The Women in the Walls (2 page)

FIVE DAYS AFTER
Walter died, my aunt Penelope walked into the forest behind the house and never returned.

I was in the library the afternoon she walked out, saw her go into the woods from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the second floor of the house. My aunt wasn't wearing a sweater despite how chilly it was outside, which I thought was strange but stupidly brushed off. I was doing an art project from my homeschool curriculum and told myself that I'd continue to work on it only for as long as Penelope was out for her walk. When she came back, I would finish my history essay before stopping for the day.

So I watched and watched for her as I waited for the glue to dry on the cuts of cardboard my fingers were pinching together, red glitter still gathered in clumps in the sides of my nails. I didn't think I'd get any further than the gluing, but before I knew it, the project was complete, and the moon was rising, and my aunt had never come back inside.

That's how I know she didn't return to the house unnoticed, only to catch a ride with some mysterious stranger who would take her someplace far away from here, leaving her keys and wallet and life behind. That's how I know that right now, at this very moment, my aunt is outside in the dark, surrounded by trees and pine needles and wolves. I don't know if she's hurt, or dying, or dead.

It has to be one or the other by this point. Days have passed.

It forces me to think about too many things.
Some of us die afraid
, my mind whispers, shaky at the knowledge, desperate for release from it.
Some of us die in awful, unexpected ways.

The thoughts spiral in and out of each other, unlocking other thoughts, each more upsetting and heavy than the last.
First my mother, then Walter and now Penelope.
I'm
going to die one day. Everybody will.

How is it going to happen? Will I be afraid, in pain, crying out for mercy? Will I be trapped in a small space, my mind racing helplessly as water rises around me, or will my head be crushed under the weight of stone from a collapsing building? Will I be raped and murdered? Will a bear strip the flesh from my bones and force me to listen as he eats me alive? Will it take an instant or a minute or an hour or...

“Stop,” I whisper out loud from where I sit in front of the window in the cold shadows of the library, all the lights off, the sun finally setting. I've been sitting here since lunch, staring out at the woods, waiting, hoping, spiraling. “Please stop.”

But it doesn't. It never does, and before long the thoughts drive me out of the dark silence of the room, to the other side of the second floor, where my bedroom sits one down from Margaret's.

“Marg?” I say, knocking on her closed wooden door with my knuckles. I try desperately to sound calm, together,
sane
, shove the hysterical questions so far down inside myself that I no longer know where they are. “We should eat dinner in my room tonight. We can watch sitcoms to take our minds off everything. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty desperate for some—”

“I don't want to,” comes Margaret's reply from the other side. “I want to be alone.”

It's the same thing she said last night. The first few days after Penelope disappeared, we didn't leave each other's sides. We didn't cling to one another and cry like we used to when we were much younger and too little to understand why it was important to control our weaknesses, but we stayed together, hour after hour, as if to prove to each other that neither of us was alone in the chaos of Walter's death and Penelope's disappearance.

But now she's pulling back, away from me. Why? I need her. We need each other.

“Are you sure?” I try again, clenching my teeth together as I anticipate what I know is coming.

“I'm sure,” Margaret says. “I'm just going to go to sleep early again.”

Then, silence. I bite at my lip impulsively as I make my way down the hallway, to the stairs that lead to my father's study.
Will I die from a sudden illness, like cancer?
I think wildly, my breath quickening uncomfortably.
Will I accidentally fall down the stairs and break my neck?

“Dad,” I say from the doorway of his study once I've reached it, a little more urgently than I intend. He's sitting with his head bowed over a big paper spread out over the desk and simply grunts in answer.

I take a step closer and see that the paper is a map of the grounds and surrounding area. Over the forest, there are six white pins spread over the end closest to the house.

“What's this?” I say, turning my neck to get a closer look.

My father lights his pipe and stretches his back, his eyes never leaving the paper. “This is all the ground we've covered looking for Penelope,” he mumbles, smoke sneaking out between his lips as his fingers move over one pin to the other. “How can I help you?”

