Orin Wanderwood's Arc

Chapter 15 of 26

Orin pushed the door and it moved an inch, then stopped. He pushed harder. The wood shivered but held. He looked down and saw the bolt seated in the frame. The door was locked from the inside. He had no key. He had never had a key. He was six years old the last time he stood on this step. Behind him, Lily slumped against the stone. Kate's face was wet and her hands were shaking on Lily's shoulders. Far off in the trees, a branch snapped. Then another. The tapping had turned back. Orin put his shoulder to the door and drove his weight against it. Pain jumped up his arm. The door did not give. Kate whispered, "The window. There has to be a window." She moved along the wall, dragging her palm over the pine, feeling for a shutter. Orin looked at his sister on the step. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was open a little. He could not carry her over broken glass. He could not leave her here either. Then the ghost girl was beside the door again. She pointed low, at the base of the frame. A black cat sat there in the dirt where she pointed. Orin had not seen it come. The cat looked up at him with clear green eyes and stepped sideways, showing him a gap under the step where a stone had sunk. Something pale gleamed in the hollow. Orin knelt and put his fingers in the cold dirt. He pulled out an iron key on a rotted string. His mother's, he thought. She used to hide it there for his father. He remembered that now, small and sharp, like a splinter working out. The cat watched him. The ghost girl watched the trees. The tapping was close now, moving between the pines at the edge of the clearing. Orin saw a shape between two trunks. Long ears. A body too tall and too thin, standing where a body should not stand. It did not step out yet. It was listening for them. Orin put the key in the lock. His hand shook and the key scraped. Kate came back and closed her hand over his and steadied it. The bolt turned. The door swung in on a dark room that smelled of dust and old smoke. Kate lifted Lily under the arms. Orin took her feet. They carried her across the threshold and Orin kicked the door shut behind them and threw the bolt. He stood in the dark of his own house and heard his own breath. Lily lay on the floorboards where they had set her. She was not moving. Kate bent over her and put an ear to her mouth. Kate's face went white. "Orin," she said. "She's not breathing."