Chapter 1 (REVISED)

Hey everybody! I’ve received a lot of feed back on the first chapter, from supportive to constructive, and I wanted to give people a glimpse into the progress made. As I said in the last blog post, I have been going through significant revisions and am already more then half way through the book! Now I wanted to take some time and let people know that I have greatly appreciated everyone who has reached out, and for them to see the difference it has made. If you haven’t read the first version of chapter one, that’s fine, go ahead and start here. If you have already read it, try another look, you might be surprised at some of the changes. And as always, thanks for reading!

Chapter 1:

The Girl, The Ghost, and the Attic

Evalyn Lillian Renault did not want to move into the family mansion to begin with, but the rules that stopped her from exploring it were even worse. This was, at least, how it felt at the time, even though it was not strictly true. In fact, she was free to explore a great deal, and had a whole summer ahead of her to do so. It was the small exceptions, however, that had her sulking in her new room for the first few days of the move. Her bags were unpacked and her room decorated, yet instead of enjoying the room, larger than her’s had been back in Seattle, she was lounging despondently in bed. Having just three places she couldn’t go just ruined the fun of everywhere she could. The dozens of creaky stair cases, the rooms unused for generations, and even the most musty ancient travel chests could do little to interest her now. The Rules had been, of course, the first thing she was told not to do when she arrived, as if to ruin the rest on purpose.
If Eva (as she preferred to be called) was feeling honest, she might have admitted that she had been somewhat intrigued at first about the prospect of moving into Renault Mansion. Her Father had grown up here, but they had never visited, even though it was only a few states over. Her family had built it a long time ago, here on the outskirts of Cody Wyoming, though she wasn’t sure when. All she knew was that it had always stayed in the family. Until just a few months ago it had been home to her Great Aunt Margret, but since she has died (‘Passed on’ her Father called it) it had fallen to her family to move and tend it. Eva however was not feeling honest, and was yet young enough that she still believed that simply being miserable would be a punishment to her parents.
Renault Mansion was a gigantic example of Early American Architecture, or so her Mother claimed. There were three floors and an attic with over eleven rooms, all with gated balconies and what Eva thought was an unnecessary amount of embellishment. Everything was carved or molded in someway, and it looked like they should be selling tour tickets rather than living in it. That being said, it wasn’t unusual to get the odd tourist now and then studying the history of the area. The entire property was in part surrounded by the Shoshone National Forest, and Eva had been particularly looking forward to spending time deeply in it. It then felt only natural, in her sour mood, that it was this that was part of what that was to be denied her.
It had been on the very first day of them moving in that her Mother gave her the Rules of Renault Mansion. There were many rules, as the mansion was quite old, and mostly of the sort one would expect. Don’t slide down the banisters, don’t leave windows open in the vacant rooms, don’t climb around on any of the balconies. Most of these Eva thought were quite obvious for a girl of her age, already having turned twelve this past April, and she did not really think twice about them. There were however three more significant rules, rules that her mother had given in her most serious tone. It was these that so curdled Eva’s mood. The first Rule was; Do not enter the forest beyond the pond after sunset, and when you go at all don’t go farther than where you can see the weather vane atop of the house. The forest was dangerous. The second Rule was; Do not go into the attic, it was old and could be dangerous (though Eva couldn’t think of any reason that might be). Most importantly was the third Rule; Never, ever, open the locked door under the stairs in the hallway, that was where the crawl space was, and it could be very dangerous.
Of the options, it was the door that had Eva the most curious. She had done well avoiding it. Staying alone in her room for a few days had seen to that. After her time of sulking had yielded no results however, she decided she should at least go outside when she could. ‘Certainly,’ she thought, ‘There was adventure waiting even on the edge of the forest.’ Every once in a while though she would have to return inside, and the door under the stairs would still be there.
The door was old. Eva supposed everything in the house was, but somehow it seemed the oldest, older then everything else in Renault Mansion. The once-white paint was dirty and peeled like the other cabinets and doors, and yet was dirtier, and more peeled. The wood was cracked and misshapen like the walls, and yet seemed to have deeper, darker cracks, with more bulbous contortions. No matter what her mother or father would say, she knew this small door had to be oldest thing in the house, as if the house was built to hold it, not the other way around. There was however one thing that really made it stand out, to Eva at least, and that was the lock. It wasn’t a pad lock or a combination lock like the lockers had at school. It wasn’t even like the normal lock that was on the doors of the house. The lock was an elegant tarnished brass box, covered with strange etching, and it was set solidly against both the door and the wall.

