The Trespassers Read Online Free PDF

a good word to use around Grub, not even about a tree. But this time his mind seemed to be busy elsewhere.
    After the living room they explored the dining room, kitchen, and a lot of small rooms—pantries, storage rooms, and what seemed to be several small bedrooms, probably for servants. The pantries were empty except for mouse droppings and long ribbons of spiderweb that draped down from shelf to shelf.
    In the enormous kitchen the appliances were large and grand and very old-fashioned. Grub kept opening cupboards and closets even though Neely told him not to. There were dishes and pots and pans in some of the cupboards, as if people had gone away planning to come back very soon, and for some reason had never returned.
    When they’d finished exploring the north wing of the house they went back through the entryway and into a large game room. Two beautiful game tables of inlaid wood sat near the windows, and in the center of the room a huge stained glass chandelier hung down over a pool table with bulging carved legs and pockets with golden tassels.
    Beyond the game room there was a library with comfortable chairs and couches and lots of bookshelves that went clear up to the ceiling. Most of the shelves were still filled with books—old, dusty books with dark, discolored bindings.
    Over the fireplace in the library there was another large oil painting, this time of a group of people—a family, probably. A handsome man with a mustache and slicked-down dark hair and a sad-looking woman wearing a pearl necklace and a dark dress with a long, tight skirt. There were also three children in the picture. Two half-grown boys and a pretty little girl with a big ribbon in her long curly hair. Grub studied the picture for so long that Neely finally had to pull him away.

Chapter 9
    A FTER THE LIBRARY NEELY LED THE WAY BACK TO THE second floor and headed for the room with the open window. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s go home.” But Grub didn’t want to leave.
    “We haven’t been up there yet,” he said, pointing to the flight of stairs that led up to the third floor.
    Neely stopped, staring up at where, in the dim light of a stained glass skylight, the stairs turned and disappeared from view. She felt torn. One half of her wanted very much to see the whole house while they were there—all of it—but on the other hand...
    The weird feeling of dread had almost gone away while they were in the library, but now, as they climbed the stairs, she could feel it oozing out from the dark corners of her mind. Oozing out and spreading like the strange tinted shadows that fell down across the stairwell from the stained glass skylight—yellow shadows and green ones, and one dull red blot that splashed across the landing like an old faded stain. She stopped and stood stiffly, staring at the red blot—and then suddenly turned back. Back down the stairs toward the room with the open window and the clean, fresh air of the outdoors. But by then Grub was almost to the top of the stairs and when she called him he didn’t stop. So she turned again and followed him up the stairs.
    The landing at the top of the stairs opened into one huge room, a kind of ballroom. An enormous open space with slanted ceilings, dormer windows, and a smooth hardwood floor. Along the walls were couches and chairs and on one side of the room there was a player piano and on the other an old-fashioned hand-cranked phonograph. Grub turned the handle and then took a record from the cabinet and put it on the turntable.
    “It’s all right,” he said. “I won’t hurt it. I know how. The man at the discovery museum showed me how to work one just like it.”
    He lifted the arm and lowered the needle carefully onto the edge of the record. It was piano music, tinny and jazzy-sounding. When it was over Grub wanted to play some others, but Neely was feeling more and more anxious.
    “We’d better go,” she said. “Reuben really might come back early.”
    It