Down a Dark Hall (6 page)

“That’s awful,” Kit breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I was staying with my grandparents,” Sandy said. “The crazy thing was—I knew about the plane. I knew it as soon as it happened.
I was in the kitchen helping Grandma with dinner, and suddenly I
knew
. I said, ‘Gran, the plane has crashed.’ She looked at me as though I were nutty and said, ‘What plane?’ ‘Dad’s and Mom’s,’
I told her. ‘It’s gone down.’ She kept staring at me, and then she said, ‘What a terrible thing to joke about!’ She was so
mad she wouldn’t even talk to me, and then, later that night, we heard about it on TV.”

“You said you had a dream,” Kit reminded her.

“It wasn’t that night. I don’t think any of us slept that night. But the next day after the notification was official, I started
crying and couldn’t stop, and Grandpa got a doctor over to the house, and he gave me a shot. I did go to sleep then, and that’s
when I had the dream.

“Dad and Mom were there, standing next to the bed, holding hands. Mom said, ‘Sandy, you’ve got to get hold of yourself.’ In
the dream I answered her. I said, ‘But you’re dead! I’m crying because you’re dead!’ And Dad said, ‘Your mother and I are
together. To us, that’s the important thing. We’re happy, and you must be too.’”

Kit looked down at her own hands and saw that they were gripped together so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Did you tell anybody?” she asked.

“I tried to,” Sandy said, “but nobody would listen. They just said that everybody has weird dreams when they’re emotionally
upset.”

“They wouldn’t believe me either,” Kit said quietly.

“You?” Sandy stared at her.

“After my father was killed. Except I never thought of that as a dream. He was there in my room,
really
there. I know he was.”

For a moment they sat in silence, gazing at each other. Sandy’s eyes were huge in her thin face and the freckles stood out
like polka dots against her pale skin. Kit was trembling, and this time it was not from cold.

“What does it mean?” Sandy asked finally. “It can’t be coincidence. The two of us both having had experiences like that. And
tonight—the locked door, the woman by my bed…”

“I don’t know what it means,” Kit said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m going to find out.”

They spent the rest of the night in Kit’s
room. They did not talk, but Kit was too keyed up to sleep, and she could tell by the sound of her breathing that Sandy was
awake also, lying still and tense in the bed beside her. Only when the first flush of dawn lightened the sky beyond the window
did she finally doze off, and when she again opened her eyes she found that it was well past eight o’clock and Sandy was no
longer in the room. She got up and dressed and went down to the dining room to breakfast. Ruth and Lynda were there, finishing
plates of eggs and toast.

“Sandy was here a few minutes ago,” Ruth answered Kit’s unspoken question. “She said she wasn’t hungry, she just wanted some
coffee, and that she had an early class scheduled with Professor Farley. I guess he’s giving her some help in algebra.”

“How did she look?” Kit asked.

“Awful,” Lynda told her. “I thought maybe she was coming down with something. There were bags under her eyes and she looked
exhausted. Come to think of it, you don’t look so great yourself.” She regarded Kit quizzically. “Is there some sort of flu
making the rounds at Blackwood?”

“Not that I know of,” Kit said. “We were both up most of the night. Sandy had a dream and woke up screaming, and I was in
with her for a while, and then she came back to my room. Didn’t you hear us? Between her yelling and my banging on the door,
we could have woken the dead.”

Despite herself, she gave a little shiver at her choice of words.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Lynda said. “Did you, Ruth?”

“I might have,” the dark-haired girl said. “I had a restless night, so maybe I kind of half-consciously woke up. I’ve been
doing a lot of dreaming myself lately.”

“You have?” Kit froze at the statement. “What sort of dreams?”

“I don’t know,” Ruth said with a shrug. “I don’t remember them when I wake up. I just have this feeling in the morning that
I’ve been at it all night.”

“I know what you mean,” Lynda said. “When that alarm goes off, sometimes I can hardly make myself get up.”

“Well, at least let’s get up from the
table
.” Ruth consulted her watch. “We’ve got literature with Madame in just a couple of minutes. What’s on your schedule this morning,
Kit?”

