It’s not possible. I’m the only one in the house.
“Hello, is someone here?”
Addison felt ridiculous for saying it. Of course no one was there. She knew that, but the cries continued to erupt until they swirled all around her, increasing in intensity as she climbed the stairs. The door at the top of the stairs was closed again, even though Addison was certain she’d left it open minutes before. She reached for the handle, but there was no need; the door creaked open on its own. A rush of cold, stale air blew past her, the force of it causing Addison to grip the handrail beside her and hold on tight.
The breeze soon subsided, the near-violent cries drowning away as the house settled back down again. A frantic Addison darted in and out of each room, opening closet doors and bathroom cabinets along the way. There wasn’t much to see—they were all bare, just like they were the day she moved in. It didn’t make sense. She had heard something—she was sure of it.
She walked back into the hall, her eyes falling upon the outside of the only room she hadn’t checked. Figuring it was still locked, she decided it wasn’t even worth the effort to check. Then something stopped her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the handle on the locked door. It glowed, pulsating in and out like a heartbeat. Addison’s eyes widened, baffled at the display before her. She looked away, shaking her head and whispering, “This isn’t real. I know it isn’t. It can’t be.” She halfway opened one eye as she turned back around, too afraid to face what was before her with both eyes open. The knob that had been illuminated only moments before now appeared dull and lifeless, an ordinary doorknob. She considered touching its steel, grey exterior to be sure, but shied away. Instead she waited. Several minutes passed by without another change.
Addison returned to her room and lost herself beneath the covers, listening and waiting, the only sound coming from a clock ticking on the nightstand. It was only when the sun levitated over the edge of the mountain that she finally drifted to sleep.
***
Addison woke again, this time to a light tapping on her bedroom door.
“Who is it? Luke—is it you already?”
“You said eight was okay. Remember?”
She glanced at the time. It seemed like mere moments had passed since she’d fallen back to sleep, and yet it was almost nine in the morning. “Come in.”
“Are you up?” Luke said, stepping into the room. “I don’t want to bother you—I just wanted you to know I’m here. When you didn’t come down, I thought I’d better check before I made too much noise.”
She stretched her arms into the air. “You’re fine.”
Luke paused, staring at her for a moment. “Do you need me to come back later?”
“No, why?”
“It’s just…you look…ahh, like you didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I feel exactly how I must look then. I had the strangest dream.”
“What was it about?” he asked.
“I was walking all over the house listening to this sound. At first I thought it was a wounded cat, but then…”
She stopped herself, realizing what he might think if she continued.
“What were you going to say?” he asked.
“It was just a dream. It’s no big deal.” His eyes shifted from her to the bottom of the bed. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. He looked as though he might break into laughter at any moment.
“Do you always do that?” he asked.
“What?”
“Wear mismatched socks?” he pointed.
Addison tugged on the blanket, gasping as she looked down. It hadn’t been a dream after all.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“The day we met, you mentioned the possibility of an attic—is there one?”
“Not an attic exactly. But I did find something.”
“Where?”
“Get dressed, and I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER 6
Inside the last bedroom on the main floor was a flat, rectangular door in the center of the wall. It was around three feet in height and had been hidden behind a full-sized bed. At first glance it looked like nothing more than an accident that happened during the construction of the home, but upon closer inspection, Addison realized whoever put it there must have done so intentionally. The cut out was flush with the wall and had no knob or opening of any kind.
“Are you saying there’s a room behind this?” Addison asked.
Luke grinned.
“How do you get in?” Addison asked.
“Press on it.”
“What—why?”
“Just do it.”
Addison flattened her hand against the smooth texture of the wall and pushed forward. “I don’t understand. Nothing happened.”
“I didn’t either, at first. Now watch this.” Luke balled his hand into a fist and lightly punched the front of the door—twice. It sprung open. “This house of yours is full of interesting surprises.”
She suspected his statement was truer than either of them really understood at this point. “Have you been inside?”
“I poked my head in yesterday for a minute. It was too dark to see anything.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. He clicked it on. “Let there be light.”
He stepped inside and then turned, holding his hand out. Addison hesitated, twisting her nose up when she glanced inside.
“Come on. It’s nothing a shower can’t wash off,” he said. “I can almost stand up all the way. You’ll be fine.”
She took his hand, swishing cobwebs away with the other as she stepped forward. They descended several steps until they reached a cold, concrete floor at the bottom.
“It’s freezing down here.” Addison clenched both sides of her sweater, wrapping it tightly around her.
“Here,” Luke said, holding a second flashlight out. “I brought this one for you.”
She pressed a button on the side of it, rotated her body around, and beamed the light throughout the room. Except for the dirt-infested cobwebs dangling from above, the room appeared undisturbed, like a time capsule waiting to reveal its hidden treasures. The space ran the width of the house and was filled with antique trunks, old furniture, and various other items.
“I wonder why they have things stored in a room like this, instead of in an attic,” Addison said.
