The Room At The Top Of The Stairs

by J. Christian Farrell

Written in the same style as Stephen King's Rose Red this story details, by episode, the horrors that unfold regarding a house haunted by the ghost of a young TB victim from 1865.

"Today is not yesterday. Our yesterdays have cast the shape of our tomorrows."

Anonymous

Part One: The Investigation

Prologue: The Note

12 April, 1880

Dear Detective Christopher Dalton,

The following letters and such have been collected as a compilation of the products of Case #314, detailing the mysterious disappearance of a young girl named Penelope Thomas. Though she was reported to have disappeared from the Town of Southeast (NY) in 1865, fifteen years ago, we are investigating the house she lived in and the most recent occupants of the said house in order to learn more about the rumors of Penelope's disappearance, and to attempt to bring some closure to the case entirely. Thus far, after three months of meticulous research and endless run-ins with the New York State courts, our investigation has yielded nothing. There for, we have compiled our research in an attempt to keep it on file and perhaps re-open the case at a later date. Here is what we have found so far. May it help you more than it has helped us.

- Detective Francis J. P. Williams of Southeast (NY)

Episode One: Katherine

1 August, 1875

Dearest Sister,

I am afraid to say that I think you will be better off not moving down here at all. The new house, which Christopher has purchased, is too big, too new and too drafty. It is dreadfully quiet around the town as well. The occasional carriage does chance to traverse the muddy streets, but when all is still, the town itself almost takes on the impression of a ghost town. Not that we're not used to that at home; rarely does one find a town nearly as quaint and as wholesome as our beloved Duane, New York, but I am startled that we should be in such close proximity of the city and still feel so alone. And to top it all off, dearest sister, the house you will be living in soon, is overlooking the whole town. It sits so high and mighty at the top of the hill, overlooking the town with a majesty that would seem impudent and rude at home, but which commands respect and grandeur here.

There are a great deal of things to be done here, as well, though none will meet your fancy I presume. I know you are not fond of picking flowers, yet there are fields of them just outside of town. I know you are not fond of tea shops, either…a trait I wonder to this day, where you picked it up from…yet there are beautiful little tea shops in the town. You will, I suppose, take an interest in the comings and goings of the people who live here. They are strange, dearest sister. They know an outsider when they see one, and I know this because of all the strange looks they give me. The women are especially hostile to me. I suppose our style of fashion doesn't meet their expectations. So, you see, there are many good reasons not to move from dear dear Duane to this place.

They call it Southeast, though I know not why. It does not appear to be southeast of anything. New York is but a train ride away, and the businessmen take the liberty of coming through the town to the train station to ride into New York. I myself have not been into the city, yet, but I have heard so much about it from your neighbors. They, at least, are delightful people. Their daughter is an opera singer, if you can believe that! They call her Georgianna…surely a British name, for they sport the most delightful of accents. The mother is a gardener and the father is a professor of music. If anything, they will make your stay most bearable, and, dear sister, perhaps this young lady shall become a dear friend. Her voice is quite good, and she can be heard at the Metropolitan Opera House in the City three nights a week. I do believe I shall attend one of her performances. Christopher would love to hear her sing, I know. And speaking of Christopher, how is the old boy? I know, I know, probably busy with his opera. I still am of the opinion that he should have written an operetta, rather than a full length opera, but he comes and goes as he pleases, I suppose. And that leaves you, sister. Tell about yourself.

How are you getting along without me? Is it really as insufferable as Mother makes it seem? I should think not with the parks and gardens and all of that. And your lessons are going well? I shall be so pleased to hear from you again, though my return home is not for another three weeks. Mother's condition is better, I hear, and that sets my heart at ease. I shall be happier, still, when I can return to you and her, but I shall be here for the rest of the month to make sure the house is being looked after. I shall write to you everyday, dearest Elizabeth, in hopes that you are well and good. Until then, my dear, I am yours truly.