The longer that Eva stared at it the less she could be sure as to which side the lock was fixed to, like the door might be holding the wall closed instead of the other way around. As if to make the temptation worse, there was a key chained to the opposite side of the door. And a fancier key Eva had never seen in all her life. Worn and tarnished as much at the door itself, the chain on it reached just long enough to fit the double etched key nicely into the lock. At least, that is was she thought after the long lingering minutes looking at it as she passed it on the way to the kitchen. The key looked like it might have been made of silver, though it was hard to tell, and had strange twisted designs etched all over it that matched the lock. When she tried to get it in, the moment she arrived, her mother had shooed her away, and then explained the Rules.
Once the sulking has subsided, Eva’s summer days began again more enjoyably. She made friends with the fishes in the pond behind the house, and there was lovely willow tree where she began to nap in when she grew tired of playing under the scorching Wyoming sun. After the first week she began to think about the door under the stairs less and less, until it only bothered her when she went by it on the way to the kitchen, which was to say, only a few times a day.
The only significant disturbance in her otherwise enjoyably summer start came from the forest itself. Despite the Rule about not going far into the woods, Eva had pushed her explorations a little further each day. She reasoned first that as long as she could peak between the trees enough to see the weather vane she wasn’t breaking the Rule. Then that changed to if she could jump up and see it she was in the clear. Finally she was making a mark on trees she could see it from and trying to stay in sight of them instead. It was at this point that she came across a red fox cub, bounding around in the brush. She had watched, transfixed by it, until it began to move deeper into the forest, and then followed it without thinking. It went from bush to bush, rolling playfully through the forest floor as it did. She became so caught up in watching it that when it met up with its mother, a dignified tawny vixen, she had no idea how long she had been following it, or in what direction. The two bounded out of sight, and Eva realized with horror she had no idea the way back to Renault Mansion. She had turned around nervously and began walking back the direction she had come, hoping that it might have been a strait journey into the woods. Hours passed though, and in an increasing panic she moved through the sage smelling woods, until she finally alighted on a small clearing.

The clearing was perfectly round, with a huge boulder seated in the center. It would have been a beautiful spot, but was unfortunately more than half taken over with thorny brambles. Eva cut herself, and her clothing, a number of times before making it to the boulder. Once she had climbed up it though, she was able to see quite a bit over the trees. Enough too, with great relief, spot the weather vane on the house peeking out. She set the direction firmly in her mind, and swiftly made her way directly home.
That was how Eva broke the first Rule, and however she justified it to herself (she could still see the weather vane after all) she did not feel any temptation to break that Rule again.
After a few weeks came a rare patch of rain, but it wasn’t like the slow drizzle she loved back in Seattle where she was born. When the rain started to pour in this part of Wyoming, it really poured. And it poured. And poured further. For the first day she just tried to read books in the big old study, but she wasn’t much of a reader, and had seen most of the pictures in them by the end of the day. There weren’t many. She kept hoping that whole first day that the rain would stop but the day wasted itself until it was time for bed. On the next day the sky continued to fall in drops, so she dedicated herself to explore everything in the house. Eva opened every door and looked through every window. The rooms of her new home were filled with interesting relics. Everything was old, and she did not understand what most of it had been used for, which of course only made them seem more magical. As she neared the time for dinner she had finally come to the attic, the last place on the list (save of course for the door under the stairs.)
Eva knew that the door to the attic wasn’t really a door at all, it was a big rope that when you pulled it, caused the ceiling to open up and a stairway unfolded. She knew this, because after staring at the rope for a long time she let the temptation sway her, and she had pulled on it. It was not that Eva was a greatly disobedient person, not really, but the longer she let herself look at it the more she wanted to go up. Had she been perhaps a little wiser, she might have known that this is always how temptations work. As it was, she was just about to ascend the small steps when she heard her father calling her down for dinner. Disappointed, yet partly relived at having nod broken the Rule, she folded the stairs back up and left for dinner.

