Quiet as the Grave

"My lips are sealed!" I whispered excitedly, as my best friend finally showed me where the secret room was in her house. She had told me about it months ago, but had refused to show it to me, no matter how much I begged. Until today, that is.

We had been best friends our whole lives, all of 10 years. Well,

almost 11, my birthday was coming up. We did everything together, except for

exploring her house, apparently. As we crawled through a tunnel between the

walls I whispered, "How did you even find this?" She grinned back at

me, then explained it was a complete accident. She had tripped and when she

landed on the floor, her hand had found the secret switch embedded in the

baseboard against the wall.

After a short journey through the wall, we made it to the room.

"I don't know how no one ever realized it's here!" she squealed,

jumping up and down.

“This is so cool!” I squealed back, jumping with her.

“I’m sorry for not showing you it sooner,” she stated, calming back down for a minute, “but I wanted to get it ready so we could play!”

I looked around the room. She had set it up nicely, with all the clothes we used for dress-up, our favorite toys, and it looked like she had even brought some snacks. “It’s okay,” I answered, “This is awesome!”

I explored the room some more, before asking, “Do you think there are any other secret rooms? Maybe it’s like Nancy Drew and there’s another tunnel from here!”

She shook her head sadly, “I’ve checked everywhere. All the walls and baseboards.”

“What about the books? Have you looked for a lever or something there?”

She laughed, “You remember when I was grounded last week?” I nodded. “That’s why! I pulled every book off every shelf in Mom’s library. She was sooo mad!”

I laughed with her and then we couldn’t stop laughing. We were rolling on the floor when I heard a dull thunk.

We stopped. I kicked my foot down again. Thunk! We scrambled up to our knees and began knocking around the floorboards. “Oh my gosh, there’s something here!” we gasped.

Hoping it was another room or tunnel, we felt around the floor, our fingers searching for a switch, or panel, anything. A few minutes passed before I discovered a knothole in one of the wooden plats. I pushed my fingers through and pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled it again. Still nothing. I pulled once more, straining at the panel of wood, when POP! It came up.

I turned to look at my friend, eyes wide with excitement. We began pulling at whatever panels we could until they were all up and in a pile on the floor. “Do you have a flashlight?” I queried. She jumped up and grabbed it. We shined it into the opening we had made, only to be disappointed. There was nothing there. It wasn’t another room, or another tunnel. It was just a hole in the floor. A decent sized hole, but just a hole, nonetheless.

“Well, darn.” We looked at each other, disappointed. Thankfully, it didn’t last long. We put the floor back together and began playing together. We had more fun than I can ever remember having before that, playing make-believe.

And then, we decided to experiment. No one else in the house knew this room was there. Could they hear us? So, we began yelling and screaming, jumping, and throwing things. Then we stopped and listened. Nothing.

After this little experiment, I had to leave, so we crawled back the way we had come, exiting out the wall. We went to find her mom before I left, so she could call and tell my mom I was walking home.

“Did you girls have fun?” she asked, “You were quiet all day.”

We turned and stared at each other, thinking the same thing: the room is soundproof. “We had tons of fun!” I answered, “It was awesome!” She smiled, called my mom, and then I went home.

Looking at my diary, it was hard to believe that was 8 years ago. It felt like yesterday. We were so innocent. Such good friends. 'Friends to the end,' we'd always said. I closed the book with a sigh.

“Do you remember that day?” I asked, turning to my friend. “We had so much fun, and then later that week, we became blood sisters. Do you remember that?”

She nodded vigorously. “We did a whole ceremony,” I continued, “We got some of your mom’s sewing needles, a ‘goblet’, and wrote a contract.” I laughed, “You remember, we wrote it with a red pen, because we thought it needed to be in blood, but we were too scared to try to do that!”

She nodded again, a smile playing around her mouth, not quite reaching her eyes. “And then, we realized that our signatures wouldn’t look right in red, so we signed the contract in blue ink, because you said that your mom always called your dad’s family ‘blue bloods’. Do you remember?”

I didn’t wait for her answer, before I continued on, “Then we pricked our fingers with the needles and rubbed them together to ‘mix’ our blood, before putting a bloody fingerprint on the contract.” I sighed, shaking my head.

I turned to my friend again, “You know, I still have that contract.” I pulled it out of my bookbag, placing it in her hands, “I think you should read it again.” I smiled, before turning away to go back out the tunnel, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I sat on the floor outside the tunnel’s entrance. Man, where had the time gone. We were such good friends. What happened? I mean, I guess every group of friends has their arguments. It’s a part of life. I just never expected that this particular argument would end our friendship like this.

I returned to the secret room, where I saw the contract lying on the floor. My friend was still sitting in the chair where I left her, tears running down her cheeks. “Did it move you that much?” I scoffed.

She tried to answer, but only muffled sounds came out, the gag I had tied around her mouth doing its job. “What?” I asked, “Cat got your tongue?” Her head drooped. “Did you even read the contract?” I demanded, “Or did you just drop it like the piece of trash you are?”

She shook her head, again trying to speak, but I interrupted, “We were supposed to be best friends! Blood sisters! But you threw that all away. You didn’t care about me anymore!”

She tried to shake her head again, but I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at me, “We said in our contract that nothing, NOTHING would come between us! But you,” my voice trembled in rage, gradually rising, “You DIDN’T CARE!”

I stared at her, her face pale with trails where the tears had streamed down her face. I threw her face back, clenching my fists. “You LEFT ME!”

I stepped back, taking a deep breath, centering myself before saying, “And now, you get to know what it feels like.” I untied her from the chair, dragging her to the hole in the floor I had pulled open hours earlier, preparing for this moment. It was just big enough for her small frame. I dropped her in before beginning to replace the boards.

I grinned maniacally at her as I placed the first board. Her eyes were wide with terror, her mouth moving frantically. I decided to remove her gag, to see what excuses she would make for leaving me this time, but she simply screamed instead. I rolled my eyes as I placed another board. “We discussed this,” I sneered, “We confirmed no one could hear anything in this room when we were 10 years old.”

She didn’t listen and continued screaming. At first it was annoying, but I soon found myself enjoying the sound of her panic. I had one board left to place, so I leaned down close to the opening and said, “You never told anyone else about this place, did you?” She stopped screaming for a brief moment, as I smirked at her. “Well?” I questioned. She shook her head with a fearful ‘no’. I beamed as I placed the last board and her face disappeared from view, “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”