The Winding Staircase: Chapter 1

*This is not my final revision changed upon the request of reviewers. Thanks for all the support and hopefully I can get out Chapter two this Friday!

CHAPTER 1

This Old Haunted Place

Many view me as a simple, quite girl, but truthfully I am loud! All my talking was in my head, so often I considered that I must have lived a separate life there. No one really expected me to be smart, because my mind was everywhere but school. I live in a haunted house with my brother, who was only nine, and lovely Emie who was only one when we realized the truth. She was very much intelligent. She was already walking and talking simple and short sentences. We all shared a large room in a small almost empty mansion that was reported haunted. To that I laugh, Ha Ha Ha. After my father, the scientist and philosopher Danny Keyret proved it wasn't. It wasn't. There is something special about this house. It is as big as my imagination.

"This is where we are staying?" Rylie asked unimpressed.

"You know how big this house is! We each can have 10 rooms separately," replied Father as if he knew everything.

As we pulled up on the gravel driveway my heart stopped even though I never ever felt superstitions even existed the house looked gloomy and dark. Why move here? I couldn't help, but think. The old wooden house seemed as if it could collapse at any moment. I knew I didn't want to go inside. I began to breath heavy and Rylie looked over at me as if I were crazy. I just stared back at him all bug eyed, and I new my hair was a mess. What was once a long, sleek, perfect, black ponytail now was wild with my fear sweat.

I was very short for my age, with slick black hair and wide, icy blue eyes I seemed quiet pretty. My brother had short dark blonde hair like my mother once had. My father had black hair like mine and Emie's. She had short hair in a ponytail that came straight up in a white elastic hair band with a small pink bow. Mother died just after Emie was born. She was born last May and mother died early August. Some may say moving here was just us running from her death, but this place was rumored to be where she died. Murdered on a business trip.

Father just looked back at me and stared. "We will never get a chance like this again, Danielle." I just huffed, because I knew it was true. Compared to living in our old shack with the memory of Mother's death fresh in our memories was no way to live. I just sat and squinted wondering why we moved to the place mother was killed.

"Now, you all will share the biggest bedroom in the house on the third floor. Next door to the right side will be Rylie's Karate practice room and to the left will be the art studio you wanted, Danielle. Your little sister shall have a play room across the hall and across from your art studio will be the third largest bedroom in the house. That is to be used for storage of toys and what you guys play with. Your outdoor playgrounds include the garden and the soccer field out back. The front yard will be mine for any science related items."

After explaining the house to us, Father opened the door and released us from our cramped car. Even if I lived in a mansion at 13 I still can't be considered rich. The place was on sale for one hundred dollars after we sold ours for over ten thousand. The house once cost over one million, but after proved to be haunted and unwanted the price went down as the demand for the house did. My father was the only adventurous man willing to take it.

This house must have been built in the late 1800s. The house was surrounded in just as old tall pine trees. To me they were vermin that surrounded our house with soft pine needles that left another mess to clean in the fall. The front however was a clear field left for the prized experiments.

"Go! Go in house! I squished!" Shouted an impatient Emie. Rylie and I rushed out of the backseat. As I glanced back at our tiny black car the grandma left for us after Mother died a chill clutched my heart, and I involuntarily shivered.

I raised my hand to open the old creaky door. As my short fingers touched the brass door handle the cold metal took hold over my body. Within seconds my entire body was frozen in cold shock as the metal absorbed all my body heat. Screams filled my head and I joined in fear. Father turned alert. He held my lean body. His arms protecting me of any fear. I fainted the minute my hand released the handle. I leaned on my father as my body went numb.

I must have been carried inside by Father, because I am laying upon the gentle silk covers that Mother gave to me as a child. My heat seemed to be restored and I sat up blinking around the room. The lights flickered on in my movement, and I wiped the tears from my eyes. I had to get out of here. Someone else lives here with us and I must find who.

The first thing I see in the room is a closet. Father marked it off with a sign that said "UNEXPLORED" I may be scared of this place, but my curiosity pulled me from the bed and I carefully opened the door. A small, wooden, spiral staircase was there that was it. I looked up and the stairs led nowhere. A small, neat hole was in the wall. At my touch the wall crumbled and a long hallway revealed. I stepped on down the creaky hallway and an old talk box stood there.

