The Women in the Walls Read online

  “Fine.” My father’s hair is not combed sideways with gel; he is not wearing a suit. “You can try to see her whenever you want, and the nurse can be the one to tell you if it is or isn’t a good time.”

  “There’s a nurse here?” I ask, thrown off. “From the hospital in town?”

  “Privately funded,” my father says. Of course. “Penelope didn’t want to go to the hospital. She keeps saying she only wants to stay home, and after what she’s been through, I don’t blame her.”

  “Something’s happened to her.” I stand from the table and suddenly realize that I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes. “She’s not the same.”

  “She will be.” My father pours his coffee and turns to lean against the table. “She’ll come back to us as she readjusts, little by little, and then maybe she’ll let us know what exactly she’s been through, and how she survived all this time.”

  “I wonder what Gregory Shaw and Kent Dickens will think,” I say, hoping to gauge some sort of reaction from him. “Do you think they’ll be happy or sad?”

  My father stiffens. “I’m starting to become worried about you. You don’t look well at all. I’m starting to wonder if Margaret’s death has had an especially ill effect on you. Perhaps some extended rest will—”

  “I don’t need to rest,” I snap as I walk past him, out of the dining room and into the parlor. “I need to speak with my aunt.”

  Once at her door, I knock hesitantly, unsure if I’m ready for whatever is about to happen. Will Penelope be happy to see me, or will it make her upset? Will she help me stop the living nightmare, or will she drag me deeper into it? What will she say when I tell her I know about the teeth and the rituals and the Mother? What will she say when I ask her if she’s purposefully trapped the souls of Margaret and my mother in the walls?

  Before I can wonder any more, a tall man in a brown houndstooth suit answers the door. In his hand is a syringe.

  “Yes?” he says, as though he has no idea who I might be. Surely my father mentioned that he had a daughter who lived here.

  “I’m here to see my aunt,” I say. “I’m Lucy.”

  “Oh, Lucy,” the man says, looking thoughtful as he steps to the side to let me in. “Your name has come up quite a few times in Ms. Acosta’s ramblings, so it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. My name is Howard.”

  “You don’t look like a nurse.” I eye the empty syringe still clutched in his hand. “Aren’t you supposed to be wearing scrubs or gloves or something? And what’s that for?”

  “I just had to sedate her,” Howard says, dropping the syringe into a plastic biohazard container, ignoring my other comments. I step inside and look to my aunt’s bed, almost hesitantly. Sure enough, there she is, lying against the pillows, her mouth slightly open as she sleeps. I wonder why she needed to be sedated.

  I don’t know what I expected, maybe some obscene display of evil or insanity or God knows what else, but seeing her now for the first time in weeks only makes me think of old times, when she was so loving and protective of me, like I was a second daughter. No matter what it is she’s been caught up in, there’s no way she would ever really hurt me.

  The question now is if she hurt other people, like Walter, and Margaret, and my mother.

  “Penelope,” I whisper, and her eyes stay closed. I rush to her side before I even know what I’m doing, sitting at the bedside chair and taking her hand in mine. I don’t have to take much more of this; she’s here and it’s all going to be over now... “You’re really back.”

  My mouth pulls into a hard frown as I take in my aunt’s appearance close-up. Her hair is filthy, saturated in oil and dirt, and the tangles look like they’ll take days to get through. Besides that, it’s also thinned noticeably, and there are strange sores scattered randomly over her skin. Her lips are spiderwebbed with cracks.

  “Is she sick?” I ask.

  “A little,” Howard says, his deep voice calm and smooth. “The lacerations were probably made herself, with her fingernails or something from outside. The cuts just got a little infected, is all. The fever will stay down eventually, with my help. She was also suffering from extreme exhaustion—it’s as though she hadn’t slept for days. It made her extremely paranoid. The sedation will help with that immensely. After she’s had a solid sleep, she’ll be much more like herself.”

  I look at Penelope’s face, willing her to open her eyes and tell me everything, but she remains still.

  “Has she been outside all this time?” I think of the forest, and the cold weather, and all the rain we’ve been having. “How did she survive?”

  “I don’t understand it,” Howard says, sitting in a different chair and staring at Penelope with a wary eye. “She’s clearly been through something, but it’s not consistent with someone who’s been unsheltered this entire time. There’s no hypothermia or any other of the more severe symptoms of extended cold exposure, but she wasn’t wearing any shoes when she came back in. The bottoms of her feet were affected by walking bare over the terrain of the forest, but just barely.”

  Penelope’s hand is hot and clammy in mine. I imagine her barefoot in the forest, saying nonsense chant words and dancing through the trees in the midnight snow, and my chest becomes heavy with dread.

  “It’s almost as if she was confined somewhere,” the nurse in the houndstooth suit continues. “Perhaps she was staying in an abandoned mine or cave or something of the like.”

  I think of the white marble tomb in the woods, so stark among the trees, and my heart skips a beat. Did the ritual require her to somehow get inside the tomb? I imagine Penelope lying silently inside when I ran my hands over the marble, looking for an inscription when Margaret and I found the cemetery, and my hands start to tingle.

