Her Secret, Cassidy Shay [good books for 7th graders .TXT] 📗

The little girl started to push open the door, and then stopped, not wanting to know what was waiting on the other side. Just open it

, said the familiar voice. It had been following her around for two years, and it popped up at the strangest times. However, she was not scared by it, as some people may have thought. She loved the familiar voice, and she always longed to hear it, no matter where she was.

On the other side of the door, there was a single chair in the middle of the room. The wall with the door was blank of anything else, and the one next to it had floor to ceiling windows looking out at the wasteland that surrounded all sides of the big house. You could see the spot where the pond had once been, and the dead trees. The wilting barn stood next to the shed that was lying on its side, the door hanging on one of its hinges. Every inch of the remaining two walls were covered in books. As the girl walked closer, she saw that some of the books were journals, while others were novels, encyclopedias, and books filled with the wonders of the world.

She reached out and touched the spine of one of the journals with her mother’s name engraved in gold. Not that one, the voice said. The small girl’s hand moved along the line of journals until finally, she heard the silky voice murmur to her that she had found the right one. She carefully removed it, and opened it to the front page.

A picture of her mother, with two small babies, one boy and one girl, was pasted to the first page. The girl turned to the next page, and another picture was there. It was one that she remembered, a day that she couldn’t forget. I remember that day as well, my darling. I’m sorry you had to see what you saw. That was not meant to be seen by such young eyes.

She remembered seeing the puddles of blood, the gaping holes in the skin. What she couldn’t remember was the life in her mother’s eyes, the joy that you could still see through the film in the picture.

On the next page was part of a diary entry, but it carried on onto the next page, without any skipped lines or new paragraphs. The small, neat handwriting covered every inch of the page, and more than half of the one after that. Although the little girl couldn’t read what had been written, she felt that it was important. She flipped through the other pages, until she came to a page halfway through that had different hand writing.

This writing was bigger and messier, the exact opposite of the small, neat handwriting that had covered all the previous pages. This is an important part of your history, dear. This journal is where you will find the secrets and answers that you’ve been needing. But first, you must learn to read.

Meredith remembered the day that the voice stopped. It was two years ago, when she was fourteen. That old, familiar, comforting voice, gone.

It left her on the anniversary of her mother’s death. All day, the house had been quiet. Meredith sat in a chair looking at the spot that used to hold her mother’s garden.

It is time, my darling. It is time for you to learn your past, present, and future.

Meredith sat up straighter in her seat. She’d been waiting for this day, preparing for it, since she was six.

At the age of six, Meredith had learned to read. She lived too far away from any cities or towns to be taken to school. There was no sign of human life for several hundred acres from the house. Once she learned to read, she’d expected to be able to read her mother’s journals. However, the voice told her that it wasn’t time yet. So she’d waited.

That day, Meredith started to get up and walk towards her mother’s library. No, my darling, sit. I must tell you something first. Meredith sat down. I’m afraid that I must leave you now. It’s been ten years, and my time is up. Just remember that I love you, my darling.

And that was it.

In her anger and frustration, she’d refused to go to the library. She wished for the voice to come back, to guide her once again. She’d kept it up for two years. But she was finally ready.

Two days before her sixteenth birthday, Meredith stood in front of the door, gathering the strength and the courage to open it.

Finally, she turned the knob. The room hadn’t changed at all since the last time she’d been in there, ten years before. The books covered two walls, the other wall held the giant window. The armchair was still in the middle of the room. The only change was an extra layer of dust.

She went to the shelf with the journals on it. She picked the first one and began to open it, but then she heard her father’s voice.

“Mer! Mer, where are you? This is important!” She could hear his footsteps on the stairs, and she froze. She knew that she wasn’t allowed to be in here.

Still holding the journal, she crouched behind the chair. She peeked out from the side so that she could see what was going on.

Her father appeared in the doorway. He was a young man, turned old by the events of the past, who rarely came looking for her. He had other, more important things to deal with. Meredith knew that, if he was searching for her, it was a big deal.

She watched her father as he looked at the empty room. She saw the sadness and pain in his face, the same pain that had driven him into his study for more than twenty-four hours a day. He blinked quickly, holding back tears. And then he left, shutting the door behind him. “Mer! Mer, where are you?”

Meredith stood, but she didn’t leave the room. Instead, she walked around the side of the chair and sat down. She opened the book, saw a picture inside. It was of a house, her house. She looked at it for a minute ,then turned the page.

“Meredith,” it read in neat, small hand-writing, the same font that she’d seen in the toerh journal ten years ago. She read the rest of the page.

Meredith-
You haven’t been born yet. But I’m so excited to have you as a part of our family. Your brother isn’t even a year old yet, so he really isn’t that sure of what’s going on. But I know that he’s excited too. You’ll live in this beautiful house, for most of your life. Until you find a husband, at least. When you turn eighteen, your father and I have agreed to purchase a home in the city, and use this one for summers and other vacations. That way, you will have a change to go out and meet people, make friends. I’m sorry that we have to live so far away from any civilization. But this land belongs to your father’s family, and he wants to live here. So this is where we live, this is where you will live. I hope that you’ll enjoy it, even if it is isolated. There’s so much space for you to run, a pond to fish in, and so many other things that I love about this home. When you get here, you’ll make this place even more enjoyable, filling it with your laughter and smiles. You’ll be one more thing that I love about this place. Only you will be more important that pond, or the miles of empty land. You are my daughter, my jewel. My darling.

Meredith closed the book. She remembered her mother’s kind face, her loving touch. But she also remembered her brother, barely. He had been named John.

John had been five on the night when their mother was killed. He died too, the next day. Once there hadn’t been blood, no slices in his skin. Simply a rope, tied to the light fixture in his room.

Someone had hanged John, and left a note. Meredith remembered the horrified look on her father’s face as he read the note out loud. “Remember the deal, or Meredith is next.”

He never went to the police, even though he knew who had murdered his family. But Meredith had always wondered what kind of deal her father made, that it had caused a man to murder a woman and a child.

Somehow, Meredith knew that the answer was in the journals.

She walked over to the shelf and grabbed all the journals. She stacked them on the floor by the chair. There were twelve of them.

She sat down in the chair and opened the book. As she leaned back, she heard, for the first time in two years, that soft voice that only she could hear. You might as well get comfy, my darling. You’ll be here for a while.

Text: Cassie Hoene
Publication Date: 10-04-2011

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