Grim Hill: Forest of Secrets

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  “What’s that over there?” Jasper pointed to a small clearing.

  A large silhouette appeared in the shadows. Could it be possible? Had we really stumbled upon a cabin in these woods? Another howl tore through the trees and we all began running toward it.

  This wasn’t the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel – there wouldn’t be any witches.

  I peered down at the blond head running beside me.

  At least, that’s what I hoped.

  CHAPTER 16 - A Foreboding Discovery

  A SKELETAL TREE stood outside the dilapidated cabin. One branch’s long twig fingers tapped a haunting rhythm against the grime-covered window. Another branch swayed in the wind, beckoning us inside with its ghostly wave.

  “This place looks haunted.” Skeeter slowed his approach.

  We all slid to a stop outside the cabin’s darkened door, not enthusiastic about entering, not daring to remain outdoors while the wolves howled. Surely, inside would be safer. I reached out and grabbed an old-fashioned handle made of twisted iron.

  “It’s locked,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Clive tried the latch, and while the handle rattled, the door didn’t give. “It’s stuck,” he said. “Mitch, Jasper, help me push.”

  The three of them heaved the door, and though Clive didn’t think to include us, Amarjeet, Mia, and I began kicking the wood. It finally creaked open with a scratching groan, which was every bit as horrible as the sound chalk makes when it screeches down the blackboard.

  “Uh, ladies first?” Clive peered cautiously inside the cabin.

  “Glad I’m not a lady,” I shot back, even though I knew he was joking. We stepped inside the cabin together.

  An old rusty wood stove stood in one corner of a large room. Beside the stove was a tottering wooden table surrounded by three chairs, all with broken slats. The table was set with a plate, mug, knife, and fork. The mug and plate were probably white once, but the grunge of undisturbed years had turned the enamel a dingy gray.

  An iron bed was shoved against a wall and its tattered quilt had disintegrated over time. The pine board floor was coated with an inch of dust. My allergies kicked in and I let out a sneeze.

  “Gesundheit,” Clive said automatically.

  Rickety winding stairs led up to a loft, but it was too dark to see what was up there. Gingerly, Clive and I stepped inside, as the others followed. I let out another sneeze. Old has a smell: musty and corrupt. This place stank of something ancient.

  “Whoever lived here sure left in a hurry,” Clive said, pushing ahead of me and lifting an old-fashioned coffee pot from the stove.

  The bottom of the pot had burnt through and ashes scattered over the stove as soon as Clive moved it. Someone had planned to drink a nice cup of coffee, but never got the chance to pour it. For some reason, this made me shudder.

  Toward the back of the cabin there was a large window, but it was covered with gray, ragged curtains that hung like cobwebs. For a second I wondered why anyone needed curtains – the place was in the middle of a forest where there was hardly any sunlight …

  “What if we stay here,” Amanda said. “We could clean up a little. If we could light a fire in the stove, we’d be set for the night.”

  “And maybe rescuers will spot this place or maybe they already know about this cabin in the woods and they’ll look for us here,” Mia added hopefully.

  It didn’t look like anyone knew about the place to me. Clearly nobody had stepped inside for years. “We can’t be that far from the road,” I said halfheartedly. I still liked the idea of finding the bus and using the radio to call for help.

  Everyone quickly shot that notion down. They were right – I don’t know what got into me. Night was settling in, wolves were lurking nearby, and we were utterly lost. We couldn’t leave now.

  Then, in a quiet voice, Sookie said, “I don’t think this is a very good idea.”

  “What’s with you two,” Clive said in disgust. Then he said to my sister, “C’mon. The cabin will look great once we men build a fire and you girls cook the food and clean up a little.”

  “How come you are men and we are girls,” I said.

  “And she’s back,” Amarjeet added with a smile.

  “You don’t like being called a girl or a lady. Are you ever satisfied?” Clive got that cocky expression that drove me crazy. “Fine, the guys light the fire and …”

  “Men, guys, who cares – don’t think you’re not cleaning up,” I added.

  “You’ve got that right,” said Mia.

