"I know how to get to the third floor!" I yell and I can't tell if Aunty Carol is shocked or really annoyed that I woke her.
"How?" She asks and I see her attempt to wipe the sleep out of her eyes.
"If there's no hatch, then there must be a staircase!" I say and she looks at me like I'm a toddler.
"Eleanor, there isn't a staircase." She sighs heavily.
"Not that we can see. I think that someone hid it. I think there's unaccounted space between two rooms and that's where the staircase is! We need to measure out the entire second floor and all the rooms to see if there's any unaccounted space!" I tell her and she seems kind of impressed.
"Okay, we'll do that first thing tomorrow." She sighs and lays back down in her bed.
"But Aunty.. I can't sleep until this mystery is solved.." I beg her to come with me.
"Well, you did already wake me up. Might as well finish what you started." She sighs and slowly gets out of bed.
"Do you have a tape measure?" I asked as she walks towards me.
"Uh, yeah on the counter in the kitchen I think." She tells me and then yawns.
A few minutes later, my Aunty Carol and I are upstairs measuring and writing down sizes of the room. When we finish, we go downstairs and sit in the library at a table.
"So, what's the verdict?" She asked and I shrug.
"I need a calculator to add the sizes of the rooms together and then to subtract that number from the size of the entire second floor." I say and then remember something. "My phone. Duh." I few seconds later, after adding and subtracting, I had the final verdict.
"Well? Is there a hidden staircase?" She asks excitedly.
"On the west side of the second floor, on the left side of the hallway, there's an area of 6 feet by 6 feet of unaccounted space." I sigh.
"That's hardly enough space for a staircase." She sighs. "But, let's find out what's in there anyways." She smiles at me and I smile back.
"Right now?" I asked and she smiles again.
"Right now." She states and I smile widely. She stands up from her chair and walks out of the library. A few minutes later she stands in the doorway of the library with a sledgehammer in her hands. She raises her eyebrow at me. "Coming?" I quickly stand up and we walk upstairs together.
"So Eleanor, where is this hidden space?" She asks and I put out my makeshift map of the house.
"It should be between the second smallest bedroom and.. my bedroom." I tell her and put the map back in my pocket.
We walk over to the place in the hallway where the space should be. Aunty Carol hands me the sledgehammer. "Give it two or three good hits and then we'll take a flashlight and see what's in there."
I take the sledgehammer, spread my feet shoulder length apart and take my first swing. I went straight through the wall. It's dark inside which is a good sign, it means we didn't just smash a hole into my bedroom or the spare bedroom. I bring the sledgehammer back and take another swing. I drop the cold object on the ground and take the flashlight Aunty Carol hands me. All I see in the room is the space wallpaper that covers all the other walls but this is much dustier. I take a look at the ceiling.
"Aunty.. There's a large wooden square on the ceiling that's a hanging about an inch below the rest of the ceiling.." I tell her and step away from the hole in the wall.
"I think that's a good enough reason to tear the rest of this wall down. Go for it." She smiles at me and I nod.
A few minutes later, we're standing in a pile of rubble with a giant hole in the wall right in front of us.
"You go in." Aunty Carol tells me. "This is your mystery to solve. Not mine." She smiles at me.
I take the flashlight between my teeth and go through the hole in the wall. A few steps later, I'm standing in a dark room with a small light. I shine it at the ceiling. There definitely is a block of wood hanging below the rest of it. I tap the square a few times and it falls down a little more. There's enough space for me to pull down the square completely. I pull it down and it reveals something that's beauty to my eyes.
"What's in there?" Aunty Carol asks from outside the room.
"There's a hatch!" I exclaim and pull down the ladder. I hear the metal hit the ground.
"Well, go up!" She exclaims and I do as she says.
I take hold of the first bar of the ladder and it's cold. Step after step I get closer to the mysterious third floor. I reach the final step and I can already smell the dust and old age of the room.
I've finally made it to the third floor.
YOU ARE READING
Ghostly (Ian Hecox)
FanfictionWhen Eleanor Mackenzie is shipped off to spend the summer at her aunty's to help with the renovations on her newly purchased Victorian home, she is anything but happy. She'll be spending her summer in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the...
