door of the car. The handle was burning hot from sitting in the late afternoon sun but she ignored the pain.
“Come on, Ella,” she called over her shoulder, “We’re getting out of here. Now. I don’t care if it’s disappearing bullets or self-destructive window panes, or magic from the depths of time and space, or little green men from Mars...I’m not sticking around here to find out. It’s not in my job description.”
By then she had tossed her briefcase into the back seat, dropped into the driver’s seat, and, without bothering to buckle up, jammed the key into the ignition.
When she glanced sideways at the farm house, Ella had not moved from the porch. She had not moved at all. The look on her face suggested that she couldn’t quite believe Lila’s reaction to the breaking glass. Or that she was more wary of Lila than of any shenanigans the house might wish to pull.
Leave her, then. She had her chance. She probably has a car around here somewhere anyway. She can handle things for herself.
Almost savagely, Lila twisted the key.
The engine turned over once.
Coughed.
Shuddered like a fatally-stricken man in the final stages of convulsions.
Died.
She cranked the ignition a second time.
Nothing. Dead silence. Not even the click-click-click of a worn-out alternator or a powerless battery.
She started to say something. Stopped. Then simply rested her head on her hands, still gripping the steering wheel. Under her breath, she counted to ten.
Then to ten again.
And again.
Finally she leaned back, sighed resignedly, gently removed the key from the ignition, and trudged back up the steps to face the door.
“All right. I give up. No cell calls. No car to get us out of here. I suppose if we tried to walk out, we would find the end of the driveway hedged up by brambles, like Sleeping Beauty’s palace, or overrun by rattlesnakes hissing and spitting and coiled to strike.
“We apparently can’t leave. We can’t call for help.
“So I’m going in. You with me, Ella?”
CHAPTER SIX
Ella still hadn’t moved. To all appearances, she hadn’t even breathed since the second window blew, although Lila knew that if that had been the case, the older woman would be lying senseless on the porch.
Lila passed her and stepped again—third time’s the charm—to the door. She paused just before her foot touched the threshold. She wondered momentarily how many feet had crossed over that worn and stained slab of heavily grained oak, how many others had gained entry to this house...and how many had been refused.
She spoke to Ella again, not turning her head.
“Are you coming?”
“I...I suppose I had better. Although I still don’t think....”
“I may agree with you, but I don’t think we have an option. Not unless you want to walk three or four miles back to Shadow Valley, with twilight coming on, and no hope of finding anyone home when we get back there.”
Apparently she spoke for Ella as well as for herself. She felt a tenuous grip on her arm, not intended this time to pull her back but rather to offer faint but hopeful support. As she stood before the door, she felt Ella’s hand cease trembling.
“All right, then. Here we go.”
She stretched out her hand, fingers extended, hesitant.
Nothing happened.
Without a word passing between them, she and Ella glanced at the windows on each side of the doorway, half-expecting the panes to explode onto the porch.
Nothing.
She took a deep breath and...touched the door knob.
Nothing.
The knob felt neither hot nor cold, just as warm as it should on a summer’s afternoon. Nothing spooky there.
She turned it slowly.
The mechanism worked smoothly and silently. There had been a reasonable chance, she realized, that the door would have been locked, especially since the owner hadn’t been heard from for months. For all she knew, delegations of families had been out here to check up on things, and certainly one of them would have locked the door behind them.
No, if Ella was right, the last thing on anyone’s mind in Shadow Valley—except my own—would be housebreaking at the Haunted Mansion.
The door swung easily open, revealing a long, dark hallway, paneled on either side with dark, almost black wainscoting. Other than the faint sunlight filtering over her shoulder, she could see no illumination in the house at all. Just abysmal darkness that extended seemingly forever.
“Great,” she whispered half to herself. “No lights.”
But then, she hadn’t actually expected any. No electricity at any rate. Power to Shadow Valley had been cut off several days ago, when the last of the families packed their remaining goods in a battered, decades-old picket-sided truck and trundled their way up the highway leading out of the valley. Lila had seen the rep from the electric company flick a switch at the main junction box, up where the parking lot for the church had been. So, no electricity.
Still, in the back of her mind, she had probably anticipated the same dust-shafted slants of light coming through dirty, undraped windows that she had seen elsewhere in the valley, but apparently the architecture of the Stevenson place was different. Access to any windows from the hallway was apparently impossible.
Behind her, Ella gave her a slight nudge.
Now that the last barricade protecting the Wicked Queen’s castle had been breached—now that the door had been safely opened—Ella’s reticence about entering had obviously been replaced by curiosity, however hesitant.
Lila stepped inside. Ella followed so closely that she could have been Lila’s shadow rather than a separate entity.
The house was absolutely silent. Dead-seeming. No rustles, no creaks, no tiny pattering of even tinier feet—rats, mice, lizards, whatever might have entered during the owner’s absence. But there was a...a....
“Do you smell that?” Lila spoke in an even quieter whisper than before, as if afraid to waken someone—something—residing in the depths of the darkness. “Is that...?”
Ella gave a small sniff. Then another.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Chocolate?” Lila asked herself as much as she was asking Ella. The scent was faded and hazy, tenuous, but nonetheless present.
“Chocolate,” Ella affirmed, with a final sniff. “Definitely chocolate.”
The
