Lillian
Lillian Burke stood by the attic window and looked down at the many cars that had flooded the driveway. She tried counting how many there were, which was tricky. The glass was filthy, patchy with dirt spots, and already it made things fuzzy. But the rainfall outside was getting heavier and heavier, thus blurring her view even more. Thankfully, the people who’d come to her house clearly were fans of color. She could spot the cars even through the wet haze.
She counted them like she counted jelly beans — one orange, three red, two blue, two green, one brown, the rest (maybe) silver or black. The surrounding lawn was a lush spring green. Lillian wanted so badly to kick off her shoes and go dancing in the rain. She wanted to feel the cool asphalt under her feet and the freshly moistened soil between her toes. She wanted to play hopscotch in the puddles with Jane and have a contest to see which of them could catch the most raindrops in their mouths.
Of course, her mother wouldn’t allow this. Mrs. Burke considered many things to be improper — whatever that means — and apparently having fun was one of them.
She let out a tired sigh as she traced a smiley face on the glass. It baffled her how the sky could go from being so clear and sunny one minute to gray and weepy the next. The change itself wasn’t what bothered her. Things changed all the time, she knew that. They had to. If everything stayed the same, her dad always said, the world would lose its luster. Mr. Burke said that nothing new or interesting or beautiful could ever come without change.
What bothered her was the swiftness of it, how vicious and all-of-a-sudden it could be. It wasn’t fair.
The thought of it lingered for a good while. When it did finally fade into obscurity, it left Lillian feeling bored. She turned away from the window and scanned the rest of the room in search of something to do. It was a big attic, only partially lit thanks to the busted lightbulb. It also reeked of dust and old wood, but she didn’t care. This was her secret spot, the one place in the entire world where she could do whatever she wanted.
The room was littered with random objects — stacks of cardboard boxes and see-through containers, a tiny red bicycle with loose chains and flat tires, a pair of folding tables, overturned dining chairs with yellow webs tied around the legs, a giant rolled-up rug leaning against a beam near the entrance. Nothing to get very excited about.
Then there was the dollhouse. Sitting on a tiny nightstand at the farthest corner of the room, the little house was a near-exact replica of the Burke residence, right down to the stained-glass windows and the bronze handle on the front door. Lillian walked over and peered into one of its miniature rooms. A dozen eyes stared back at her. They were the eyes of pigs, horses, cows, and sheep, each carved delicately out of wood and given to her as a birthday present from Grandpa Morris. She hated seeing them packed so tightly inside there. She’d tried her best to make them feel as comfortable as possible after her stupid brother had broken the barn house. The thought of them being stranded nearly brought her to tears.
Perhaps it was time to set them free. She placed her hands on the side of the dollhouse, but, just as the impulse came to open it up, she had another one. She started to wonder about the strangers downstairs.
She tried to guess what they were doing, what games they were playing, what stories they were telling each other, and what they looked like. Were they skinny or big? Bat-eared or pug-nosed? Were they strutting around in fancy suits and sparkling dresses? Were they having a costume party? Maybe one of them had curly red locks like her.
It couldn’t hurt to find out, could it?
She decided to leave the sanctuary of the attic and carefully descend the narrow staircase that opened onto the hall that led to her parents’ bedroom. She went to the door, cracked it open, and clung to the doorknob as she stuck her head out into the empty hallway. She listened closely for any sign of life.
Music. It was slow and faint, but definitely there. Something about it didn’t seem right, but Lillian couldn’t put her finger on what that something was.
She followed the lure of the offbeat melody through the second-floor hallway. When she reached the top of the main stairwell, her ears picked up on the soft murmur of voices. Lillian tiptoed down the steps, stopping halfway once she could get a good view of the living room. She sat on a stair and peered through the gaps in the railing at the throng of people dressed in black. They were gathered like a swarm of crows. They spoke tenderly with one another, in tones that, even from afar, Lillian could sense had no real happiness in them. A few of them were sitting by themselves with drinks, snacks, or cigarettes, their faces pale and solemn. It was unlike any party Lillian had ever seen.
A closer look was needed. She sprang to her feet, made her way down the remaining steps, and entered the room. At first, she just wandered through the black mass, keeping an eye out for familiar faces, namely her mother’s. Her father and brothers had to be around here somewhere — probably chatting with the neighbors out back like usual. But the only faces she saw now were those of strangers.
I bet I could make them smile, Lillian thought with confidence.
She knew a handful of jokes and at least one or two routines she’d learned in ballet class. Either was sure to lighten this dark mood.
Without further hesitation, she put her plan into motion, springing into dance. She did her best, spinning, gliding, moving with as much grace and elegance as a little girl could muster. She ended her routine just as a lady should — she grabbed each end of her scarlet lace dress with the tips of her fingers and shrunk into a small curtsy.
The strangers were not impressed. They remained frozen in place, entranced by the sad music or their own boring conversations or both. One of them — a stout, silver-haired woman draped in a shapeless black gown, her neck bulging with pearls — stood up from a nearby sofa and walked swiftly past her.
Tough crowd, Lillian thought.
Lillian followed the woman with the pearl neck out of the living room and into the parlor on the opposite side of the staircase. The parlor room was no less crowded with people, though in stark contrast it glowed with color. Flowers adorned every inch of the room. They seemed to spring from every corner, every table, every vase. One arrangement in particular stood out from the rest: a bouquet of roses, as ripe and red as her mother’s hair (they probably smelled as nice, too), sitting on a small dark table near the center of the room in a tiny, box-shaped stone urn.