  “Is that a water pump?” Amanda pointed to a big lever by the sink. “Sweet.” She raced over and put all her weight on the handle, trying to get it to move. “It’s rusted shut.”

  Jasper, Clive, and Mitch showed off their muscles as they heaved, pushed, and pulled the handle. With a splat and a gurgle, thick, slimy sludge oozed out of the pipe and then water, the color of mud, dribbled out. As they kept pumping, the water became clearer. Soon we had a full bucket, a mop, rags we’d torn from the dusty bedclothes, and a broom. It felt good to work – it got my mind off our troubles as I sneezed my way through huge clouds of dust.

  “Uh, everyone’s pitching in,” I pointed out to Sookie, who had pulled an ancient plaid shirt off a peg and was trying it on for size.

  “This place doesn’t look so bad to me.” Sookie shrugged her shoulders.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Mia, handing my sister a bucket and a mop. Sookie rolled up the sleeves of the enormous shirt.

  Later I heard, “No, you have to dump the bucket and fill it with clean water again!” Sookie bossed Skeeter. “Otherwise you’re mopping the floor with dirty water.”

  “I quit.” Skeeter dropped the mop on the floor.

  “Then I quit.” Sookie turned in a huff and proceeded to advise Amarjeet on how to wash dishes.

  Sookie was never much for tidying up – but she loved being a supervisor.

  “How about both you and Skeeter dry the dishes,” I said before she could drive Amarjeet crazy.

  “Yeah,” agreed Amarjeet. “Mop for five more minutes, then both of you can come back and dry them.”

  After we’d cleaned up, we explored the cupboards, looking for anything we could possibly eat. “How long does tinned food last?” I asked.

  Mia shrugged her shoulders. Then she said, “My mom makes me throw out any cans that are rusty or dented. That covers every can you’ve found.”

  With great reluctance, I tossed the cans. Their labels looked old-fashioned, so they were probably way past their expiration date anyway. Mitch had found matches and an oil lamp, which he lit and set on the table.

  “Cat, do we have to dry the dishes?” asked Sookie “The tea towel is dirty.” To demonstrate, Skeeter swiped a bowl and left muddy tracks.

  “Never mind,” said Clive, taking away the tea towel.

  Mitch lit the stove with chopped kindling. That wood had been sitting by the stove and was pretty dry, so it burst into flame quickly. Amanda and Mia filled a pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. Mitch threw in plants and a freeze-dried package of the meat we’d salvaged from the bus’s emergency kit. They took turns stirring the pot while the rest of us waited with watering mouths for the soup to bubble.

  “Hey look, I found a bag of flour,” I said with enthusiasm as I dug out the last object in the cupboard. “Maybe we can make some kind of biscuits to go with the soup.” I imagined chomping into one and my stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  “My grandmother used to make a type of bread called bannock just by using flour and water,” said Amanda.

  “Why is the flour all speckled?” asked Sookie, who’d spilled some flour on the counter.

  “Gross,” said Skeeter, and I watched in horror as some of those specks began wiggling around. The menu ended up including only soup – we filled three pots and I downed so many bowls I swear my stomach sloshed.

  The cabin grew warm and toasty. Whoever lived here had left it w
ell stocked with wood. With a full stomach, and exhausted from the day, I grew drowsy.

  Amarjeet rubbed her eyes. “Maybe there are mattresses or more blankets in the loft. We could use those to bed down.”

  “I’ll check,” Jasper said. He began climbing the stairs.

  “Don’t!” shouted Sookie. “Don’t go up there, Jasper.” She ran and grabbed his arm.

  “Why not?” Jasper asked.

  Sookie’s face grew panicked and her eyes kept darting up to the loft. The rest of us crowded around the bottom of the steps.

  “What’s wrong?” I frowned.

  “There’s something up there,” Sookie said in a hollow voice. “… something bad.”