“I was just wondering if you were going out to look for her again tomorrow,” I say, a lump rising in my throat. I push it down without showing any evidence of its presence. “I wanted to make sure everything is being done. Why haven't the police brought dogs or something? Why are you and your friends putting more effort in than they are? Don't they understand that she's
out there
?”

Come to think of it
, I realize,
I haven't seen a single officer yet
.

“We're doing what we can,” my father promises, avoiding eye contact as he usually does with me. It's like looking at me for too long hurts him in some way. “And we don't have any plans to stop the search until we find an answer. As hard as it is, we need to be patient, Lucy.”

“Right,” I say, hearing the truth but not wanting to accept it. It's all becoming so unbearable, especially with Margaret starting to pull away. “I'm glad that you're still at it. That's all I wanted to know.”

Last night I had dreams that Walter was following me around the house, dead, looking just as he did when I found him hanging from the ceiling. He wasn't saying anything in the dream, just staring at me with a confused expression as I tried to go about my schoolwork and chores as if he wasn't there. But after a while he started tapping on my shoulder with one lumpy, swollen finger, urgently, demanding for me to look up.

When I did, he stared into my eyes without blinking, tilting his head to the side.
Where is Penelope?
he mouthed, soundless, his throat too ruined to speak. When I told him that she was gone, his expression turned from confusion to rage. Just as he looked like he was going to lean forward and tear my face apart with his bare hands, I woke with a start.

“We are definitely still at it,” my father confirms, bringing me back to the map and the pins and the heavy smell of pipe tobacco. “Go on with the rest of your night now. You and Margaret get some rest.”

For all my life, it's always been
you and Margaret get some rest
, or
you and Margaret entertain yourselves for now, can't you see I'm busy?
or
you and Margaret are making too much noise upstairs
. But now it's just me. I tell myself that I'll have an answer soon, that someone will find something in the next few days for sure, and one way or the other, we can bring some degree of closure to this situation.

As I'm walking to my own bedroom, I hear a strange sound coming from Margaret's: laughing. Instead of opening my door, I go to hers and listen. She's giggling all right, high-pitched and shrill and ringing with joy. The laughs are muffled, as if she's covering her mouth with her hands or a pillow to hide the sound. “I could kill her,” I think I hear her say.

“Margaret?” I say, knocking sharply. The laughter stops abruptly. “What are you doing?”

Silence for a few moments. I look down to the bottom of the door—her light is still on. For a minute I think she isn't going to answer, but then I hear her footsteps coming across the room for the door. She opens it. Her black hair is mussed as if she came straight from bed. Her eyes are shiny and wide.

“What do you want?” she demands. “Why are you here again?”

I try not to show how much her questions sting.

“What were you laughing at just now?” I ask, desperately wishing she'd invite me in. “I thought you were going to bed.”

“I
was
in bed, Lucy.” My cousin sounds irritated. “And I wasn't laughing. I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

What? “I heard you,” I say slowly, my eyebrows furrowing at her lie. “I know I did. And your light was on. You said, ‘I could kill her.'”

“Look, I've been sleeping with the light on lately, all right?” She is frowning. “Stop looking for reasons to come bother me. You're being annoying.”

In my head, I know that Penelope's disappearance should be something that brings Margaret and me closer together. We should still be sticking together, lying around in our rooms while we swap theories on what exactly happened to my aunt.

“Are you mad at me or something?” I blurt. “How come you want to be by yourself so much all of a sudden?”

Can't you see I'm barely holding on?
I want to yell, but a true Acosta would never admit such a thing.

“Because I need some time to think,” Margaret says. She crosses her arms over her stomach and narrows her eyes in just the slightest. “How is that not understandable to you?”

My cheeks flush in embarrassment. I suddenly see myself as she sees me: unable to handle my own shit. Pathetic.
Weak.

“I'm sorry,” I mumble. “I'll just...see you around.”