"Well, isn't this so neat and organized," I said to myself. My mind flooded with my life memories from when I was a child. My mother's death, getting lost in my beautiful paintings. I turned to art after the death of my mother and painted stories. To one my paintings were of simple mountains or rivers, but if you looked closer you would see one white pebble amongst a bed of black ones and a dark cloud covering the shadow of a child playing in the fields. It told the story of a lone girl who mixed well with others, but always stood out. Her life filled with sorrow yet happiness as she finds herself picking the single orange flower when the other children played soccer. My great, great, great, great grandparents came from Italy. Since then the Italian in me has faded into history. I was about four when young Rylie was born. Emie was an accident however. I played a big part in helping raise her. Even as she is 17 as she is now.

I cautiously pressed the button and I heard a loud mechanical noise. I ran back to find that the stairs lead somewhere. When I walked up I found a dirty empty attic with cobwebs in every corner. I opened a small compartment and find a duster and a journal. I opened the journal and read the first page. The rest are empty.

August 5, 1932

To Whoever was Unfortunate to find this journal and live here,

I lived here once and I'm afraid this house isn't like any other. The house has a mind of it's own. My sister was killed in the basement by a man who found value in this house and I'm afraid I am next. I wrote this small book in hopes someone could find it and halo me solve the mystery. Why is this house so valuable to the man who killed my sister? What did he know?

I want you to put this room to good use. This is the only room that when I touched I felt happiness. As you may have already discovered as you touch items connected to this house you feel what the house feels toward the person that the house dedicated it to. This room signified happiness while the rest represent fear, hatred, grief, sadness, and much more. Each person who lives here has a room and that room will have the feeling the house associates with the person. Solve the puzzle. I ask of you to renovate this room and make it into something special. This room is sound proof and higher than you could ever imagine. Look out the window and see the graves of those who died here, including my sister and one day I.

Goodbye whoever read this book of unhappin-

The book stopped and blood spattered through the second page. She must have been killed during writing the last sentence. I'll follow what she has to say though. I walk down the steps and find that the hallway shrunk to a button and I touched it sealing off the stairs and the room.

Rylie walked in and I plopped across my bed as if nothing happened, but for a nine year old he's one of the best lie detectors I know. "What have you been up to, Danny?"

"I've discovered a new room. This house has secrets that we all need to discover."

"What?! This old haunted place? You honestly believe it's haunted?! I know you don't think your lying, but you are." I felt it deep in my heart he wouldn't agree.

"Huh, you know what? It does exist whether you chose to believe or not it always will. That closet hasn't been explored until me and some other young girl who lost her sister to a man who knew this house had true value." I look over my shoulder as if he could appear anywhere. He could.

Rylie and I jump back as we hear creaking and cower in the far corner of our room. I clutch my brother in my right arm and we close our eyes expecting certain death. Then the door flings open. There stands my sister in her regular T-shirt and her dark jeans smiling. I let go of Rylie and stand up wiping off the crumbs from this crummy, dirty floor. It hadn't been cleaned in years.

"Danny! Danny! Look what me found! See! It is....um...Just look at it!"

I run over to Emie and grab the old envelope she found, "Where did you find this, Emie?" Before I could even look at her she's tugging my arm to our storage room. She pushes the door open with a thud. Only she can see what's in that room, because I just about to turn to see, and she's screaming running away. I look into the room. Nothing. I carefully walk in and touch the wall. I am filled with deep fear. I pull away. I can't let myself be absorbed with the shock I felt walking in.

Rylie runs in and asks, "Have you opened the envelope yet?"

I didn't so in answer I tear the top of the old, crisp envelope. I pull it away and carefully slip out the old crisp paper. Nothing could even prepare any of us for what was on that paper. Nothing. There was a photo that slipped out of the envelope and landed on the ground. It wasn't old. The envelope was a ruse to grab our attention. The picture brought tears to my eyes. I run away sobbing. You are probably wondering what could rub me the wrong way and to tell you the truth that room in there was the room dedicated to my dead mother: "Fear."