He dried his face on a hand towel, relishing its familiarity. Living out of a motel room wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't home. Neither was their new house yet. Still, as their things from Pasadena started to settle into their new locations, Xander realized these things, as much as his family, would help change that.
When Xander opened the bathroom door, David was there, clad only in pajama bottoms. “Couldn't sleep,” he said.
“It's a new place,” Xander said. “That'sâ”
Something fell over in the corridor. The boys spun toward the noise. Boxes were stacked at intervals all the way past the landing to their parents' bedroom. Another night-light glowed at the far end, making the boxes black and their square edges sharply defined. Dad had made a point of telling his kids and the movers to place the boxes against only one wall. That would keep half the hallway open to walk. Now, a box lay in that path just beyond the landing.
“Xander?” David whispered. He stepped back into his brother. Xander whispered, “Just a box. Someone didn't stack it right.” Another sound reached them. A scraping that seemed to come from the entryway.
David pushed back even farther into Xander.
“Get off my foot,” Xander whispered. David didn't budge. “Maybe it's Dad.”
“In the dark?” David said.
Xander thought about the way sounds couldn't be trusted in the house. Whatever had made the noise could be anywhere. That made him spin around to look the other direction, toward their bedroom.
David jumped, said, “What?” He grabbed Xander's hand.
“Nothing. Just looking.”
A door thunked shut. Somewhere on the first floor . . . maybe. Xander took a step toward their bedroom. “Wait here,” he said. He tried to shake him loose, but David was having none of that. “No way,” David said.
“Then you go. The flashlights are on my dresser.”
“No way,” he repeated. “Turn on the hall light.”
“I don't know where the switch is.”
“All right,” David said. “Stay here.” David released his hand and walked to the bedroom. He looked back every second step. He could have been swimming, turning his head regularly to breathe. He hesitated outside the bedroom, then reached his hand around the frame to flip on the light.
Moments later, Xander saw the two flashlights come on and shine against the linen closet door.
When David emerged, Xander asked, “Is the switch down there?”
The beams flashed around.
“I don't see it,” David said. He hurried to Xander and handed him one of the lights. They moved down the hall toward the landing. Toria's door was open. A night-light revealed her sleeping in bed. David cast his light into the room.
Xander pushed his hand down. “Don't wake her,” he whispered. At the landing, they leaned on the banister. Xan-der panned his light over the base of the stairs, the few feet of dining room visible to him, and the front door.
David shined his light directly below, onto the corridor leading to the kitchen. “It's like we're in a guard tower.”
“Shhh.” Xander's beam caught the chandelier. A thousand sparkles of white and blue light danced on the walls.
“Whoa,” David said. He added his light to Xander's. A galaxy of stars exploded around them, swirling over the walls and their faces. Despite their unease, they shared a smile. Then David's light fell from his hand. It tumbled end over end, until it crashed on the floor way below and blinked out.
“Daeâ” Xander said and stopped. His brother stared wildly at something past Xander. David reached out. He found the flesh of Xander's arm and squeezed.
Xander hissed in pain. He looked over his shoulder, down the hall. Where the corridor made a ninety-degree turn toward the back of the house, a figure stood. Just like the boxes, it was backlit by the night-light. He could make out no features. Whoeverâ
whatever
âit was, it appeared huge, but that could have been a trick of the light. “Dad?” he said.
The figure swayed, seeming to shift its weight from one foot to the other. Its arms became more distinct. Muscular and massive.
“That's not Dad,” David whispered.
Xander turned to swing his flashlight around. At the same time, David grabbed for it. It flipped out of Xander's hand. He fumbled for it, caught it, and flashed its beam down the hall. The light captured a flash of shoulder, a foot as the person disappeared beyond the corridor's bend. David's other hand shot out, and he sank both sets of fingers into Xander's bare torso.
“What was that?” David said.
“Come on,” Xander said. He moved toward the spot where the figure had disappeared.
“No, wait . . . Xander!” David was right on his heels.
“Don't you want to know?” Xander whispered.
