Ned Vizzini - House of Secrets

“Girl. An old woman. Staring at us. And now she’s behind the house.”

Brendan and Cordelia glanced at each other, each expecting the other to be making a ‘silly Eleanor’ face. But they were both as deadly serious as their sister.

They looked at the side of Kristoff House. The silhouette of a dark figure stood there. Watching them.

Brendan took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, strong. The figure remained still. “Hello?” he called, stepping off the path and pulling Eleanor with him, Cordelia following close behind. “Is someone there?”

He was trying to use his toughest voice, but it cracked – more Sesame Street than Schwarzenegger. He cleared his throat to cover it as he and his siblings crept to the side of the house.

The figure was nothing but an old statue. A Gothic angel, looming two metres tall, carved from grey stone stained with streaks of green and black. It had wings folded behind it and arms stretched forward, with the right hand broken off. Its face was worn down, chinless and lipless, eroded by decades of San Francisco wind and fog. Mossy patches covered its eyes.

“Beautiful,” said Cordelia.

Brendan wiped his forehead, surprised to find it covered in sweat. It was stupid, but he’d expected to see the person Eleanor had described: a bald woman, a crone. His imagination ran away with him a little and he could even picture this woman pointing a crooked finger and hissing, “Here are the suckers who will finally buy this house!”

“See, Nell? It’s just a statue. There’s no one here,” Brendan said, putting his hand on Eleanor’s shoulder.

“She went somewhere.”

“It was the light. It played a trick on you.”

“No, it didn’t!”

“Let it go. You’re scared.”

“Not, as scared as you,” said Eleanor, moving Brendan’s hand away and pointing at the sweaty spot he had left on her shoulder. Before Brendan could protest, another hand reached out from behind and grabbed his neck.

“Help!” Brendan screamed, whirling around and shoving with all his might.

“Oof!” His father hit the ground.

“Jeez, Bren, what’s the matter with you?” said Dr Walker, hoisting himself to his feet and rubbing his tailbone.

“Dad! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Come on. Mum and Diane are waiting for you guys. We’re going to check out the inside of the house.”

The Walkers followed their father. Brendan felt a chill breeze as he approached the door with the 128 on it – but then again, the house was half off a cliff. The stone angel had so fascinated him that he’d almost failed to notice: the far side of Kristoff House was supported by metal stilts anchored in boulders far below on the beach. And hanging under the house were dozens of barrels.

“What are those…?” Brendan started to ask as he entered.

But he was silenced by the sheer beauty of the interior. Mrs Walker, too, was amazed; she had totally dropped negotiation mode. She was busy ogling antiques and checking her reflection in polished banisters. Dr Walker let out a low whistle. Cordelia said, “Wow, you could call this a great hall and not even be ironic.”

“You are indeed standing in the front or ‘great’ hall,” Diane said. “The interior has been impeccably restored, but the previous owners kept the original touches. Not bad for a termite-infested bear habitat, huh?”

Cordelia blushed. The room was filled with red-on-black and black-on-red Greek pottery (reproductions, Cordelia thought, because the originals would be priceless), a cast-iron coat-rack with curlicues, and a marble bust of a man with a wavy beard, which screamed philosopher. All of it was lit by spotlights, like in a museum. Brendan wondered how it was possible, but the place seemed twice as big inside as it looked from outside.

“This house was built for entertaining, from the time it was constructed,” Diane said with a wide sweep of her hand.

“Who entertained here?” Cordelia asked.

“Lady Gaga,” deadpanned Brendan, trying to hide his unease. First no For Sale sign, then a creepy statue, now a house with an antique shop inside…

“Bren,” Mrs Walker warned.

Diane went on: “No one’s had a party here for years. The previous owners were a family who paid for the restoration. They lived here briefly, but wanted a change. Moved to New York.”

“And before that?” Brendan asked.

“Unoccupied for decades. Some of the cosmetic touches fell into disrepair, but you know these old houses were built to last. In fact, this one was built to float!”

“What?” Brendan asked.

“Are you kidding?” said Cordelia.

“The original owner, Mr Kristoff, wanted to make sure his house would survive an earthquake like the one he’d just been through. So he underslung the foundation with air-filled barrels. If the Big One comes and the house falls off the cliff, it’s designed to hit the ocean and drift away.”

“That is so cool,” said Eleanor.

“No, it’s absurd,” said her father.

“On the contrary, Dr Walker – they’re doing it now with homes built in the Netherlands. Mr Kristoff was ahead of his time.”

Diane led the Walkers into the living room, which had a stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge. That didn’t seem right to Brendan – he thought it was on the opposite side of the house – but then he realised that they had turned around, doubling back from the great hall. Crystal vases, alabaster sculptures and a mounted suit of armour had distracted him… and so had the stone angel he knew was out there, reaching out her broken hand and staring with mossy eyes.

The living room had a Chester chair, a glass coffee table with driftwood for legs, and a Steinway piano. “Is the furniture for sale?” Mrs Walker asked.

“Everything’s for sale.” Diane smiled. “It’s all included in the purchase price.”

She moved on with all the Walkers except Brendan, who lingered by the view of the bridge. Growing up in San Francisco, he’d got used to seeing it every day, but from this angle, so close he was almost beneath it, the bridge’s salmon colour struck him as unnatural. He wondered what the house’s original owner, Mr Kristoff, had thought of the bridge when it was first constructed. Because if the house was built in 1907 – Brendan’s mind quickly accessed dates and facts – then it was standing thirty years before the bridge was built, and the view back then would have simply been a great expanse of ocean, framed by two giant rocky outcroppings. Was Mr Kristoff dead by the time the bridge went up?

“Hello?” Brendan suddenly asked, realising he was alone. He rushed out of the living room to find Diane and his family.

Meanwhile, Cordelia was thinking about Mr Kristoff too. She’d heard that name before, but couldn’t think where. It taunted her as she entered the next room, which she knew by smell alone: dust, musty pages and old ink.

“Welcome to the library,” Diane said.

It was stunning. A vaulted ceiling spanned books stacked on mahogany shelves that reached all the way up the walls. Two brass ladders ran on casters to enable access to the shelves. Between them, a massive oak table lined with green-glassed bankers’ lamps split the room. A few gleaming dust motes circled the table like birds on updraughts.

Cordelia absolutely had to see what books were on the shelves. She always did. She poked her nose up to the nearest one and realised where she’d heard of Mr Kristoff.