The Secret of the Painted House (2 page)

“Weird would be more like it.” Grandma Rose shook her head. “Built over there across the creek. Practically lost in the woods. All that painting on the walls.”

Emily took a breath. “The woods inside the house,” she said.

“And the house inside the woods,” Grandma Rose added.

Emily sighed. She wasn’t the only one who found the painting strange!

“It’s like they go on forever,” Grandma Rose said. “Each one gets tinier and tinier.”

So Grandma Rose got the same feeling from the painting she did. “Who built it?” Emily asked. “Who was it for?”

“It was for Pin.”

“Pin?”

“Her name was Penelope. Penelope Hanson. But folks called her Pin. ‘See a pin and
pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.’” Grandma Rose paused. She seemed to be thinking.

Then she added, “She didn’t, though. Have good luck, I mean.”

Emily held her breath. She knew the beginnings of a story when she heard one.

“Pin’s dad had money … as you might guess. Building a whole house like that for a child. Not that his money did him much good.” Grandma Rose folded her hands in her lap. They were wrinkled in a friendly way.

She turned to Emily. “His wife ran off and left him, you see. She left them both. She was an artist—a painter. They say she went off to be with her own kind. She just left that girl behind. Nothing to remember her by but the paint on those walls.”

So Pin’s mother had done the painting. And then she had left. Somehow that made everything even stranger.

“What happened to Pin?” Emily asked.

“She died.” Grandma Rose’s voice grew soft. “Her dad’s fancy mansion burned down, and she died in the fire. Some folks even said she started it. Nobody knows, really. She was just a girl, no older than you.” Grandma Rose’s eyes were a sad blue.

Emily leaned forward. “When did it happen? The playhouse and the fire? Was it a long time ago?”

“Yes. It was a long time back. In the fifties. They are probably all dead by now. It seems I heard about her mother dying recently. She must have been pretty old.”

Emily looked around the small circle of houses. “So there used to be a mansion here.”

“Right here,” Grandma Rose agreed. She swept a hand to take in the whole area. “There used to be just one big house in all this space.”

“And a playhouse,” Emily added.

“And a playhouse,” Grandma Rose agreed. She stood up and slapped dust off her white slacks. “I’m not sure anybody ever played in it, though.”

There were a hundred questions Emily wanted to ask. A thousand, maybe. But she didn’t know where to start. And before she could ask a single one, Grandma Rose was gone. She waved good-bye. Then she marched back across the gravel road.

“W
here are you going?”

Emily turned back. Her mother stood on the porch. “Just for a walk. I won’t be long.”

Yesterday she had worked all afternoon. Today she wanted to see the playhouse again.

She
had
to see it.

Mom wiped her flushed face with the back of her arm. “I told you, Emily. I need you to watch Logan this morning.”

“But—”

Her mother wasn’t listening to any “buts.” “I’m trying to set up the kitchen. And Logan is underfoot. You can go for a walk. Just take your brother with you.”

“Mother-r-r!” Emily knew she was whining. She also knew her mother hated whining. But how could she explain? Mom needed her to watch Logan. But she needed to go back to the playhouse just as badly.

Emily had thought about nothing else since yesterday. Last night at dinner she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out her secret. That’s all she had been able to think about … the playhouse.

The screen door snapped shut. Her mom had gone back inside. The argument was over. Her little brother waited on the porch.

Emily made a face at him.

Logan had dark curls like their mother’s. He also had her huge green eyes. But Mom never stuck out her lower lip the way Logan was doing. If he started bawling, their mother would be out here in an instant.

What could Emily do? She couldn’t take Logan to the playhouse. He was a blabbermouth. If he saw it, he’d tell Mom and Dad everything. Then she’d never be able to go there again. And she couldn’t wait until his nap time. She simply couldn’t!

“Come on,” she said to Logan.

Emily took his hand. They came down off the porch and began walking. Emily didn’t have a plan yet. She’d get one, though.

“Where are we going?” Logan asked. He dragged his feet through the dusty gravel.

“We’re going to the forest,” Emily said.

“What are we going to do in the forest?” Logan’s sneakers sprayed gravel with every step.

Emily thought fast. “We’ll get flowers for Mommy. Let’s find some pretty ones.”

Were there flowers in these woods? She
didn’t know. Yesterday she hadn’t been looking for flowers.

Logan brightened at the idea and picked up his feet. That was good, anyway.

Emily left the road and headed into the trees. He stayed close at her side.

“I have an idea, Logan,” she said. “We’ll break up.”

“Break up?” His forehead wrinkled. “What are we going to break?”

“We’re not going to break anything, silly. We’ll look for flowers in different places. I’ll take you to a special place where you can pick flowers. Then I’ll go on to another place and find some more.”

That should give her time to check out the playhouse.

