The Women in the Walls Read online

  “It doesn’t mention how she died.” I lean forward to scan the column of text. “Just that she passed away at home surrounded by those she loved most.”

  “Look here,” Vanessa says, pointing at the screen. “It says ‘Ms. Owens was laid to rest on the property, the place she felt most at home. Her staff insisted that it was the only appropriate place for a woman who dedicated her life to helping her students.’”

  “The cemetery,” I say, chilled at the idea of the woman in the picture being buried in the woods outside the house, forgetting that I wasn’t going to mention any of this to Vanessa. “Maybe that tomb is hers. But what about all the other graves?”

  “What is it with all the talk about the graves?” Vanessa says, leaning back in her seat. “I’m glad for your sake that you missed out on the scene Penelope made when she first got back last night, but the things she was saying were messed up. She mentioned a graveyard in the woods, just like you did. So what’s going on, Lucy?”

  “Penelope mentioned the graveyard?” I ask, forgetting for a moment about the article. “What did she say?”

  “Stuff.” Vanessa raises a brow. “But you need to answer my questions first.”

  I know I should lie to her, but more and more I realize that I don’t really want to. After everything that’s happened, I want someone to share this with, because doing it all by myself is too hard. I remember the razor in the bathtub, how I’d given up, what happened when I tried to follow through with it. Just leave the part out about hearing Margaret and Eva in the walls.

  “After Penelope went missing, Margaret and I took a walk through the woods to see if we could find anything,” I explain, avoiding Vanessa’s eye. “We found this cemetery, although it wasn’t like a real cemetery because there was no gate or any kind of separation at all. There were just gravestones in random spots among the trees.”

  “And you said there was a tomb, too?” Vanessa asks. “Man, that’s just weird.”

  I imagine Penelope digging up the graves, pulling the teeth from the corpses.

  “Margaret freaked out when she saw it,” I say, my chest tightening at the memory. “I mean, she really freaked out. And then, the night she died, remember how we couldn’t find her anywhere?”

  “Yes,” Vanessa says, like she isn’t sure she wants to know what comes next. Too late for that. I’m not sure I could stop now, even if I wanted to.

  “I saw her coming back from the woods through the library window,” I continue. “I saw her flashlight as she ran. When she came back in through the kitchen, she told me she’d gone back to the cemetery.”

  “And then...she killed herself,” Vanessa says slowly.

  “Yeah,” I say, wishing more than anything that as soon as I’d seen Margaret that night, I’d tackled her, held her down, screamed for help and refused to let go until someone took us both far away from the estate. “So between that and the fact that Penelope apparently mentioned it,” I continue, “I thought it might be worth looking into, although I don’t understand why yet.” I look to the article again. “Can you please tell me what it was that she said last night?”

  Vanessa nods, the corners of her mouth turned down. “She was rambling about the graveyard in the trees,” she says. “Asking why nobody had ever properly used it, to get to a place much better than this. She wasn’t making any sense.”

  A place much better than this.

  Free us or join us.

  “Wait.” Vanessa stares into my face, her expression hard to read. “Are you saying you think there’s something unnatural happening here?”

  I think of Margaret knocking on the wall in the attic, her hair dirty with dark circles under her eyes. I think of when she told me that she was being haunted. I think of when I heard her voice in the walls after she died, telling me she was hurting, begging me to help her.

  “No,” I say. It’s hard to tell if Vanessa believes me. “I just think there has to be a connection of some kind, that’s all.”

  “Let’s just say this graveyard had something to do with Margaret killing herself,” Vanessa says. “Then why would you want to get caught up in something like that?”

  Because I have to, I want to say. Because if there’s a way to free Margaret’s soul, I have to make sure it happens.

  “Because I want to understand what happened.” I look back to the computer screen, where a picture of Clara Owens stares back beside the column containing her obituary. “And I want to know where my aunt has been and what’s wrong with her.”

  “I don’t like this,” Vanessa says, her tone flat. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Me, either.” I reach to grab the computer mouse, exit the screen and stand from the black leather library chair. “Welcome to the club.”

  “It’s definitely disturbing,” she says, standing, as well. “But all of it can be explained by one thing or the other. You do know that, right?”

  She seems tense when I don’t answer right away. “It’s unfair, of course,” she continues. “But not like that ever matters in life. Still, I wish you weren’t going through all of this.”

  I think of when I first saw Vanessa, standing in the dining room with wet hair and a stupid grin. Maybe in a different life we could have been friends.

  “Thanks,” I say awkwardly, and we start to head out. “I just need Penelope to wake up enough to actually talk to me about where she’s been, and what’s going on with that place.”

  “I’m sure she will.” Vanessa stretches and takes a deep breath through her nose. “In the meantime, though, maybe you should get some sleep yourself. You don’t look so good.”

  I hold off on telling her that I didn’t sleep last night. “Thanks?” I say and smile despite myself. The smile fades when I realize that Margaret looked like she could use some sleep, too, shortly before she died. “Anyway, see you later.”

