House of Secrets

Chapter 5

Alyssa could read anywhere. She had been reading on the car ride to 422 Sea Cliff Avenue even though she was sandwiched between her siblings going up and down San Francisco hills with a dyslexic in charge of the GPS. “Losing yourself in a book is the best,” her mother always said, and Cordelia had a feeling her grandmother had said the same thing to Beverly as a young girl.

Alyssa had started early, embarrassing her parents in a fancy restaurant at age four by reading a newspaper over an old lady’s shoulder, causing the woman to shout, “That baby is reading!” As she got older, she moved on to her parents’ collection of Western literature: the Oxford Library of the World’s Great Books, with their thick leather spines. Now she was into more obscure authors, people whose books she had to find in first editions or old paperbacks with names like Brautigan and Paley and Kosinski. The more obscure the better. She felt that if she read a writer that no one she knew had heard of, she kept him or her alive single-handedly, like intellectual CPR. At school she got in trouble for sneaking books inside her textbooks (though Ms. Kavita never minded). In the last year she’d discovered a man whom Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft had cited as an influence, quite prolific, who’d written adventure novels in the early twentieth century.

“‘David Scoott,’” she read from a book’s spine. “Diana, the Scott who built this house was David Scott, the writer?”

“That’s right. You’ve heard of him?”

“Never read, definitely heard of. His books don’t even show up on eBay. Fantasy, science fiction . . . instrumental in the work of the people who later invented Conan the Barbarian and our modern idea of the zombie. Never got much critical acclaim—”

She had to stop speaking because of  Jonathan’s exaggerated gagging.

“Will you stop that?”

“Sorry, I’m allergic to book geeks.”

“Dad, we could be living in the home of a well-known obscure writer!”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Diana led the family out of the library (Dr. Walters practically had to drag Alyssa) and presented a pristine kitchen, the most modern room they had seen so far. New appliances glittered under a sprawling skylight. It looked like a place germs would be afraid to enter. An impressive array of knives, in order from smallest to largest, hung magnetically over the stove. Nellie asked, “Can we make cookies here?”

“Sure,” Dr. Walters said.

“Can we make only cookies here?”

“Viking, Electrolux, Sub-Zero,” Diana checked off, leading the family past the stainless steel double-doored fridge. Casper wondered if there might be something weird inside it, like a head, so he peeked . . . but he didn’t see anything more disturbing than clinical emptiness.

Diana took the Walters upstairs. The contemporary décor of the kitchen was instantly lost in a spiral wooden staircase that Nellie insisted on climbing up and down and up again. The spiral stairs were wider than any the Walters had ever seen; they served as the main stairs between the first and second floors. Upstairs, a broad hallway ran the length of the house, ending at a bay window and another, smaller staircase that led back down to the great hall.

The walls featured old portraits, in color, with a faded pastel tint. In one, a grim-faced man with a square beard stood next to a lady in a frilled dress gripping a carriage. In the next, the same lady looked over her shoulder on a wharf as men in newsboy caps eyed her. In a third, an elderly woman sat beneath a tree holding a baby in a dress and bonnet.

“The Scott family,” Diana explained, noting Jonathan, Casper and Alyssa’s fascination. “That’s David Scott”—the man with the square beard—“his wife, Elizabeth May”—the woman on the wharf—“and his mother”—the woman under the tree with the baby. “I forget her name. Anyway. The pictures are just for show. When you move in—if you move in—you can put up pictures of your own family.”

Jonathan tried to imagine the Walters' photos on the wall: him and Dad at a soccer game with Dr. Walters saying the cheers incorrectly; Alyssa yelling at Mom because she didn’t want her picture taken with makeup on; Nellie crossing her eyes and smiling too wide. If you took stupid pictures and added a hundred years, did they end up looking eerie and important?

“There are four bedrooms on this floor,” Diana said. “The master—”

“Only four? You guys promised me I’d have my own room,” Jonathan said.

“The fifth is upstairs. In the attic.” Diana pulled a string on the ceiling. A trapdoor swung down, followed by steps that folded out to lightly kiss the floor.

“Cool!” the children said said. Jonathan climbed the first.

Alyssa entered one of the bedrooms off the hall. It wasn’t the master (which had a king-size bed and two bedside tables) but it was a nice-sized room with dark blue wallpaper. She said, “I’ll take this one.”

Casper chose one with completely white walls.

“Then which one is mine?” Nellie asked.

“Guys, this is all hypothetical . . . ,” Dr. Walters tried, but Alyssa pointed Nellie to the third bedroom, which was more of a maid’s bedroom—or a closet.

“I’m stuck with the smallest?”

“You are the smallest.”

“Mom! It’s not fair! How come I get the little room?”

“Alyssa’s a big girl. She needs space,” Mrs. Walters said.

“Hear that, Alyssa? Mom says you need to go on a diet!” Jonathan called from the attic.

“Jon, shut up! She means I’m older than Nellie!”

Alone, upstairs, Jonathan smiled . . . but then the attic began to hold his attention. It had a rollaway bed set up by the window, a bureau with various tchotchkes on top, and a bat skeleton on a shelf jutting out of the wall.

The bat skeleton was mounted on a smooth black rock with its wings outstretched. Its head tilted up like it was catching bugs. It was one of the creepiest things Brendan had ever seen . . . but he wasn’t scared. He pulled out his phone to take a picture.

“Jonathan, apologize to your sister!” Mrs. Walters yelled, and Nellie joined in: “Yeah, Jon, get down here!”

Of course when he wasn’t scared of something, there was no one around to be impressed. Jonathan descended the ladder. Alyssa glared at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t need to go on a diet. But—look what they have upstairs! I took a picture—”

Alyssa grabbed his phone and deleted the photo.

“Hey!”

“Now we’re even.”

“You didn’t even look at it!”

Diana tried to hide her exasperation with a smile. “Shall we continue?”

The family followed her down the hall, passing a knob sticking out of a square cut into the wall. “What’s that?” Nellie asked.

“Dumbwaiter,” Diana said curtly.

They reached the end of the hall. “That’s it,” Diana said, glancing out the bay window at the Walters’ used Toyota, then back to Dr. Walters. “You haven’t asked the critical question.”

“The price,” Dr. Walters said dolefully. Truth was, when he’d heard “rustic” and “charming,” he’d thought the same thing as Alyssa: that the house was a fixer-upper he could afford. But two stories plus an attic, fully furnished, with a library and bridge views, in Sea Cliff? This was a five-million-dollar residence.

Diana said, “The owners are asking three hundred thousand.”