What Lies Beneath (5 page)

“Looks like they left, Blair. They probably couldn’t handle all of the bullshit,” my dad said as I opened the passenger side door and stepped out onto the wet concrete. The rain had stopped for a while, but it would be back.

“What are you doing? There’s no one here.”

“I just want to look around really quick. Wait here,” I said and climbed the rest of the way up the driveway.

I walked through the grass to the left side of the house, where Dylan’s room was. The entire window had been hollowed out and above the frame in bright red spray paint it read:
Psycho.

The house had been beautiful on the outside before this all had gone down. It was the whitest house on the block, complete with pastel blue shutters and the same blue trimming on the window frames and front door. Now it looked like a gigantic crime scene and it made me feel awful for Dylan’s family and infuriated with the town’s people.

I put a leg through his window and crept inside, my heart going crazy in my chest. I knew he wasn’t here, but just being in his room again made me uneasy. I looked around his room. Everything was turned over and broken.

His bedroom door had been taken down and hideous words were spray painted on his walls. The only thing that seemed untouched was the closet doors. I walked across the room from the window and stopped in front of the closet doors.

With trembling hands, I reached forward and pulled both folding doors apart. His clothes seemed untouched. Everything was still hung with felt hangers and all of his boxers were in a stack on the top shelf along with a small cage that I’d never seen before. Dylan had a disliking toward rodents so what did he own that I didn’t know about? I lifted myself up on my toes and grabbed a bar on the cage.

Something fluttered madly in the cage. Frightened, I dropped the cage on the ground and threw myself backward into Dylan’s closet. A black bird, either a raven or crow was screaming in the cage and the sound was unbearable.

I cautiously picked up the cage, brought it to the window, and opened the little door. The bird crashed through the doorway and glided through the air and into the neighbors willow tree. How could it still be alive considering the vandalism and the fact that Dylan had been dead for nearly two months?

I turned away from the window and wrapped my arms around me, shielding myself from the cool wind that was now coming through the window and the bedroom doorway.

I had knocked all of the clothes down in the closet including the rail that held the hangers. My eyes widened as I made my way back over to the closet, my arms still wrapped around me. There was a secret door that had been hidden by the clothes. It looked as if he had been cut into the wall and had a tiny brown cabinet knob.

I wrapped my hand around the small knob and pulled. Nothing happened. So I grabbed the knob again and pushed forward using my shoulder as more weight. The square door finally squeaked open. Darkness awaited me and I wasn’t sure I wanted to enter the room now. Dylan had to know this existed and if so what did he use it for if he even did.

“Blair, what in the hell are you doing?” I jumped back at the sound of my dad’s voice. I turned around, my hands clutching my chest.

“I was just looking around and I found this.” I moved out of the way so my dad could see. He looked around the room first before sticking his leg through the window. He came into the room and shook his head at all the words written on the walls. When he was done, he turned back to me and saw the doorway.

“A secret room, wonderful. Now, let’s get home before your mother has a heart attack wondering where we both are.” my dad turned back to the window and proceeded to step back through it.

“But I want to see what is inside,” I said hurrying back over to the window and watching him as he stepped down onto the grass.

“Not right now, Blair.”

“Dad, please.” he looked up at me and caught my eyes. I tried to do the puppy dog thing I used to do when I was little but he just laughed and turned to the truck.

“I’ll go get a flashlight. Stay right there,” he commanded as he rushed over to the truck dug through the back seat. I waited for a moment and just then a freezing gust of wind tore through my back like giant razor blades. I slowly turned and knew that it had come from the secret room. I heard my dad coming so I turned back to the window, a little spooked. He handed me a flashlight and crossed his arms.

“I’ll be right back,” I said.

“I’ll be right here.”

I turned the flashlight on and stepped through the doorway, chills running through me. I shined the light around the room and saw hundreds of black candles, some melted to the bottom, and some still unlit. In the middle of the small room was a red rug and around the rug, reddish dirt outlined it. Symbols had been drawn into the wooden floor with white chalk.

I moved the light around the rest of the room but there was nothing left. It was a simple room with black candles, a rug, and some red dirt. What had this room been used for? I seriously thought I was going to find some dead bodies or something weird.

Disappointed with my findings, I turned back to the doorway and noticed more red dirt in front of the door. I left the room, closing the door behind me as well as the closet doors.

I tossed the flashlight into the backseat as we got back into the truck and stared back up at the house. In an upstairs window, a blonde girl stared down at me. There had been someone else in the house with me.

I shook my dad’s shoulder as he started the truck and told him to look up at the house. I looked back up with him, but she had vanished. Who was she? And what was she doing in Dylan’s abandoned house? 

6

I stood in front of Pearl’s palm reading and mystic shop, my arms coiled around my body like a blanket, warding off the cold and everything that was eerie about her house. It was a one leveled home, and it had been built back in the 1800s or so everyone around here says.

