The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (20 page)

“Look at the floors.” Harper cringed, pointing at the herringbone patterned hardwoods caked in a dense layer of dust. “They’re filthy.”

“Like I said, nobody comes up here.”

“So what’s the story?” Allison asked Lucas. “How come no one knows about this?”

“It’s haunted,” Lucas said simply.

“Wow!” Allison said, her eyes shining with excitement. “Why? Why’s it haunted?”

“That’s a very good question,” Lucas said slowly. Then very abruptly, and very stiffly, he turned his back and walked briskly away like an English gentleman out for his morning constitutional.

“Hey!” Caitlin called after him in a panicked voice. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’d keep up if I were you,” Lucas said without turning his head. “This place is haunted!”

Caitlin and Harper took off after Lucas while Felix and Allison lagged slightly behind, drifting past bookcases and aisles that seemed to go on for miles. The scale of this floor was somehow different than the others, bigger; even the ceilings looked higher.

Up ahead of everyone, Lucas had stopped in front of a bookshelf. He was staring at it, his head held to the side, at an angle, like he was clearing water from his ears. He started poking at the wood trim and taking out books and putting them back in their slots, seemingly at random.

“What the hell’s he up to?” Allison asked as they caught up with Caitlin and Harper.

“No idea,” Felix said.

Harper and Caitlin shrugged.

They all stood there for a while watching Lucas doing whatever it was he was doing. Harper hugged her arms across her chest and tapped her foot nervously. Caitlin reached out and traced her fingers along one of the dusty covers and said, “Latin.”

“How do you know?” Felix asked.

“Ten years of Catholic school.”

“This is it!” Lucas turned around to face everyone, slapping his hands together. A little cloud of yellow tinted dust danced in the space between them.

Harper coughed, annoyed, batting at the iridescent particles.

“Where were we?” Lucas asked. “Oh yes—Allison’s question. Well, back in the nineteen forties or fifties, they made the library bigger. This whole floor was added on top of the old library. Anyway, there was this accident with a crane or something, and these four guys working here were killed when everything crashed down on them. Right here on this floor where we’re all standing right now four guys were
crushed
to death.”

Lucas paused, waiting for a reaction.

“So let me guess,” Caitlin said in her I-think-that’s-the-most-ridiculous-thing-I’ve-ever-heard voice. “It’s the spirits of these dead guys who are haunting the library?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Lucas told her. “The four guys were all Indians. You know—Native Americans. Not the dudes from Asia. After it happened, there was this big investigation, and the head Indian guy, the chief or whatever he’s called, claimed the four men were working in really shitty conditions because they were Indians and the white dudes working here had it much better.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me a bit.” Caitlin folded her arms, her expression a disapproving scowl.

“PC paid off a bunch of people,” Lucas went on. “That’s the rumor. You know—important dudes, like judges and Senators. And the Indians got the shaft.”

“Of course they did,” Caitlin said fiercely. “The rich and powerful always get—”

“Anyway,” Lucas interrupted, shaking his head at Caitlin, “the chief of the tribe supposedly cursed this place. I’m not sure why, but someone must’ve thought that just meant the fourth floor. That’s why nobody comes here. Not even the librarians or the cleaning people. Crazy story, huh?”

“Yeah,” Harper said listlessly. “Really crazy. Thanks for the super-fun tour. Can we go now?”

“So why are we standing
here
?” Allison asked. “What’s up with this”—she pointed in front of her—“wall?”

“Wall?”
Lucas said with high arching drama in his voice. “Is that what you think this is?” He took a step to his right, then stepped forward and disappeared into the bookshelf.

They stood motionless in the shadowed corner of the library, looking at each other like befuddled spectators trying to unravel the mystery of how the stage magician had retrieved not one, but two bunnies, from his top hat. Felix rocked back on his heels. The girls appeared rooted to the floor. Finally, Felix stepped back and took a closer look at the wall. Every eight feet or so, deeply recessed vertical wood panels about as wide as a person separated the collections into sections, each identified by a numbering system that Felix hadn’t figured out yet. Stained espresso—almost black—the panels were several shades darker than the horizontal shelves, the baseboards, and the crown molding. He stared at the panels, wondering why they were so much darker than everything else. And then just like that, he figured it out.