  “Yep,” Vanessa says, heading down the hall to the stairs. “Tomorrow is the big day, huh?”

  At first I don’t get it. “Big day?”

  She looks over her shoulder now, as if worried. “Tomorrow’s your family’s holiday party, remember?”

  I didn’t remember, actually, and if she never reminded me just now I probably would have forgotten until people started arriving. I cannot believe we’re going on with the party after Penelope’s return.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “That big day.”

  “It’s a big day for me, too,” Vanessa says, pausing at the top of the stairs. “It means I finally get to leave this place. No offense, but I think my mom has literally lost her mind over the planning for this thing. Nothing’s worth that.”

  I realize that I never asked her how Miranda was doing since our talk in the courtyard, when I found her crying. It reminds me of the mistake I always made with Margaret—forgetting to care because I was too zoomed in to my own problems, leaving us both alone. “No offense taken,” I say after a moment, but she’s already gone.

  Once I’m alone, the weight of nervousness and fear and dread comes back to me like it never left. I go back to my bedroom to sit on the bed that I’ve pulled to the middle of the room, afraid at first that I’ll hear more voices, but I’m only able to sit for about thirty minutes before I fall into a deep sleep.

  I wake with a start, unsure if I really just heard someone say my name or if it was part of a dream. It’s almost dark, and the house is dead silent. I look around my room for a second before scrambling out, terrified of hearing the voice of Margaret or my mother. She only spoke a few sentences to me, but the idea that she’s watching me now is devastating. What if... What if Penelope murdered her? To get control of the estate? I shake my head to get the thought out. If there was ever a time for faith, it’s now. And I know in my heart that my aunt is not a murderer.

  I just do.

  The entry room is already par
tly decorated for the party tomorrow. Long stretches of evergreen garland are draped in graceful swoops around the top perimeter. White string lights drip from the walls below them. Unlit red, white and gold candlesticks sit embedded in the holders around the room, their wicks soft and new. Gold star ornaments hang suspended from different lengths of clear plastic thread that connect to the ceiling. Miranda and Vanessa must have done it while I was asleep.

  Curious, I go through to Penelope’s door, listening in but hearing nothing. Is she still sleeping? I crack the door open just a bit to peek inside, only to find the bed empty and remade. The room has been cleaned up. The large black leather bag the nurse was carrying is gone, as is the plastic container he dropped the empty syringe into.

  There’s no sign my aunt was ever here.

  “Dad?” I call, my heart racing, as I run into his study. It’s empty, as well. Is it possible they finally had to take her to the hospital? Did things get worse after I left?

  Suddenly I hear someone shuffling down the grand staircase in the entry room, just as I reach the hall and step in. It’s my father, looking exhausted and a bit disheveled.

  “Where’s Penelope?” I blurt out. “I just went to her room to check in on her and she’s gone.”

  “Penelope requested to be moved out of that room,” my father says. “She couldn’t stand how the sun was coming in through the windows. It was hurting her eyes.”

  “There are blinds,” I say. “Why didn’t you close them?”

  “There were other things she didn’t like about staying there,” my father snaps, clearly drained of all patience. “For one, she accidentally saw that drawer of photographs that Margaret had ruined, and wasn’t that fun, trying to find a simple way to explain it to her when she can’t even remember who Margaret is in the first place. She thought the pictures were real, that her face really was just a mess of black scribbles. It set her off again.”

  “So where is she now?” I ask. “Don’t tell me you put her in Margaret’s room.”

  “I thought about it,” my father says, “but she specifically requested to stay in the attic.”

  “WHAT?” I STARE UP at him in disbelief. “Why would you put her in the attic? There isn’t even a bed up there, or a bathroom, and how could you let her stay where Margaret...where she...”

  “Margaret didn’t kill herself in that room,” my father argues. “She died in the garden. The cover on the window has been bolted permanently shut.”

  I am so tired of his bullshit. I know he’s involved in this in some way—he has to be! I think back to everything I’ve seen from him since Penelope disappeared. He seemed anxious and worried while she was gone, like he truly missed her, but it wasn’t like he was actually grieving. And I’m still not sure that he ever actually called the police—between that and the fact that he didn’t force her to go to a regular hospital once she returned, it’s obvious he knows whatever it is she’s been up to.

  If only I was able to tell him about what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard, what I know. If only I hadn’t backed down when Margaret threatened to tell my father about my glittery, bejeweled box. I think of that box with longing now, even though I know it’s wrong. If it wasn’t for Margaret’s trapped soul, I’d probably be dead by now, anyway, so what harm could come from thinking of that box like you would a childhood blanket? My father would be humiliated if he found out.

  “It’s safe, don’t worry,” he continues. “Howard and I were able to get a twin bed up there from one of the spare rooms without too much of a ruckus. And your aunt is fully capable of going down the stairs to use the bathroom on the third hall.”

  “And all that trouble for what?” I demand, still unable to handle what I’m hearing. “To humor a woman who doesn’t even remember her own daughter but wants to sleep in the room where Margaret’s last days were spent? That’s so sick, Dad!”

