by Diane Hoh
She smiled back at Ian.
“Nice smile,” he said as they entered the long, narrow kitchen situated at the rear of the house.
The room was large, spotlessly clean and, thanks to a half-wall of windows above the sink and dishwasher, brighter than the rest of the house. The windows overlooked the back slope leading down into a thick, wooded area and, Ian told her, the stream.
Leaving the kitchen, they all trooped upstairs to check out their rooms.
Jess was pleasantly surprised by hers. This isn’t half-bad, she thought as she swung open the door bearing a small name-tag reading JESSICA VOGT. She stood in the doorway, smiling with pleasure. The room was small, but bright and sunny. The walls were papered in a dainty lilac-flowered print, the bed covered with a vivid purple spread, topped with a folded, flowered quilt. A pretty wooden desk and chair sat between a pair of tall, narrow windows framed by sheer white curtains. A squat, fat chest of drawers of dark wood sat along one wall, waiting for Jess’s clothing.
The room smelled of lemon, and of fresh air, wafting in through the open windows.
“This is really pretty,” she murmured to herself, “and it’s all mine!” She had never had a room of her own before.
But as she stepped across the threshold, a suitcase weighing down each hand, she was met by a wave of air so cold it took her breath away. The unexpected chill wrapped itself around her, penetrating her thin T-shirt, her shorts, and heading straight for her bones.
Jess gasped in shock. She felt as if she’d been doused with ice water.
She took an involuntary step backward. The air in the hall was warm. Puzzled, she basked in the welcome warmth for only a minute. Then, thinking she must have imagined the chill, she re-entered the room.
But the chill was still there. She hadn’t imagined it.
She stayed where she was, a look of confusion on her face. Where was that cool air coming from? The windows were open, but she knew the air outside wasn’t cold. Unless a sudden cold front had moved in.
Dropping the suitcases and hugging herself for warmth, Jess moved to one of the open windows and thrust a bare arm forward. The air that touched her skin was still mild, caressing it with no hint of chill.
But inside her room …
She turned again to face her new home. She took a step away from the window, then another …
There was nothing imaginary about the cool air that descended upon her the moment she left the window. With her arms still wrapped around her chest, she sat down on the bed.
Maybe there was something about old houses … isolated pockets of cold air? She could ask Trucker. He might know. Or … hadn’t there been a fireplace in the living room? The chimney should be right about … Jess stood up, pacing off steps … right about here! Inside her closet. Probably right behind her closet wall. If the chimney went all the way down to a cellar, what she was feeling was probably cold cellar air leaking into her room from loose chimney bricks.
Jess went back to the bed, shrugging. So she’d wear sweaters. The room was too pretty, and the privacy, after sharing a room with two sisters, was too welcome to be upset over a little thing like a slight chill in the air. If she’d moved into a dorm on campus, she would have had to share.
When she had finished unpacking, Jess wandered down the dark, narrow hall to see how her new housemates were doing.
Chapter 3
THE DOORS TO ALL the rooms were standing open. Cath was unpacking what seemed to Jess an endless supply of sweaters, Linda had already appropriated one of the two bathrooms, and Jon, fresh from a shower, was primping in front of his dresser mirror.
He won’t be here long, Jess thought, watching with amusement as Jon coaxed a wheat-colored wave into place on his forehead. He’ll pledge a fraternity and move into a frat house on campus. Maybe somebody with a little more depth than a bed sheet will take his place.
“I was thinking about a little get-acquainted party on the porch tonight,” she suggested when he turned and saw her standing in the doorway. “Interested?” She was sure he’d dismiss it as being dull.
He surprised her by agreeing enthusiastically. “Cath’ll be there, right?” he asked.
Jess grinned. So, he’d already switched his attention from Jess to Cath. No surprise there. The petite type with tons of hair would appeal to him. But would he appeal to Cath? She seemed so … withdrawn. Not at all outgoing like Jon.
It would be interesting to see what, if anything, developed between them.
Ian, a towel over his shoulder, approached from the opposite end of the hall.
