The Old Willis Place

than you are. Of course, I didn't say it out loud. No matter how much trouble Lissa caused, I wanted to please her, to keep her as a friend.
    MacDuff cocked his head and barked. "Come away, come away," he seemed to say.
    Ignoring the dog, Lissa turned to me. "Come on," she urged. "We'll freeze to death out here."
    Afraid to let her go by herself, I followed her through the door. MacDuff stayed where he was, but he continued to bark.
    With the back door open, the house wasn't as dark as I'd expected. Lissa barely needed the flashlight. But she flicked it on anyway, playing the beam over the ruins of the kitchen. Someone had pulled the stove away from the wall to disconnect the gas line. The top was caked with burned grease, and the oven door hung open. The refrigerator door was gone, its interior stained and streaked. Bottles and jars filled the sink.
    I was glad Mother wasn't here to see the state of things. In the old days, the kitchen had been her territory. She'd kept it gleaming and filled with good smells. Where spiders now spun their webs, geraniums had bloomed red and pink on the windowsills.
    While I stayed in the doorway, fidgeting and fretting, Lissa explored the kitchen. Undeterred by cobwebs and filth and the rustle of mice burrowing into hiding places, she opened cupboards and investigated rusted cans of food, chipped china, dented pots and pans, empty bottles and jars.
    "Look at this," she said loudly. "Miss Willis must have saved every jar of wheat germ she ever bought. I bet there's a hundred of them."
    Miss Willis, Miss Willis —the words hung in the still air like a call. "Wake up, Miss Willis, you have visitors."
    "Let's go," I begged Lissa, sure I'd heard sounds from deep in the house. "Something's in here. Don't you hear it?"
    "Mice," she said, cocking her head to listen. "Squirrels maybe."
    I grabbed her arm, but she pulled away, as stubborn as Georgie. "I'm not leaving till I see the rest of the house."
    Before I could stop her, Lissa pushed open the kitchen door and ran out into the hall. She stopped at the back stairs, the servants' stairs, the ones my mother used after Mrs. Willis died and Miss Lilian took over.
    Lissa pointed the flashlight up into the darkness. "What's that at the top of the steps?"
    In the dim light I made out the seat Miss Lilian had installed when she'd gotten too old to climb to the second floor. She sat on it, pushed a button, and it glided up and down the stairs. Before Miss Lilian died, Georgie and I played on it whenever we had a chance, zooming up and down as fast as we could. Miss Lilian would hear the noise and hobble down the hall. If she'd left the seat at the bottom of the stairs, she'd find it at the top. If she'd left it at the top, she'd find it at the bottom.
    Georgie and I were too fast for her to catch us in the act, but she knew who was responsible. She'd call our names sometimes. And curse us. We never answered, but she must have heard us laughing. It was such fun to tease the old woman. Didn't she deserve it?
    Back then, she couldn't do anything worse to us than she'd already done. But now? I wasn't so sure.
    "It's a seat to help handicapped or old people go up and down the stairs," I told Lissa. I was proud of my steady voice, but I hid my shaking hands behind my back.
    "Do you think it still works?"
    "There's no electricity in the house," I said. "The county turned it off after she died."
    Lissa drew in her breath and crossed her arms across her chest as if she were cold. "That seat looks creepy up there. Like it's waiting for Miss Willis."
    "The whole place is creepy." I tugged her arm. "Let's go."
    Lissa pulled away. "Not yet, Diana. I want to see what's upstairs."
    "Those steps will collapse before you're halfway to the top." I tugged her arm again, and again she shook me off.
    "There must be another staircase." Lissa pushed past me and headed down the hall toward the front of the house. From an uncovered window high overhead, a little daylight made its way down the curved staircase, illuminating thousands of dust motes dancing in the dim air.
    Once more, I saw Miss Lilian sweeping down those stairs, head high, scorning Mother as she passed her, glaring at Georgie and me. How cold her voice, how haughty her manner, how hateful the look on her face. "Go outside, girl. I can't bear the sight of you."
    It was rain I heard now, not Miss Lilian's voice. Rain beating against the boarded windows, splashing through holes in the roof, streaking the