Free Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan Page A

Sandy’s corner room was on the far side of the hall, facing off the other side of the house. And her own—
    “There’s a light on,” she said.
    “What?”
    “A light in my room. There—that window there—that is my room, isn’t it?”
    “Of course,” Sandy said. “Perhaps you left it on when you came down to dinner.”
    “I didn’t,” Kit said. “I remember turning the light off. Then I locked the door.” She stiffened, her eyes glued to the shining
     window, as a dark form moved across it.
    “Somebody’s there!” she exclaimed. “Somebody’s in my room!”
    “That’s impossible if you locked your door.” Sandy too was staring at the window. “Maybe it’s the curtain blowing.”
    “It’s not! It’s a person!” Kit whirled and started up the path at a run. “Come on, we’ll catch him! There’s no place he can
     go except back along the hall. If we get to the stairs in time we can cut him off!”
    But the stairs were empty, and so was the long, black hallway. The door was still locked. When she turned the key and opened
     it, Kit found the room dark. She turned on the light, and before she looked, she knew what she would find. The pencil portrait
     was no longer on her desk. It was gone.
    Her dream that night was different. It was a strange dream, and oddly lovely. In it she was in the music room, sitting at
     the piano, and her fingers were at home on the keys. There was no sheet music in front of her, but she was playing in a way
     that she never had played before. It was a beautiful melody, as cool and haunting as the moonlight in the garden, as smooth
     as the path of silver across the pond.
    It is so beautiful, she told herself in the dream, that I must try to remember it so that I can play it again . But the music had no name, and she knew that she had never heard it before.
    When she woke in the morning she felt as exhausted as though she had never slept at all, and her fingers ached.

The incoming mail was on a table in the entrance hall, and Kit, coming back from a class with Professor Farley, picked up the items addressed to her and carried them up to
     her room to read.
    There were two postcards from her mother, one from Cherbourg and one from Paris, both sent by airmail but with a week between
     mailing dates.
    “. . .  so exciting,” the first one said, “. . . marvelous trip over . . . so many interesting people on board . . . we caught
     up on our sleep and lay out on deck chairs.” The second was filled with references to the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre and
     the Folies Bergere.
    “Where are your letters, honey?” said a hurried postscript. “We got your note in Cherbourg but haven’t had a word since. You
     have our itinerary. Write care of American Express, but allow enough time.”
    Besides the postcards, there was a letter from Tracy. The neat, round handwriting, almost as familiar as Tracy herself, gave
     Kit a momentary pang of homesickness.
    “That must be some great place,” the letter ran, “if you can’t even get around to writing. What’s with that promise you made
     to keep me up to date on everything? Things here are as usual. I got Mrs. Logan for English—hooray!—and Mr. Garfield for Latin—boo!
     Advanced art is awesome, we can do whatever we want. There’s a cute guy in my geometry class named Kevin Webster. How are
     you dealing up at Blackwood without a single guy under the age of eighty?”
    There’s Jules, Kit thought. I wrote her about Jules in my very first letter. Did it get lost in the mail? But I’ve written a couple of times since and
     mentioned him both times .
    She flipped over the page and was skimming the next few paragraphs when there was a light rap at the door. “Come on in,” Kit
     called, assuming it was Sandy. To her surprise her visitor turned out to be Ruth Crowder.
    “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” The dark-haired girl stood hesitantly in the doorway. “If you’re in the middle of studying—”
    “I’m