From where I am it looks as if it’s about to crumble with one touch. The roof’s gray shingles are about ready to glide away and the window shutters look more like cardboard cutouts than actual wood. It’s one of the spookiest houses in Hanson, next to the Bernard cabin.

A sixteen-year-old girl named Hannah Bernard hung herself from a wooden beam in the house back in the early 80s. Her parents left town the night they discovered her. They say it’s haunted and for ninth graders at Hanson high, it’s a rite of passage, which I think is a load of bull. And it happened to be Pearl who started that haunted rumor, madcap Pearl, as some like to call her.

I knew that I had to see Pearl. Ever since I found the note, I’ve just felt weird, like if someone was watching me. Especially since that day I was in Dylan’s house. That girl, whoever she was, is still stuck in my head too. Could the note have been from her?

But not even Max had never even known about the Blair Bear thing. But it doesn’t matter because I’m here now and I might as well see if this lady is for real. If not, then I’ll just go back to hiding in my new attic bedroom and surfing the internet like a crazed lunatic for answers.

              “Are you sure you want to do this?” Max locked his car door and stopped next to me. I looked at him and saw that he was worried for me. My dad agreed to let me leave the house as long as Max was on my ass like glue. I heard my dad telling him that if anyone did anything to me, that to call him first and then the police.

              “Yes, I’m sure.” I replied smiling at him to show him I was okay with this. And I was, even though it was a bit creepy. He shook his head at me and started up the rickety old wooden porch, me close behind him. The testosterone he had been on made him look like a beginner bodyguard and even gave him some chin hairs that he cherished like gold. He was a beautiful girl and all of the boys in our grade were vying for his attention. But then he left for a year and came back dressed like a boy and after that even some of the girls were a little curious. Beautiful as a girl, he was incredibly handsome as a boy. I would have dated him if it weren’t for the fact that I saw him more like a brother. We’re too close to ruin us like that.

              “Do you want me to knock?” he asked. I didn’t know what I would do if I ever lost Max and I’m kind of glad that he followed in my steps and flipped college the middle finger. I need him here with me. I know that is selfish, but he’s my freaking rock.

              Before I could answer, the door swung inward squealing like a pig getting butchered. I jumped like a frightened cat and clung to Max’s blue flannel jacket. An almond toned woman peered between the door and the panel, her glassy emerald eyes set on me. Her black and gray hair was twisted into two braids that lay over her shoulders and she was as frail as a tree that had its life sucked out. I hoped that she was Pearl Williams.

              “May I help you?” she said in a crackly southern accent. I finally let go of Max’s jacket and found my composure.

              “I’m Blair Lewis. I was wondering if you could help me contact the dead.”

              Pearl had me and Max sit at a round table that was covered in a wide scarlet satin shawl and frayed tarot cards. Around us, various colored candles and incents burned. I could smell lavender and it helped calm me down. She dimed the lights, the assorted colored candles casting shadows around the petite room we were in.

Aged vanities and old looking chests were scattered about the room. The diamond shaped stained glass windows sat behind us defending the room from the bright daylight outside. Max and I hadn’t spoken a word since being let in and now that we sat next to each other, I could tell that he wanted to say something to me. But Pearl was shuffling over to us, a faint smile on her face.

              “The spirits are here, child. What is it that you would like to know?”

              “I’m not sure this is a good idea now,” Max whispered. I stepped on his foot, indicating that it was too late and for him not to embarrass me. I needed to see if this worked, at least. To be honest, I’m freaking desperate.

              “I’m sure you’ve heard about the boy who tried to kill that girl in the lake. Well, I’m
that
girl.” Pearl’s eyes shifted over to me and she stared at me as if I were a ghost.

              “What are you doing here then? What can
I
do for
you
?” she said, gathering the tarot cards. I waited for a moment and watched her cut the deck, her withered fingers covered in a bunch of peculiar rings. I inhaled deeply and then looked up at her, catching her eyes.

              “He’s dead. But I’ve been feeling like he is still around. I recently even found a note written to me from him. The police think it was some kind of joke but I know it wasn’t. I know there is something more to this.” I kept my eyes on hers, silently pleading for help. She had to help me. That is what she was here for.

              “My child, you are a very open minded girl for coming to me. Everyone around here thinks I’ve lost my marbles and I’m on crack or something. But that isn’t much to go on. Now, if you start seeing the bastard then come to me and I will help you free of charge. Maybe you are letting this mess with your head too much, it hasn’t been too long since the incident. Give yourself a little to
revive
.”

              “But the note…” I dropped my hands onto my thighs and felt tears forming at the back of my eyes. This was not happening to me. After dragging my ass here, she was going to turn me away and tell
me
that I was crazy. I didn’t understand. “No one could have written that note but him. He used to call me
Blair Bear
and
no one
knew about that.
No one.
” I pushed the chair back with a screech and hurried out of the room and through the front door.