The Hushing [#ONC2022]

Chapter One

It was too hot to move, let alone clean a musty old attic. And yet that's exactly where Marion found herself, up to her elbows in dust bunnies, bat guano, and junk. Antiques, her grandmother called them.

Marion had to admit, some of the stuff she found was cool. Old records. Vintage photo albums with unsmiling men in high collared jackets and women with tightly cinched bodices. Typewriters with a smattering of keys missing. A robin's-egg-blue rotary phone with the dial rusted stiff.

But there were other not-so-nice things, too. Like mouse skeletons and boxes of broken doll parts. A red velvet bag full of teeth, only a portion of which had belonged to small children at one time. The remaining teeth were clearly adult-sized, with rust-colored roots that Marion simply refused to recognize as dried blood.

And then there were the spiders. So many spiders. Big ones that could have fit in Marion's palm. Little ones the size of a penny. Wispy ones that scampered off when they felt the vibrations of her footsteps. Stocky ones that huddled up and stared at her with beady eyes.

Marion kept a rolled-up magazine tucked into the back pocket of her jeans in case any of them came within striking distance.

This was not how she had envisioned spending her summer vacation.

But Grandma Lou needed the help and Marion didn't have the heart to say no. Besides, her geoscientist parents were away for the summer, studying mineral deposits in Antarctica. And her best friend was visiting family for two months.

So Marion would rather brave an army of spiders than sit at home by herself, lonely and bored.

A light knock came at the door. She glanced up to see her grandmother standing on the threshold, carrying a glass of lemonade and cookies.

"How's it going?" Grandma said.

Marion lowered the box she'd been carrying as delicately as she could. But a plume of dust still billowed up like a mushroom cloud anyway. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air.

"Dusty," Marion replied, accepting the lemonade and cookies. "And lots of creepy-crawlies."

"You could work on the basement instead," Grandma offered. "Got a few snakes down there."

Marion made a face. "No, thank you. I have my hands full with the attic already."

Grandma Lou's gaze shifted past Marion's shoulder. She gestured to the opposite wall, too far away from the bare lightbulb overhead for any illumination to ward off the shadows.

But when Marion turned to see what her grandmother was pointing at, she could just make out the hulking shape of something...huge. Stretching from floor to ceiling, it spanned nearly the full length of the wall and it was shrouded in a moldy, greasy canvas cloth.

"Can you guess what that is?" Grandma said.

Marion glanced sideways at her. "If you say you've been hiding an original Picasso or Da Vinci painting up here and we can sell it for millions of dollars, I'm calling your bluff."

Grandma laughed.

"Not quite. Go ahead. Take a look."

Marion picked a path through the boxes and piles of odds and ends. She grabbed the cloth and yanked. Dust bloomed into the air, casting a haze over the attic.

Marion tugged her t-shirt collar over her nose and mouth as dust motes swirled through the room. When the air finally cleared, a giant mirror towered over the attic, its surface silvery-dark like the slippery sheen of an oil spill. An elegant gilt frame arched over the top, looping and twisting, tangling and clutching at the edges of the mirror in an intricate, mesmerizing pattern.