We Were Connected Somehow

 

 

A woman in white came to me in my dreams that night.

 

She was young and full of life. The sun followed her around and she walked in a garden of the most amazingly beautiful flowers. When she laughed, it sounded like happiness.

 

The woman sat by a fountain, and I recognized it. The fountain from the garden at Shadowford Only clean and running with sparkling, cool water. She dipped her hand into the water and smiled.

 

But a cloud covered the sun and filled the garden with shadows. The woman looked up, fear written across her features. She stood, then ran to the house. In my dream, Shadowford Manor was different. Freshly painted, there were no vines crawling up the side and no creaking boards on the front porch. I thought this must be how it used to look a hundred and fifty years ago when it was new.

 

I followed the woman in white as she ran up the front steps and into the house. Darkness followed her, turning everything gray. I heard a loud crack as a bolt of lightning shot across the sky.

 

The woman ran up the stairs, looking behind her as though she were being followed. But she wasn't looking at me. It was more as though I were a ghost and she was merely looking through me.

 

When she turned her face, I saw that I knew this woman. She was the same woman from the photograph. The picture frame I'd found in the empty bedroom. I wondered who she was. I followed her up the stairs to the second floor, then down to the end of the hall, just past the last bedroom. At first, I thought she was trapped. There was nowhere else for her to run. But she placed her hand on a section of dark wood paneling in the wall and a door opened.

 

Stairs appeared in the opening. A secret passageway up to the third floor. The woman looked back one last time, terror on her face, then disappeared up the stairs. I tried to follow her, but as I stepped into the shadows, I lost my footing and fell. I fell through the house and down into darkness.

 

I sat up in bed, out of breath. Sweat trickled down my back. My bedroom was dark, but a sliver of moonlight shone through my window. The picture of the woman in white lay on my bedside table and I picked it up. It was definitely her, but who was she?

 

Somewhere in the house, I heard a scream. Distant, but real. I rushed out of bed and went to my door. When I turned the knob, the door was locked.

 

I ran to my desk, got the same bobby pin I'd used the night Tori died, and quickly unlocked the door. In the hallway, it was pitch dark. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust, and then I could only make out the dark silhouettes of big objects like the grandfather clock on the landing. I tiptoed down the hall.

 

I wasn't sure where the scream had come from, but I had a feeling I now knew how to reach the third floor of the house. Was that where they'd taken me when they cut my hand? I wondered.

 

I walked slowly to the end of the hall. My long nightshirt billowed around my legs and I shivered. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I wanted to know the truth. Whoever that woman was, she had lived in this house before. Maybe over a hundred years ago. And she wanted me to know how to get up to the third floor.

 

I felt along the wall until I was sure I was in the right place. In the darkness, I could make out the door to the empty bedroom at the end of the hall, and just past that, the wood paneling where the woman had opened the hidden staircase.

 

With a deep, ragged breath, I put my hand against the smooth wood surface and pushed. I gasped as the panel gave way and a door opened in front of me. A light from above spilled down and illuminated the stairs. They were narrow and worn. I stepped onto them with my bare feet and was surprised to find that they were strangely warm.

 

I hesitated before putting all of my weight on that first step, remembering my dream. But as I carefully moved forward, I realized that these stairs were solid. I climbed up, letting my hands run along the walls that framed either side of the strange staircase.

 

At the top, I half expected to find a coven of witches performing some strange ritual on a screaming girl. But there was no one. There was only a large circular room with a round table in the center. A red candle in the center of the table flickered, sending shadows across the room. Someone must have been there or the candle wouldn't be lit. I stepped fully into the room and took a better look around. That's when I noticed the doors. Five identical wooden doors spaced equally around the room. The door was open where I had come through, but all four of the others were closed.

 

I crossed to the closest door on my left. The door knob was black and smooth and when I touched it, I felt a heaviness in my stomach like a warning. I turned the knob and slowly opened the door. It creaked as it opened, and I winced at the loud sound, afraid someone might hear me.