“How’s your room?” Jess asked.
He shrugged. “A room’s a room. Four walls, a ceiling … what more could anyone ask for?” He grinned. She noticed a tiny space between his upper front teeth, and thought it was cute. “I told you, I’m just here for the fishing.”
“So, are you fishing tonight, or do you feel up to a little party on the front porch? We could talk a little bit about how things should work around here, and get to know each other. What do you think?”
“I think, fine. Anyone else interested?”
“Just Jon, so far. I haven’t checked with the others yet. I was just about to see if I could drag Linda out of the bathroom.”
Linda was delighted with the idea of a porch party. “A party already? Great! I can find out more about Milo. Don’t you think he’s really cute?”
Jess agreed that Milo was “really cute” but privately thought that “finding out more about Milo” would be more challenging to Linda-the-swimmer than trying to take seven gold medals in the Olympics. The way he’d dived back into his book after their introductions this afternoon told her he was probably either painfully shy or seriously antisocial, or a combination of both.
“What’ll we eat?” Linda asked.
“Pizza, what else?” Jess answered. She began leafing through the telephone book on the small table in the upstairs hall, which also held a phone. “There has to be a pizza place that delivers. It’s un-American not to have at least one.”
The town of Twin Falls wasn’t un-American. It had several pizza restaurants that delivered and, Jess noticed as she flicked through the telephone book, a bowling alley, a movie theater, and half a dozen restaurants that, judging by the upbeat ads in the yellow pages, catered to the college crowd. One in particular, a diner called Burgers Etc. had a picture of the university’s administration building in its ad.
That done, Jess went back downstairs to await the arrival of their housemother and make sure their get-acquainted party was okay with her.
Mrs. Coates, an elderly woman with graying hair, her ample girth enveloped in a worn but garish green-and-orange print dress, had no objection to the party. “Might as well get to know each other right off the bat. My kids always end up being good friends. Hate to leave each other when summer comes.”
Her round, wrinkled face suddenly clouded over, as if a painful memory had just crossed her mind. She turned away from Jess. “Go ahead and have your party,” she said over her shoulder. “Long as you clean up any mess.”
“We will.” Mrs. Coates, Jess decided as she left the kitchen, must miss the kids who moved on after graduation. That would explain the sudden sadness in her face.
The party got off to a good start. The evening was warm, almost balmy, and it was quiet and peaceful on the hill. An intermittent hum sounded from the highway below as an occasional car passed, but the birds had quieted down for the night. Jess had borrowed a dozen fat, stubby candles from Mrs. Coates and stuck them in clay flowerpots Trucker had brought from the potting shed behind the house. They were scattered about the large porch, the candle glow providing a soft, pale illumination.
The pizza wasn’t very good, but no one seemed to care. They talked about why they had chosen Nightingale Hall over on-campus dorms. Finances had decided everyone but Jon and Cath. Linda and Ian had athletic scholarships that failed to cover room and board, Linda’s for swimming, Ian’s for baseball.
“It would be lots more convenient living on campus,” Linda admitted, wiping tomato sauce from her mouth with a paper napkin. “I’d be closer to the pool. But my folks couldn’t swing the room and board on campus. So here I am!” She beamed at Milo, who ignored her.
But his expression brightened when Ian and Trucker mentioned the stream in the woods behind the house. “No kidding? That’s great! I’ve written some of my best poetry while I was sitting on a riverbank, fishing.” He smiled at Ian, and Jess was surprised at how Milo’s thin, pale face warmed when he smiled. “Man,” Milo added, “you’ve made my day!”
“Well, I’m just glad you’re happy,” Cath said sourly. “Personally, I hate old houses. They give me the creeps.” She pushed a thick clump of wiry black hair behind one ear. “I’m here because my parents decided living off-campus would be less distracting.” She made a face of distaste. “Meaning I wouldn’t have any fun. Not that I’d know fun if it walked up and bit me.” Her voice took on a cool, haughty tone as she quoted: “‘The object of education is to educate, not to entertain.’” She laughed harshly. “That is my father speaking, and trust me, he meant every word of it. If I hadn’t known that before I saw this place, I certainly knew it when he dropped me off this afternoon.”
