The Trespassers Read Online Free PDF Page A

clean. The idea that someone had been taking care of the house, that it hadn’t been sitting empty and alone for all those years, was somehow a little bit comforting. Taking Grub’s hand, she moved on down the hall.
    The other bedrooms on the second floor were also furnished with heavy old-fashioned furniture. Some had beds with high wooden headboards and marble-topped dressers while others were less formal with brass beds and white wicker chairs. Some of the rooms had small things in them, too—pictures on the walls, clocks, vases, hand mirrors, crystal jars and bottles—but others were empty except for a few big pieces of furniture. There were several large bath-rooms with old-fashioned claw-foot tubs, pull-chain toilets, and pedestal basins.
    As they went from room to room Neely gradually began to feel a little better—more excited instead of scared. She couldn’t help feeling thrilled over all the beautiful old rooms with their paneled walls and lead-paned windows. So many rooms full of such beautiful things.
    But once or twice the quick pulse of fear came again like a faint faraway warning when she first stepped into a new room. And with the fear the strong feeling that there were sounds around her that she could hear if only she could listen hard enough.
    At the south end of the hall Grub discovered a locked door. As he twisted the knob back and forth and then tried to peek through the keyhole Neely began to feel it again, a strange uneasy tension that made a tingle at the back of her neck and a tight stretched feeling across her face.
    “Don’t do that, Grub,” she said.
    “But it’s locked. Why do you suppose it’s locked, Neely?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something valuable in there. Maybe jewelry or bottles of expensive old wine.”
    Grub shook his head and tried again to look through the keyhole.
    “Stop it, Grub,” Neely said sharply.
    “Why?” he said. “Why not?”
    “Because... She didn’t know “why not” exactly, except that it made her feel uneasy. “Because it’s none of your business.”
    Grub was still staring at the door. “But maybe that’s where the secret is,” he said.
    “What secret?”
    “The secret about the girl who disappeared.”
    Neely smiled. “You mean, you think she’s in there. Her bones or something. She disappeared a long time ago. Like before Dad was born even.” It was a ridiculous idea, and Neely didn’t even want to imagine about it.
    Grub shrugged. “Not her bones. Just something about her secret, maybe.”
    Neely grabbed his arm and pulled him away.
    In the center portion of the long hall a staircase led up to the third floor and down to the first. The stairs to the first floor were very wide with a great solid banister almost a foot across. The stairway ended in a grand entryway facing some ornate double doors, which Neely immediately recognized. She’d seen the massive entry doors many times before—from the outside.
    In the downstairs rooms the bottom sections of the tall windows were shuttered, so the only light came in through small arched upper panes. A dim light, but enough to see that the living room was very long and grand with a beamed ceiling, an enormous fireplace, huge leather couches and chairs, and lots of other bulky-looking pieces of furniture.
    There were paintings on the walls, too, seascapes and still lifes, and over the mantel a large painting of a stern-faced old man wearing an old-fashioned suit and a shirt with a high stiff collar.
    In a corner near the windows there was a potted tree that reached almost to the ceiling. Its limbs were dry and bare and the floor beneath it was covered with dead leaves. Grub stared at the tree, his forehead puckering.
    “I guess Reuben doesn’t come in here very often,” Neely said. “At least, not often enough for that poor tree.”
    “Could we water it?” Grub asked.
    “It wouldn’t do any good. It’s been dead too long,” Neely said—and bit her tongue. Dead wasn’t