 

Inside was a small library packed with books. A torch glowed on the wall, sending a warm amber light across the room. The ceiling was higher than I thought possible for the third floor of the house, but maybe it was trick of the eye. Bookcases ran from floor to ceiling all around the room. I walked inside and glanced at the books. There were tomes of various sizes and shapes and colors. Some were ancient looking with cracked spines, while others were bound in materials I couldn't honestly identify. A lot of the titles were foreign, so I couldn't tell what they were about.

 

I randomly selected one book with a bright green binding from the shelf. The books were so jammed in there, I had to really pull to get it out, and when it did slide out, it was heavier than I thought it would be.

 

The words inside were handwritten, and when I looked closer, they looked more like symbols than words. Kind of like Chinese characters, but different. I ran my finger along a line of symbols, feeling how they were slightly upraised. The paper itself was ragged at the edges and bumpy, like it had been handmade a very long time ago.

 

I wedged the book back onto the shelf. I couldn't reach the upper shelves, but there was no ladder in the room, and I wondered how anyone got to them. I wanted to stay longer to see if I could find a book written in English, but I was afraid that if I stayed too long, someone would find me up there and I would be in some serious trouble.

 

I went back out to the main room, closing the door behind me. The next door down opened into another room of shelves. But this time, the shelves were full of jars and boxes. Spices, strange liquids, spiders, and all sorts of things I couldn't identify. Probably things like eye of newt and tail of rat, although mostly it just looked like herbs and such.

 

A table along the far wall was covered with small glass vials.

 

For making potions?

 

I wondered what type of potions and elixirs a witch could make with all of these ingredients. Would I have the opportunity to learn how?

 

A tingle ran up my spine as I noticed a large painting of the woman from my dream. Her hair was up in braids and she was smiling. Below the frame, a brass plate said simply, “Prima.” I shivered and ran my fingers across the carved wood of the frame. Whoever she was, we were connected somehow.

 

Behind the third door was a room with three metal bed-frames. The mattresses had been removed, but there were chains attached to the sides of the beds. It looked like a torture chamber or the kind of place they kept crazy people. I didn't like this room. It was cold and dark and had a strong metallic smell, like blood. I left quickly.

 

The fourth and final door was heavier than the others. It had the face of a demon carved into the wood. At first, I thought it was stuck, so I gave it a hard yank. It finally gave way when I put all of my weight behind it.

 

I peered inside.

 

Oh my god.

 

My hand flew to my mouth and I backed away, frightened. Through the door was a long hallway. Longer than was possible in a house this size. Doors stretched out as far as I could see before surrendering to the shadows. At least ten on each side that I could count from where I stood.

 

But how was that possible? The house wasn't big enough for there to be so many doors here at the top.

 

I must still be dreaming.

 

I rubbed my eyes, then looked again. This couldn't be explained by a trick of the light. There were too many doors. This had to be magic of some sort.

 

Slowly, I stepped across the threshold. A cool breeze began to blow toward me, lifting my hair off my neck. My mouth went dry and it was difficult to swallow. What could possibly be behind all those doors?

 

Somewhere down the corridor, a girl screamed. I froze, my body ice cold from fear.

 

A door squeaked open. Voices. I thought I recognized Mrs. Shadowford's voice, but she was too far away for me to understand what she was saying. But how had she gotten up here to the third floor in a wheelchair? The two figures forming in the distance were upright and walking. Then it couldn't be Mrs. Shadowford after all. Whoever it was, if they found me here, poking around where Ella Mae had specifically told me not to go, I would be in danger of getting kicked out of Shadowford.

 

My heart beat wildly in my chest. I couldn't let that happen. Not now, when I was just starting to figure this place out.

 

Quickly, I stepped back into the small room and closed the door. I walked down the narrow staircase to the second floor, through the secret doorway, and back to the safety of my bedroom.