“Oh, I love old houses,” Linda gushed. “That’s why I’m planning to major in design. I want to remodel old houses, reclaim them. They have so much history.”
“Yeah,” Ian said, his voice grim, “sometimes too much. And not always good, either.”
Jess, in the process of lifting the last soggy slice of pizza from the flat cardboard box on the porch floor, looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you know something about old houses that we don’t?”
The highway hum had ended. The hill lay in silence. Except for the pale glow of the flickering candles, darkness shrouded the house, erasing the rest of the world. Ian, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the wooden porch railing, returned Jess’s gaze. “Not all old houses, maybe,” he said. “But this one definitely has a history.” Then he shook his head. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Jess shrieked, “You can’t do that! You can’t start something and not finish it. You have to tell us now. You know something about this place. What is it?”
“No, I …”
Jess glared. “Tell!”
“Well … it’s just … someone died here last spring.”
Cath gasped. Linda’s eyes opened very wide, and Jess stared at Ian. “Died? Here?” No wonder Mrs. Coates had looked so sad.
Ian nodded reluctantly. “A girl. Giselle something. A freshman.”
Jess swallowed hard. “Was she sick?”
“Um … no. Never mind.” Ian reached for the cardboard box. “Let’s start cleaning up this mess …”
“Ian! How did she die?”
“Okay, okay. But I never should have brought this up. I guess you all would have heard it on campus, though. The girl … she hung herself.”
A shocked silence captured the porch.
“Hung herself?” Jess whispered. “Here?”
Ian nodded again. “Upstairs.”
Jess sat back on her haunches, her eyes fastened on Ian’s face. “Upstairs?” she barely breathed. “Where upstairs?”
His head down, he mumbled something.
“I can’t hear you. Where?”
Ian lifted his head. “I said, isn’t your room purple?”
The pizza cutter Jess had borrowed from the kitchen dropped from her hands. “Sort of. The bedspread is purple. Why?” The pizza she had just consumed suddenly felt like a fire in her stomach. Why was Ian asking about her room?
“I’m sorry, Jess,” he said sincerely. “I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut. I guess I can’t back up now, can I?”
“No, you can’t.” Her mouth was very dry. “So tell me where this … Giselle? … hung herself.”
Ian’s voice was very quiet, but she could hear him clearly. “The kid who brought the pizza told me a girl named Giselle committed suicide last spring in the purple room—that’s what he called it. She died in her own room. The room that’s yours now.”
Chapter 4
TRUCKER EMERGED FROM THE outside cellar door to find the six housemates sitting on the floor of the porch in stunned silence.
“Whoa!” he cried with a grin, “this is your idea of a party? I’ve seen people having more fun at funerals.”
Ian flushed. “I told them about the girl who killed herself upstairs last spring. Bad move on my part.”
“We would have heard about it sooner or later,” Jess said quietly. “I’m glad we heard it here instead of on campus.” But she didn’t look glad. Her face was very pale.
Trucker took a seat on the top step. “I heard that girl was really popular, and smart. Not the kind of person you’d think would do something so …”
“So stupid?” Cath finished for him. “Maybe,” she said softly, with a hint of bitterness, “she just got sick and tired of trying to please everyone. I know what that’s like. If I ever got a grade lower than A, both my parents would have a heart attack.” She laughed without humor. “The first simultaneous heart attack in medical history. His and Hers heart attacks, like matching bath towels.”
“I don’t think it was like that,” Trucker disagreed. “Seems to me that someone said one of her parents had died. That girl’s, I mean. Maybe that’s why she was depressed.”
The thought of a parent dying, even one who expected too much, silenced Cath. She leaned back against the porch wall and began gnawing on a fingernail. Lost in thought, she failed to notice when Jon sent her a sympathetic smile.
His handsome face registered disappointment, and then annoyance that she hadn’t been paying attention.
