The Women in the Walls (15 page)

“HEY,” VANESSA SAYS
when she sees me, hiding her startle well. “Sorry, I've just never seen anyone else in here, and it's been a nice place to come in between stuff with my mom. There's so much cool stuff on these shelves, it's crazy.”

I think of the time I found Vanessa crying in the courtyard, about how working here had taken its toll on her and her mom. She even said that she thought Miranda had a crush on my father, which makes me wonder how Miranda's been reacting to Penelope's return. I can imagine why Vanessa would want to get away from it all in the library—I know from experience how great of a hiding place it is.

“Yeah,” I say lamely. “Thanks for telling me about Penelope, by the way.”

“Were you able to see her last night?” she asks. “That whole thing was so damn weird.”

“Not last night, but this morning,” I say. “And the circumstances aren't exactly favorable, but I'd much rather her be with us than dead.”
At least there's hope now.
“Anyway, thanks again. I appreciate it.”

She shrugs, then looks back down to her book. “Were you wanting to sit here, or...?”

“No,” I say, suddenly feeling uncomfortable just standing there. I head over to the curtains and open them wide, filling the library with sunlight. “I'm just trying to find out some stuff for a history project I'm doing.”

“Oh,” she says distantly, still reading. “Cool.”

I wander over to the nonfiction shelves, too embarrassed to flat out ask for help. Instead, I remember the time Penelope called me into her room to make sure I was okay after I'd found Walter, how there'd been stacks of leather-bound books all over the floor. I peer through the books in front of me, most of them with bright, commercially printed covers.

“What's the project for?” Vanessa asks, looking up from her own book. “History can be fun.”

“It's about this house, actually,” I say as casually as I can. “I have to do research, but I've put it off for too long and now I'm stressing.”

She nods, and I spot a cluster of books toward the end of the shelf, all leather-bound, one of them with a small red page marker sticking out the top. My heart leaps at the sight of it.

“Maybe I can help somehow,” she says and closes her book. “I'm bored out of my skull.”

“If you want.” I head toward the book with the red page marker. “How good are you with search engines?”

“Are you kidding?” she calls, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “I'm an expert, just like everyone else.”

“Maybe you could look up some stuff for me while I check out these books,” I call back. The spine of the book is bound in black leather, and the words
A Guide To Post-Mortem Examination
are stamped down the side in gray ink. My pulse intensifies as I stare at the title.

I hear Vanessa get up and head across the other side of the room, where the computer desk is.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” she calls over once she's sat down.

“I was hoping to find any information I could on the origin of the estate,” I answer. “Before it was in my family. I need to find out everything I can about the original owner, or anything about the land, if possible.” It's just enough information to get the benefit of her help, without having to pull her in to any of the more dangerous stuff.

“Okay,” Vanessa says, and I take the book from the shelf. “I'll start with the address.”

Silence as she types away. I run my hand over the cover of the book before opening it to the marked page, not allowing myself any more hesitation than that. On the page are two diagrams of the human skull; one from the front, and one from the side. Illustrations of different types of pliers fill the sides; on the bottom, there are three paragraphs describing the procedure of removing teeth.

Symbolic of life
is written in careful handwriting in one of the margins. I recognize Penelope's penmanship immediately.
To take in life is to discover the truth.
Another note closer to the bottom of the page, this one sloppier and more hurried than the rest, reads:
thirty-two teeth per adult.

I close the book and slide it back on the shelf right away, terrified at the idea of confronting Penelope about what I know once she's awake again but desperate to know what her explanation will be.

“Hey,” Vanessa says. “I know this isn't what you're looking for, but I thought it might be cool to see. It's a picture of your family from a long time ago.”

I leave the nonfiction section behind to go see what she's talking about, grateful to get away from
A Guide To Post-Mortem Examination
. As I reach the computer, I can see an article on the screen about some celebration for the estate.
HISTORICAL LANDMARK COMES UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
, the headline reads. I stare with my heart in my throat at a photo of my mother, Eva, hugely pregnant with me and standing beside my father, in the front of the house, along with about twenty other club members. Penelope stands in the back, looking at the camera with lifeless, disdainful eyes. This must have been taken when she still lived in her little apartment in town with baby Margaret.

Vanessa backs out of the article to continue scrolling down the list, which is packed full of irrelevant headlines. I remember Margaret telling me that our mothers hated each other, how badly Penelope wanted to be the head of the estate.

“Hey...” Vanessa says as her eyes light up with the reflection of the screen. “Check this one out.”

I look to find a news article that is much, much older than the ones from the first few pages.
HOME FOR ABANDONED YOUTH OPENS AFTER LAND BOUGHT OUT
, the headline screams across the top of the page. Accompanying the article is a dark, grainy photograph of the estate.

In the background of the photo is the house, but I hardly recognize it. Instead of tile roofing, the top of the place is covered with long boards of wood that stick out jaggedly over the edges of the walls. The courtyard is nothing but an open field of weeds and bushes, and the iron gate surrounding the perimeter of the garden is gone. The driveway is a wide dirt path. The stone walls are the only things that look the same.

Standing in front of the house is a large group of people in dated clothing, most of them younger, their expressions solemn. “What year was this taken?” I wonder aloud.

“1899.” Vanessa scrolls down to read the caption beneath the photo. “‘Founder Clara Owens stands with her students and newly hired staff, shortly after the opening of the home.'”

I look over the faces of the students, fascinated at the sight of them. Is that why there are so many bedrooms in the house? Because it was built to be a home for abandoned youth? A woman who I assume is the founder, Clara, stands to the side of the group while the rest of the staff lines the back. Her chin is pointed proudly upward; she is wearing a long black dress and elaborate matching hat. Strings of pearls hang around her neck.

I skim the article eagerly, disappointed when I don't find anything too worthy of note. The woman was from out of country; she bought the property; she opened the home. While my gut tells me it's relevant in some way, there isn't enough here to make any direct connections. “I wonder what would happen if we did a search for Clara's name?”

We try it. The only results that come up are the one we already saw about the opening and an obituary printed in 1903. “Only four years after opening the place,” Vanessa says. “And she was just thirty-three when she died. So young.”

“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.