With love,

Katherine

2, August 1875

Dearest Sister,

You will never believe what happened today! Oh I must tell you for your knowledge of this abysmal place must be acute, especially after what has passed within these walls in the last day or so. It was the Butler, I promise you. No matter what they try to tell you, it was the Butler with the Maid's assistance. Oh, I am all cold, now, with fright for this is ghastly, ghastly news. I have concluded, dearest Elizabeth, that you cannot move into this house, for fear that it will consume you in mind and body.

Your dear new neighbors paid me a visit this morning around breakfast time. Being civil, I invited them to join me in the meal, and they did. Their daughter, Georgianna, is performing tonight and they asked me if I should be inclined to join them in attending the performance. I have accepted, sister, and am planning to ride into the city for the first time in my life! But that was not the only news they brought to me, this morning. They have lived here for most of their known life, and that seems to be quite a while judging by the look of the sir. While his hair and beard do not give away his declining, I daresay his wrinkling skin is an indication of such aging. And the mistress is aging herself, though her features carry a little more weight to the conviction. At any rate, they have lived longer lives than they suggested, and they have been quite familiar with this house through the years. In fact they knew the previous owners. Nice people, they told me they were, and it was a crying shame that they should have picked up so early. Sister, do not be frightened with what I tell you, for I myself am not entirely sure I believe it, but I think it is necessary to exercise caution in the event that this story…this fairy tale of a sort…should be in fact rather than in fiction. This is what they have told me of the previous owners here. The family was named Thomas—a respectable British sort of name I suppose—and they had a daughter named Penelope.

'When Penny was a young girl, maybe two or three, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Her father was a doctor and he was quite shocked when he learned of his daughter's illness. He was set upon serving her in anyway he could. Her mother, on the other hand, was a little strange. She had been born during the War of 1812 and had suffered greatly from the shock of the cannon fire at such an early age. She had been moved up from Mississippi where she had grown up, to Virginia around 1854. She met her husband there, and they married in '57. He was a Confederate man and he answered the call to the Confederacy when that dreadful war began in 1860. He left her with four children, when the war started, and she was pregnant with her fifth…Penelope…when he was wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was a field surgeon, but after he had his own leg amputated he was of no use to the South. He fled with his family to this area of New York to find work in a city hospital. It was then that his daughter was born. When the tumultuous aftermath of the war had ended, the family moved up here and built this house. It was then that they realized how sick their daughter was. She began coughing up blood almost as soon as they had moved in. For some time, the family dealt with the medication, the constant fainting and the other various symptoms that accompany such a disease as tuberculosis. I believe the mother knew, all along, that her daughter was going to die from the disease. I think she anticipated it, but she never let on that she had no hope of her daughter's recovery. About four years ago, Penelope Thomas disappeared. She was last spotted walking down by the river in town, but no two people can concur on this point. Some people believe that she fell into the river during one of her fits and drowned, but I don't think that's what happened. I think that the mother had some role in this disappearance. The father went crazy looking for any sign of his daughter…the whole town was in a chaotic uproar over the safety of their own children if there should be such a child thief among them. The police were very alert and submitted to a search, but all they could find was a small trail of blood leading into this house from the pantry. The trail climbed up the stairs…across the floor and then stopped at the wall…just abruptly like that. It is a mystery as to where little Penny Thomas is now. The mother was found, three months later. She had hanged herself outside the house, near the river where last her daughter was seen. People, to this day, still think that someone kidnapped Penny Thomas, but the police believe, having never found her body, that she fainted, was carried away by someone, into the house and attempts were made to revive her. However she must have been coughing for the trail of blood is inescapable, The case tore the family apart, each member accusing the next, and eventually the mother buckled and killed herself. We choose to believe it was out of grief, for if it were guilt we would have to look into a case of murder…and that would be too much paper work. The family moved out of the area, following the death and disappearance, and no one has heard of them, or from them, since. However, every autumn, we have viewed a light…just a flickering, mind you…like a candle, in the uppermost window of the house. If you believe in ghosts, we believe this may be the ghost of poor Miss Penny Thomas, haunting the house she was…last seen in.'