“Not like this! Let's wake Dad. Xander! Wait!”
They were approaching their parents' bedroom on the left.
It was a wonder Dad wasn't already bolting out to investigate.
He suspected the noise had rippled away from their sleeping parents. Whether the house had randomly kept Mom and Dad from hearing the sounds or had done it purposely, Xan-der could not guess. He hoped it was not intentional.
In any event, he had the opportunity now to burst in and get their help. He pulled up beside their door. The shaking flashlight beam betrayed his nerves. He braced himself, turned to David.
“We have to look ourselves, first,” he whispered. “We're right behind him. It may be our only chance to figure out what's going on.”
“What's going on is somebody broke into our house.”
“How'd he get in? Where was he when we searched?” He tried another tactic: “Look, if it's a false alarm, Dad's going to really think I'm crazy.”
“False alarm?” David said between clenched teeth. “Didn't you
see
him?”
“That doesn't mean he's there now.”
David knew as well as Xander did that the bend in the hall led only to the servants' quarters. David said, “Where could he have gone?”
“The house, Dae. It doesn't make sense.”
“Then what are we doing
living
in it?” He kept looking past Xander to the bend, so Xander didn't have to.
Xander held his index finger to his mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered.
“Hear that?”
Somewhere outside, a dog was howling.
“Something's got him spooked,” David said.
For some reason, that bothered Xander even more than seeing an intruder. He said, “Okay, listen. If we're attacked, we go crashing into Mom and Dad's room, sound good? Let's just take a look, see what we see.
Just a look
.”
David reached past a box and picked up a shower curtain rod. He got a two-handed grip on it, shook it to test its weight and balance. “Let's do it,” he said.
SATURDAY, 12:20 A.M.
Xander and David followed the flashlight beam around the corner. It found the closed guestroom door, and Xander held it there.
“Was it closed before?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
Being closed was worse. It meant opening it to who knew what. Stepping nearer, he expected the door to spring open and the man with the big feet to charge out. The backsplash of light filled the hallway. Their own shadows danced around them. David was near enough for Xander to feel his breath on his back. He glanced back at his brother. Big eyes. Tight lips. He held the shower curtain rod straight up, ready to bring it down hard on any head he didn't recognize.
Xander reached for the door handle. He turned it slowly, listening to the metal inside grinding against itself. The latch disengaged from the receptacle in the frame. He pushed. A musty odor drifted out. He pointed the flashlight at the black breach. It illuminated a thin strip of hardwood floor, a slice of furniture deeper inside. He debated kicking at the door, then decided to simply push it fully open. Extending his arm, he hoped nothing reached through and grabbed him.
David tapped his shoulder. Xander did not want to turn his attention from the partially open door. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Look.”
“Now?”
Instead of answering, David tapped him again.
Xander looked, saw him nod to his other side. Xander swiveled his head around that way. On the back wall, where the hall ended, a thick shadow, straight as a ruler, ran from floor to ceiling. He turned the flashlight's beam to it. Part of the wall was canted out, open like a door that had not closed fully. The wall had been paneled in vertical planks of wood.
The opening matched where two planks met, which explained why they had not spotted the secret door before.
Xander pulled the guest room door closed. He no longer thought anyone occupied the room, but he didn't want to make it easy for someone to sneak up on them if he was wrong. He tiptoed to the movable wall. Before he could get his fingers to the edge, David reached out and pushed it shut. It clicked and remained flush with the rest of the wall.
“Dae!” he whispered. “What if we can't get it open again? We don't know where theâ”
David gave the wall a quick push and it popped open a crack. Xander scowled at him. “Good thing.” He pulled at the edge. It swung toward them easily, silently. He reversed a step, bumping into David and pushing him backward. The flashlight picked up another wall several yards beyond the fake one. He moved into the opening. A closed door was set in the second wall. A sheet of metal had been riveted to it, as if to strengthen it. Xander approached it, feeling David clinging to him like a wet leaf.
“Check it out,” he said quietly.
