The Girl Who Survived(2)

Bong!

Kara jumped at the noise, her heart hammering.

But it was only the grandfather clock near the front door, striking off the hours, drowning out the music.

“Jesus,” Marlie whispered under her breath and pulled Kara behind her as she slowly mounted the narrow wooden steps.

Bong!

“Marlie, no,” Kara whispered, feeling the temperature drop with each step.

“We don’t have a choice!” Marlie snapped, her voice still hushed as they reached the third floor.

Rather than snap on a light, she used the flashlight app on her cell phone, its thin beam sliding over draped furniture and boxes, forgotten lamps and stacks of books, open bags of unused clothes. Her family used the extra space for storage, though according to Mama it had once been servants’ quarters. “I wish,” Mama had added, lighting a cigarette as she warned all of her “patchwork family” that the area was forbidden, deemed unsafe. “Don’t go up there, ever. You’re asking for serious grounding if you do. Hear me? Serious.”

Her threat hadn’t stuck, of course.

Of course they’d all sneaked up here and explored.

Though the area was declared off-limits, her brothers were always climbing up here, and Kara had poked around the rabbit warren of connected rooms often enough to know her way around. But tonight, in the darkness, the frigid rooms appeared sinister and evil, the closed door standing like sentinels guarding the narrow corridor.

Bong!

“Where’s Mama?” she asked again, fighting panic.

Marlie glanced at her and shook her head. She placed a finger to her lips, reminding Kara of the need for silence, then pulled her anxiously along the bare floor of the third story.

This was wrong.

Really wrong.

At the far end of the hallway was another staircase, much narrower and close. Cramped. It wound downward and ended up in the kitchen. For a fleeting second, Kara thought they were going down the back way, which seemed stupid since they’d just ascended, but Marlie had other plans. She stopped just before they reached steps, at the small, cupboard-like entrance to the attic.

Kara’s bad feeling got worse. “What are you do—?”

Marlie pulled a key from the front pocket of her jeans and slipped it into the lock. A second later, the attic door creaked open. “Come on.”

Kara drew back and shook her head. “I don’t want to.” Marlie surely wouldn’t— “Don’t care.” Forcefully, Marlie pulled her through the tight doorway and yanked the door shut behind them.

“What the hell is this?”

“Don’t swear.”

“But—”

“Look. I’m saving you. Us.” A loud click sounded as she flipped the old switch. Nothing happened.

“Shit,” she muttered as they stood in the darkness.

“Don’t swear,” she threw back. “And saving us from what?”

“Shhh. Quiet. You don’t want to know.”

“Yes! Yes, I do! Tell me!”

“Look, it’s . . . complicated.” Marlie hesitated.

“And scary.”

“Yes, and really scary.” She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on so that they could see the stairs winding upward. The steps were steep and barely wide enough for Kara’s foot, a rickety old staircase winding to the garret under the eaves. It was freezing in the tight space and dark as pitch.

“I’m not going up there.”

“Of course you are. Come on.”

This was bad.

Kara’s skin crawled and though she wanted to argue, she didn’t. The tone of Marlie’s voice, so unlike her, made the ever-rebellious Kara obedient as she was prodded up the stairs. Marlie was holding the small flashlight, its weak beam illuminating the path.

At the top of the stairs, under the sloped ceilings where Kara was certain bats roosted, Marlie stopped, leaving Kara standing on the floorboards of the attic, while she hesitated on one step lower, so they were eye to eye, nose to nose. She shined the flashlight near her face, distorting her features in shadow, causing the small dimple on her chin to shadow and creating an eerie mask much like their brother Jonas’s face when he held a flashlight beneath his face for a macabre effect as he told ghost stories.

But tonight was different.

Tonight wasn’t a game. That much Kara knew.

“You need to stay here and wait for me to come back.”

“No!”

“Just for a little while.”

Kara shook her head. “I want Mama.”

“I know, but I already told you that’s not going to happen.”

“Why?” Panic welled in her heart. “You’re not leaving me here alone.”

“Just for a little while.”

“No!”

“Kara—”

“I’m not staying here. Why would you even say that?” Kara demanded.

“I just have to make sure it’s safe, okay—?”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“Then I’ll come get you. I promise.”

“Safe from what?” Kara cried, freaking. Anytime her siblings added an “I promise,” it was because they weren’t telling the truth. “You said there were bad people here. Who?”