Chapter One // Cryptic Walls

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This is not the sort of first day I imagined for my new job.

But then, going to work at an old, abandoned, creepy mansion isn’t standard first-day material now, is it?

The wrought-iron gate before me remains shut, preventing me from driving up to the door of the sprawling house. I ease the car door open and step out, dread slowing my movements as if I’m swimming in syrup. This whole thing doesn’t feel right. At all.

My shoes crunch on the gravel driveway as I approach the closed gate. I lean close to see—it’s welded shut. The gate, once two parts, was at some point combined into a single piece that’s able to slide across a track.

Giving one more glance around the dilapidated courtyard behind the fence, I lean into the metal bars and attempt to push it open. I shove with all my weight, waiting for the gate to slide even a little.

It’s shut tight.

Maybe whoever lives here welded the whole gate closed. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone poking around on his property. I can’t blame him. The mansion appears to have been built without a single trained architect involved, with rooms sticking out at odd angles, wherever they can fit. The overgrown lawn and unkempt topiaries might have once resembled animals, and a 15-foot-high iron fence, topped with spikes surrounds it all. These things certainly invite speculation. And for some, speculation would only be satisfied by investigating the grounds.

As I stand and think, my very thoughts seem to open the gate. It emits an electric whine and slowly inches aside. For a moment, I stand aloof. Is someone inside watching me? Waiting for me?

I climb back into the driver’s seat, slam the door, and ease forward, approaching the fountain in the center of a rounded parking area. Now that I’m closer, I can see it too has not known use in some time—the great stacked marble bowls are full of black, standing water.

I drive the car around the fountain until stopping in front of massive wooden doors. A stone staircase leads up to an elevated patio where the entrance awaits. Switching the car off and pocketing the key, I open the door and slide out. I look over the roof of the car at my new job.

The Hawksley Manor.

With hesitant steps, I approach. Each footfall on the stone stairs brings me closer to the imposing double doors. The one to the right bears a metal door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Its dull gray eyes seem to stare straight at me.

Why did I take this job again? But I know the answer well. I need the money. Working at the supermarket won’t cut it. Maybe for me, but for my sister, Eva? We’ll never return to our old life unless I can save up this income. Despite all of Eva’s talk about God looking out for us and whatever else she told me, our parents’ deaths made this the only option.

So, with a cringe and tense nerves, I reach up and grasp the knocker. I lift it slowly, then drop it. Once. Twice. Thrice.

The pounds echo through the house, and I can hear them bounce back from inside. There must not be much inside to soak up the sound. Why would an enormous mansion like this have no furnishings inside?

But after I shake myself from this rabbit trail, I realize no one has answered the door yet. The interior is ghost-quiet. In fact, a ghost waiting beyond the door wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

After several awkward seconds, I knock again. Silence greets me. I try the door—locked. Glancing back at the iron gate, I pause. It’s closed again. Someone must be watching me from inside and controlling the gate. I stare at it a minute longer, but I’m too weirded out to be worried much about it.

Finally, a quiet voice comes from inside, and a moment later, the door inches open. I still can see no one. “Mr. Cannan Gable?” a scratchy voice asks.

“Yes, sir. I’m here for a piano lesson with Shane Hawksley?”

“Are you?”

I blink. “Y—yes. I am. May I come in?”

A gray eye peeks around the barely opened door and stares at me. It sizes me up before the doors part completely to reveal a hunched man in a suit. “Come in.”

I move forward warily. “Are you Mr. Hawksley?”

The man looks up at me as I walk through the doorway, into the house. His eyes are like polished river rocks, old and smooth, devoid of emotion. His whole body bows over with some invisible weight. “I am a Mr. Hawksley.”

I glance over his shabby suit and unpolished dress shoes. These hardly seem to be things befitting the owner of such a large mansion, but they fit with the other decor choices I’ve seen so far.

Hawksley stares at me for a long moment with his uncomfortable gaze, runs a hand across his gray-bearded jaw, and then turns and walks away. His shoes leave prints in the dust that coats the wooden floor.

I hesitate, then follow him. “Sir?”

“Stay here,” he says without turning around. Then he opens a door, walks through, and is gone.

I stare after him for a moment; it’s only been five minutes and I could write a book about all the strange things I’ve seen. I shake my head, trying to pull myself together.

My eyes wander around the room. This first room must have, at one time, been a grand thing to behold. A wide staircase sits at the far end of the room, sweeping up to a small balcony and an absurd number of doors. There’s probably more wall space taken up by doors than actual walls. The first floor is just the same—doors cover the walls to the left and right. In the center of the ceiling is a hook that must have at one time held a chandelier, but judging from the spider webs hanging from it, it can’t have seen any adornment in some time.

Other than that, there’s no furniture. No rugs, no cushy chairs. Only dark, wooden floor, covered in a thick layer of dust. The dirt is only interrupted by Hawksley’s footsteps to a doorway on the left.

I shift my weight to my other leg and finger at the zipper of my leather jacket, getting impatient. What is this guy doing? Taking a nap?

A door swings open on the opposite wall, and I jump. How did he get over there? But who comes out is not Hawksley. It’s a maid, dressed just like a maid from the Victorian age would be. Old and haggard though she is, perhaps she can be of help. I take a step toward her. “Excuse me? Do you know where Mr. Hawksley is?”

The maid, facing away from me, continues toward the staircase. I take another step toward her. “Hello? Excuse me?”

But the maid ignores me, taking the stairs at an excruciatingly slow pace, breathing heavily with each step. I dart forward to help her, but before I reach the stairs, someone else has already descended to help her. I jump back at the sudden appearance. But again, it’s not Mr. Hawksley. It’s a young man—in his twenties, perhaps—that looks pulled from the same British drama show as the maid. He loops his arm around hers and helps her up the staircase.

I move toward the two again. “Wait! Excuse me, do you know where Mr. Hawksley is?”

The man turns around, gives me a strange look, and then helps the maid up the last stair. After she’s gone through a door, he turns around, looks at me again, and then vanishes through a different door.

I stand in the middle of the room, blinking and lost—in just about every sense of the word.

Before I have much time to process my thoughts, yet another door opens onto the second-story staircase landing. Hawksley shuffles out and scans the room below, then stops when he sees me. “Come.” He waves toward the door he came out of and goes back through it. How did he get up there?

I sigh, grateful to be finally starting. I take the stairs two at a time; a cloud of dust kicks up behind me and coats my shoes. In moments, I’ve reached the top and enter the slightly ajar door.

I find myself in a dark hallway, free of windows and any other light source. Within ten feet, it all fades to darkness. Hawksley is already far ahead of me; I hear his steady footsteps down the hall. Questioning my sanity for the third time since I arrived, I take a deep breath and plunge into the darkness.

It only takes two minutes before I smack face-first into a wall. I stop, rubbing my sore nose, and listen for a moment, but Hawksley is inaudible. I feel around, and sure enough, a wall is right in the middle of where I was trying to walk. A bit of further exploration reveals that the hallway turns to the right. How can he get through here with no light? But Hawksley is a great mystery, and with all the other things I’ve seen here today, I worry little about it. I turn to the right and continue down the hall.

Another six times the hall takes a wild turn, and every time I run into the wall before figuring out which way I need to go. But finally, a light appears at the end of a straight section and I emerge into a large room, flooded with light by massive windows on every side.

In the middle sits a piano. And on the piano bench sits a boy who can’t be older than four or five.

“This is Shane,” Hawksley says from behind me, and I jump again. But being startled fades considering the sight before me. My student is hardly more than a toddler.

What on earth am I supposed to teach him?

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