“What is it?” Mabel asked, and Evie realized it had only been her friend coming closer.
“Nothing.” Evie took in the whole of the room. “Funny,” she said.
“What is?”
“From the outside, I noticed a fat chimney, but this fireplace is very small.”
“We don’t have time to critique the architecture, Evie. Any minute, those boys are going to run for their mothers. If they haven’t already run to the pharmacy for cream sodas. You had no business giving them the money before.”
“Keep looking,” Evie instructed.
“For what?” Mabel called.
I don’t know. “I’m going upstairs.”
Mabel raced to her side. “Evangeline Mary O’Neill! You’re not leaving me for a moment! I’m sticking with you, just like George and Ira Gershwin.”
“Oh, rhapsody. Then I’ll never be blue,” Evie quipped, though it felt odd to joke in such a tomb.
“Will you keep moving, please?”
A grand central staircase led to a second floor. Its elegantly carved newels were rotted through in spots. The stairs creaked and groaned with each step, and Evie hoped the staircase would bear their weight. She swept the flashlight across austere oil portraits silvery with spiderwebs. At the top was a long hallway branching off left and right with doors all the way down. Evie kept her eyes open for something to take, something that might give her a solid read, something personal.
“This way,” Evie said, walking right. She rattled the knobs of several doors, but they were all locked shut. At the back of the house, they came to yet another staircase. This one was narrow and enclosed and led to an attic room whose dormer window had been boarded over. Small slices of sunlight bled through the cracks, but it wasn’t enough to cut the gloom. Evie waved her flashlight around the room. Its beam landed on a four-poster bed draped in curtains. A bureau with a tri-fold mirror. A wardrobe. Carefully, Mabel opened the wardrobe’s creaking doors. It was empty inside except for a few hats. The bureau held a tarnished hand mirror and brush.
Suddenly Mabel let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“What is it? What is it?” Evie said, heart pounding. Mabel was still squealing as she pointed to the bed, where Evie’s flashlight beam caught the scuttling form of a rat as it scurried away, and Evie and Mabel nearly climbed up each other, screaming all the while.
“That is the last straw, Evie!” Mabel choked out. “Can we please go?”
“Very well,” Evie said. She couldn’t help feeling that she had failed. As she turned to leave, her foot caught and she stumbled into Mabel.
“Evie! Do you want to scare me to death?”
“Sorry, old girl.” Evie turned the light beam on the floor. Part of a floorboard had rotted away, and underneath it, she could just make out something hidden. “Hold this steady,” she said, handing Mabel the flashlight. With a grunt, she pried away the board.
“Tell me you aren’t putting your hand in there,” Mabel said.
“All right. I won’t tell you.” Evie bit down on her scream and inched her fingers under the rotted board into the dark space below, feeling very carefully for the object. When it was in her grasp, she yanked it free with a shout and shuddered all over. “Holy smokes! I never want to do that again.”
Mabel crowded next to Evie. “What is it?”
Evie rubbed the layers of dust from the hosiery box and lifted the lid. Inside was a small leather book. While Mabel held the flashlight steady, Evie opened the book to a random page. At the top it was marked with a date: March 22, 1870. “ ‘Tonight, Papa lies upon the dining table in his shroud, ready for burial. I am the last remaining Knowles. Oh, I am lost!’ ” Evie read aloud. “Ida Knowles’ diary,” she said in astonishment.
“Is that what you’d hoped for?”
“Better!”
“Swell. Let’s beat it. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
They tore down the stairs as fast as they could without injuring themselves and Mabel headed toward the kitchen, where they’d come in. But Evie’s attention was drawn to a door slowly creaking open at the far end of the corridor behind her. She hadn’t noticed it before. What if it held some important clue?
“Evie! Let’s go!” Mabel hissed, but Evie was already at the door.
Evie stepped inside and found herself in a small room. There was another door, oddly, in the center of the wall. She turned the knob on that door, and a trap in the floor gave way, sending her barreling down a laundry chute. Screaming, she pawed the smooth sides for something to grab, something to slow her descent. As she was shot out the other end, her coat caught on a sharp edge, suspending her. Carefully, she eased out of the coat, holding fast to it as she lowered herself. The coat ripped at the collar, dropping her the rest of the way. She landed on a dirt floor with an uncomfortable thump that rattled her bones. Nothing was broken, but her flashlight was gone, and her new gold brocade coat was now in tatters; a square of bright cloth stuck to the mouth of the laundry chute.
