Chapter 28 #2
I saw a face at the window today. I told Jack and he laughed at me.
Every time I tell him weird things are happening to me, he just shakes his head.
He wants to take me back to the shrink but there’s nothing wrong with me.
I know what I saw and when I went back inside, I checked on all the staff and everyone was having lunch.
I must find the window and see if the dust has been disturbed but I don’t like going to the third floor alone.
I recall stories as a child of strange sounds and footsteps coming from up there.
Jack says it’s just the house moving and that’s what old houses do.
He has no plans to open the third floor.
The lights are dim and it hasn’t been opened for many years. It’s a place time left behind.
I went outside again and stared at the windows.
The one where I saw a face was the sixth window on the third floor.
I went back inside, found a flashlight in the kitchen and went up the stairs.
It was dark and musty on the third floor.
The hallways are covered in a thick coating of dust. It was cold and the floorboards creaked with each step.
I counted the bedroom doors, five doors not six.
I went back and counted the doors again.
Five doors. I went to the fifth door, opened the room and shone my flashlight inside.
It was like stepping back in time. Old moldy furniture covered in a thick layer of dust greeted me.
I moved the light around and counted only one window.
I closed the door and walked along the hallway, tapping the walls, and found no trace of another door. The sixth room is missing.
August 11
I asked about the missing room and Jack showed me the blueprints of the house.
There was no sixth room. So how come there’s a window?
We went outside and counted the windows.
Six. He told me one must have been boarded up to extend a room many years ago.
Today I went back up the stairs and tried the door again and it was locked.
All the doors were locked. I asked the staff who locked the doors and they all insisted no one had been up to the third floor.
I spoke to Jack and he said he didn’t have keys for the doors upstairs and he had no idea they were locked.
After speaking to him, I’m confused. Many things confuse me lately.
I blame the drugs the shrink gave me. Since then, I’ve experienced weird things.
This is one of them. Am I losing my mind?
Did I see the face in the window and imagine opening the fifth door?
I sat for a time, trying to recall my time here as a child.
I did see secret passageways but I don’t recall a window.
I need to spend some time away from his house.
I wish Jack hadn’t purchased it now. It’s becoming more like a prison than a home.
Suddenly needing clarification, I slide the laptop back into its hiding place.
I collect the bunch of keys Sue had cut for me and, grabbing my phone, head along the passageway and up the stairs to the next floor.
There are two wings to the house, both separated by a balcony in the center.
The back section behind the kitchen is the staff quarters.
Where I’d seen the face was definitely on the left side of the house.
I climb the stairs and hear Bill’s warning words echoing in my mind.
He’s been working here for many years. What had he really heard about the previous occupants?
Which one of them apparently boarded up a room or a window and didn’t mark it on the plans? Why would they do that?
Many things speed through my mind as I climb.
My few excursions alone through this massive house haven’t worked out so well but I figure most of what unnerved me is in my head.
I really shouldn’t watch horror movies as they’re twisting my mind.
Jack and the kids have lived here for a long time and nothing weird has happened to them.
I’m not unstable and I’m not crazy Laura. I’ll be fine.
At the top of the stairs is a huge oak door.
It fits in well with the rest of the décor and I’d never have known this led to another hallway unless Jack had told me.
I take out the bunch of keys and try any that look compatible.
On the fourth try, the key turns, and with a push the door whines open.
Ahead of me is a long dark hallway. The house has a different feel up here; like Laura said in her diary, it’s as if time has stopped.
I use the flashlight on my phone and shine the beam into the dark abyss.
The wallpaper is old, brown and peeling in places.
I see portraits of people from maybe a century ago, although they’re so dust laden it’s hard to tell.
I follow the beam of light and wonder what this separate floor was used for in days gone by.
Why does the staircase to the loft go from the second floor and not the third?
It makes no sense unless this part was servants’ quarters, but then most servants had the bottom floors, not the top.
It’s creepy in here and I take a few steps inside and stand for a moment, examining the people in the portraits.