*****

That night Eva had woken up, the full moon shining brightly through her window directly on her face. The rain had finally stopped, and once she had gotten out of bed she could see out into the yard. The wet grass shone in the moonlight, making everything look like it was made of crystals. Shivering, she went to her closet and pulled out her favorite jean-jacket. It had been her mothers once, and was covered with patches and studs from the Ninety’s. Catching her reflection in the moonlight, Eva stopped to scrutinize herself briefly in the full length stand mirror that had been there when she moved in. Eva wasn’t very tall for her age, and too skinny to look good in much, especially the adult sized jacket. She was, however, immensely proud of the way the raven dark curls of her hair played off her pale skin. The curls had come from her mother she knew, and she been told the color was fathers, though he had been bald as far back as she could remembered. She flipped her hair dramatically a few times and giggled quietly to herself before gabbing her flashlight.

Unsure of exactly what her plan was she crept out of her bedroom as quietly as she could, though given the size of the house there was little chance of being heard. It occurred to her how wonderful it might be to see the pond in the moonlight and began to sneak towards the stairway, but then stopped as she heard soft thumping steps down below. Thinking it must be her father she turned off her flashlight and headed back to her room.
Just as she reached the her door again though, she remembered the attic. Having been all around the house on the outside she remembered a round window at the top that she had never found from inside. It must be from the attic.
“What a view it will be in the moonlight!” she thought excitedly and began to tip-toe up the other stairs instead. When she reached the third floor she pulled out her flashlight again and turned it on, its soft yellow light illuminating the sparse wood floor. She headed to the back room that had the attic access, and began to hold her breath in anticipation.
The stairs that she pulled down with the rope were creaky, and protested even under her small weight. As she climbed she thought that even her parents couldn’t get up there safely, at least not her father. Eva was too excited to worry all about that though, and when she had clambered over the lip of the door she found herself at last in the large attic room.
This is how Eva broke the second Rule.
The room she stood in was dim, the only light coming from the round window she had been hoping to find for on the farthest wall, showing the starry night sky beyond. The floor was made of hand hewed wooden slats, laid out across the supporting beans of the ceiling below. Everything was covered in the dusty echos of time gone by, giving all the objects a similar appearance. Wire sewing manikins, old ornately carved furniture, and metal bound and cornered travel chests cluttered the room. Alongside them were a few newer looking cardboard boxes with ‘Christmas ornament’ and the like written in sharpie.
Eva started to walk in between the great stacks of relics, some covered up by faded fabrics and others fallen to the floor, but for the most part she didn’t think anybody had touched any of them in a hundred years, it was after all a very old house. As she reached the end of it she saw a lone chest, sitting on a table underneath the high window. It was dusty, peeling, and tarnished as everything in the house was, if perhaps more faded from sitting underneath the window for years uncounted. As she reached it felt like fate, it was exactly tall enough for her to climb and reach the window. So she clambered up the rickety old table and onto top of the chest, But as she stood she found that the window was too grimy to see through. She did see however, see a small key sitting on the window frame. It was the strangest shape she had ever seen, so much so that she wasn’t entirely certain it was really a key at all. Instead of ending in twisted teeth off to one side, it had a three-inch rod that split into a hollow teardrop shaped hole, with numerous ridges around its sides. She lifted her arm to grab it, and as soon as her hand closed around it the small table gave way. Eva, chest, and flashlight, came tumbling sideways towards the ground.
Before she could even think of screaming, she had dropped with a ‘fwumph’ on to a soft, though extremely dusty, couch. As soon as she landed she was too busy coughing and sputtering to think about the scream until she found herself to be quite safe. The same could not be said for the chest, which had tumbled to the floor, banging loudly and bursting open. Its contents spilled out over the floor, sweeping a cloud of dust in the air, adding to Eva’s choke.
A quiet, reedy, voice whispered nearby “That sounded like an awful tumble my dear, are you well?”
Now Eva did scream a little, though in surprise this time. She twisted around in her seat, turning up the dust again in swirls around her. She didn’t see anything. Mustering up her courage to keep the fear from her voice she said, “Who’s there! W-what are you doing in my house?”
“Is it your house little girl? Or does it belong to your parents? Or to myself whom lives here, or to the people who built it? It would seem to me you have much less cause to call it yours and so much less right for indignation then I at you being here.” said the voice. It carried the same tone that all adults had when talking to children they would rather not have much to do with.
“I don’t know about that,” said Eva, “This is my family’s house, we built, so there.” Eva continued to look around the room for the source of the voice. The dust was beginning to settle, and she was very clearly alone up there. “Where are you?”
Then she felt a rustle of wind in the room, blowing up more and more dust around and lifting a pile of cloths that had fallen out of the collapsed trunk under the window. The wind blew the clothes high into the air then dropped them, settling neatly on to one of the wire manikins, dressing it in an old ivory wedding dress and veil. Completing the outfit was a necklace of cracked and shattered pearls draped around its neck.
“There,” said the voice, now coming from behind the manikins veil, “You may address me here. Now, you say your family built this house? I suppose that would make you a Renault then?”

