Rose was fine with storing furniture and old, useless antiques, but as soon as they moved to the child bedroom across from her own, Rose felt sick to her stomach. She felt very uncomfortable packing the personal belongings of people she didn't know into boxes and putting them away.
Maggie suggested a sale, but Rose shot the idea down as soon as it was brought up. Rose just got a feeling they shouldn't do that.
"Why? You can't and won't use any of these things." Maggie argues as Rose puts her hand on top of the box. She felt as if their every move was being watched.
"I just... I feel like we should just put them away. Not sell them.'' Rose says.
"Rose, can you wear this?" Maggie asks with a heavy sigh and holds up a faded blue dress.
"I can sure as hell try, right? I can totally rock blue." Rose says and Maggie rolls her eyes, fighting a smile.
Johnny runs down the stairs from the third floor with a book in his hands. He looks at the dress and frowns. Maggie lowers the dress and his eyes are still glued to it.
"Deja vu," He says and then quickly holds up a worn out book. "Check this out," Johnny says. "Our family was evil. They took this house from another family in the 1800s." He says and smiles. Rose scowls at his enthusiasm and takes the book from him.
"How neat." Maggie says as she looks over Rose's shoulder. The only words Rose was able to read at the top were family, terminated, estate taken.
"Mom, they killed people. I'm not sure neat is the right word." Rose says and shuts the book in their hands and they both scowl at her.
"I know, sweetie, but it's history. Our history." Maggie says and takes the book. The book wasn't anything other than logs, small entries of land, and business deals. But many things were scratched out and names were replaced. After the Bowsky family took over, they took over every land plot the original family owned.
"No way. I don't condone evil deeds. This is your history, not mine," Rose says. "Where did you find this?" She asks Johnny.
"First door upstairs. Since when did you turn into a saint?" Johnny asks his sister with a slightly agitated tone.
"I haven't," Rose Defends herself. "I just don't like any of this." Usually Rose didn't care about things like this, but this felt wrong.
"You already have a criminal record and you are going to throw stones?" Johnny asks and scoffs. Rose glares at him. He was right, but that didn't mean he had to bring it up.
"Yeah, it's not like I slaughtered a family, so shut up. I'm going to look." Rose say and rolls her eyes.
"Knock yourself out Mother Teresa." Johnny says and he and Maggie opens the book back up to look through it omce more.
Rose goes up the stairs to the third floor. She notices how that the age of the house stands out on this level painfully clear.
Wooden figures were carved into the railing of the stairs and in the walls. The first door was slightly ajar as she steps toward it. It was across from the room with the painting supplies.
She pushes it open and it surprisingly opens without a sound. Things were stacked in this room from the floor to the ceiling.
The first thing she sees is a portrait staring right at her. She stands in the doorway and the eyes seem to be peering right into her soul.
The portrait is of a boy who has raven hair and baby blue eyes. A smirk was painted on his face and Rose got the feeling that this was the painting missing from the dinning room. She steps over the piles of books and papers and kneels in front of the painting.
"Well hello, handsome. Why were you taken down?" Rose asks as if it can answer her. She gently wipes the sleeve of her long sleeve over the face and the resemblance bewteen Rose and the boy is frightening and she can't take her eyes away.
"He is the one missing, right? Why does he look like us and not the others?" Johnny asks from behind her but Rose continues to stare at the portrait.
"It's him, but I don't know why he is different," Rose says and frowns as she compares him to the ones downstairs. "Maybe he wasn't apart of their family. Ours, maybe?"
"But why would they be hanging up and not him, then? Our grandmother lived here last, not them." Johnny says and Rose sighs.
"Dude, I've been here as long as you have, I don't know the answer. But what's this, mystery number two?" Rose asks and Johnny ignores her.
"We should hang him back up." Johnny says and a twinge of panic fills her at that idea.
"No, we can't," Rose says too quickly and stands. "He was taken down for a reason, we can't just put him back up."
"Um, okay," Johnny says and gives his sister a confused look. "These books are diaries. But they are all from different people. There is a Gwen, Rosaline, a Doug and Geraldine. Geraldine and Doug mainly just wrote down business, boring people they were." Johnny says and looks through a book.
"God, these people had terrible names," Rose says as she stands and turns to look at Johnny. "Why do they have so many diaries? This is something straight out of a book, how predictable. Hey, I bet they have secrets in them." Rose chuckles and Johnny rolls his eyes.
"Rose." He says but she doesn't hear him.
"What a load of crap this entire place is." Rose says and shakes her head.
"Rose!" Johnny exclaims loudly and she turns to look at him. "Don't speak ill of the dead. These are the people that guy told us about, respect them. Don't call all of this crap." Johnny says and she shakes her head at his small lecture.
"Don't say that their deaths are cool or neat. Same concept, different words." Rose says. She grabs up a box of old books and walks out of the room.
-
She flops down on her unmade bed that night and pulls out the first diary. It belonged to Gwen McGee.