This, I imagine by the dress, was the family who occupied the home in the early 1920s.
My light disturbs spiders hanging in cobwebs and they all seem to run and hide at once.
It’s cold here, a bone-chilling cold that sends shivers down my spine.
I’m afraid but curiosity alone makes me step forward, farther along the hallway.
Here the air is old and musty, and my light picks up dust motes dancing like fireflies in the beam.
I’m halfway to the first door and hear a creaking sound as if someone is following me and the floorboards are complaining.
Heart racing, I turn quickly but all I see is my footprints in the substantial layer of dust on the worn hall carpet.
I reach the first door and turn the handle.
It opens and I stand back. Inside the dim room, it’s amazingly clean; dust covers are over lumps, which I assume is furniture.
I move into the room and lift a dusty sheet and peer underneath.
I find a very old-style chair but of good quality, undoubtedly antique.
I turn toward the window and pull aside one of the drapes.
Even through the murky glass, I can see the garden below and the path where I stood looking up at the house.
Without so much as a creak, the door slams shut behind me, the sound like a gunshot in the silence.
I cry out, fear has me by the throat and I move my flashlight around the room.
Terror grips me but no one is in the room with me.
Frozen to the spot, I drag in stale air as my attention flashes from side to side.
Nothing moves but the house moans and a cold breeze brushes across my legs.
Where is it coming from? I turn to the window but it’s closed and the glass is intact.
I need to get out of here, now. My bravery slips away and I go to the door.
I turn the doorknob but the door doesn’t open.
I’m stuck inside, and nobody knows I’m here.
Terrified, I hammer on the door. “Hey, let me out of here. What game are you playing?”
Nothing. Not one sound comes from the hallway.
Another cold breeze brushes across my bare ankles in an icy caress and I turn my flashlight toward the hearth.
I stand panting, trying to get my senses.
I have my phone and can call for help. If I knew anyone inside the house’s number.
In fact, I don’t even know the house number.
Why didn’t I think to add it to my contacts?
I stare at the door, uncertain what to do.
What is wrong with me? Am I losing my mind like Laura?
I refuse to be like her, and take a firm grasp on the door handle and pull.
Nothing. I try again, this time pushing one foot against the wall for leverage.
The door releases so fast I stumble back and sit down hard on the dusty floor.
I jump to my feet to dash through the opening but it hits me in the back, pushes me out into the hallway, and slams shut behind me.
It’s as if the room didn’t want me inside.
I stand breathing heavily and staring at the door.
Jack’s warning echoes in my mind. What is it about the third floor that makes him hesitant to renovate it? What isn’t he telling me?
I move my flashlight along the hallway and regain my courage.
Sure, the room unsettled me but I’m determined not to allow my imagination to run riot.
I need to see the fifth room for my own peace of mind and walk to the end of the hallway, my light bobbing in front of me.
I find the fifth door and open it with ease.
As before, the furniture is covered but just as Laura mentioned in her diary, there’s only one window.
I’m not going inside. I’m not that stupid.
I shut the door and stand in the hallway, moving my flashlight around.
At this end of the hallway, the dust is minimal.
I go to examine the walls where a sixth bedroom should be but a strange grinding sound stops me in my tracks.
Maybe that’s the tree branches scratching the windows or rats living inside the walls?
What is moving the dust and slamming the doors?
I figure the wind is likely blowing down the chimneys—but there’s no fireplaces in the hallway.
I walk to the ornate oak panels and run my hand over them.
They also look clean. How strange. I scan the carpet.
No one has been here or they’d have left footprints like I did.
I shake my head. Bill told me the house isn’t haunted.
Even so, I don’t like being here and I’m about to head back downstairs when I hear someone singing.
I stop midstride and all the hairs on my body stand on end.
The sound is gone in a second. Did I imagine it?
Are Laura’s words twisting my mind? Maybe, but what if someone doesn’t want me investigating her death and believes that frightening me is a way of making me stop?