  “If we want her to recover, we have to help her how we can,” my father says. “Penelope wanted to be moved up. She asked about it again and again, and if it will help her get better, why not? Accommodations can be made. Anything to get her back to her old self. Also, the winter holiday party is tomorrow and you know how we like to use the parlor. We wouldn’t want—”

  “Oh, wow,” I cut him off, my anger doubling. “You just wanted her out of the way for your stupid little club party? ‘Carol of the Bells’ doesn’t sound quite as lovely when there’s a madwoman babbling on in the next room over, is that right? You wouldn’t want the club to see their queen in ruins.”

  “Watch what you’re saying,” my father says, his face reddening. “Do not insult me or question my motivations. That is unfair. How do you think Penelope would feel if there were people coming in every minute to gawk at her while the party was going on? This isn’t a zoo. She isn’t an animal to be gawked at. She should be allowed to come back to herself, come back to us, in peace. On her own terms.”

  His eyes have glazed over, and I would feel a little bit guilty for going off on him so hard if it wasn’t for the fact that I know he’s hiding stuff from me, important stuff, dangerous stuff. Still, it’s the only thing he’s said that has made even a little bit of sense, even if he doesn’t understand how messed up it is for my aunt to move into the attic.

  I don’t know this on any certain terms, but it’s something I can feel deep down, an understanding so solid it nearly launches me into a fit of tears.

  “Sorry,” I mumble and step around him onto the steps. “I need to leave now.”

  “Lucy.” He sounds remorseful as I leave him behind.

  I stop on the stairs and look back. “What?”

  “You don’t look so well,” he says. “I’m...worried. About you. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

  The grandfather clock in the entry goes off. The whimsical tune that precedes the gongs echoes loudly off the tile and walls and shelves made of glass. We wait for it to pass as he peers up at me, almost like he’s looking for something specific.

  “Where was this type of concern when I told you that Margaret wasn’t doing well?” I ask when the clock has stopped chiming. “Maybe you could have made a difference then, but it’s too late to try now.” It’s painfully similar to what Margaret said to me when I tried to ask her what was wrong, and I think to myself, this is what a cycle feels like.

  His mouth twitches. “I’m doing the best I can,” he says. “I just want everyone to be okay, and for this nightmare to end. And it will,” he adds. “You just need to trust us.”

  There it is. He does know something; he just expects me to sit back, do nothing and accept it.

  “If you don’t mind,” I say coldly, “I need to talk to Penelope.”

  I leave my father behind without another word, aware as I go up the stairs that he is watching me.

  I find my aunt in the attic, sitting up in bed, which has been set up between the wooden wall Margaret used to knock on and the one with the enormous window that she jumped out of. All of the boxes that used to be piled in the back of the room are now neatly stacked to form a wall in front of the closed window covering. At least it’s blocked where I can’t see it.

  “My father wanted to know if you could meet him in the garage,” I tell Howard after I’ve finished climbing up through the opening on the floor, knowing fully well that my father never goes in the garage. “He needed to ask you something about my aunt’s treatment plan.”

  “I just spoke to him fifteen minutes ago,” Howard says, irritation lacing his voice. “What could he have forgotten already?”

  “I think he just had a few more questions.” I look at Penelope as I say it. She looks back, shoots me a weak grin, but her eyes are shining and wide.

  “All right,” Howard says. “I’ll be back shortly, Penelope. For the time being, please remain in bed.”

  “Thank you, Howard,” she says, h
er eyes still on mine. The nurse in the houndstooth suit saunters past me to climb down the miniature staircase that leads to the third floor.

  “Lucy,” my aunt says, her voice much clearer than the last time we spoke. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to wake up and come see me.”

  How is it that she remembers me but not Margaret? I don’t rush to her side this time, don’t grab her hand and nearly start crying over how much I missed her. Her hair is clean, combed into a side braid that rests like a snake over her shoulder.

  “Where have you been all this time?” I say, taking a step forward. “Do you have any idea what’s been happening since you left?”

  Her face dims at my tone. “Some things I know better than others,” she answers, speaking carefully. “But I do know that the future is bright.”

  “Why do you swallow teeth?” I burst, unable to keep it in a second longer. “Tell me what kind of witchcraft you’ve been doing, and who the Mother is, and why you don’t know who Margaret—”

  My aunt’s hands fly over her ears, and she starts shaking her head viciously from side to side. “Don’t talk about Margaret,” she nearly growls, her eyes clenched shut. “Please, I’m begging you...”

  I don’t want to waste the precious time alone I’ve secured with my aunt, and there’s so much to ask. I decide to humor her and move on, but in my head I’ve decided: it’s not that she doesn’t remember Margaret, it’s that she feels too guilty about what happened to her to face it.

  “I won’t talk about Margaret,” I promise, nervous that I’ll run out of time, but terrified that her display means there isn’t a way to free my cousin’s soul, as well as the soul of my mother and whoever else is trapped in there. “But please, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Your father said you’ve been asking about the club,” she says, slowly lowering her hands from her ears. “He said you know about how they want to take this place away from us.”