Eva nodded, then realized that she did not even know if the ghost could see her without eyes. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m a Renault,” She added, a little peevishly.

The ghost gave a considering hum, appraising her claim before saying. “I suppose I should count myself lucky then that you should come to speak with me. I do not even know how long it has been that I have been here. I have been weak for so very long. Trapped in this attic in fact, blind and abandoned without even a form to call my own. I barely even remember my life now, almost all of it has fallen into the darkness of the past.”
Eva got out of the couch as the voice continued. She became increasingly sure that it was a female voice, though it was so choked and raspy she couldn’t be sure. It sounded to Eva like the voice of someone that had been lost in the desert without water, dry as sand. She moved back so that she was looking at the manikin, and at the same time began inching slowly towards the stairs. She didn’t know much about ghosts, but she was pretty sure that most were worth getting away from. “If she’s bound to the attic,” Eva thought, “then she shouldn’t be able to follow me back down the stairway.”
The voice continued, “As to whom this house belongs, in a way you could say it is mine by rights. It is indeed where I dwell, and have dwelt the longest, far longer than you might imagine. However, in another way, you could say that I’ve never been the master of this house. Once there was a time when I indeed tried to make it mine, to declare myself its master, but no. No. Instead, I must content myself to simply while away my time here, forbidden from following my dreams, such as they vaguely remain.” As she spoke, Eva had decided it was definitely a woman, for as she spoke she became less faint and whispering, firming with the strength of her bitterness. Or perhaps it had been so long since she had spoken that her voice needed to warm up.
“I’m sure a young girl like yourself, with such kind parents, would know nothing of what it is like to be trapped and forbidden from doing as you like. I’m sure that they let you do whatever you wish, whenever you wish it, young Renault.”
“Oh no,” Eva responded in surprise, “I still need to do my chores and things. And eat my vegetables. And I can’t stay up late no matter how much I beg them. Not to mention the Rules.”
“Ah, well yes, that is to be expected. Those are the things parents must say to their little girls. Yet still, I’m sure you wander, play, and enjoy the sun, stars, and trees. You are not bound to this house, to a room, like I am. I’m sure, since you have come even to this forlorn attic, that no door is closed to you in this home of theirs.”
Eva thought about it for a moment, it did seem like she had much more freedom than this ghost. Her teacher last year had told her though, that it was important to try to find what makes people alike, and not different, especially when meeting them. It did sound as though this voice was very trapped, like the worse sort of being grounding.
Eventually she said, “Well I suppose that I don’t really know what its like to be unable to leave here, but that’s not the same as being able to go everywhere I want. There’s the door down stairs that I’m not allowed to open. Its kept locked and everything”
There was a pregnant pause before the voice spoke again, this time with an edge to its tone, “Did they really say that you couldn’t open any door? How absurd.”
“Well,” said answered slowly, “It’s just this one near under the stairs… it’s got a big lock on it.”
“I see,” the ghost responded eagerly, “And do you know what locks are for?”
“Um, to keep somebody out?” answered Eva. Her slow inching had brought her about half-way to the stairs now, and she was wanting to run for them.
