hair flew behind her. I gasped and, again, pulled my arm back. But this time, I took her arm with me, scraping it against the broken window, causing blood to run down and onto my own hand. Still, she held tight.
“Let me in!” she begged. “I have been wandering in the woods all these years! Let me in!”
The window was too small to let her in, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, and it was on the second story besides. I couldn’t even see how she was standing there. Maybe she was floating, flying like a ghost.
Or a hallucination. Of course! I was dreaming! I was still asleep. Yet her hand on my wrist, the blood dripping down mine, it all felt so real, and her voice was so pathetic.
“Let me in! Please!”
I tried to reason with her. “I can’t let you in a closed window, and I can’t open it with you holding my arm.” Why was I talking to a hallucination?
Her eyes bugged out, huge and horrible, but she must have seen the logic in what I said. She let my arm go. I snatched it back and began grabbing things, books, anything I could find to cover the hole in the window. Once I’d done that, maybe I could sleep.
“Let me in!” Her voice was softer, blending with the wind and snow.
“I can’t! You’re dead!” Suddenly, I knew she was, knew she was like all the other dead things that haunted me. I had to close the window, let it go. I heaped more objects on, but I saw the pile moving, swaying. “Go away!”
I heard footsteps in the hall. Then, my door opened. “What’s this?” a voice demanded. “Why are you in here?”
She stepped forward and I saw her. Fully dressed in a blue dress, a scarf on her head, Mrs. Greenwood wasn’t as old as I’d envisioned. Josh had said a hundred or so, but clearly, he’d exaggerated. She couldn’t have been more than sixty or so if she’d had a daughter my mother’s age, though it was clear that she’d had a hard life, with her daughter disappearing and all. She was tall, with gray hair piled in a bun and eyes that pierced my soul. “Why are you in this room? And why are you screaming?”
“I’m . . . Wyatt. Emily’s son. Josh gave me the key. This was the only room open.”
“No one comes in this room. No one!”
“I’m sorry. But I . . . I saw her.” I glanced at the window. The precarious pile of books had collapsed, but the window was still intact. No broken glass. No blood. No Danielle. “Oh, it was a dream, just a dream, but I could have sworn someone was trying to come in.”
“Come in? Who?”
“Dani. She said her name was Dani.” Realizing how freaky this would be to the mother of a missing girl, I backtracked. “I mean, I dreamed she said that. I was looking at . . . the photo of her with my mother.” Better not to mention the diary. It might upset her to read it. “Then, I had a nightmare she’d come back. Just a nightmare.”
“A nightmare? In my daughter’s room? My long-lost daughter?”
Long-lost. It was such an old-fashioned way of saying something, and she looked so sad. I knew that she really had loved Danielle. Despite the diary, I knew she hadn’t locked her in to control her, hurt her. She’d done it to protect her. And it hadn’t worked. Sometimes, things don’t.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I looked at the window. Nothing out there but snow. “I’ll find another room. Which one?” I realized I wasn’t getting off on the right foot with her.
“Any room, boy, any room but this one! Now, get out!”
“I will. Of course.” With one final glance at the empty, unbroken window, I backed away, grabbing my duffel bag as I did.
“Go!” she yelled. “I’ll check in a minute to make sure you’ve found the right one this time, fool!”
“That’s okay.” I walked out.
As soon as I reached the hallway, I realized my mistake. My most recent mistake. I’d left the diary on the bed, under the disturbed pillow, where anyone could guess I’d been reading it. Mrs. Greenwood didn’t seem like the type to take kindly to snoopers. I had to go back in. It was just an ordinary notebook. She wouldn’t know it was Danielle’s. I’d tell her it was mine, my schoolwork.
I tiptoed back into the room