Down the street, only three blocks away from mine, lies a big dark house with windows that are always shrouded in shade, even when the sun is out. All the kids on the block avoided it. Except on Halloween night, when all the kids dare each other to ring the doorbell. I never accepted the challenge, even when my friends called me names. I knew better, there was something off about the place, some kind of weird smell hung around the place like a molding blanket you wrap around a poor child. Plus I’ve seen the signs that others haven’t. The kids who do ring the bell, seem to suffer some kind of accidents in the next weeks after. Like the tall blond boy my friend Giulianna was dating at the time, he accept the dare with great zeal, but in the few days after he ended up in the hospital for a month. Something about intestinal rot, something that at his age shouldve been impossible. He’s not the only one to suffer some kind of horrid accident, there have been others. When I told my friends they just laughed at me and told me that it was just my imagination. Which could be a logical explanation, since they knew me during my “seeing things that don’t actually exist” faze. But I know what I see this time, is real. I’m not imagining anything. Those accident don’t happen at random. It’s not normal for a perfectly healthy teenage boy, to suddenly have a fatal illness, three days after he just had an appointment. Anyway, it was this creepy house that I avoided. That is until I decided to earn some money. 

A year ago, my mother told me that if in a years time I didn’t have a job she’d kick me out. My mother isn’t the kind of person who jokes around. I spent a while in classes so I could become a legal sitter. Then like every teenager I posted my job proposal up on the electricity poles. For a while, no one accepted. Then about a week ago, I got a call, from one Serenity Lane, at 1245 Amber Road, asking if I would sit her daughter. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the address. Of course, just my luck. The creepy, dark, mysterious, ominous, I can come up with many names for it, house. 

So here I am. Waiting on the front porch, not daring to ring the bell. I almost feel as if all the kids in the neighborhood have their eyes on me, waiting to see what I will do. They know, of course, that I never ring the bell, no matter how many people dare me, double dog dare me, even triple. They must be wondering what in the world I am doing on the front porch, my fingertip inches from the doorbell. As the minutes tick by the pressure builds, my stress amounts until it is almost a fisical pain in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and Will my finger to press the ivory colored button. I feel my finger press on the doorbell and I wait for the world to end, I wait for my body to order come with some sudden and untreatable illness, but nothing happens. Just the quiet ring of the doorbell from inside the house. I let my eyes flutter open. I’m okay. For now at least, anything could happen in the next three days. While I’m marveling at my continued existence, a tall woman opens the door. Her long dark hair is braided back in a high ponytail. The hair is pulled so tightly it stretches her face unatuarly. Her lips are bright red and her lashes extremely long and bedecked in miniature jewels. She smiled when she sees me, an unnerving thing when her face is already pulled upwards. 

“Emma!” She exclaims as though I were an old friend she couldn’t wait to see. From what I could tell from our conversation on the phone was that her husband had died a few years back and she had been living with her only daughter since. She’d been looking for a sitter for her daughter so she could go on this business trip and finally I had been the only one to accept. 

“Come in, come in.” She says gesturing for me to enter. The house is awesome on the inside. The dark wooden floors accent the heavy black chandelier that hangs high on the carved wooden ceiling. The tall windows are swathed in thick red fabric, providing darkness that only the dim light from the chandelier penetrates. The woman, which I assume is Serenity, leads me down a red carpeted hallway lined with dark doors. Finally she pulls up in front of the only door that is marked. Etched in the rectangle of brass is the carefully crafted letters spelling out the Little Bird. This must be her daughters room. Serenity knocks once, but when no one answers she turns the metal doorknob and enters the room. I blink a few times when we enter, the room is much brighter than the rest of the house. The curtains have been thrown open, the Crystal chandelier on full brightness. The room is large, the walls splattered with crude paintings of multicolored birds in flight. The large canopied bed takes up at least half the room. It’s much bigger than my room at home. I find myself looking for the girl I’m supposed to sit. Serenity looks calmly at the room as if I should be seeing something that I don’t. Then I see her, sitting in a nook close to the window. Her small hands are pressed to the glass, as if she can’t get enough of the heat. Her frail body I’d curled in a ball, she looks as if she hasn’t eaten in a while, unlike her mother who looked like she’s never missed a meal in her life, on the contrary she’s probably had one too many. From the back the only resemblance to her mother that I see is the long dark hair. 

“Palila, your sitter is here.” The girl doesn’t move, nor does she answer. Serenity doesn’t look the least bit concerned about this. “I’m going to leave, then. Emma’s going to be here for the next few days.” Palila drops her hands from the window and wraps them tightly around herself. Then whispers in a low voice. 