“No way,” Felix whispered, stepping toward the panel where Lucas had vanished. He reached out with his hand, and instead of encountering the grainy coolness of wood, he met no resistance at all—
just air.
The panel was missing. In its place was a perfectly concealed opening between two sections of shelving.

“A secret passage,” Allison said, her voice rising with excitement. “Cool. You first.”

Felix turned sideways and slid into the narrow gap, feeling a light draft on his skin. The scent of aged leather filled his nostrils, reminding him of the old mitt his dad had used when they played catch in the back yard. He shuffled along, arms raised up straight over his head, until his right shoulder bumped up against a wall. Another corridor (an even narrower corridor) faced him and ran parallel to the bookshelf for maybe fifteen or twenty feet. It was dark—but not completely dark—and he could just make out a wall in front of him, which had to be, he thought, where the corridor ended.

“I’m not going in there,” Harper complained in a voice that sounded small and far away. “What if there’s spiders?”

As Felix came up on the wall—which did appear to be the end of the corridor—he felt the air pressure drop and the currents shifting and swirling around him. There was a doorway to his right. He turned and slipped through it. He heard a noise. He stopped to listen. It sounded like something was rattling. It was nearby but difficult to pinpoint because the light had drained away to near total darkness and the noise seemed to be coming from different, and multiple, directions. Then he detected the movement of something big. A silhouette. Lucas’s silhouette.

“One of these damn lamps has gotta work,” Lucas muttered.
Click click. Click click.

Felix took out his cell phone, thinking the flashlight app might help. And that was when—
click click
—the light came on.

“Finally.” Lucas blew dust from his fingers.

Felix swiveled his head around, his eyes taking it all in. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was like he’d stumbled upon another world. He was in a room, but it wasn’t like any room he’d ever seen before. It was big, ornately decorated and everywhere he looked there was
stuff
. High-backed chairs (he counted off ten) surrounded a huge round mahogany table in the center. Scattered across the table were books which had collected a thick layer of dust. Against the wall across from the entrance a pair of wingback chairs faced a tufted leather sofa; a claw-foot marble-topped coffee table rested on a Persian rug between them. Lamps—antiques by the look of them—sat on the floor and on the little tables nestled up against the chairs and the sofa. Distributed around the room were vases and urns of all different sizes (some nearly as tall as Felix), the smaller ones perched on decorative tables with fancily-carved legs. Framed paintings—lots of them—hung from the wainscoted walls, but Felix couldn’t make out what they were in the dim light.

“This is so awesome!” Allison stepped into the room, her eyes glinting.

Caitlin and Harper came in right behind her, emerging from the darkened corridor. They didn’t look nearly as impressed. Harper, in fact, wore a mixture of fear and revulsion on her face.

“How’d you find out about this?” Felix asked as he continued to stare around the room.

Caitlin sneezed.

“This is the
actual
corner of the library.” Lucas smiled proudly. “Tyler found out about it and told me and my other brothers. He went to school with a kid who was the son of a nephew of the guy who was the president of the school when this floor was built. You know, the guy it was named after—President Woodrow. Anyway, this kid told Tyler that Woodrow was obsessed with castles and secret rooms and shit like that. He told him there are other secret rooms somewhere in the library. And also in the other buildings renovated when Woodrow was president.

“My brothers call it Woodrow’s Room. So I guess since it’s already been named we should call it that. Bret graduated two years ago and he said no one ever came in here except him and a few of his buddies. Which is weird if you think about it because anybody could use it. I mean, there isn’t even a door. Anyone could come in if they knew where to look.”

“Maybe nobody wants to use it because it’s the scariest room in the world.” Harper moved closer to Caitlin, clutching her arm. “This whole floor’s creepy. Aren’t you just a little bit worried about ghosts?”

“That?”
Lucas waved his hand dismissively. “People have said weird things happen up here. Books falling off shelves. Chairs moving around. Strange noises and shit. But c’mon. Just ask Caitlin. There’s no such thing as ghosts, right?”