Dear Diary,
Mommy brought us all books to write in. I have trouble with some words, but brother said he would help me. He hasn't been home in a few days. Mommy isn't worried, but I am.
Rose sat the book down as she heard something in the hall. She quickly shook it off and moved to another entry, ignoring the disturbance.
None of the entries were dated and the handwriting was messy, so she assumed the little girl was probably very young.
Dear Diary,
Brother can home hurt. He told me not to worry. He told me he fell. Mommy was yelling at him and she struck him. I cried when he bled, I was scared but Rosaline made me play with her in her room. I saw Doug running downstairs as her door shut. Rosaline told me he made mother unhappy and needed to be punished.
Rose hears the noise again and skips ahead a few pages, ignoring it to the best of her ability.
Dear Diary,
Brother brought me a dolly today. She is beautiful, but fragile. She stays in Rosaline's room but I get to look at her sometimes. He told me he bought her for me, Rosaline told me brother hasn't done and honest thing in his life, so she took the doll and put her away.
"That's so wrong. She took the little girl's toy?" Rose mumbles to herself.
The loud crash cannot be ignored this time and Rose is stunned with fear. She sets the book down and walks to the door and she doesn't hesitate to pull it open. "Like a bandaid." She says to herself as she walks into the hallway and turns on the light.
As she does, Johnny goes up the stairs. "Johnathan Michael, I swear to Christ." She calls after him and she walks to the bottom of the stairs and she peers up.
The shadowed figure leans over the railing at the top and menacing laughter can be heard. She sees the dark hair and automatically assumes it it Johnny, he was the only boy in the house. Rose saw him go up.
"If you're so tough, come get me, scaredy-cat." The voice didn't quite belong to her brother, but Rose didn't notice as rage took over at the hated nickname.
She took off up the stairs and the laughter started up again but was fading the deeper it went. Rose pauses in the middle of the staircase when a cold passes over her.
What is she doing? This is so a bad idea.
"I-I'm not going up there, I'm not completely stupid," Rose calls after him and the laughter echoes again.
"You could've fooled me." He taunts her and Rose scowls as she continues up the stairs forgetting that is was indeed a bad idea.
Rose stops at the top of the landing, she really didn't want to be up here at night. It was creepy enough during the day.
She groans as a door slams at the end of the hall. "Johnny, I'm going to beat you, this isn't funny." She says and confidently walks up to the door and grabs the handle, twists, and she pulls, but it doesn't budge. She attempts to open the door again but it is clearly locked. "Open the door you bastard." She says harshly, fulling prepared to let her brother have it when the door is open.
She looks up and sees the padlock on the door right at eye level with her. "Huh?" She reaches up and tugs on it, but it is locked. Rose's blood runs cold as the laughter comes from right behind her.
"Is it funny now?" The voice whispers and Rose doesn't move.
"Not happening, not real. I'm stupid, Jesus Christ, please be Johnny." Rose scolds herself as she shakes. She spins around and nothing is there.
Rose keeps her gaze on the stairs and she starts running toward them. "Not real. Not real. Not real." Rose repeats and she is tripped before she gets to the stairs. "No, not the white girl trip!" She says frantically.
She screams and she begins to panic as she is slowly tugged backwards by rough, cold hands. She grabs the top step and tries her best to pull away, but she can't.
"Is it funny, now, Rose?" The cold grip in her ankles tightens and she screams in fear.
"Mom! Mom, Johnny!" She screams as loud as she can and she fights to get away. "Get off me!" She says and kicks as hard as she can, but he doesn't even flinch. He seems to hesitate as he peers down at her but Rose is still in a hurry to go.
"Find me, Rose. Come find me!" The shadow pins her to the ground and grows above her.
"Mom!" She screams. She is dragged towards the room with the portrait and thrown inside. She bangs on the door, still screaming as loud as she can.
"You have to find me." A voice says and she peeks over her shoulder to see someone crawling out of the painting. The boy is gone from the frame and he is hunched over on the ground. "Rose, you have to help me... " The gravelly voice says and his head slowly raises to reveal a rotten face and she begins screaming louder as she bangs on the door. "Rose..." He says behind her. Rose slams her entire body into the door, facing away from him as he moves toward her.
"Johnny!" Rose screams and she feels herself being ripped backwards.
-
"Rose, please wake up." Rose sits up quickly and she has to calm herself as she grips her brother's shoulders tightly and looks around her room. She is in her bed. She is safe. Johnny was there and no one else was. "Calm down." He says and she clutches him tightly and she tries to stop shivering but she can't.
"He got me, Johnny. I thought it was you up there but it wasn't." She says quickly and he pats the top of her head.
"Who got you, the guy from the painting?" Johnny asks and Rose nods and she places her head on his shoulder. He puts and arm around her and the other smooths down her hair. "Rose, he died a long time ago. What happened to my brave sister? I thought you could predict anything?"
"It's not funny," Rose says softly. "This is so not the time."
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry." He says.
Rose doesn't remember going to sleep. She knows she didn't. She was reading Gwen's diary and then she heard him. She knew he was there.