Without thinking, Lillian reached towards the nearest leaning flower. The smoothness of its petals felt good against her fingertips. Her hand dipped a bit lower to grab the stem, careful to miss the thorns. As she tried plucking it from the case, the pearl-necked woman suddenly appeared before her. She stared straight down her nose, eyes wide and glassy, her wrinkled mouth askew. Her expression was hard to read.
There was a tinge of sadness mixed with anger or disgust. Before she could make sense of it, the old woman reached out, furiously tucked the rose back into its place, grabbed the urn and rushed off with it, disappearing into the crowd.
Lillian started to follow, determined to swipe a rose for her mother, but after a few feet she noticed a great big bed sitting at the far end of the room. At least that’s what it looked like. If it was, there was no sense in it being in a room (or party) like this. It was propped up on a long table cloaked with a black blanket.
Lillian crept over to get a closer look. The outer surface gleamed like finely-polished silverware, the color a warm brown. A copper bar lined the length of it, like a ballet beam. She climbed on top of a nearby chair and, from a slight distance, looked down at the man tucked inside.
He was old, older than the pearl lady that had taken the roses away. His hair was thin and flat and so silvery that it practically disappeared against his pasty skin. His face was sullen yet kind-looking. The rest of him was bound in a tight black suit, and a gold ring was wrapped around one of his fingers.
Lillian stayed on her perch and watched the sleeping stranger. She wondered what he was dreaming about. Something nice hopefully, or someplace nice. Whatever he saw, she wished she could see it, too.
She hopped off the chair and made her way back to the staircase. She plopped down on the bottom step, folded her arms across her knees and let her chin sink into her forearms. The music played on, but it didn’t interest her anymore. None of it did.
Her mind wandered back to the man in the bed. Wouldn’t it be neat, Lillian thought, if everyone had the power to slip into a person’s mind? There wouldn’t be any more secrets or lies. She could use that power to know everything about everyone. She could peek into her brothers’ heads and see what stupid pranks they were planning to pull. She could read the minds of the kids at school and find out why they liked picking on her so much. She could peek into her father’s head and find out why he preferred her brothers’ company over hers. Maybe she could even figure out why today seemed so different.
“Quite the party, isn’t it?”
The voice was kind but unfamiliar. When Lillian looked up, her eyes met with those of the old man from the bed box. He leaned against a doorframe with both hands buried in his pockets. His suit was gone, replaced with a white and pale green checkered long sleeve shirt and dark brown pants.
“You look like you’re having fun,” he said. He smiled.
Lillian didn’t smile back. She wasn’t allowed to talk to strangers.
“My name is Frank.”
Lillian looked at her shoes.
“Do you mind if I sit?”
Lillian nodded shyly. She gathered up the bottom part of her dress and slid half an inch to her right, making room for Frank. After he sat down, he drew his hands from his pockets and wrapped his arms around his knees, too.
“It’s strange being here,” he said, pressing his thumbs together. “I don’t even know half of them. Acquaintances, friends of friends. Some of them I don’t think I’ve spoken with in what, twenty, maybe thirty years? I told my son, ‘Cremate me and save yourself the trouble of putting on a whole show.’ Should have known he wouldn’t listen to me.” He snickered. “Barely did when I was alive.”
Lillian watched the people as they came and went from room to room. Once in a while she glanced up at the old man, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed him looking back at her.
“What’s your name, kid?” he asked.
She looked back down at her black ballet flats and tapped her toes while she thought about whether or not she should answer. She imagined her mother’s voice: “Don’t be impolite. And don’t speak to anyone you don’t know.” She went back and forth between the two until finally she allowed her name to slip gingerly from her lips: “Lillian.”
He smiled and held out his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you Lillian.” She shook it, just as a lady should, albeit tentatively. “How long have you lived here, Lillian? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. A while, I guess.”
“Hmm. I see,” he said. “Well, I’ve been here a long time, too. My father bought this house when I was a boy. The woman who’d sold it to us — Ms. Hardwin, I think her name was — joked about it being haunted. She told us the family who built it lost their youngest child in a drowning incident. She said the girl’s spirit roamed the halls of this place, and that if you pressed your ear against the walls of her old bedroom, you could faintly hear her laughter. My father wasn’t a big believer in spirits and such, so he thought it was all bull, and so I did too. But after we moved in, I started seeing things, hearing things I couldn’t explain. I remember hearing footsteps coming from the attic each night, like someone was living up there. Scared the hell out of me as a kid. I tried telling my parents but neither of them believed me. After a while, I realized it didn’t matter whether they believed me or not. I knew what I saw. I was certain of it. I’d seen you.”
He looked at her, and for the first time in a very long time, Lillian didn’t feel alone.
Frank stood and held out his hand. After a moment of careful consideration, Lillian smiled, stood up, and took his hand — his grip was firm but gentle — and together they went back up the stairs to the long hall. Lillian looked in every room, at every unfamiliar face in the photographs on dressers and walls. They went up to the attic where she stopped for a moment with her dollhouse and the farm animals inside. At last, they stepped through the big octagon-shaped window and into the light that had managed to break through the clouds.
DANIELLE TALLEY is a writer who lives in Norman, Oklahoma.