“Music,” Kit told her.

“Jules all to yourself? Lucky you!” Lynda giggled and tossed her blond curls. “If I’d known there would be a teacher like
him, I’d have signed up for piano lessons too. As it is, I can’t even get him to look at me.”

“He does seem to be the silent type,” Ruth agreed. “I get the impression he’s dedicated to his work. Not that I’m that interested.”

 “Well, I am,” Lynda said. “After all, he’s probably the only man we’re going to see between now and Christmas vacation. That
is, unless you count Professor Farley.”

The door to the kitchen opened and Natalie came in with a pot of coffee. She nodded a curt good morning, but her face softened
a little when she saw Kit.

“Morning, miss,” she said. “Can I fix you some breakfast?”

“No thanks, Natalie,” Kit said. “I’m not hungry this morning.”

Natalie set the coffeepot on the table.

“You should eat something,” she said. “You’re getting skinny.”

The aroma of the coffee rose in a cloud, and Kit, who normally found the odor enticing, felt her stomach lurch with a wave
of nausea.

“There’s no time for it now,” she said. “I’m running late. I’ll make up for it at lunchtime.” With a nod of farewell to the
girls, she left the room.

Jules Duret was waiting for her in the music room. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of dark
fitted jeans. He was seated in a chair by the window, and a musical score lay open on his lap, but he did not seem to be reading
it. He had the air of someone who had been waiting for a long time.

He glanced up as Kit came in, his face solemn.

“You’re late,” he said by way of greeting. “I’d almost given up on you.”

“I’m sorry,” Kit said. “I didn’t sleep well last night, and I overslept this morning.”

It was hard to think of this handsome young man as a teacher. He appeared hardly older than the boys she had hung out with
in public school, and his dark good looks made him far more attractive than the best of them. Still, there was a quality of
reserve about him that made communication difficult, and Kit, who was usually as comfortable with boys as she was with girls,
found herself fighting a vague feeling of unease in his presence.

“Have you been practicing?” Jules asked now. “Sit down and let me hear how far you’ve come. Let’s warm up with some scales
before we get to the actual pieces.”

Kit obediently took her place on the piano bench. She placed her hands on the keys. To her surprise, she found that her fingers
were stiff and sore, as though she had already been playing for hours.

“Jules?” she said.

“Yes.”

“I—I just don’t think I want to play this morning.” Kit took her hands from the keys and let them fall into her lap.
I’m tired,
she thought,
I’m so terribly tired, and
I’m scared, and I need somebody to talk to. I need a friend
.

She raised her eyes to meet the dark, intense gaze of the young man across from her. Was Jules Duret a friend? For all she
knew, he might not even like her. Yet who else was there to talk to? Sandy was as upset as she was, and Lynda and Ruth were
no help.

“Can we talk for a few minutes,” she asked in a thin voice, “instead of having a lesson?”

“Talk?” Jules’ eyes seemed to narrow slightly. “About what?”

“Blackwood.”

“What about Blackwood?”

“I don’t know,” Kit said. “That’s just it—I don’t know. There’s something odd about Blackwood, something sinister. All of
us feel it, but it’s almost impossible to put it into words. Things have been happening.”

 “What do you mean?” Jules asked with interest.

“Well, for one thing, we’ve all been having dreams. Sandy dreamed last night that someone was in her room. She cried out,
and I heard her and went down the hall to find out what was wrong. Her door was locked.”

“It couldn’t have been,” Jules said. “The doors don’t lock from the inside.”

“Why don’t they?” Kit asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Why don’t they lock from the inside the way other doors do? Your mother said that she’d had the locks put on the
doors to assure us of privacy, but how can you have privacy if you can’t lock up when you’re in a room?”

“You can lock up when you go out of a room,” Jules said. “So that no one can get into your things while you’re gone.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Kit said. “I bet all the other girls will have laptops too, and other than that, I don’t have
anything sitting around in there valuable enough for someone to want to steal. But I
would
like to be able to lock the door when I’m inside. And last night, Sandy’s door
was
locked. I tried the knob. And then, suddenly, it did come open as though somebody had released it.”