“I actually agree with you for once,” Caitlin said. “But still, it kinda freaks me out. Maybe it’s just all the grime. It’s disgusting.”

“All it needs is some light and a little dusting,” Lucas said. “I’m telling you, this is gonna be the coolest room on campus. Trust me.”

“Now it’s just the creepiest, dirtiest room on campus,” Harper said. “I’m going to find a room on the second floor. Who’s coming?” She turned and headed out the way they’d come in.

“Wait for me!” Caitlin screeched, scurrying through the doorway.

“You guys suck!” Lucas shouted after them.

They looked from one to the other, then Allison finally said apologetically, “I’d stay. But I can’t read in the dark.”

Lucas smiled, then he looked around and his face settled into a deep frown. “Lazy ass Bret. Whadya wanna bet he didn’t clean this room a single goddamn time while he was here?”

“I don’t know,” Allison said, brushing her hand across the cover of a book resting on the mahogany table, sending up a dust cloud. “When did you say he graduated?”

“Two years ago.”

“No one’s been here in a long, long time,” she said. “Longer than that maybe.”

Lucas went silent for a moment. “He wouldn’t lie about that. Bret’s lazy as all hell, but he’s not afraid of anything.”

Allison nodded. “I guess we should go find them before Harper gets eaten by a spider.”

Robby hated his brother. Not all the time. Just most of the time. Like today. Their dad seemed to take enjoyment in telling him that Simon—his younger brother by almost three years—knew how to “take the bull by the horns.” The implication, of course, was that Robby didn’t. This morning’s ‘bull’ was a black-tailed deer, which they were hunting—hunting in Ashfield Forest.

Robby thought it was a horrendous idea. Simon didn’t. So here they were. It didn’t matter that Ashfield Forest was AshCorp’s private property; that two hikers were killed in Ashfield Forest; or that three others had disappeared in Ashfield Forest without a trace. And it wasn’t as if Simon was unaware of these facts. The
Ashfield Forest Mystery
was front page news. Everyone was talking about it and everyone had an opinion. The guys at the car repair shop where Robby worked had plenty of theories. The emissions testing guy, Carlos, thought that a cannibalistic cult had taken up residence in the forest. Robby, on the other hand, along with his boss and the guy who fixed dents, all thought AshCorp was hiding something: quite possibly a rampaging monster which had escaped from the secret lab where AshCorp created it. Simon didn’t seem concerned. Their family had hunted in Ashfield Forest long before it was called Ashfield Forest and Simon was going to hunt “wherever he damn well pleased.” It was as simple as that.

Just after sunrise, one of the old service roads (with bullet scarred DO NOT ENTER and NO TRESPASSING signs as pocked as the face of the moon posted every quarter mile) had led them deep into the arms of the forest where they’d been picking their way through the ancient woodlands for the past hour. Robby had looked over his shoulder whenever he thought Simon wouldn’t catch him to make sure he could see his brother’s sunflower yellow Hummer. He’d lost sight of it within minutes. The trees, mostly Douglas firs, got taller and wider, and grew closer together, the further they ventured from the dirt road. They were in an old growth forest—Simon called it a
primeval forest
because he thought it sounded cool and scary—which meant no one had ever harvested the trees; some had been around for 500 years and stood 300 feet tall. But not every tree was gigantic. Younger Douglas firs grew from the decaying remains of their dead toppled kin, and hemlocks flourished under the shade of their taller cousins.

There weren’t any trails so they went where they could—directed by the forest as much as they chose their own paths. Robby knew he would have to rely on Simon to get back to the car. His sense of direction was abysmal, and landmarks never worked for him. A tree was a tree; a winding stream was a winding stream; a rock was a rock. It all looked the same in the woods. The carpet of dense green moss and decomposing logs and branches—which seemed to be everywhere—blanketed everything in uniformity. As a general matter, Robby wasn’t afraid of the woods, and he didn’t even mind being dependent on his brother to get home—but Ashfield Forest was different. He’d never liked hunting here. Even before it became a
mystery
, he’d always felt like an intruder. Like he didn’t belong.