Jill Churchill - A Groom With a View

“Well, sort of a town," Eden said. "A motel, Wanda's Bait and Party Shoppe, a bank, and a gun shop.”

Kitty and Layla took her up on the offer to lead them into the darkness of the monks' cells hallway. The aunts had their own flashlight and followed along. Uncle Joe had disappeared into the darkness. Mr. Willis, still in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner, was cursing.

Shelley was doubled up in a chair, laughing herself silly about Wanda's Bait and Party Shoppe. "I love it! You can get your party accessories and your minnows without having to run all over town."

“My dears," Larkspur trilled from somewhere across the room. "What adventures we could have. This is like one of those country house mysteries, where everybody's locked up together. I do wonder who will play the victim. What if I found the body? I wonder if I'd faint?”

Somebody, Jane thought it was Uncle Joe, said, "Shut up."

“Could you make anything of the weather reports on the radio?" Jane asked Shelley around a mouthful of toothpaste when they got to their rooms.

“Too much static. But it's a typical spring storm. It'll clear off by morning.”

The wind howled and a branch broke and slithered down the roof. Jane and Shelley blindly felt their way back to their rooms. Jane shuddered and she got into her long flannel nightgown.

“Too bad there wasn't any chance of talking to Eden about the treasure," Shelley said, calling from the next room.

“We can catch her sometime tomorrow," Jane said. She took another quick glance at her notebooks and then settled in with a mystery book she'd brought along, which was a challenge to read by the flickering kerosene lamplight. She could hear Shelley puttering around in her own room. Probably cleaning things. Shelley was an inveterate cleaner-upper.

After a bit, Jane realized the temperature had dropped and it was getting really chilly. She opened her doorway to the hall. "There's a very bad draft out here. I wonder if a door's been left ajar?”

There was a low wailing sound from somewhere.

“What was that!" Shelley exclaimed, rushing through the bathroom to Jane's room.

Jane was wide-eyed. "I don't know. I don't hear it now."

“Open the door again," Shelley said.

The wail began again. Jane started to laugh, albeit a bit nervously. "It's the wind down this hall. I lived in a dormitory once that was like that. Get the right combinations of doors along the hall opened and a good wind outside and you get an eerie howling noise."

“You're real certain that's what it is?'

“Certain enough that I'm not going to go check it out.”

Shelley went back through the bathroom that led to her room.

A minute later, Jane called through, "I'm in charge here. I do have to check it out."

“Want me to go along?" Shelley was trying to read a magazine by the light of her small bedside kerosene lamp.

“No, of course not," Jane said, mentally pleading, Please insist on joining me!

But Shelley took her at her word. Jane put on a robe, lighted her lamp, and opened the door again. The howling, which wasn't audible with the door shut, sounded louder and more ominous. Don't be a big baby, Jane told herself. Just check that the main doors are locked and don't go all spooky and stupid.

This resolve lasted down the hallway and into the main room. As Jane approached the front door, which was open slightly, an enormous gust of rain-laden wind blew it all the way open. The heavy door crashed against the wall, and bounced back, nearly smacking Jane in the process. The wind had blown out her lamp, which she set down on the floor.

She closed the door, tested it, and discovered that the latch was old and didn't quite fit. After a bit of experimenting, she discovered that closing the door, then flinging herself against it, caused a nice snick as the bolt actually went home. Now that she'd solved the door problem, all she had to do was go back to her room.

In the dark.

Without a lamp.

Or flashlight.

But there was lightning. And if she got her bearings with each flash and took it slowly, she could return without running into anything. She stood quite still, peering blindly into the main room, ready to get a good fix on just where she was the next time there was a flash of light.

Something brushed against her ankle.

Jane screamed just as a great noisy blast of sound and light seemed to strike only feet away. Over the sound of her heart thudding, she could hear the distinct ripping sound of a big limb peeling off a tree outside the house.

There was a creature in the house. A raccoon? A possum? Or something bigger and scarier. Or, worse yet, a person! But what would a person be doing at ground level? Crawling? The thought gave her the creeps even worse.

She tried shuffling briskly in the direction shethought she needed to go, but cracked her foot against a chair leg. She was disoriented. There shouldn't have been a chair there. Dear God, why hadn't she brought along a flashlight?

Something bumped her leg again.

And meowed.

Jane nearly collapsed with relief. She'd seen the big gray tabby cat earlier in the afternoon, once when it was snoozing on an easy chair and again when it wandered up the steps just after dinner. She knelt down and said, "Kitty? Kitty?"

“Mrrreow," the cat said chummily.

She picked it up, with a loony sense of comfort.

“Now," she told it, "we're going to go back to my room. Very slowly, very carefully. You can probably see perfectly well in here, but I can't, so I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me if I'm about to run into something."

“Mrrreow." It sounded like consent to Jane in her fevered state.

Another flash of lightning. The cat and Jane both tensed, but it gave her a few more feet of movement. But when the lightning flash was over, there was the flicker of another light. Right in her eyes. Someone had turned on a flashlight, and seeing her, quickly turned it back off.

“Who's there?" she called down the length of the main room.

Her only answer was another rumble of thunder.

This was not good. There might be half a dozen reasons someone else was roaming around the house, but no good reason for not responding when spoken to.

She kept her blind gaze directed at the direction the light had come from and the next time the room was briefly illuminated by the storm, she cast a quick, thorough look around the far end of the room. But there was no sign of anyone. There was so much furniture that whoever it was could have just ducked behind a sofa or chair, waiting for Jane to leave.

Which was precisely what she intended to do. As quickly as possible.

Still holding the cat, which was purring as if nothing were wrong at all, Jane made her way, a few feet at a time, back to the door leading to the hallway where the tiny guest rooms were. She was feeling her way along the left-hand wall, trying to remember which door was hers, when the cat suddenly hissed.

Someone bumped into them and quickly fled. The footsteps were soft, perhaps made by socks or slippers or bare feet, but distinctly footsteps.

Jane, still holding onto the cat, plunged into the next doorway she came to, hoping desperately that it was her own bedroom.

It was.

“Where have you been all this time?" Shelley called. "Jane?" Shelley got out of bed and came through the bathroom. "Good Lord! You're as pale as a ghost. And what are you doing with that cat?”

Jane sat down on her bed and the cat settled inher lap. "I've had a real adventure," she said breathlessly.

She recounted to Shelley how the main door had all but attacked her, her lamp had blown out, the cat had scared her half to death, and someone who would not answer had shined a flashlight at her.