Hanging from a bright metal hasp, attached to the door, was a heavy padlock. Dangling with the lock was the portion of the hasp that had been screwed to the door frame. It had been ripped out, broken when the door was forced open. Splinters of wood lay at the baseboard, a screw not far away.
“It looks new,” David said.
Xander turned the handle and pulled the door open. Stairs
ascended to the floor above. But he and David had already found the attic entrance on the other side of the house. He recalled how small the attic had been, how he had assumed it was because of the shape of the roof. Now he thought of another reason: there were
two
attics.
He didn't like it. This was right out of a
Goosebumps
story:
snoopy visitors would find the stairs to the attic, go up, and . . . well, what happened to them wasn't pretty.
Xander's light revealed nothing at the top of the flight.
The landing was deep enough to mask any door or wall that might be at the top.
David was peering around Xander, pressing his chest against Xander's back. Xander could feel the boy's racing heart, and more: he was shivering as violently as a person who'd fallen through a lake's frozen surface. Xander stepped back and closed the metal-skinned door.
He took in his brother's frightened face, wondered how much of it mirrored his own expression. He had read somewhere that bravery is not the absence of fear but the forging ahead despite being afraid. David was certainly afraid, but he'd seen his brother's bravery too many times to assume he wanted to end their adventure here and now.
“You okay?” he asked.
David nodded and actually bent his lips into a smile of sorts.
“Your call. We go up now . . . or wait till tomorrow, get Dad's help if you want.”
David stared at the door, considering his options. His heartbeat continued to pound furiously against Xander's back.
At length, he whispered, “What I said before: let's do it.”
Xander felt himself shiver. It was more internal than David's vibrating goose bumps, but a sign of his fear, all the same. Maybe he had been counting on David to vote them off this island, to send them home, back to bed. Perhaps his brother's fear was contagious.
Bravery isn't the absence of fear
, he reminded himself. He just wished he had something like David's curtain rod to wield. A bat would be nice. So would an M16. And he didn't much like the idea that he was almost naked, except for boxers. Going into battle required a uniform, didn't it? At least
clothes
. Did he say
battle
? Not battle. No, not battle. Just . . . just . . . checking out a new place in their home. That's all.
Yeah, a new place behind a fake wall and a door with a broken lock, where
some huge dude is probably waiting to ambush you.
Stop it
, he scolded himself.
Are you going to do this or not?
David, right behind him, had said, “Let's do it.” How could Xander back out now? He'd never live it down.
He pulled open the door again, flashed the light up the stairs. Nothing lurked at the top . . . that he could see. He passed through the threshold, then mounted the first step. The second. The third.
David stayed one step below him.
Another step. A wall came into view, just past the upper landing.
Up to step number . . . he'd forgotten. Didn't matter.
David kept a hand on Xander's hip. He was so close, Xander felt he was giving his brother a piggyback ride.
He stepped onto the landing. Set at a ninety-degree angle from the stairway was a long, dark corridor.
David edged up behind him. He said, “Xander, look.”
On the left wall was an old-fashioned light switch: a copper faceplate through which two push-buttons, one over the other, protruded. The upper button was depressed, almost flush with the faceplate. The bottom button stuck out a half inch farther. Xander pushed this one, which caused the top button to pop out, teeter-totter style. The corridor lit up, illuminated by lights in the ceiling as well as wall-mounted lamps, spaced at even intervals on both long walls. The hallway wasn't straight; it bent slightly this way then that way, like a snake. It never curved enough to block the far end from view. And its length puzzled Xander. It seemed longer than the house itself, which was impossible. He wondered if the wall on the far end was mirrored, giving the hallway its extended appearance. The floor was hardwood, as was the rest of the house, but an old-fashioned carpet, red with an intricate black pattern, ran the length of the corridor. The bottom third of the walls was wainscoted in squares of dark wood. Wallpaper covered the upper portion: vertical stripes of old vines and leaves over an ivory background. Doors lined both sides. They were staggered so no one door faced another. Their handles glinted dully in the light.