Dear sister, that is how they told me the story. I shiver in my seat just re-telling it for they have warned me, and now I warn you, that every full moon, they hear a series of noises. First they have heard walking. Footsteps above their heads whenever they've been in the house during the midday hours of a full moon. Second, they've heard singing; an aria here and there, Georgiana claims to have heard, coming from above their heads. Thirdly, and possibly the most chilling, they've heard scratching; it starts out soft, like a cat's scratching, then it grows in volume until it's much more like a dead man desperately attempting to escape his tomb. It is awful, these things they speak of, and I am quite upsetting myself now. I felt the need to bring your awareness of this strange and awful happening in your house. I have not yet been victim to such hearings, but I am, most assuredly, not going mad. If it be fictitious, then they have told a good tale worth laughing over later, but if it be truth…oh I dare not think of what may happen.

I bid you farewell, for I may yet be too tired to write in the morning. Give my best to Mother and Christopher.

With love,

Katherine

Episode Two: Elizabeth

2, August, 1875

Dearest Katherine,

It is quite an excitement to hear from you again! I have spent countless days in Mama's room nursing her to health, but it all seems to be to no avail. I fear she will die before the wedding, Kate. Christopher has been so busy lately, and irritably so too. He will not make up his mind regarding the opera. Should Katrina die? Should Katrina live and watch her sister, Gloria, die? On and on and on. And he cannot, and will not, listen to me when I ask him why someone must die? He just shakes his head and mutters about how I am foolish and I know nothing of life and death. But I do, Kate, I do; and I love him so much but he will not let me even show affection. He won't let me kiss him.

Oh Katherine, anywhere sounds better than here right now. You sound so unimpressed with the place yet you don't share the same peace of mind with me regarding "dear old Duane" and it's many limitations. I would love to be in a place where one cannot make up her mind as to what to do from day to day, whereas here in Duane, I have my limits as to what I can do. I need the city to be close so I can get away from the pressures of living among Mama and, frightfully true as it is, Christopher. He has given me a headache again, what with his incessant pounding on the baby Grand Piano in the parlour! Jeremy and Nicholas came looking for you today. I do believe they have grown quite fond of you my sister. Will you not write to them?

The neighbors sound lovely! I should love to hear Georgianna's voice and I am jealous that you may hear it before I! I am only jesting with you, my sister. I am glad you have been granted the opportunity to be free for some time. It is truly the toughest challenge I have yet faced to have to endure mother and her illness. She cannot be helped, the doctor has told us. She is terminally ill, but it is not tuberculosis like we thought…it is a new disease called cancer. Well, the disease isn't new, but it is new to us. It is horribly inflicting poor mother. She scares us every now and again with the silly things she says. You know how mother mumbles rather than talks, do you not remember that trait? Well I must tell you this for I have told no other living soul this, and you must keep it secret from all others you meet…the doctor included.

Dearest Katherine, Mother spoke as if in a trance last night. It scared me, for I was watching over her allowing poor brother Thomas to get some sleep. Christopher was, as usual at odd hours of the night, playing the piano in the parlour, but Mother and I were in the spare guest bedroom, nearest the kitchen. She was sleeping, and I was reading Jane Austen (I know how you discourage me reading it, but "Northanger Abbey" has an attraction for me like no other book in Father's library…it seemed to come to me, as if possessed of something uncanny…supernatural) and she just sat up in the midst of her fever and grabbed a hold of my arm. I tried to calm myself but it was so alarming I did all I could to hold back a gasp, yet failed and let out a shriek. Of course, Thomas was up and moving as soon as he heard my cry…I could hear him upstairs. Anyway, before Tom came down to the room, Mother spoke as if in a trance…as if she were looking at something…or someone. I couldn't copy down her exact words, but they went something like this:

