Shadow Days (6 page)

The previous day’s rain had given way to gentle autumn sunlight.

I drove with the windows down, steering my way through frisco’s Main Street. Catching sight of an open parking space right in front of the Next Page bookshop, I decided to stop in, not that I needed any more books, but frisco was much more my speed than Vail. I lingered in the bookstore, picking up three novels and a hiking guide for the region. I’d stared at a book titled
Coast to Coast Ghosts: True
Stories of Hauntings Across America,
but I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up.

I kept heading east and toyed with the idea of going all the way to Denver and spending the night there instead of returning to Vail.

But it wasn’t like I knew anyone in Denver either. I doubled back but drove right through Vail without stopping. I did withhold the string of curses I wanted to shout out the window at the town that was getting under my skin. No reason to start a rumor that I was the new local crazy dude living alone in the weird mansion.

Man, what if I am that guy?

I was pulling into the parking lot of Avon’s Wal-Mart—the only place I thought I could find a cheap instant camera—when my phone buzzed. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Shay?” I didn’t recognize the man’s voice. He spoke my name in a clipped, nervous fashion.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Are you in Vail? Have they moved you into Rowan Estate?”

I killed the engine. “Who is this?”

45

The line went dead.
What the hell?

I found the number in my call log and pressed the call button.

A tinny voice answered, “The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”

The tension that had eased out of my limbs the farther I drove from Vail dug its way back into my shoulders. I slammed my fist into the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths before I went into the store.

I hated that it was already dark by the time I got back to Rowan Estate, but that was my own doing. I had stayed in Avon for dinner, reading my novel and listening to the conversations of people around me. People who weren’t exiled from their friends. I wanted to punch myself in the gut for all the internal whining I was doing.

It was pathetic. Several hours of reading about Katniss Everdeen’s problems made me decide my life was pretty damn good. I was tired of feeling sorry for myself, and I was also just plain tired.

It might have been smart for me to go to bed early, anticipating being woken at five in the morning again, but I wanted to finish up my experiment. Using the Polaroid I’d dug out from one of my boxes, I snapped photos of the statues and waited for them to develop. Blurry. No image. I snapped more photos with the instant camera I bought, wondering if it was even worth getting them developed. Time for manual labor.

I started sketching and lost track of time. It was 1 a.m. when I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I dragged my sorry ass to bed, hoping I’d sleep through the night.

No such luck.

46

seven

A

lACk of sleeP mAde me feel like a man possessed, and possession wasn’t something I wanted to think about, but I was trying my best not to let that show up on facebook. I didn’t want my new online friends to decide I had multiple personality disorder.

Once I’d posted the sketches, the buzz was all about defining what they were. I had no idea, but Victoria and Liz had some interesting theories. None of which made me feel better about my living situation. I resisted the temptation to ask Liz if she’d accept a transfer student when she mentioned she was a teacher. I’d take mountains of homework over the stuff I was dealing with.

When Victoria loaded that clip about the assassin angels from
Doctor Who,
I ran around the mansion double checking that none of the statues had moved. for a few minutes I’d been convinced that each night, when the crash woke me up, it meant the statues were systematically closing in on me. But all the winged, marble people were in the same places they’d been the day I moved in. I pretty much felt like an idiot after sprinting around the house.

Other theories: gargoyles, but there were gargoyles like the ones I’d seen all over Europe on the outside of the house. These statues seemed different.

That was all I could take of the house for that day. The sun spilled in through the windows, ridding the dark hallways of their gloom 48

and beckoning me outside. At first I thought I’d take a stroll through the gardens, only to discover they were filled with more creepy statues. Some of the sculptures were the winged men and women that I’d seen in the house, but others looked like mad scientist experi-ments. In the back of my mind I knew they were creatures of myth: chimeras, griffins, Stymphalian birds, but they only looked like monsters to me.

The gardens stretched for what looked like a mile until they disappeared into a dense pine forest. Abandoning the idea of exploring the grounds, I headed to my truck and escaped into the foothills for my first hike in Colorado.

At 5:30 a.m. I sat in the middle of my bed. All the lights were on and I’d turned the hallway lights on too. Radiohead was cranked up so loud that I doubted I’d hear myself even if I shouted. My eyes burned, and it wasn’t the blasting music that made my teeth rattle. I couldn’t take this. How was I supposed to live in a place that wouldn’t let me sleep and was slowly convincing me that poltergeists had rented out the room right above mine?

Something in the house had to be causing the noise. Supernatu-ral, electrical, whatever it was I had to find it and stop it. If I didn’t, I would be driving back to Portland within a week. Still bleary eyed, I grabbed my video camera and headed into the hallway, watching the screen as I walked. Sure enough, when I reached the statue at the corner, the picture began to wave and then turned to static. I kept walking, gazing at the screen as it flickered back to life like nothing strange had happened. Each time I neared another statue, the screen gave out again. I was passing through the balcony of the foyer, heading toward the west wing, when the screen skipped and went black.

Not static this time; no image at all.

