Towering Read online

  I rose and climbed the steps to the door. The key fought against the lock, as if it was not much used to working. Finally, it turned. I tugged the door open.

  A scent met my nose, not one I associated with the elderly. I had expected mothballs or powdery perfume, but this was something different, some rare spice. The room was pitch black. I felt for the light switch, but when I flipped it, the bulb flashed bright then died instantly. In the moment it was on, I saw the staircase ahead of me. With still-frozen hands, I pulled my bag up and climbed the stairs, feeling along the wall as I walked, looking for another light. Finally, I found one as I reached the upstairs landing.

  The hallway before me looked from another time. Old photos of long-dead people lined the walls of the staircase. A couple posed formally, the woman wearing a 1920s wedding dress; a little boy by a boat. The spicy scent strengthened. I didn’t know which room was mine, but all the doors but one were closed. One was open barely a crack. I chose that one. The light there worked, and as I entered, I saw there were photos there too, all of a young girl with long, dark hair and an impish grin. Was this Danielle? My question was answered as I studied the room, finding more photos of the same girl. In a Girl Scout uniform. Dressed in an old-fashioned gown in a school play. And, finally, arm in arm with a blonde girl whose face I knew well. My mother. In the photo, my mother was laughing. Danielle stared at something in the distance. I had dozed on the train, and now I felt too awake to sleep, so I examined the books on the shelves. Mostly, they were romance novels with open-shirted guys staring at heaving-breasted women in Victorian dresses. But finally, I found something interesting. A yearbook. It had The Centurion emblazoned in gold letters on a black cover. I drew it out and turned to the index, searching for my mother’s name, Emily Hill. The first page number led me to the student photos, black-and-white faces, all with the same stick-up bangs that had been in style back then, the same dopey smiles. Danielle was on the same page, her long, straight hair a darker shade of gray than the others. I wondered what had happened to her. Then, I remembered she was probably dead.

  Without thinking, I turned the pages. The book was thinner than my yearbook at home. It looked like there had only been a few hundred students in the whole school. I found another photo of Danielle, a candid shot of her in a winter coat, about to throw a snowball. Danielle hadn’t collected friends’ signatures in the yearbook. Only one page had an inscription, and that inscription was from my mother, a long block of text about “weird Mr. Oglesby” and “that day in chemistry class.” Instead of the usual “Stay sweet” or “Have a good summer” before her signature, Mom had written, “Don’t worry. It will be okay.”

  The date was eighteen years ago. Weird thought that, only a year later, my mother had been pregnant with me. And Danielle, she’d disappeared.

  I flipped through the other pages. Finding no more inscriptions, I returned the book to the shelf.

  But when I tried to push it in, it wouldn’t go. Something behind it blocked its way. With my almost-thawed fingers, I pried the books apart. Suddenly, I wondered if maybe I should put everything back the way it had been. Exactly the way it had been. Maybe the old lady was keeping the room as a shrine to Danielle. Maybe I shouldn’t even be in here.

  But when I reached between the books, I found the obstruction, an old, green notebook with crooked spirals. Was it a diary? No, I had no idea why I’d thought that. It was a notebook for school. Still, I wondered why it was hidden. Probably, Danielle had shoved it on to the shelf when her mother had told her to clean her room. I did that all the time. Probably, the first thing Mom would do now that I was gone was clean out my stuff. But Danielle’s mother hadn’t cleaned out, and that was understandable. The mess was all she had.

  The notebook smelled the way old books do, like dust and unrealized potential. I opened it, expecting algebraic formulas or American history notes, and I wasn’t disappointed. Or maybe I was. On the first page, neatly copied, was the periodic table of elements.

  I was about to close it and move on. I was tired again. A glance at the clock told me it was nearly two, and the cold air didn’t help. I wanted to curl under the too-thin blanket on the bed and go to sleep. But then, I noticed the second page.

  It was a diary.

  The handwriting was feminine but not cutesy like the girls who put hearts over their i’s. It began:

  It poured all day. Of course, that’s nothing unusual. It poured all day yesterday and the day before and the day before that. What does it really matter anyway because, rain or shine, I am stuck in the house with my mother? She’s barely let me go anywhere these past few weeks, and since Emily left, I have no friends over either. But I mention the rain so you can understand the utter depths of my misery and also, how unusual it is that I saw a guy (!) outside my bedroom window.

  Well, not a guy even, but a MAN. A hot-looking one, from what I could see of him. He was tall (or, at least, his chest came up to the tops of the sunflowers we’d planted) with blond hair and eyes the romance writers would call piercing. I never really knew what that meant before, but now I do. His eyes looked like, if they met yours, they’d go through you like a skewer. And, weird enough, you’d enjoy it.

  Even though I didn’t know him, I wanted to go down to see him. After all, I hadn’t seen anyone except Mom and Old Lady McNeill, who sells milk and eggs out of her backyard, since school ended a month ago.

  Now, a NORMAL person could just say, “Hey, Mom, there’s some weirdo in the backyard,” and then go out and ask him what he was doing there. But I was not a normal person, so I had to sneak.

  Mom was sewing or something in her room, so I knew there was half a chance I might make it out if she didn’t leave, and if she didn’t hear the creaky step when I went downstairs. But the rain would help with that.