"Henry is trying to find her. Betsy…Betsy don't tell her where she's really from! It would be horrible if she found out. (then she changed her voice so that it was lower…like a man's voice.) Tell me where my daughter is! Beth, you must tell me! TELL ME WHERE MY DAUGHTER IS! (and this is when she began to breathe really deeply and heavily. I was so frightened and I knew Thomas was coming downstairs) I don't know where she is. Leave me alone, Henry…she's my daughter now." And then she fell silent and crumbled into a ball in bed and wept. I was horrified. Who is Henry? Who is Betsy? What daughter is she referring to? Oh Kate, I am so afraid…I can't stay in this house much longer. Any sight, other than the trees and Mother's bedroom, is a welcoming sight to me at this point. I do wish you would write again. I do wish so. I must go. Christopher will be wanting me to look in on Mother tonight. He's nearly completed his Aria for Gloria. It is odd, sister, for the tune was so tame and mild, and I felt as though he would write an aria that might actually be remembered, but of late such tameness and loveliness has been replaced with minor chords being incessantly pounded upon, speeding up the tempo and growing louder and rapid that I fear he shall kill us all for the mere impression of the music. He scares me. He is changed…and that is not the man I fell in love with three months ago. He has been replaced, I believe despite it's blasphemous sound, with the Devil himself.

Your loving sister,

Elizabeth Burns

3 August, 1875

Dearest Katherine,

Oh, I can not describe the terrible feeling I am experiencing at this current time. Oh Kate, I can not eat and I can not sleep. It is that horrific. I am speaking in whispers as it is. I fear that Mother is losing her wits. She spoke, again, today like she did last night. Kate, what is this? Is it a punishment for being good? Is it the scourge of God? Dear sister, I hate to do this, but I must end here for I am waiting upon Mother at the current time. She hasn't slept well since you left. She claims to be having vivid nightmares. I tried to ask her exactly what she meant by them…what her nightmares revealed to her. She was able to reveal to me one such story, but seeing as you have told a story to me, I figure I shall tell her story to you.

"I was once a young lady like yourself…ready for marriage. My fiancé was very wealthy and his family owned an estate in the Lower North Country region of this state. They had become fortunate after the Civil War. They were very reluctant to talk to me when I did meet them. My fiancé was charming, it is true, and our romance was one like a fairy tale. His family had a secret though. He merely told me the beginning of the tale, and it was far more intriguing than just a tale, but for respect of the dead I will speak not a word of it other than to say that when you're father died…my second husband for the sake of tuberculosis…that he left this family in two pieces. But I am tired now…"

Oh Kate, what does she mean? I fear that something horrible is going to happen. I think I'm going mad for the mere thought of our family being unresolved with the past. I think we are, as close as we are my sister, not as close as we may think.

Your loving sister,

Elizabeth Burns

Episode Three: Rose

(In addressing the "cold case" of the mysterious disappearance of Penelope Thomas of Southeast (NY) taking place in the late summer of 1865, my partner and I uncovered these following journal entries. In the process of investigating the disappearance we read through the journal, from which these entries come, and have found it necessary to add these specific entries in the compilation of our investigative efforts. Conclusions and ramifications to be drawn from the reading of these entries have all but failed, but we have decided to keep the entries, and the other things we've uncovered, on record for posterity to further investigate.)

3 August, 1870

Dear Diary,

I fear that I am going mad. You know how well I used to write, and look, my handwriting is so scribbled. I don't know what it is. I don't understand, but I think there's something unnatural in the house. Oh, please don't...don't make me stay here. Mama and Papa wouldn't have wanted me to stay cooped up in here. It's...it's the room above mine...the room at the top of the stairs...I think someone died there.

I have all her things...she was a very little girl. I found her clothing in my closet. It's very frightening. She must've been either sick or...oh I dare not say it...or killed, for her clothing is spattered with blood. It's dried blood, but still, it appears to be blood. Oh God! Her clothes...her pictures...all the things I have found of hers, they scare me. I want to go home. I wish sister would send a carriage to get me, though I am sure that if she doesn't send a carriage, then I will find means to escape myself.

Yes, I am grateful for the lessons they are providing me here. My teacher is quite skilled with the voice, and I am very excited to find that I am so close to the city, where the big Opera Houses are. I should like to see the Opera Houses in the city, but none of that crosses my mind when I go to sleep, and I feel her presence in the room with me. Sometimes I hear crying or footsteps above my room. She paces it...she paces it. I know. I know. I won't stay and let her get me...murder me. I know she will...please don't ask me how I know, but I do.

