Voices at My Window

 

 

After dinner, I said goodnight and made my way up to my room. Agnes, for once, gave me a little bit of privacy. I shut the heavy wooden door to my room, but when I went to lock it, I noticed something strange. There were no locks on the inside of the door. The switch to lock the door was on the outside where you would expect to find a keyhole. I thought maybe mine had just been put on backwards, but when I looked over at the rooms of the other girls, I noticed theirs was exactly the same way. Locks on the outside.

 

I shut my door tight and wedged one of my flipflops underneath. Maybe that was part of the Shadowford rule book. No privacy. I checked the bathroom and found no locks at all on that door. How could they expect me to take a shower or a bath in here without being able to lock my door? For now, the flipflop method would probably keep the door closed to intruders, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop someone who was intent on getting in.

 

I considered making a “Do Not Enter” sign to let Agnes and the others know I wanted privacy, but I knew that if Ella Mae or Mrs. Shadowford wanted to come in, they could. Then again, I thought, Mrs. Shadowford was in a wheelchair. I hadn’t noticed any kind of elevator or special contraption to move her upstairs, so maybe it was only Ella Mae and the other girls I had to worry about when it came to privacy.

 

After I shoved another flipflop under the bathroom door, I drew a warm bath and lowered myself into the refreshing bubbles. I guess I must have been pretty tired, because I fell asleep nearly the instant my body was immersed in the water.

 

I couldn't be sure how much time passed, but at some point, I started to dream. A woman in white floated down the hallway, her feet inches from the ground. She called out to me and I followed her. In my dream, we were here in Shadowford Manor. Somehow, I knew she was taking me to the third floor. As I walked down the dark corridor, I looked for the stairs, but there were none.

 

How do we get there? I asked her. There's no staircase.

 

She smiled and floated to the end of the hallway, beckoning me with a ghostly fingertip. The woman in white stopped in front of a section of the wall covered from floor to ceiling in wood paneling. She passed through it, and I tried to follow her, but couldn't. I could hear her calling to me from the other side of the wall. I placed my hands on the wooden panel, but when it wouldn’t budge, I felt strangely powerless. I pounded against the wall, pushed with all my might, but the woman in white was gone.

 

I put my back to the wall and leaned against it. On the opposite wall was a large mirror. In it, I saw a bright red flash. Flames! Then, suddenly, a rush of heat came to me, as real as anything I’d ever felt. When I turned around to find the source of the fire, I was no longer at Shadowford. I had been transported back to my past, to a small two bedroom house I remembered all too well. I sat in the middle of my room, the remains of my angry tears still making a path down my cheeks as flames broke out around me. In the next room, I could hear a man screaming. Jill, with her porcelain doll skin and kind brown eyes, looked over at me.

 

“What have you done?” she asked. “You witch! Why did you do it?”

 

I tried to explain that I hadn’t meant to start the fire. It was an accident. I reached out to her, but suddenly, the door burst open and water flooded in, filling the room in an instant. I floated up on the wave, then slowly sank to the bottom, unable to breathe.

 

I gasped and sat up in the bathtub in my room at Shadowford, splashing water and bubbles all over the tile floor. Leaning over the edge of the tub, I struggled for air.

 

The dream had been so vivid. The call of the woman’s voice. The heat of the fire. I shivered, realizing the bathwater had long gone cold. I must have been asleep for a while. Carefully, I climbed out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel.

 

In my room, it had grown dark since the sun went down. I switched on the bedside lamp and changed into my pajamas. Sleep threatened my eyes again, and I was asleep within minutes of sinking into my large canopied bed.

 

A scream woke me from my sleep. I bolted upright, my heart pounding.

 

The scream came again, blood-curdling this time. I heard real fear in the sound. I rushed to the door and yanked, but nothing happened. Then, remembering the flip-flop wedged in the bottom, I bent over and pulled it from the door. I tried to turn the knob, but it wouldn’t move. Someone had locked me inside.

 

Panic seized my body. What if there was a fire? And I was locked inside? Had someone locked me in?

 

I banged against the door. “Help! Is anyone out there?”

 

I pressed my ear against the wood, expecting to hear more screams and chaos, but there was nothing. It was quiet.

 

“Hello?” I spoke through the door, but heard no answer. Surely someone was out there. Someone had locked me in. Someone had screamed bloody murder.

 

Now, it seemed, the house was quiet. I began to doubt my own ears. Maybe it had all been just another dream.

 

Then, voices at my window. The sound of breaking glass floated up to me and someone made a hushing sound. I tiptoed across the room and looked down. Even outside at midnight, the air was thick with heat. The motion sensor by the cottage out back had been triggered and the backyard was bathed in an eerie orange glow.

 

Down in the garden, movement caught my eye. I squinted to see who it was, but all I saw were shadows. Had someone outside been screaming? I didn't think so. I was certain the sound had come from inside the house, but whoever these people were outside, they didn't seem to have heard it.

 

“Be quiet.” A guy’s voice. He was somewhere in the darkness near the back of the garden, but I could almost make out his figure.

 

“Oh come on, Jackson.” A giggle. A girl I didn’t recognize. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”

 

“I’m serious, you can’t be here,” he said. “It’s late. You should go home.”

 

“Not until you give me what I want,” the girl said. In the shadows, I saw her grab him and pull him close. His girlfriend?

 

But Jackson pushed the girl away. “Stop. You know that crap doesn’t work on me.”

 

“I don’t understand you,” she said. “What is it about you that’s so different?”

 

Jackson emerged from the darkness and a blonde girl stumbled after him. “Wait! Aww, Jackson, come on.” She grabbed his arm and he turned sharply toward her.

 

In the glow of the light from the barn, I could see the anger and frustration on his face. Inside, my heart pounded watching them. For a moment, I thought he might hit her, but instead, he yanked his arm away from her. “Just go.”

 

The girl had her back to me. She put her hands on her hips and backed away from him. “Fine. I didn't want anything from you anyway.”

 

Jackson kicked at the grass as the girl walked around the side of the house. As if sensing me watching him, he looked up toward my room, just as he had done earlier that day. Quickly, I backed away from the window and closed the curtains.

 

In the distance, I heard a car start up and drive away.