She closes the door in my face. I walk to my bedroom, forcing myself to take slow, easy steps.
I'm fine
, I think as my eyes begin to burn and sting. I close the door behind me and look over my room, perfectly neat, everything in its place. The sight of it brings just a touch of relief. Then I see the bejeweled box on the vanity shelf, the magic box of razor blades.
Not today
, I think with a sniff, defiantly turning my head away from it.
I can handle myself today just fine, thank you.

I put on my pajamas and turn off the light and crawl beneath the thick down comforter on my bed, the satin sheets heaven on my exposed skin. I spend a good while trying to mute out the sound of my own brain, begging it not to send me another dream with Walter in it, pleading for it to think about anything but Penelope or Margaret for just one moment...

But it doesn't. Instead, it washes over me with questions, and thoughts and violent visions that will never come to be but feel like they're happening, anyway. I think about Margaret laughing giddily in her room alone. I think about Penelope walking into the woods with her back turned to me. I think about Walter; I think about dying.

But more than anything, I think about the ever-growing suspicion that something is very wrong in this house.

I THOUGHT I HEARD
voices in the walls last night, but it was only the sound of Margaret crying from the next room over. I haven't heard her cry since we were ten. I wonder if she knew I could hear her. I wonder if she cared.

She hasn't talked to me at all about how badly she misses her mother. I don't exactly expect her to—we've never been the type to get
too
deep into feelings, being Acostas and everything, but I thought a situation this big might demand a little change on that front. When Penelope first disappeared, Margaret was all about staying close. But as the days passed, so did her moods. I can't help but feel like there's something she's hiding from me. Is it grief or something else? I think about the weird bursts of laughter coming from her room last night, followed an hour or so later by the crying. I wonder how much longer she'll act this way; how much longer I'll have to face my own mind alone in the quiet of this enormous house. I hope not for much longer.

When morning comes, Margaret doesn't show up to breakfast. If my father notices, he doesn't mention it, instead keeping his eyes on the newspaper spread out over the oak table, a scone and steaming cup of coffee nearby. I regard his pressed suit and gelled hairstyle with a frown. How did he conjure the will to give a shit about
cuff links
when he got dressed this morning, with everything that's been going on?

“Are you going to look for Aunt Penelope some more today?”

My father clears his throat but does not look up. “No, Lucy. We're finished. We've combed through those woods over and over again.”

“But that can't be it,” I say, starting to get worked up already. My defenses are starting to break down more easily with all this worrying about Margaret. “Nobody found her. She has to be out there somewhere. I saw her walking into those woods. She didn't even bring a coat with her. It was like she was taking a walk. This wasn't planned, Dad. She didn't run away, she's
out there
somewhere—”

“I'm tired of having this conversation,” my father snaps, finally raising his eyes from the newspaper to bore them into mine. “If you need me to explain to Margaret why the search party has officially ended, I would be happy to do so. That isn't your burden to bear.”

I think of what he said to me before when I asked him about searching for Penelope.
We're doing what we can. We don't have any plans of stopping the search until we find an answer.
That promise sure lasted a hot minute. Why am I even surprised?

“I just think that we shouldn't give up so easily,” I say in a low voice. “It's only been two weeks since she's been gone...”

“Lucy.” My father sighs and takes a calculated gulp from his coffee mug. “Two weeks is a long time to be outside at this time of year.”

Deep down, I know he's right. Scarborough Falls starts getting chilly in the beginning of October, and by November it's cold by day and frigid by night. We're almost at the end of November now. And with all the icy rain and sleet we've been having...

“Why don't you go check on your cousin?” my father says, interrupting my train of thought. “I don't think she's doing too well today. I found her mumbling to herself in the library this morning.”

So Margaret
is
awake; she just chose not to come to breakfast.

“What do you mean, mumbling?” I ask, my eyebrow raised. “What was she saying?”

“I'm not sure,” he says and takes a moment to sip his coffee. “I couldn't hear her very well.”

