Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,8
to get it. I didn’t have to worry about her seeing me, though. She was distracted.
She was at the window, the books and other objects scattered on the ground around her and the glass wide open. She knelt on the sill, looking so far out I worried she’d fall. The room was freezing, and snow swirled through the air. Against it all, I heard her voice, screaming, “Come in! Come in! Oh, Dani, do come! Come back, my darling!” She was sobbing. “Dani, please!”
I grabbed the notebook and ran from the room before she could see me. I chose the emptier of the two spare rooms, hoping I was right this time. I squirreled the notebook away in my duffel bag and hoped that sleep would overtake me before the old woman could think to come check on me.
4
Wyatt
I fell asleep, eventually, but it was far from peaceful. For hours, I tossed around, alternately freezing and looking for the cool side of the pillow. Danielle didn’t return. Of course she didn’t. Either she’d been a figment of my weary imagination or she’d disappeared—again—when she heard her mother’s voice. No, there was no either. She was a figment of my imagination. Period. But still, the wind howled like the opera singers my grandfather worshiped on PBS, and each time I started to descend into sleep, I heard a voice that seemed to say, “Find me!” But there was nothing there. The last time I saw on the digital clock was 5:00 a.m.
The next time was 10:00. Sun streamed through the trees and dotted the walls. I blinked my eyes. The snow and wind had stopped, and there was a silence like I’d never heard.
I wished I could stay in this room forever, alone, unseen by anyone. That was the deal, get away from everything, the people who wanted to talk to me and the people who didn’t. Sure, I would have only my own thoughts to deal with, but those would haunt me wherever I went, no matter what. At least, here I wouldn’t have to share them.
I hadn’t thought about the old lady or, if I had, I hadn’t thought much. An old lady had seemed harmless. Mom had kept in touch with her over the years, Christmas cards and things, and when we’d visited the area once, Mom had met her for coffee while I went fishing with my grandfather. So Mom had asked her to let me stay here, to finish out my senior year in exchange for money and chores like mowing the lawn.
I went to the window and looked down. The lawn in question was at least three feet deep in snow. Did that mean I had to shovel the path?
Or, more important, what if the old lady was crazy?
It was a fair question. Danielle’s diary made it sound that way. Also, why would she even let me stay? Obviously, she’d been doing okay until now. What if she was a whack job who would murder me in my sleep? What if she’d murdered Danielle?
I fumbled for my cell and, absent anyone else who cared, tried to text my mother.
No bars. Still.
I tried again.
Nothing. Maybe I could go to town or somewhere today, to try and see if it worked. Doubtful. Besides, who did I want to speak to? This place was like one of those novels we read in English class, where people were out on the moors with no one around anywhere and nothing to do but read. You know, like two hundred years ago.
Speaking of which . . . I took out the novel I was supposed to be reading for my online school class, Wuthering Heights. I’d tried several times to start it on the train, but it was just too boring, so boring I kept falling asleep. I started again. The chapters where Lockwood arrives at the house he’s renting but first stops to meet his landlord were still the same, still boring. No surprises until I came to a part that made me sit upright.
My fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
The intense horror of nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,
“Let me in—let me in!”
Impossible. It was what had happened last night, exactly what had happened. Now, I dimly recalled that Lockwood in the story had done as I had, gone into a bedroom and found an old diary. But