“Goodbye mother.” Serenity looks satisfied. She turns to me and hands me half of my pay, promising to pay the other half when she returns. Then she leaves. No hugs for her daughter, no “I love you” and no instructions for me to follow. With no clue as to what I’m supposed to do I sit on the edge of Palilas bed, watching as her pale hands trace careful circles of the backs of her arms. I fold my hands in my lap, encasing the crisp money Serenity gave me. The silence is so thick it’s almost tangible. Palila makes no noise, it almost sounds as if she isn’t breathing. It takes me a moment to realize I’m holding my breath. 

“So, what would you like to do?” She doesn’t look at me, just sighs and rests her chin on her forearms. 

“If in some way I benefit from you, I suggest you tell me now. It’s not to late to call my mother and tell her you quit.” She says calmly, reciting almost as if she’s had to say this many times before. The way she says it is eerie, and I can tell most people would probably have left by now. But not me. I refuse to give up.

“I’m not going.” I say firmly. I can see in the dim reflection of the window that Palila raises her eyebrows. I’ve passed a test. I can’t help thinking. Although this girl is much younger than me she seems wise, or at least knolagedable. She knows things I don’t. My friends would tell me I’m being ridiculous. That there is no way a skinny girl looking out a window would be testing me. “Your not here to take care of me, are you?” The question takes me off guard. It rings with truth, though. Although I’ve told myself I’m coming here for the job, and the job only. I know that the only reason I didn’t bail out and run instead of pressing the doorbell is because I want to know this house. I want to find its secrets. I’ve had actual dreams of entering this house, actual visions of what might be awaiting me inside. And here I am. It might all just be a fantasy I made up so I could solve a mystery, but I need to know. I don’t know how Palila knew this, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of telling her she was right. If I’m going to be in charge I need to start acting like it.

“I came here for the job and the added bonus of getting payed.” I try to look annoyed at the question, or indifferent, or anything but guilty of a lie. But for all my best efforts, she doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it drop. “Okay, then I want you to read to me.” For some reason it seems like a strange request. I look around the room, then realize why.

“There are no books.” I say. Palila has shelves lining two of the four walls, but instead of volumes stacked high on them there are only birds. Not real ones of course, but figures. Some clay, others folded from paper, some even look like taxidermy. It’s an odd choice of decoration unless you are completely obsessed with the winged creatures. But I don’t think Pilala is. Despite the name on her door and the birds lining the shelves, there is no other thing in the room that has any indication to the fact that Palila is a bird fanatic. “Of course there aren’t. We have to go to the library.” That makes sense. I feel a bit disappointed. I hadn’t even realized I been hoping for a mystery. I’m about to voice the question of where the library is, when Palila jumps up from her place on the ground and she makes her way out of the room. She makes an effort to keep her face turned away from mine, and as I follow her down the hall I can’t help wondering why. Down the hall, a right, a left, a pair of staircases, another left, stop. Palila pushes open the heavy oak door to the library. I gasp as we enter the big room. Every wall is lined with bookshelves along with six rows of them down the length of the room. Every available space is piled with books. Books of every color and shape, every size and thickness. The titles varied in font, color, and language. I can’t help thinking how much my father would have loved this. Then I shut down the thought, remembering I’m not to speak, hope, or even think of him anymore. As I follow Palila down one of the isles she instructs me on the kind of book she wants to read.

“A big book, not to big. A red book but not shiny. One with a long title but no T’s.” The requirements seem weird and unnecessary for picking a book. But I scour the boom shelves anyway, for one that fits the bill. After what feels like an eternity, when I feel like even a book lover will have gotten tired of looking at book spines, I see one. It’s a beautiful matte red, like the color of blood without the shine. It’s about as thick as my three middle fingers out together and the title is five words long, with no letter T. In small golden letters it reads. When in darkness calls bird. I put my fingers in it to pull it out, but Palila grabs my wrist. I look at her, and she doesn’t hide her face this time. Her eyes unnerve me, sending a shiver up my spine. They are darker than any eyes I’ve ever seen, and they glimmer as the light reflects off of them. They’re unnatural. Almost as if they are holes that lead to nothing, or maybe they lead to everything but there’s no light to see what lies there. I want to scream, I want to run, I want to go home as fast as I can, but I regain my composure and give Palila a questioning look. 

“Not that one.” She says sternly. I begin to object, but she takes my face between her hands, staring me down with those endless eyes. “Never that one, never.” 

End Of Part One