The idea of Margaret mumbling to herself shreds my nerves to bits. “I'm sure she's just missing her mom.”

I shift in my seat as I remember the fact that I haven't seen a single cop since we first noticed my aunt was missing. I assume the police must have come at least once to take a report, but I never saw them myself, although I suppose the house is large enough that they could have easily gone unnoticed by Margaret and me.

I know they never joined in on the search party in the forest with my father and about ten of the men from the country club, because I would have seen their squad cars parked on the cobblestone that surrounds the fountain out front, amid all the Jags and Bentleys and occasional vintage Cadillac.

It embarrasses me that I didn't join in on the search party. I was too afraid of finding Penelope dead, with her head cracked open on a rock, or throat torn out by an animal, or whatever it was that had prevented her from returning home to Margaret and my father and me. I kept seeing Walter's face in my mind, his gross hands, his smell; kept picturing my aunt in his place. Unbearable.

So instead of taking part in the search party, I stood at the windows of the library on the second floor, watching the line of richly dressed men descend into the shadows of the forest beyond the courtyard. As the days passed, fewer and fewer men showed up to go out with my father. The day before yesterday was the first day that nobody showed up.

I struggle to digest what my father said, about how they weren't going to look for her at all today. It's over, officially.

“Well, I guess I'll go look for Margaret,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable pause. “It's good to know you've thrown in the towel so quickly. I wonder how Penelope would feel if she knew—”

“Lucy.” My father's voice has a dangerous edge to it from behind the newspaper. The cuff links on his wrists have started trembling. “That will be more than enough.”

I let the sharp metal edges of the chair legs scrape across the white marble tiles as I stand. My father doesn't react, and I storm out, almost jumping out of my skin when I round the corner and nearly walk straight into Margaret.

“Shit!” I exclaim under my breath. I raise my hand to my chest and instinctively lower my voice to a whisper so my father can't hear. “Were you listening in on that or something? What's been up with you?”

I notice that she's still wearing the same clothes she wore last night, her black curls hanging in stringy clumps that fall just past her chin. She licks her chapped lips and crosses her arms over her stomach.

“I have something to show you,” she whispers back, ignoring my questions. Her bare foot taps against the hard flooring of the front entryway. “Will you come with me or what?”

I want to wrap her up into a hug, tell her to take a shower and a nap and to eat a hot meal. I think of last night, of how stubbornly she pushed me away. If I say something to try to help her now, she'd just throw it back in my face. No, thanks. At least she's talking to me, asking me to follow her somewhere. It's already an improvement from yesterday.

We head to the triple-wide staircase in the back of the parlor, her just ahead of me, both of us silent. Since we were children, we'd creep through the house this way, exploring every room of every floor like mice. Now that we're seventeen, our home studies usually take up most of the day, but shortly after Penelope disappeared, we were granted permission to take an extended winter break.

I follow my cousin up the stairs to the third and highest floor. She leads me through one of the plushly carpeted hallways to the back corner of the house, where a miniature wooden staircase ascends steeply into an opening in the ceiling.

“The attic?” I say, uncertain. “What were you doing in the attic?”

I have a sudden flash of fear that she's about to let me in,
really
let me in, in a way that I might not be able to handle.
Tough shit
, I tell myself.
This is what you wanted—not to be alone in this.

“Wait until you see this,” she breathes, her eyes wide with excitement. “You're going to piss your pants.”

She climbs the tiny staircase quickly, her wrinkled cotton skirt floating behind her, and I follow. The curiosity is powerful enough to cause me to shiver.

“I don't remember the last time I was in here,” I remark after we've reached the top, rubbing my arms in the chill. “There are probably rats, Marg.”

The single-bulb light that hangs from the ceiling is already on and fills the stale-smelling room with a faint yellow glow. “Rats.” Margaret snickers, rushing to crouch beside the wall. “Sure. Come closer, you're too far away.”