“Oh there are many reasons for locks. Locks to keep people from taking what’s behind them, and locks for keeping things in. I know much about them, and I can tell you this, nobody locks anything if it’s not important. Locks exist over every realm, realms of truth, realms of maturity, and realms populated even by creatures stranger then a ghost like myself. Locks are just like rules, they exist to stop us from being who, where, and how we want to be. Tell me child, are you included in all that your parents discuss? When they have company do they ask your opinion, do they even seem to care about your thoughts on matters?
Not sure where the ghost was going with this Eva answered, “Not about grown up things I guess but-”
The voice then interrupted her, and despite its next words, her soft tone was sympathetic and engaging, like a caring teacher. “Listen to me girl and heed my words on this. Your parents keep many things from you, they do not tell you everything because they do not want you to know everything. Not everything that they know. That is why parents use locks on important things like their rooms, where they keep the money, or doors under the stairs where mystery sleeps. They are trying to keep you from learning everything that they know, because if you did, then they would have to take you seriously. They couldn’t tell you what to do. They could not make you go to bed early, or eat the things that you do not enjoy. These are things they can do because they say they know better, do they not? So listen to me child, listen to one who has been locked away from the home and the life that they want. If you want to be able to live and enjoy your life without these Rules, if you want to be wise and important like your parents, you must not wait until they decide to share their secrets. If you wait, you may end up like I did, waiting forever and never getting the things you want. You ought to open that door under the stairs.”
Eva wasn’t sure how to respond. The ghost made a strange kind of sense, and Eva was quite tempted by the idea of being treated like an adult. It was, after all, the worse part about living in Renault mansion, all the extra rules. She continued to edge closer to the attic door. What she said though was, “Its late and I should probably get back to bed, I’m not sure my parents wanted me up here, so I should go back.” This was of course not true, she knew very well that her parents certainly did not want her up here, but didn’t want to admit it to the ghost after everything she had said.
“Of course little girl.” said the voice briskly. Eva was quite sure that the talking had helped the ghost, for now it didn’t sound old at all, but was becoming young and robust, assuredly feminine. “You should do as your parents say. However, in future, when the refuse to treat you like the young lady you are becoming, remember what I have told you. Remember what wisdom you have learned this night from going where you ought not to have. You would not have met me and gained a friend had you not ventured beyond your parents rules. For are we not friends, you and I?”
Eva didn’t much want to be friends with the ghost, but, feeling somewhat obligated, said instead, “Um, sure. We can be friends,” Eva’s eyes turned towards the door in the floor, she was so close to it now. “But I don’t even know your name.”
“Then before you go I will tell you my name and you shall tell me yours, and then you will visit me again in my loneliness, yes? When I was anything still worth a name, they called me Mistress Agnious Renault. And what do they call you?”
“Um,” Eva said, hesitating with her body now turned fully toward the door. She had not been expecting to be related to the ghost, but given that this was her family’s Mansion, it seemed obvious. Taking another step to wards the door she said, “My name is Eva.”
At last Eva had made it to the exit, and she began working her way as quietly down it as she could. She would never go back up there again for anything, whatever she had said to the ghost. As she reached for the stairs to fold them back up she realized she still held the strange key in her hand. Without thinking, she slipped it into the breast pocket of her jean jacket before reaching again for the base of the stairs. She was so shaken by the encounter that she missed that last confused words Agnious muttered.
“Your name… why do I know your name?”