“More convenient, probably.” The far corner of the room was lined with several wooden shelves sitting in front of a long brick wall. Luke walked over, grabbed a bottle from a shelf, and blew the dust off of it. He coughed, then angled his light at the object he was holding. “It’s a 1940 Chateau Grand Puy Ducasse. The shelves are filled with them.”
Addison moved closer. “I guess we know why the room was built. Helen told me she’d attended several parties here.”
Luke raised a brow. “Helen?”
“My neighbor. She knew my mother as a child, and my grandparents.”
“When did you meet her?”
“Yesterday, after you left.”
“Did she tell you anything about them, or about the house?”
Addison shook her head. “Not really. She was an uptight ball of nerves actually. I don’t understand why she came by in the first place, other than to poke her nose in my business.”
Near a wall to the right was a wooden garment rod. Hanging on the rod zipped into clear, plastic bags, were several dresses. “I wonder if these belonged to my grandmother,” Addison said, unzipping one of the bags and running her hand along the fabric. “They look so expensive. How could anyone just leave them here?”
The dress rack was positioned in front of a series of haphazardly stacked boxes, and upon one of these boxes, Addison noticed a bunch of old blankets. One in particular caught her attention. Addison tugged on it, pulling it free. “Look at this,” she said to Luke. “Someone embroidered my mother’s name on this, and a date.”
Luke followed her line of sight and walked over to the chests. “They’re old trunks of some kind.” He knelt down beside one of them and flicked a piece of metal dangling from the front with his finger. It lifted up and then banged back down, making a hollow, clanking sound. “Check this out—it’s locked.”
“Can you open it?”
“Maybe, if we can lift it out of here. I need more light.”
“What about the others?”
Luke easily lifted the lids of the remaining trunks. “Unlocked.” Each contained nothing more than worn blankets, so he looked through them all and returned to the locked trunk. He wrapped his hands around the handle on the side and pulled up. The chest barely moved. “Something’s in this one, and my guess is it’s not blankets. I can’t even lift it. These trunks are heavy enough on their own. Put something in them and they’re nearly impossible to move. It’s probably the reason why they were left behind.”
Addison grabbed the handle on the other side. On three, they both pulled upward. “It’s too heavy. My fingers are slipping.”
“I have an idea,” Luke said. “There’s a clear path from us to the bottom of the stairs. Let’s see if we can slide it over. I’ll grab a board from upstairs, and if we can lift the trunk onto it, we can pull it out of here.”
“Won’t it ruin the bottom?”
“It might. I guess you need to decide how badly you want to know what’s inside this thing.”
Several minutes and a great deal of huffing and puffing later, the trunk arrived in the bedroom, intact, except for its scraped bottom and sides. Luke took the lock in his hand and inspected it. “I should be able to get this off with some bolt cutters.”
He left the room, returning a minute later.
“You just carry those around with you?” Addison asked.
Luke grinned. “I never know when they’ll come in handy.” He placed the end of the cutters near the lock and lifted up on the handles. When he squeezed back down, the lock broke off like it was made of nothing more than soft, pliable dough. “Well, it’s your house and your trunk. Do you want to do the honors?”
“I don’t know why, but I’m nervous.”
“Would you like me to do it?”
Addison nodded.
Luke lifted the center latch and they peered inside.
“Photographs?”
“Loads of them from the looks of it,” Luke said.
“But pictures aren’t heavy.”
Luke smacked the side of the trunk. “It’s this old thing that carried all the weight—not what was inside of it. It’s more solid than the others.”
Addison put her hands in, scattering the photos around. “Wait, I feel something else.” She dug her hand in deeper, yanking the object upward until it was freed. “It looks like a wedding album.”
The white book had a padded, pebbly feel to it, like textured vinyl. On the front cover were the words, “Memories of Our Wedding,” in shiny, foil letters. Addison opened it. On the first page was a large photograph.
“Do you know who they are?” Luke asked.
“This woman is my grandmother,” Addison said, pointing at the photo. “So the man standing next to her must be my grandfather.”
“You’ve never seen him before?”
“I never knew him, or her, really.” She stared at the picture, mentally disagreeing with her neighbor’s assertion that she looked like her grandmother. Although striking, Addison saw much more of her own features in her grandfather. They shared the same bone structure, their eyes wide and narrow like a cat, his deep-set dimples mirroring her own.
“I don’t mean to pry, but why didn’t you know them? Did they die when you were very young?”
Addison told Luke about the one and only time she’d seen her grandmother and about finding out she had passed away years later.
“And your grandfather? What about him?” Luke asked.
“My mother said he left when she was a girl. Apparently she woke up one morning and he was gone. She never saw him again.”
“Makes you wonder what happened—why your grandmother left this place, why your grandfather left home.”
Addison picked a photo out of the box. “Maybe these pictures will give me some answers, or at least some indication as to who they were.”
Luke patted her knee, then stood up. “Well, there’s a lot of work to be done, so I’ll leave you to it.”