I walk to my cousin, looking around the attic for anything that appears strange or out of the ordinary that would make me
piss my pants
. The room is open and large, with a thin film of dust that covers everything from the floor to the walls to the stacks of boxes against the back that carry the belongings of my dead mother.

From here, I can see her name scrawled hurriedly over the side of one of the boxes.
Eva
, it says, and I shiver at the sight of it. The attic and its memories of the dead have always creeped me out.

On the wall opposite the one Margaret is crouched by is a large circular window that is blocked off by an elaborately carved cover of wood, latched shut and blocking out any detection of sunlight. The swirling green-and-gold Victorian wallpaper that accents the rest of the house is missing up here, which gives the attic a stripped, empty feel.

“Do you know what's on the other side of this wall?” Margaret says, grinning up at me.

“Um,” I mumble, not sure what she's getting at. “The stone from the exterior walls?”

“Wrong,” she whispers and knocks on the wood with three sharp taps. “Get a load of this.”

“Margaret—” I start, but she shushes me.

My cousin waits with an odd intensity, her arm frozen in place with her fist raised just over the wall, as if she'll knock again. She doesn't blink. She doesn't breathe.

“Did you hear something before?” I offer gently. I feel awfully worried looking at her, all smudged and disheveled with dark rings under her eyes.

“This is bullshit,” she whispers under her breath, her eyes growing wet. “She was here... It happened... She was here last night and this morning...”

“Who was?” I ask, confused.

“I have an idea,” Margaret says, standing from her crouch. “I bet she isn't doing it because you're watching. Turn around and cover your eyes.”

“What?” I take a step back, raising an eyebrow. “That's a little weird.”

“Just do it,”
she urges, motioning me to turn with her hands. “If you peek, I'll fucking kill you.”

My heart skips a beat at her words. She's never really talked to me like that before. I remember again what I thought I heard her say in her room last night:
I could kill her.

“Fine,” I say, uncomfortable but willing to go through with this, just to see what the hell Margaret is talking about. I turn slowly until I'm facing the covered window, take a deep breath and cover my eyes with my hands.

“Don't peek,” she insists again.

“Jesus, Margaret,” I snap, tired of her pushiness. “I said I won't, okay?”

I hear her knock on the wall again, somewhere behind me. Almost immediately, there comes a tiny swarm of little tapping sounds, moving all around the wooden surface. I frown beneath my hands, confused.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “So I'm supposed to believe that wasn't y—”

The tiny tapping sounds suddenly turn into violent scratching noises, loud and hard enough that I fear Margaret's nails will rip and snap away from her fingertips. Startled, I lower my hands and begin to turn back around.
If you peek, I'll fucking kill you.

“Don't turn around!” Margaret bellows, but I'm already facing her again. She stands near the wall, out of breath, and the sound has stopped abruptly.

“Are you okay?” I ask, stepping forward to inspect her fingers, but she pulls away from me.

“Don't you get it?” she says, her eyes wide. “That wasn't me!”

“Then why are you out of breath?” I ask, my voice quiet. She doesn't answer, instead looking down to the floor. “Why did you really bring me up here?”

“Oh, shut up and go away,” she snaps, waving her hand at me without glancing up. “You couldn't make it any more obvious that you think I'm cracking up if you tried.”

“No, I don't think that,” I say quickly, too quickly. “I'm sorry, Marg, this is just kind of—”

Margaret lets out a joyless chuckle and waves me off. “Seriously, Lucy, go. I wouldn't want to waste your time with any of this. You know, maybe if you go stare out the library window some more, you can bring my mother back from the dead.”

Her words cut me to the bone, causing me to flinch. I try to tell myself that she's just lashing out, that something is eating away at her, that she's just lost enough in her grief to become weirdly fixated to the most isolated place in the house.

“That's not fair,” I start, and she tries to cut me off with another wave. I don't let her. “You can't blame me for hoping, and it's not like you're there for me.” I blush when I realize that I've made it sound like she's the one who should be there for me, and not the other way around, if at all.