Rose

7 August, 1870

Diary,

I can't even breathe! I can't see hardly anything except your pages. Oh…oh there it is again! There it is! That horrible scratching. That horrible, horrible scratching. It's above me…IT'S ABOVE ME! OH…now my hands are all shaky again. I…I…I can't write. Oh, I can't breathe! It's the footsteps! THE FOOTSTEPS! I'm terrified. They're coming closer, closer, closer, closer (here the writing trailed off)

What was that? The footsteps stopped. The scratching stopped, the footsteps stopped. What's going to happen next? Maybe nothing...maybe it's all over. Well I guess it's all over.

Diary, I'm almost through with lessons here and I think it's going to be okay. I'll be home soon. I'll be with Christopher soon. He's an odd man. I love him, don't misunderstand me. But I find him to be either on the edge of genius or madness. Rarely do I see him without a wild look in his eyes. I've caught him muttering, also, about his mother. Her name is Marie Dalton, but I have heard him call her Dorothy. Dorothy Thomas. He says that is her real name. He says that he and Elizabeth, his sister, were to be called other things…other names. He was to be called Henry, and his sister was to be called Penelope. It's very odd, I think, to think that he needed an alias. He's told me why before. It's because of the war, five years ago. His father…there it is again. A strange voice. Sweet, very high in pitch…perhaps a coloratura. I, myself, am an operatic soprano, but a coloratura is much higher in range. It sounds like an aria. Mozart, maybe? It sounds like something from La Nozzi Da Figaro, the Duchess maybe, or Susannah. Where is it coming from? I didn't leave my record on. Oh, it's grown so cold now, so chill. It's in my bones, clinging under my skin. My fingers are cold. I think I will move about, pluck up my courage and investigate, perhaps.

Ah! That wasn't the correct note! It's turned so human, the voice; so human and yet unnatural. It's not sweet sounding anymore, it's shrill; like the cry of a…a…a banshee. Oh my ears! My ears can't take it anymore. I must go see who it is, for I think it's come from…from within this house! Ah...it's come closer. It's upon me, I think. No! You cannot open the door! No!

(This is where the entry ends. We discovered the journal in the bedroom facing South on the second floor. It is among the stranger of occurrences in this house. The diary is signed as the property of Rose Ellen MacNevens of Lake Placid (NY). However, there are no records, among the house and it's annual keepers, of such an occupant. It has been, or at least appeared to be, empty since our strange family of Thomas left it in the night over five years ago. Likewise, this "Rose" person made mention of a record player in the pages of the diary before and in these entries, but we have searched and found nothing of the sort to back up such claims. She has also mentioned a 'room at the top of the stairs' which we have found the door to but cannot open, for it appears that the door is jammed shut. We must resign to the idea, however crazy it may be, that this is a diary from someplace we cannot see or go to. That "Rose Ellen MacNevens" may in fact be a ghost.)

- Investigation conducted by Sergeant Arthur G. Daniels of Carmel (NY) and

Detective Francis J. P. Williams of Southeast (NY).

Episode four: A Doctor's Warning

8 August 1875

Dear Miss Burns,

I am quite aware that you have been very concerned with your ailing Mother's health. I write to you in good spirits in lieu of the events most recent. Your mother is, as you know, suffering hallucinations. Her hallucinations have been grounded, most recently, in stories she seems to be remembering from her past. Take no heed of them, for that is all they are…stories. You wrote mentioning three names: Betsy, Henry and Beth. I advise you to wait for me to attempt to gain any understanding of who these people may be, if they be real, though I am quite convinced within myself that they are, in fact, fictitious.

Maintain your calmest state, your composure and be patient, for I shall be in town with the next few days, and I advise you to come visit me in town, for the company of your brother may not be…for lack of a better word…smart at this point. If your mother tells the truth then there is much to be done and very little time to do it.

Yours in the eyes of God,

Doctor Henry Smyth