Logan scowled. “Why can’t you pick flowers in my special place?”

“We can find more if we look in two spots. Don’t you think?” Emily held her breath. Would he agree?

Logan’s face looked like a thunderstorm brewing. But as suddenly as his mood had gone bad, it got better again. He even took a little skip at Emily’s side. “We’ll get Mommy the prettiest flowers ever,” he sang. “Won’t we, Emily? We’ll get her a big, big bunch. It’ll be so big she’ll have to use the bathtub for a … for a …”

“Vase,” Emily finished for him.

He beamed. “For a vase,” he agreed.

They came to the stream. Emily stopped at the edge. She didn’t want to cross it with Logan. He might see the playhouse.

“Oh, look!” Logan cried.

She looked, holding her breath. Had he spotted it?

But no. Logan pointed at a clearing on this side of the stream. Violets dotted the grass.

She smiled down at Logan’s round face. His cheeks were flushed. His eyes sparkled.

“Flowers for Mommy!” he exclaimed. He ran and dropped to his knees. He tugged at a purple flower.

In an instant he had half a dozen in his hand. The stems were only about an inch long.

“Not like that.” Emily knelt beside him. “You have to get the stem, too. A long stem. As long as you can.”

Logan nodded. Very carefully, he picked another. He pulled it up, roots and all. Emily didn’t say anything. There were lots of violets in the clearing.

“I’m going to go find some more. For Mommy,” she told him. She stood and
looked down at her brother’s dark curls. “I’ll be right back. So you stay here. Okay?”

“Okay,” Logan agreed. He didn’t even look up when Emily slipped away.

It’s all right
, Emily told herself.
I won’t be long.

E
mily stood back from the playhouse. She studied it carefully. The padlock still hung from the door. The shutters still were open, too. All was as she’d left it the day before.

The windows were tightly closed. In fact, they were the kind that didn’t open. How could she get in?

She wanted to look around inside. Nothing more. Then she would go back to Logan. She
tugged at the padlock. Some rust fell off. The door didn’t budge.

At the front of the house, the windows were large and low. She wished she could open them. If she could, she could easily climb through.

She pushed on one of the windows. It gave a little. She pushed harder. The frame was rotten. Each time she pushed, the whole window moved just a bit.

She tried picking at the rotten wood. All she got was a splinter under her fingernail. The wood wasn’t rotten enough for her to pull it apart.

Then she saw a fallen branch a few feet away. It was short and stubby. She tapped at the window frame. Nothing happened. She tapped harder. A few splinters fell off. She had to hit it harder.

She held the stick over her shoulder like a baseball bat. She swung at the frame. At least she meant to hit the frame. Her blow landed on the windowpane instead.

The glass shattered.

Emily gasped and dropped the branch. She had broken the window! She had broken somebody else’s window! It wasn’t even one that belonged to her parents!

A message flashed through her brain.
Run! Get far away … fast! Go get Logan and go home!

And she did start to run. But then she stopped at the edge of the clearing.

She turned back and stared at the playhouse.

The window was broken. It was already broken. Nothing Emily did would change that. And no one else was here to see the window … or her.

She was alone.

She walked back to the playhouse very slowly. She stared at the broken window.

She had never done such a thing in her life. Logan broke a window once. He threw his wooden truck at Emily’s bedroom window in their old house. The window had cracked from top to bottom.

But Logan broke lots of things. Especially, he broke things that belonged to her.

She looked at the broken window. Jagged pieces of glass stuck out of the frame. She would have to clear those away.

She picked up the stick again and began tapping at them. Finally, the frame was clear. Emily climbed through the window into the playhouse.

She crunched across the floor and stopped in the middle of the room. There was so much to look at. There were trees, of course. There was underbrush, too. She could see a rock covered with moss. Tiny yellow flowers peeked out from the roots of a tree.

And there was the playhouse. Emily moved closer. The playhouse in the painting was perfect. The shutters were straight. The white paint gleamed. No one had broken the
front window. No one had put a padlock on the door, either.

Had Pin’s father put the lock on after she died? Pin couldn’t play in her playhouse. Maybe he didn’t want any other child in here, either.

But Grandma Rose said it all happened long ago. Pin’s father was probably dead. Even Pin’s mother was dead. No one was left to care about this playhouse. No one cared that Emily was here.

Something caught her eye. She moved closer to the picture.

It was a painted picnic!

A red and white cloth lay beneath a tree. There were hot dogs on it. She could see ketchup and mustard, too. She could even see pickles. Potato salad filled a big bowl. Emily loved potato salad.

And here was a pile of marshmallows! You couldn’t have a picnic without marshmallows.

A campfire waited to be lit.

Emily wanted to step into the wall. She wanted to sit down on the checked cloth and light the fire. She would pick out a marsh-mallow to roast. She touched one of the painted marshmallows.