  CHAPTER 17 - The Nightmare Begins

  WE STOOD AT the bottom of the rickety steps, staring up at the loft. Gloom lurked in the air, shrinking the cabin, and it felt as if a huge moth had fluttered its wings inside my stomach. I gulped. Sookie hadn’t wanted to enter the cabin in the first place. Even though I didn’t want to leave this comfortable shelter, which seemed a lot safer than the cold, wolf-ridden outdoors, I said quietly, “Should we get out of here?”

  Sookie shook her head, “No.” My sister scrunched her face trying to think of a way to explain herself. “It’s just a feeling.”

  Clive leaned over and whispered into my ear. “Is this feeling her so-called magic?” Then, loud enough for Sookie to hear, he finished with, “Your mirror magic didn’t work. We never found the creek.”

  Sookie regarded Clive in an unsettling way that made that moth in my stomach flap its wings again.

  “I just asked the mirror which way we should turn,” Sookie said simply. “I never asked for it to take us to the creek.”

  What did that mean? Clive snorted in disgust and charged up the steps. Jasper glanced at Sookie, clearly wanting to heed her warning. But with a half-apologetic nod, he followed Clive.

  Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but I wanted to sleep knowing what was upstairs. Sookie didn’t seem to want to go outside in the dark and cold any more than we did. But …

  “If there’s something wrong up there, maybe it’s best we know what it is,” I decided. “Let’s be careful.”

  It was pitch dark at the top of the stairs, but we stood outside the door until, slowly, Clive reached out to turn the door handle.

  “Wait,” I said. “We need more light.”

  “Could someone bring up the lamp?” Jasper called down.

  Amarjeet rushed to get it while everyone else climbed the steps. Sookie began chanting.

  “Here comes a candle to light you to bed. Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.”

  “Cut that out,” Amanda snapped. “Is it always this spooky when you two are around?” Amanda regarded my sister and me with a curious stare. “Somehow I think so …” Then she shook her head as if trying to wake from a bad dream.

  I knew that feeling, but Amanda could shake her head all she wanted. She’d still be awake.

  With a hand that only shook slightly, Amarjeet brought us the lamp and held it beside the door. Clive turned the handle, but just as the front door didn’t budge at first, this door didn’t either. Like before, the problem wasn’t the lock, since the knob spun easily.

  Once more, Clive, Mitch, and Jasper used their shoulders to slam against the door. Mia, Amarjeet, and I began kicking, while Amanda hovered at the top of the steps. We kept kicking and shoving, but this door was even harder to budge than the one downstairs.

  “I’d listen to Sookie.” Skeeter shook his head doubtfully. He stayed with Sookie on the lower step. It wasn’t like Skeeter to skip out on any adventure. Come to think of it, Sookie was usually not this nervous either, except for that time when she’d had her first brush with … Fairy.

  The hair on the back of my neck bristled. I backed away, thinking it might be better to just leave the room alone. But I was too late. The door finally budged open. A strange smell poured out of the room, musty and dry as dust in an ancient crypt. I gagged slightly before sneezing.

  Jasper and Clive began coughing, and then everybody began choking and sputtering. Something inside the room was barricading the door, and we couldn’t open it completely. Between fits of coughing, the guys shoved and pushed until the door eased open. Clive stuck his head inside. Curiosity got the best of me – besides, the door was already open. I ducked under his shoulder to peer inside. Then I signaled Amarjeet to pass me the lamp.

  “What is it? Is it a ghost?” Skeeter called to us.

  I held the lamp just outside the door and strained to make out what was inside the dark murk.

  Clive jabbed me in the ribs with his elbow and pointed to the floor inside the room. “Get a look at that,” he said roughly, as if fighting the urge to shout.

  A frayed, moth-eaten blanket lay on the cabin floor, bunched up in an odd shape, as if it was covering up a pile of kindling. Except … it wasn’t kindling.

  A skeleton’s arm poked out from under the blanket, its bony fingers stretching toward the window. Whoever the skeleton used to be had been trying to peer out the window … except the skeleton had no head.

  Jasper pushed me aside so he could take a better look. He inhaled sharply, catching his breath and holding it when he saw the headless skeleton. The others began crowding us, pushing us deeper into the room.