“Then it wasn’t locked,” Jules said with certainty. “It must just have been stuck. I’ll see about putting some oil on those
latches. Which room did you say it was?”

Kit regarded him with frustration. “Weren’t you listening at all? I’m not asking you to oil Sandy’s lock. What I’m trying
to tell you is that something weird is happening here at Blackwood. There was somebody in Sandy’s room last night. A woman.
I know it sounds crazy, but Sandy saw her with her own eyes!”

“She was dreaming,” Jules said. “You just finished saying yourself that all of you are doing a lot of that. It’s nothing to
be concerned about. It often happens to people who are away from home for the first time, under the strain of meeting new
people and adjusting to new surroundings.”

He paused, and then in a lower voice asked, “Did she say anything—the woman in Sandy’s room?”

Kit was surprised at the question. “Why do you ask that?”

“Well . . . just to get the end of the story.”

“I don’t think she did. At least, Sandy didn’t tell me so. What do you care if you’re so sure it was a dream?”

“Sandy reacted by screaming,” Jules said. “I thought perhaps it was at something the woman had said to her.”

“She was frightened,” Kit told him, “simply by the fact that the woman was
there
. Can’t you imagine what it would be like to wake up in a room where you thought you were all by yourself and find somebody
standing by your bed, looking down at you? And the cold—I felt that myself. When I went into the room this great wave of cold
air came sweeping over me, and Sandy was blue with it. When I touched her hand, it was like ice.”

“Look, Kit,” Jules said, “there just couldn’t have been a stranger in Sandy’s room. How could she have gotten there? The gates
to Blackwood are always locked at night, and so is the building itself. Nobody is going to climb straight up a wall to come
in a window. And even supposing that was possible, how did she get out again so quickly when you came bursting in the door?
Did she have wings?”

“The locked door—the cold air—”

“I told you, the door was undoubtedly stuck. And, of course, the air in Sandy’s room was going to be colder than the air in
the hallway. She probably had her window open.”

Jules leaned over and put his hand on Kit’s. It was a nice hand, warm and strong with long, fine fingers, and it felt good
upon hers.

His voice was suddenly gentle. “Blackwood is an old mansion, magnificent, of course, but heavy with atmosphere. Old places
are inclined to be that way. You have to get used to this place gradually. I had some dreams myself the first week or so after
we came here.”

“You did?” Kit asked, surprised.

“Sure. What would you expect? I’m not used to living in a place like Blackwood. I’m fresh out of music school. I’ve been living
in an apartment with a couple of other guys. I’ve spent my vacations with my mother at her various schools, but other than
that I’ve pretty much lived my own life. When she wrote and asked if I would come to America with her to teach in her new
school, I wasn’t too sure I wanted to. Then she told me more about the school—how special it would be and the kind of students
she would have here—and I decided to give it a try.

“When I got my first glimpse of Blackwood, I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t know how my mother was able to locate such
a spot. The place has its own vibes. You just have to get used to them.”

“And you’re used to them now?” Kit asked him.

“I like them. I feel—different here. I play better. I appreciate things more.”

“Do you still dream?”

“Well, yeah. Some. Everybody dreams.”

“Jules.” Kit tried to smile at him. “You make everything sound so sensible and normal. You must think I’m an idiot.”

“I don’t think that at all,” Jules said quietly. “I think you’re smart. And pretty. Sometimes I wish that I’d met you somewhere
else, under another set of circumstances. That I wasn’t your teacher. But—” He gave her hand a quick squeeze and released
it, “we’ll just have to take things as they are. And the way they are right now, we’ve wasted half the class period chattering.
Are you ready to play for me?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Kit said with a sigh. “I probably have as little talent as anyone you’ll ever have as a student.
Don’t you get bored listening to me plow through pieces like ‘Happy Leaves’ and ‘Swinging on the Gate’?”

“I don’t get bored,” Jules told her. Then, after a pause, he lowered his voice. “You do have talent, Kit. Maybe someday you’ll
realize how much. There are all sorts of talents in the world, and only one of them is music.”