I checked the camera, its glowing red light telling me it was still on, still working. The black screen crackled and went still, crackled 49

again. I stood still, staring at the image. The crackle came again and again in a steady pulse. Each time it happened, the camera vibrated in my hand like I was standing next to a speaker putting out a loud, super-low bass line.

I looked up to see where I was. The double doors of the library loomed in front of me. My mouth went dry. The library. The place Bosque told me I couldn’t go.

I took a step forward. The camera jumped in my hand. I swore as I dropped it. It clunked on the floor. When I picked it up and examined it, it didn’t seem to be damaged. That same steady crackle pulsed on the black screen.

I backed against the rail of the balcony’s landing and slid down until I was sitting. I’m not sure how long I was there, staring at the tall wooden doors.

He told me not to go in.

Screw it. I can’t live like this.

I left the camera on the cold floor and pushed myself up. When I tried the handle, I found the door was locked. No surprise there. I bent over, examining the door. Getting in wouldn’t be a problem; I could pick the lock easily. When I stood up to get what I needed to open the door, something else caught my eye.

At first glance it appeared to be decoration, an ornate carving that covered the thin gap between the two doors. As I examined the strange object, I saw that it contained some sort of bolt mechanism.

A second lock. And one I had no idea how to get open. I rammed my fist into the door, but swore to myself I’d find a way in. Maybe I’d invite my online pals to the first-ever battering ram building party of the twenty-first century.

When I got back to my room, my phone was buzzing. The clock on my nightstand read 7:00 a.m.

Must be Uncle Bosque.

I picked up the phone.

50

“Don’t.” The voice was almost too soft to hear.

“What?” I said.

“Don’t.” The whisper came once again before the line went silent.

I brought up my call log. No call had been registered.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I put the phone on my bed and backed away from it like it was a hissing snake. Then I turned around and dug through the pile of laundry where I knew my sketchbook had been buried.

51

eigHt

W

smArt girls Are Hot. Especially when their brilliance helps you break and enter. Rachel had the weird lock figured out the next day. More and more people were showing up on facebook—lots of girls. I must be cuter than I thought. Everyone wanted to know what was in the library, including me. That was good. I needed the encouragement.

A few people were worried, and I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t looking forward to facing the wrath of my uncle if he found out what I was up to. My online friends made some good points about staying out of forbidden rooms. But I also couldn’t handle trying to forget about the creepy night noises that kept me awake.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but life at Rowan Estate was slowly killing me. Victoria’s shouts of: “OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN

THE DOOR!” drowned out all rational warnings from my other friends.

I brought my laptop to the kitchen, reading through the latest comments while I made scrambled eggs. No good breaking family law on an empty stomach. What Rachel had discovered was unsettling, but not enough to rid me of an appetite.

Scarfing down eggs doused in hot sauce, I felt more alive than I had in days. I was going to get inside that library. I would know what had been harassing me ever since I got here. So what if the lock was 53

the nine circles of hell. Dante was a great artist, his works labeled classics, and his depiction of hell was symbolic, not literal, right?

The
Inferno
theme fit with my uncle’s décor. The stairs leading to his office were set in an archway that was lined with sconces of the seven deadly sins. Put that together with the torture paintings and the maybe-demon statues and it might just be that Bosque had a medieval-hell fixation or something. And I could hardly put the blame on my uncle. What if this stuff wasn’t his at all? This was a really frickin’ old house. Any of this oh-so-precious but creepy junk could have been here from the time of its construction.

Sufficiently fortified by eggs and Tabasco, I headed to the to library doors. I had my sketchbook with me, where I’d copied down Rachel’s notes. I’d brought my camera along as well, though I har-bored serious doubts about its usefulness if I did get inside.

Squaring my shoulders and convincing myself one last time that this was indeed a good idea, or at least not a disastrous one, I began to turn the dial. Each one clicked as I moved them into the correct order. The circles of hell descending toward Lucifer’s abode.
Limbo.

Lustful. Gluttonous.
As I thought about the levels of torment, I shivered.
Miserly. Wrathful. Heretics.
The air around me grew colder like I was descending with Dante and Virgil to the frozen lake and the icy breath of Lucifer himself.
Violent. Fraudulent. Traitors.
Where do mis-behaving nephews belong?

The sound of clockwork gears turning sent me stumbling back two steps. A final loud click and the door was unlocked.

My fingers shook as I gripped the handle.

I had to do this.

I leaned forward, letting gravity push the handle down. The door opened, swinging inward. I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.

My breath stuck in my throat. After all the nightmares and refer-54

ences to hell, I’d expected the locks on the doors to be guarding something horrific. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The library was larger than any room I’d seen in Rowan Estate outside of the ballroom. It was also one of the most beautiful spaces I’d laid eyes on. Built-in bookshelves lined the walls on each side of me, stretching two floors up. A balcony ran along each wall, accessi-ble by identical, tight spiral staircases that rose from the main floor to the center of each balcony, giving access to the upper shelves of books. The wooden columns separating the bookshelves were covered in ornate carvings. Some symbols looked vaguely familiar; others I’d never seen.