  Still, Mom has the hearing of a cat, so I crept as slowly and carefully as I could downstairs, stopping every few steps to listen. Nothing. When I got to the kitchen door, I glanced outside and saw him again.

  Oh, yes, he was FINE. Jeans ripped in all the right places and a tight, white T-shirt (wet, an added bonus) that made him look like Dylan on Beverly Hills 90210 (because TV is the only thing I am allowed to do). Sure, he was probably a homeless person or a perv. Or a serial killer. But, hey, a girl can’t be too picky, especially around here. I had my hand on the doorknob when I heard a voice.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Mom! Instinctively, my hand flew off the doorknob. Wrong thing to do. I took a deep breath and tried to look calm. “Oh, wow, you scared me. I was just going . . . to take a walk.” I could feel my heart ramming against my chest, almost like it might burst through.

  “In this rain?” Her face was pleasant, but her voice was suspicious.

  “I’m bored. It’s been raining all week. I haven’t gone anyplace all summer.”

  It was true. Since school had gotten out, Mom had been weirdly overprotective, even for her. She’d always been secretive, strange, which is why I hardly had any friends, but it seemed like, one day, her tiger instincts had gone into overdrive, and now, every little request to go someplace, even the grocery store, was refused.

  I don’t even know WHY Mom is being so weird. A few years ago, a teenage girl disappeared. Kelly David. Kidnapped, maybe, but they never found any evidence, so maybe she ran away. Everyone was paranoid for a while, keeping their kids inside or only letting them go out in groups, waiting beside them at the bus stop until the bus pulled away. But, gradually, they calmed down. Can’t live in fear, right? Mom had calmed down too. But suddenly, she started acting like it just happened. “You know,” I said, “lots of people my age have cars and go to Glens Falls or even Albany and don’t have crazy mothers hanging over them all the time. Most people are going to college. It’s only me who has to be a homebound freak with a freak mother!”

  Her hand shot up and struck my face, just like it was nothing. Not even a movie-esque “How dare you!” Just a slap. I stumbled back, and she
reached to catch me. But then, she saw something out the window. She pushed past, letting me fall.

  “A boy! You were going out to see a BOY?”

  “What boy? What possible boy could be out in the boonies on a day like this?”

  But, of course, it was true. She’d seen him.

  “Why must you do this to me?”

  Do this? Me? Me, who’d never had a boyfriend, never been on a date? Not that I hadn’t been asked, but I knew better than to try and go out with anyone. I knew she’d flip out like she was flipping out now. My mother is insane. I’ve always known that. And I also know that, if I’m going to get away from her and her insanity, I am going to have to sneak away, somehow in the dead of night. It’s just . . . I’m scared.

  I looked up from the notebook. Sneak away in the dead of night. That was what she’d done. Would the diary explain why?

  She was still yelling, and I was crying and saying, “No, no! What are you talking about?”

  And then, her hands were around my arms, icy fingers like handcuffs, and she was pulling me away from the door, up the stairs and to my room. I tried to fight her, but she’s surprisingly strong. Finally, she shoved me through the door, slammed it, and I heard her key in the lock.

  And here I am now.

  I put down the notebook. Her mother had locked her in her bedroom? What kind of crazy person was I living with? But maybe, I thought, her mother had known of some danger, had wanted to protect her. I wanted to read more of the notebook, to find out. It ran on for pages and pages, but suddenly, I felt tired, so tired I couldn’t read or think or do anything else but stumble to the bed to sleep. I hid the notebook under my pillow for later reading.

  The pillow was old, soft, and the sheets smelled like dust. I wondered if they’d been changed since Danielle had left.

  Then, sleep drowned out all thought or reason or anything but darkness.

  I woke some time later to the howling of winds and the driving sound of rain or maybe snow. Through it all, there was a tree branch, tapping, scraping on my window, persistent and annoying as my mother’s cat. I tried to pull the pillow over my head but ended up with a pinfeather against my cheek. The scraping grew louder. Then, there was a voice. A voice? Impossible. It was just the wind, howling. But it sounded like a voice, a shrieking banshee voice, and it screamed, “Let me in!” The scraping got louder. I remembered the closed, shuttered windows, but now, it sounded like the shutters were open, banging against the house.

  Finally, I had to get up to stop it. I’d open the window, break the branch off, and get back to sleep. That was all. I willed myself to stand despite my weariness.

  But when I went to the window, it was already open. Open or maybe broken. Yes, broken. A rush of freezing air assaulted my face, and as I stepped closer, intent on finding the branch, a hand grabbed my wrist.

  It was an icy hand, too cold, almost, to be real, and I shivered at the touch of it. I tried to pull my own hand away, but her fingers held like a claw machine, and a sad voice said, “Let me in! Please let me in!”

  “Who are you?” I said, though even as I did, I knew. My eyes found the window, and I knew.

  “Dani,” she said.

  Dani! Danielle! I stared at her. The face was something like the girl in the yearbook photo, if she’d been dug up from a grave. Her cheeks were white and ghostlike, with mottled blue patches. Her dark 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 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 befo
re 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.