so.
She would have to do this without it, she decided. Without an object that could anchor her to Swanson or one of the others, too. It’s just the way it was. So she took a few deep breaths, centering her body and her mind. When she was ready, she would sit down and close her eyes and cast herself into that in between space—
A scratching noise interrupted her preparations.
Darcy cracked open one eye and looked at the stone wall in front of her.
The sound came again. Scratch, scratch, scratch…
Touching the stone, clawing at the stone, she squeezed through…
Darcy couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. It was here, and it was down there, and it was everywhere. It echoed along the walls and across the ceiling until she didn’t know if it was in front of her or behind her or…or…
…above her…
There. Darcy sweet was there.
Her back was against the wall now, not certain what was coming. A single thought kept coming back to her, again and again in her fright.
The longer a ghost is stuck here in the world of the living, the crazier that ghost became.
Crazy, and dangerous.