  But as I get up and pull my hand from Penelope’s, her eyes flicker open and she looks up at me. “You,” she says, her words thick and slow from the sedation. “My niece.”

  “That’s right.” I sit back down immediately, leaning close. I take her hand again, smiling softly while I look into her eyes, telling myself over and over not to be scared of her. “Hey there, Penelope, welcome back. I missed you more than you could ever know.”

  “She should be sleeping,” Howard says from behind me. I hear him fumbling with something in his bag—likely more sedation drugs. I have to hurry.

  “I’m not there anymore,” Penelope rasps, taking in a ragged breath of air. “In the darkness.”

  I stiffen in my seat.

  “Nothing to be alarmed about,” Howard says when he sees my reaction. “The medicine I gave her is strong. She just needs a slightly increased dose so we can at least get eight hours of sleep into her. Talking nonsense is completely normal.”

  “What darkness?” I ask my aunt as he preps the injection, ignoring his words. “Why were you in the darkness, Penelope?” I want to ask specifics about the ritual stuff but can’t in front of whoever this Howard person is. I don’t know who he is, but if he’s privately funded, he could be connected to the country club somehow, and therefore cannot be trusted.

  “Best not to indulge that sort of behavior,” he says, sounding confused. “Just keep talking to her as though she never said it. Reassure her that she’s fine.”

  “She’s not fine,” I snap at the nurse, who looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. I turn back to my aunt, who is gaping up at me with wide, terrified eyes.

  “I did something bad,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say back, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not okay. “There has to be a way to turn it all around, right?”

  The nurse raises an eyebrow, and I wish more than anything that he would go away.

  “Maybe,” she moans, her eyes desperate. Her speech is running together; the sedation drugs are pulling her back into sleep withou
t even having to receive the second dose. The nurse nods to himself, content, and replaces the cap on the injection needle.

  My aunt lowers her voice to a whisper—I lean in close so that Howard won’t hear. “It’s because the grounds are so sacred,” she says. “It never could have happened otherwise.”

  From the time that I was little, Penelope would refer to the estate as sacred. Clearly, she meant it literally. But how did it become that way? Was it always that way, or was something done to make it sacred? Suddenly I’m overcome with the urge to discover everything I can about the origins of the estate itself, from before it was in my family.

  “Rest now,” I assure her, which Howard must approve of, because he finally sits back in his chair. She won’t be able to help me while she’s this drugged, and at least now I’ve finally got something productive I can do in all of this. “We can talk when you’re a little more awake.”

  A tiny glimmer of hope shimmers cruelly away inside. My aunt is asleep before I’ve finished rising from my chair.

  “I’ll come back later,” I say, and Howard nods. “Please make sure I’m told when she’s awake again, and not so drugged up.”

  “Of course,” he assures me. “We’ll get her there, eventually.”

  Hopefully by then I’ll know more about what is happening in this house.

  I leave my aunt’s bedroom and head up the stairs to the second floor, passing the bedrooms and curving around to the other side of the house, where the library is. I haven’t been in here since I promised myself I’d stop staring out the window, wishing for Penelope to come back. And I thought things were bad then.

  The floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the back wall of the library are covered by enormous curtains, filling the room with shadows. I make my way to them, intending to open them wide so I can see what I’m doing, but then I notice the dull glow of a reading light in the corner of the room. I make my way over, passing the shelves until I see who is sitting in the dark, reading: Vanessa.

  At first my mind goes wild, trying to find ways to get her out of here—she can’t know what I’m doing! But then I realize, if I’m able to talk her into helping me look around for stuff on the estate, I’ll maybe be able to find what I’m looking for twice as fast, two brains and all that. At this point, I need all the help I can get. And it wouldn’t be endangering her, right? Pulling her into a bigger picture that she’s not even aware exists? It’s only simple research about the house, I decide in the end.

  She’ll be fine.

  “HEY,” VANESSA SAYS when she sees me, hiding her startle well. “Sorry, I’ve just never seen anyone else in here, and it’s been a nice place to come in between stuff with my mom. There’s so much cool stuff on these shelves, it’s crazy.”

  I think of the time I found Vanessa crying in the courtyard, about how working here had taken its toll on her and her mom. She even said that she thought Miranda had a crush on my father, which makes me wonder how Miranda’s been reacting to Penelope’s return. I can imagine why Vanessa would want to get away from it all in the library—I know from experience how great of a hiding place it is.

  “Yeah,” I say lamely. “Thanks for telling me about Penelope, by the way.”

  “Were you able to see her last night?” she asks. “That whole thing was so damn weird.”

  “Not last night, but this morning,” I say. “And the circumstances aren’t exactly favorable, but I’d much rather her be with us than dead.” At least there’s hope now. “Anyway, thanks again. I appreciate it.”

  She shrugs, then looks back down to her book. “Were you wanting to sit here, or...?”

  “No,” I say, suddenly feeling uncomfortable just standing there. I head over to the curtains and open them wide, filling the library with sunlight. “I’m just trying to find out some stuff for a history project I’m doing.”

