WALLS OF THE DEAD Read Online Free

that days before she had heard a moving van pulling into a near driveway. She had stood in her front yard watching as a young family moved into the house next door. It was a mother, father, and two children--a girl around six and a boy who was probably nine or ten. She waved at them and they waved back, calling a hello. "Hello! Hello, how are you?"
    Now as she sat in the rocker in the hours after lunch, thinking of little but how this house was obstinate and impenetrable, a knock came at the door.
    She rose slowly, noticing her back was sore, but what did she expect, she was going to be sixty-one in a few weeks. She opened the door to find the girl from next door on her step. "Hi there! How do you like your new house?"
    Linda liked children although, funny enough, she had never longed for any of her own. The little girl smiled to reveal a gap between her front teeth. How adorable! Linda thought, smiling back.
    You too! the little girl thought back to her.
    Linda's smile faded and was replaced with a questioning look. "You read my mind?"
    The little girl glanced down and put her hands behind her back.
    "You don't have to ashamed of it. Or afraid. Do your parents know?"
    "No."
    "Come inside and we'll talk."
    In the living room Linda now turned on a lamp near the sofa and sat next to the little girl whose name was Diane Blume. "All right, tell me, how often do you read minds?"
    "All the time."
    "How long have you been doing it, Diane?"
    "Since I was little."
    Linda held back her grin. "About how old when you were little?"
    The little girl shrugged shyly. Then she said, "When I was three?"
    A tiny blip crossed Linda's mind. She had been three when she first understood she could hear what other people were thinking. She had been six...
    "How old are you now?"
    Linda almost narrowed her eyes to hold back the answer she was sure to come from the girl.
    "I'm six!"
    That's when the walls began to talk.
    Same as You , they said, a unison of singsong voices. Though they weren't unpleasant voices Linda had jumped up, coming off the sofa like a shot. She looked at the walls.
    "Miss Linda, what's wrong?" The girl was up too and coming to stand near her.
    "It's..."
    "The walls?"
    Linda stared down at the child. "You can hear the walls?"
    Diane didn't even have to answer. Linda read her mind and knew everything. This child was like her doppelganger, her double. She had been born with the gift and she hadn't had to wait for years and maturity or strive to learn how to hear the thoughts projected out from animals and objects. She already had been listening to walls.
    "Come, sit back down." She led the girl back to the sofa where they took their seats. Linda held the girl's hand. "Tell me what you know about this house."
    It's a bad house, Miss Linda. It wants to kill you.
    "It's killed before," Linda said.
    The child sat quietly, listening, but not for Linda's thoughts. Now the house was talking to her, but not to Linda. After some moments the girl looked up into her face and talked to her in silence.
    Yes, it's killed before. It was built in 1879. It was made by a bunch of people who all lived here together. They knew...they knew...magic. They had rituals. They made sacrifices. Blood sacrifices.
    She couldn't take it any longer. She didn't think she wanted to know anymore, not now. This time when she stood, Linda pulled the girl along to the front door. "I don't think you should come here again. It's using you. I think it's dangerous here. Not just for me, but for you, too. Do you understand?"
    "A house never told me before it wanted to kill someone." The little girl looked sad and lost, unable to process all that she knew.
    "It's just this house, Diane. There must be places in the world where bad things happened and the walls soaked it all in and grew in evil ways. This is one of those places. Don't come back, all right? Stay with your parents and don't let anyone know all the things you hear. People won't understand. They'll think