"Peter And The Dead Men" - Page 8

“We have some rules around here, boy. Number one is you are to NEVER ENTER THAT DOOR.”

Peter looked at it with new interest.

“You are never to try to open that door, you are never to play with that door, you are never to TOUCH that door. ON PAIN OF DEATH. Do I make myself clear?”

Peter stepped back. “Why?”

“And you are never to ASK ABOUT THAT DOOR.”

Peter looked from his Grandfather to the door and back again.

“Very well, moving on,” Grandfather muttered and started up the stairs. Peter followed.

“There are many, many rooms in this house,” Grandfather growled. “If a door is shut, DON’T OPEN IT. If a door is locked, DON’T BOTHER IT. There are plenty of open rooms for you to go in and mess up and destroy, which I know you will.”

They reached the second story. The hall stretched off a very long way in either direction, longer than Peter would have thought possible.

“Are we going down there to – ”

“No.”

Grandfather continued on up the stairs.

As he reached the third story, Peter looked down at the hardwood floor thirty feet below. He got a little dizzy. Actually he got really dizzy, and had to look away until he was off the stairs and safely on the third floor.

Grandfather pointed to an open doorway as he walked by. “That is your mother’s.”

Peter peered in on a windowless room with a large canopy bed and paintings of bowls of fruit.

“Next to it is your sister’s.”

That room was windowless, too, and nothing Beth would want. The walls were dark purple, the furniture was straight out of George Washington’s time, and the only painting on the wall was of three women in white robes knitting a long piece of cloth. One of them held golden scissors over the thread, waiting to cut it.

Grandfather wasn’t so good with little girls, Peter was guessing.

“And this is yours.”

Whoa.

It was almost as big as his mother’s, with a large bed along the center wall and a writing desk and lamp in the corner. But the main thing was the giant window across the room, which poured sunlight across the floor. Even better was a perch in front of the window, a pillow-lined ledge set two feet into the wall, perfect for sitting and watching on a rainy day.

Peter hopped up on it and looked outside. Just beyond the glass panes were the branches of an enormous tree, just right for climbing. Peter had never snuck out in his life, but that tree was the perfect way to do it.

Not that he had the faintest inclination to try. In fact, when he looked at the ground over thirty feet below, he got woozy even thinking about it – just like on the stairwell – and had to look away again.

The view was amazing. Behind the house, a vast field stretched for a quarter mile until it just ended, as though it dropped off completely into the light blue sky.

To the left of the field, a dense, dark forest stretched on for miles.

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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.