For the next hour Addison sifted through the photos, creating piles on the floor next to her according to the dates penned on the back of the photographs. Some of the photos dated back to the 1920s and ‘30s, leading Addison to assume the couple in those photographs was her great-grandparents. But the bulk of the photos were of her grandparents, and her mother as a baby. The pictures depicted a vibrant, happy couple—not a relationship that ended as abruptly as it seemed. They appeared content, often seated arm in arm, their faces relaxed and calm. What happened to you two?
Another hour passed before Addison reached what she thought was the last layer of photos. She scooped them up, bending over the top of the chest to make certain there weren’t any she had missed. But instead of a rusty bottom—what she expected to see—she saw a long, white box. She set the photos to the side, gently removing the box from its resting place. She lifted the lid. Folded in half was a vintage party dress. It was tan and had a sheer white overlay. Hibiscus flowers adorned the front, but even more than that, scattered all over the dress were splotches of reddish-brown stains. She leaned in, trying to make sense of the marks on the dress. What were they? How did they get there? And why had someone stored the dress with such obvious stains? She brushed the tips of her fingers over one of the stains, and the room went black.
CHAPTER 7
Out of the darkness, a round, luminous beacon of light appeared. It was small, no larger than a car’s headlight. As the moments passed, it grew, shifting several times until most of the room was enveloped in its glow. An image sparked to life in front of her. A young lady who appeared to be in her late twenties sat on the edge of the bed, tears dripping from her eyes onto the front of her pink, pleated dress. The woman stared down at the ground, as if too afraid to face what was in front of her. A calendar was displayed on the wall behind her. The month was too small to make out, but in big, bold letters, Addison could see the year: 1952.
The woman’s eyes suddenly shifted, reacting to something or someone across from her. But the other side of the room remained hidden, shrouded from Addison’s view. And sight wasn’t the only sense Addison was missing: the room was devoid of all sound.
Addison approached the girl, bending down in front of her. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
The girl didn’t flinch, her petrified gaze still fixed on the other side of the room. She stared past Addison like she wasn’t even there. Addison put her hand out to touch her, but yanked it back when a high-pitched noise pierced the silence. Sound rushed back into the room. The girl stood up and screamed, stretching both of her arms out in front of her, as if trying to push someone away.
“Please, don’t,” the girl begged. “Can’t we talk about—”
The girl stopped, mid-sentence, her head slanted, eyes wide. She appeared to be listening, but how was that possible? No one else was there besides the two of them. Were they? The girl crisscrossed her hands, wrapping them over her stomach. Her entire body trembled like she was experiencing some kind of epileptic seizure. She glanced up, desperately pleading for her life. “No—no! What are you doing?! Stop!” she shrieked. “Don’t do this—please!”
They were the last words the girl would utter.
A gun appeared in midair, hovering in front of the woman, but Addison’s vision was clouded, shielding her fr
om the identity of the person holding it. The woman reached out, clawing at the gun. Addison sprung forward, grabbing for it herself, but she missed. At least, she thought she did until she turned around and tried again. The second time, she watched her hand as it swept right through the gun, like it was made of air. She brought her hand down in front of her face, fingers stretched, and then tightened it into a ball. Her hand was solid, its warmth pulsating through her veins. So why couldn’t she grab it? Addison turned once more; this time it was too late. A gunshot went off. Addison looked around. The woman was nowhere to be found. Had she been shot? Where was she? Moments later another shot rang out. The woman reappeared a few feet away from where Addison was standing. She looked past Addison and then her body sagged to the floor, lifeless. Blood oozed from her chest, filling cracks and crevices, saturating the wood floor in dark-red liquid.
Addison released the dress, allowing it to slump back inside the box. Light filtered into the room and she leaned forward, bracing a hand on the floor in front of her. She tried to suck in a breath or two but struggled to ingest even the tiniest amount of air.
It was happening—again.
CHAPTER 8
When Addison was a child, she saw things all the other “normal” kids didn’t. Things no one ever talked about if they did. Things that made the people around her uncomfortable when she did. At age five, she’d attended a birthday for her friend, Natalie. As they ran around playing an innocent game of hide and seek in the backyard, Natalie’s hair ribbon had fallen out. Addison found it. As soon as she bent down to pick it up the yard around her shifted into a haze of dark, misty fog. When the fog lifted, Natalie was no longer running in the yard. She was swinging on the tree swing. Addison waved and called out, but Natalie ignored her, not even glancing in her direction. Natalie pumped her legs faster and glared at her brother, who stared upward, taunting her, saying she could touch the sky and she still wouldn’t ever be able to swing as high as he could. She made a face like she’d show him. She could do anything better than he could. Natalie stretched her legs all the way back and then kicked back as hard as she could, soaring upward until she was almost level with the branch the tree swing hung from. She curved her body forward to see if her brother was watching and squealed with victorious excitement when she saw that he was. She shouted something at him, not realizing that her body was tipped too far forward. She slipped, her hands desperately grappling at the rope on both sides of the swing to keep her from falling down. Her desperate attempt to save herself failed; the rope snapped and she fell several feet before smacking her head on one of the rock-like stepping stones that lined her mother’s koi pond.
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