Shit. I was going to get fired.
I wasn’t sure what I expected on the other side, but I did not expect to see a perfectly preserved room.
I stood there staring at the opening as dust filtered down from the disturbed rafters overhead.
Why was there a room in the haunted mansion behind a bricked-up wall?
I took a half-step backwards, then looked at my hand. I was holding the key.
Some things in life were more important than the loss of your job, damaging historic locations, or potentially disturbed ghosts. One of those things was a full bladder, so I quickly rushed to what I prayed was a bathroom.
Sure enough, it wasn’t.
I closed the door anyway and found a bucket I could use. If I had to choose between discreetly finding a way to dispose of a bucket of my own urine and peeing my pants, I’d take the bucket.
I was in the middle of hiking up my skirt when I heard footsteps. Multiple pairs of footsteps.
3
Cara
I clapped a hand over my mouth and tried not to make a sound.
I wasn’t imagining it. Footsteps. Shifting rocks. Voices.
I was in a haunted mansion at one in the morning and I wasn’t alone. I distantly wondered if pepper spray worked on ghosts.
“Quiet,” a woman’s voice said. There was a strange, formal stiffness to her voice. Almost like an accent but not quite.
“I’ve been quiet long enough,” a man replied in a deep, resonating voice.
“Look at this,” another voice said. There was a pause, then the rattling sound of paint cans being moved. It sounded like they were rummaging through the pile of things from the shelf. “How long have we slept?”
“Too long,” replied the man with the deep voice. “Look.”
Another pause, then a slow, amazed laugh from the woman. From the direction of their voices, I thought they might be reading one of the informational plaques the tour agency had put up explaining the history of the house.
The woman spoke. “Looks like poor old Mercer is long dead.”
“This door wasn’t here before,” one of the men said.
“Do you smell that?” The woman asked.
“Smells like a human.”
I really wished I didn’t still have to pee. When the door opened, it took everything I had not to lose control of my bladder.
Two men and a woman were waiting in the darkened room. They were all dressed like something out of an old movie with layers of well-made, formal clothing. They were pale, lithe, beautiful people. The woman had black hair, eyes a startling shade of blue, and curved, full lips that somehow hinted at both innocence and an edge of something more dangerous.
The man on the left had dirty blond hair slicked back over a smooth forehead, eyes that twinkled with danger, and beautifully sculpted, sharp features.
The other man was broader with a square kind of perfection to him. He fixed dark eyes on me, then took a step closer. “Hello.”
He was the one with the resonating voice. “Hi,” I croaked.
“I’m Lucian Undergrove. This is my brother, Alaric, and my sister, Seraphine.”
“You were trapped behind that wall?” I asked. I could feel myself trying to slam together puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. The biggest, most confusing piece was how three very much alive people had just come out of a wall I knew had existed ever since I’d been working here. “Was there a… tunnel in there?”
The three siblings exchanged a quiet look, then Lucian nodded. “Something along those lines.”
The two in the back were looking at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. The woman, in particular, had an intensity in her eyes that I hadn’t seen since I accidentally showed up to prom in the same dress as one of the cheerleaders.
“I’m just going to take this bucket and go,” I said, lifting up the bucket and showing all of them, as if it explained everything.
Lucian put a hand on my arm. It was cold. It looked even whiter than I’d realized against my skin, too. “I’ll need you to forget you met us.”
A loud swallow clicked in my throat. “You got it. I was never here.”
“No,” he said, eyes taking on a heavy, oddly magnetic quality. “I need you to really forget.” He reached out and brushed a slender finger down my nose, then half-smiled at me, revealing a handsome little vertical dimple on one side. “It’s a shame, though. I think I would have enjoyed getting to know you.”
I tried to say something, but it felt like I had suddenly become full-blown, can’t-even-talk-properly drunk. Some kind of slurred sound came out of my mouth, and then the inside of my head was spinning.
4
Cara
I had a cup of coffee in my hands as I sat at the breakfast table back home. Four tall basketball players surrounded me with varying levels of consternation on their faces.