  “What is it?” asked Amarjeet.

  “Is something in there?” asked Mia.

  “Whoa,” said Mitch, as he stepped inside the door to check it out. “Don’t ask.”

  But of course Mia and Amarjeet had to see it for themselves. They hissed in surprise when they saw the skeleton.

  I was no longer looking at the floor. My attention was drawn to the huge window. Framed by ragged curtains, the window faced the back of the cabin. Outside, moonlight tumbled down into a small clearing and illuminated white stones laid out in a circle as big as my backyard.

  And then, with no warning whatsoever, the window pane exploded. Glass flew everywhere. We jumped. Wind erupted inside the room, making the curtains flap and dance a garish, nasty jig like creepy shadow puppets. Silhouettes moved along the walls like unleashed phantoms.

  “Back away!” I shouted to my friends. The wind inside the room whipped around the loft and grew in force. Air blasted my face, making my skin feel as if it were being pulled off like a Halloween mask. Dust whirled into the air, and as the air spun faster, yellowed papers, candlesticks, even a large bowl were sucked into the mini cyclone. We pulled ourselves out of the room and out of the wind. As I ran out, I looked back.

  The growing tornado had gobbled up the curtains, the moth-eaten blanket, and the corpse’s bones. I felt my feet lift from the ground and I grabbed the stair railing.

  A wild, panicked thought struck me. The wind will pull off my head.

  Then the door slammed shut.

  “Let’s get downstairs!” I shouted in a shaky voice. My legs were so wobbly I almost tumbled down the steps. Clive grabbed my arm and steadied me, but I shook my arm free so I could grasp the rail tighter.

  Carefully, we all made our way downstairs. I couldn’t rid myself of the notion that opening the door had somehow altered the cabin. I could no longer trust the walls and floor to stay solid. But I couldn’t think of a good reason why. I heard the wind in the loft die with one last gasp, as suddenly as it had risen.

  For a panicked second, I couldn’t spot Sookie. I lifted the lamp and swung it around the room. Finally I could make out her shape against the far wall, joined by Amanda and Skeeter. They had pulled apart the cobweb curtains and were staring out the window at the back of the cabin. We joined them.

  Sookie turned to me and said, “Now you’ve done it, Cat. You’ve opened the door.”

  “No, we closed it,” I said. Well, the rushing wind had closed it.

  “I don’t think that’s the door she means,” said Amanda in a haunted voice as she stared out the window.

  CHAPTER 18 - Night Terrors

  I JOINED THE oth
ers at the window. Skeeter, Sookie, and Amanda were looking at the strange pile of stones outside. The stones were arranged in a circle and in spokes, like a wheel. In the moonlight the stones looked eerie – almost as if they were gaping skulls.

  Amanda pointed to the stone circle and said in a peculiar, strangled voice, “This cabin is built on top of a doorway to the Otherworld.” Then she turned and stared at me. “Remember how you were asking about a place of power, Cat? Well, you’re looking at a place of power.”

  The way Amanda was pointing out the window reminded me of the grisly sight I’d just seen in the loft, of the skeleton jabbing its bony hand in the same direction, except that Amanda still had her head.

  “I … I … know what those stones are,” Amanda continued nervously. “It’s a medicine wheel and a medicine wheel is built upon a place of power … sometimes great power.”

  “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Clive glanced doubtfully at Sookie. “… to find a place of power.”

  “Yeah,” said Mitch. “Now you can use that mirror of yours and get us out of here.”

  Amarjeet shook her head. “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

  “Well,” I asked my sister. “Is this what you were talking about? Can those stones help you work the mirror magic?”

  Sookie’s eyes grew so wide they threatened to swallow the only bit of light in the room. Her small face paled. She shook her head slowly as if she was confused. “Cat, this place scares me. Maybe there’s too much power.”

  The hair on the back of my neck had been rising ever since we’d discovered this place – or it discovered us. Sookie had almost been pulled deep into dark magic this spring – and now she was trying to tell me that she felt that sinister tug again!