  “Oh,” she says distantly, still reading. “Cool.”

  I wander over to the nonfiction shelves, too embarrassed to flat out ask for help. Instead, I remember the time Penelope called me into her room to make sure I was okay after I’d found Walter, how there’d been stacks of leather-bound books all over the floor. I peer through the books in front of me, most of them with bright, commercially printed covers.

  “What’s the project for?” Vanessa asks, looking up from her own book. “History can be fun.”

  “It’s about this house, actually,” I say as casually as I can. “I have to do research, but I’ve put it off for too long and now I’m stressing.”

  She nods, and I spot a cluster of books toward the end of the shelf, all leather-bound, one of them with a small red page marker sticking out the top. My heart leaps at the sight of it.

  “Maybe I can help somehow,” she says and closes her book. “I’m bored out of my skull.”

  “If you want.” I head toward the book with the red page marker. “How good are you with search engines?”

  “Are you kidding?” she calls, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “I’m an expert, just like everyone else.”

  “Maybe you could look up some stuff for me while I check out these books,” I call back. The spine of the book is bound in black leather, and the words A Guide To Post-Mortem Examination are stamped down the side in gray ink. My pulse intensifies as I stare at the title.

  I hear Vanessa get up and head across the other side of the room, where the computer desk is.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” she calls over once she’s sat down.

  “I was hoping to find any information I could on the origin of the estate,” I answer. “Before it was in my family. I need to find out everything I can about the original owner, or anything about the land, if possible.” It’s just enough information to get the benefit of her help, without having to pull her in to any of the more dangerous stuff.

  “Okay,” Vanessa says, and I take the book from the shelf. “I’ll start with the address.”

  Silence as she types away. I run my hand over the cover of the book before opening it to the marked page, not allowing myself any more hesitation than that. On the page are two diagrams of the human skull; one from the front, and one from the side. Illustrations of different types of pliers fill the sides; on the bottom, there are three paragraphs describing the procedure of removing teeth.

  Symbolic of life is written in careful handwriting in one of the margins. I recognize Penelope’s penmanship immediately. To take in life is to discover the truth. Another note closer to the bottom of the page, this one sloppier and more hurried than the rest, reads: thirty-two teeth per adult.

  I close the book and slide it back on the shelf right away, terrified at the idea of confronting Penelope about what I know once she’s awake again but desperate to know what her explanation will be.

  “Hey,” Vanessa says. “I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, but I thought it might be cool to see. It’s a picture of your family from a long time ago.”

  I leave the nonfiction section behind to go see what she’s talking about, grateful to get away from A Guide To Post-Mortem Examination. As I reach the computer, I can see an article on the screen about some celebration for the estate. HISTORICAL LANDMARK COMES UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP, the headline reads. I stare with my heart in my throat at a photo of my mother, Eva, hugely pregnant with me and standing beside my father, in the front of the house, along with about twenty other club members. Penelope stands in the back, looking at the camera with lifeless, disdainful eyes. This must have been taken when she still lived in her little apartment in town with baby Margaret.

  Vanessa backs out of the article to continue scrolling down the list, which is packed full of irrelevant headlines. I remember Margaret telling me that our mothers hated each other, how badly Penelope wanted to be the head of the estate.

  “Hey...” Vanessa says as her eyes light up with the re
flection of the screen. “Check this one out.”

  I look to find a news article that is much, much older than the ones from the first few pages. HOME FOR ABANDONED YOUTH OPENS AFTER LAND BOUGHT OUT, the headline screams across the top of the page. Accompanying the article is a dark, grainy photograph of the estate.

  In the background of the photo is the house, but I hardly recognize it. Instead of tile roofing, the top of the place is covered with long boards of wood that stick out jaggedly over the edges of the walls. The courtyard is nothing but an open field of weeds and bushes, and the iron gate surrounding the perimeter of the garden is gone. The driveway is a wide dirt path. The stone walls are the only things that look the same.

  Standing in front of the house is a large group of people in dated clothing, most of them younger, their expressions solemn. “What year was this taken?” I wonder aloud.

  “1899.” Vanessa scrolls down to read the caption beneath the photo. “‘Founder Clara Owens stands with her students and newly hired staff, shortly after the opening of the home.’”

  I look over the faces of the students, fascinated at the sight of them. Is that why there are so many bedrooms in the house? Because it was built to be a home for abandoned youth? A woman who I assume is the founder, Clara, stands to the side of the group while the rest of the staff lines the back. Her chin is pointed proudly upward; she is wearing a long black dress and elaborate matching hat. Strings of pearls hang around her neck.

  I skim the article eagerly, disappointed when I don’t find anything too worthy of note. The woman was from out of country; she bought the property; she opened the home. While my gut tells me it’s relevant in some way, there isn’t enough here to make any direct connections. “I wonder what would happen if we did a search for Clara’s name?”

  We try it. The only results that come up are the one we already saw about the opening and an obituary printed in 1903. “Only four years after opening the place,” Vanessa says. “And she was just thirty-three when she died. So young.”