Linda’s voice quavered slightly as she commented, “I don’t understand someone giving up like that. Every swimming coach I’ve had always hammered into us that you never, never give up, no matter what! You keep going.”
“Maybe this girl Giselle wasn’t a swimmer.” Jon took a healthy swig from his soda can. “Sounds like she didn’t even know how to stay afloat.” Then he added absentmindedly, “I wonder if she was pretty …”
“Jon!” Jess cried in disgust.
“I wasn’t working here then,” Trucker said, “but I heard she was a knockout. Drop-dead gorgeous. Long, blonde hair, blue eyes …”
“Geez!” Milo cried, surprising everyone, “this is supposed to be a party, not a wake! I’m not wild about parties, but I’ve been to a few, and one subject that never came up was suicide.”
As he uttered the word “suicide,” a window somewhere above them slammed shut with a violent bang.
Everyone jumped.
Jon laughed. “The house doesn’t like our topic of conversation any more than Milo does.”
“Maybe this place is haunted,” Milo said. “I’ve read that people who take their own lives have restless spirits and can never find peace. They don’t know where to go to find it, so they hang around the place of their death. Maybe that girl’s spirit is still around here somewhere.”
“Now who’s being morbid?” Jess said, and Linda and Cath nodded agreement.
And although Milo smiled to imply that he wasn’t really serious, Jess wasn’t convinced. He had certainly sounded serious.
She stood up. “I don’t know about anyone else, but my party mood has disappeared along with the last of the pizza. Let’s clean up this mess and call it a night, okay?”
Although Jon grumbled under his breath and Linda hung back near Milo, hoping he would notice her, the others began picking up crumpled napkins and tomato-sauced paper plates. The mood of excitement and adventure brought on by their arrival in a new place had been broken by Ian’s depressing story. The party was over. Each of them took a load of trash and followed Jess into the house.
They were on their way to the kitchen when their housemother’s voice called from above, “Party over?” Mrs. Coates was standi
ng at the top of the wide, circular staircase.
“Yeah, we’re beat,” Jess answered. “But we’ll clean up our mess.”
She was never sure exactly what happened next. One minute, the elderly woman was standing at the top of the stairs in a faded green bathrobe, her graying hair festooned with pink foam-rubber rollers, and she was smiling down at them.
And the next minute, she was spiraling out into the air, her arms waving frantically, her body slamming down upon the stairs with a sickening thunk.
Jess screamed. She dropped the load of paper plates she was carrying. In one mass movement, the group rushed to the stairs.
Mrs. Coates hadn’t fallen far. She lay sprawled awkwardly across the fourth and fifth steps from the top. Her face was twisted in pain, but she was conscious.
“My land!” she gasped as they reached her side, “how did that happen?”
“Don’t move,” Ian ordered. “We’ll call an ambulance.”
Cath rushed to do just that.
“No, I …” Mrs. Coates struggled to sit up, but gasped in pain and sank back against the step. “Oh, mercy, maybe you’re right. I think it’s my hip …”
“I don’t understand,” Jess whispered to Ian. “She was just standing there. What happened?”
“Must have tripped,” Milo said, staring down at the injured woman. “I didn’t see it happen, but she must have.”
“Maybe she slipped on something,” Linda said, tears of sympathy pooling in her eyes. “I’ll go see if there’s anything in the hall. We don’t want anyone else falling.”
But she found nothing in the hall that might have tripped Mrs. Coates.
They waited for the ambulance to arrive. “What am I going to do about you children?” Mrs. Coates moaned. Ian had covered her with a blanket and Jess had placed a pillow behind her head in an effort to make her more comfortable. Her face was an alarming shade of gray.
Under other circumstances, they might have bristled at being called children. Milo surprised Jess by saying calmly, “We’ll be fine. Not to worry.”
“No … no, I’m responsible for you.” Mrs. Coates struggled to concentrate, although it was clear to everyone watching that pain was draining her strength. “You must call my friend Madeline. Madeline Carthew. She’ll come and stay with you if they keep me in the hospital.” She gasped then, and fell silent.