“I am not going in there!” I screamed. I dug my heels into the red Texas dirt. “I won’t do it, Silas! You can’t make me!”
My name is Clara. I am twenty-two years old. Right now, my heart is beating so fast I think it might burst out of my chest. My new husband, Silas, is standing in front of me. He is a big man with shoulders like a mountain. His face is hidden by the shadow of his wide hat. He reached out and grabbed my wrist. His grip felt like a cold iron cuff. It hurt.
“You are my wife now, Clara,” Silas said. His voice was low and mean. “I paid for your train ticket. I bought that dress you are wearing. This is your home. Now, get inside before the sun goes down.”
I looked at the house. It sat all alone on a flat, dry hill. There were no trees. There were no flowers. The wood was gray and rotting. The windows looked like empty eyes. The front door was cracked open just an inch. It was pitch black inside. Something about that house made my skin crawl. It felt like the house was watching me. It felt like it was hungry.
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Silas pulled on my arm again. I stumbled. My beautiful white wedding dress was already ruined. The hem was stained with Texas mud. I thought back to how I got here. Just one month ago, I was a maid in a big, cold house in Chicago. I scrubbed floors until my knees bled. I had no family. I had no money. Then, I saw the advertisement in the newspaper.
“Kind, hardworking man in Texas seeks a wife. Must be brave and willing to work. A good home and a full belly guaranteed.”
Silas had sent me letters. In the letters, he sounded so sweet. He told me about the sunset. He told me he had a big ranch with hundreds of cows. He told me I would be the queen of his home. He even sent a photograph. In the picture, he was smiling. But standing here now, Silas wasn’t smiling. He looked like a man who was hiding a dark secret.
The wagon ride from the train station had taken five hours. The further we drove, the more scared I got. We passed no other houses. We passed no people. Just rocks, dust, and dry grass. Silas didn’t speak a word the whole way. He just whipped the horses to make them go faster.
“Why is it so quiet here, Silas?” I had asked him an hour ago.
“Quiet is good,” he had replied. “Quiet means nobody is poking their nose into my business.”
Now, we were at the door. The wind started to blow. It made a high, whistling sound through the cracks in the house. It sounded like a woman crying.
“Please,” I whispered. I felt tears in my eyes. “Silas, let’s just stay in the wagon tonight. It’s a nice night. We can sleep under the stars. I’ll cook us a meal over a fire.”
Silas let go of my wrist, but only to grab my shoulder. He pushed me toward the porch steps. The wood groaned under my boots. Creak. Creak. Creak. “I’m not asking you again, Clara,” he said. “A wife obeys her husband. That is the law of the West. If you don’t go in, I will have to be very, very cross with you.”
I looked at the front door again. I saw something on the porch floor. It was small and shiny. I looked closer. It was a gold earring. It looked just like the ones my mother used to wear. It was sitting right next to a dark stain on the wood. The stain looked like old, dried blood.
My breath hitched. “Silas… who lived here before me?”
Silas froze. His hand tightened on my shoulder. “Nobody. I built this place myself.”
“Then why is there a woman’s earring on the floor?” I asked. My voice was shaking. “And why does the air smell like something died under the floorboards?”
Stay with me as we continue. Things are about to get very dangerous for Clara. Make sure you have liked and shared this story! We need to know what Silas is hiding!
Silas didn’t answer. He lunged forward. He grabbed the earring and shoved it into his pocket. His eyes were wide now. He looked angry, but he also looked afraid. “It’s just a piece of junk left by a traveler. Don’t you worry about that. Now, get in the house!”
He shoved me hard. I fell onto the porch. I scrambled backward, away from the open door. The smell coming from inside was terrible now. It smelled like old meat and sour milk. It was the smell of a place that had been shut up for a long time.
“No!” I shouted. I stood up and tried to run toward the horses.
But Silas was too fast. He grabbed the back of my dress. I heard the fabric rip. He spun me around. His face was inches from mine. I could smell the tobacco and whiskey on his breath.
“You think you can run?” he hissed. “There is nothing out here for fifty miles but coyotes and rattlesnakes. You belong to me now. You signed the papers at the station. You are Mrs. Silas Thorne. And Mrs. Silas Thorne stays in the house.”
He began to drag me toward the dark doorway. I clawed at the air. I tried to grab the door frame. My fingers touched the wood, but it was slick and greasy.
“Help!” I cried out. But I knew nobody could hear me. The wind just carried my voice out into the empty desert.
Just as Silas dragged me to the threshold, I looked down at the dirt path. I saw something else. There was a row of mounds in the dirt, just past the corner of the house. They were shaped like rectangles. They were the size of a person. There were three of them.
My heart stopped. Silas saw me looking at the mounds.
“What are those?” I whispered.
Silas stopped pulling for a second. He looked at the three mounds of dirt. Then he looked at me. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face. It wasn’t a kind smile. It was the smile of a hunter.
“Those are my past mistakes, Clara,” he said. “I’m hoping I don’t have to make a fourth one today.”
He gave one final, powerful shove. I flew through the air. I landed on the hard, cold floor inside the house.
SLAM!
The front door shut behind me. I heard the sound of a heavy metal bolt sliding into place. I was trapped. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. I scrambled to the door and beat my fists against it. “Silas! Open the door! Let me out!”
“I’ll be back in the morning to see if you’ve learned some manners,” Silas shouted from the other side.
I heard his footsteps walking away. I heard him climb onto the wagon. I heard the crack of the whip and the sound of the horses moving away. He was leaving me here. He was leaving me locked inside this stinking, dark house.
I turned around, leaning my back against the door. I was shivering, even though the Texas night was warm. My eyes started to get used to the dark. A little bit of moonlight was coming through the cracks in the walls. I looked across the room. There was a table. There were two chairs. And in the corner, there was a bed.
But there was something on the bed. It wasn’t a person. It was a pile of clothes. Dresses. Three different dresses. A blue one, a yellow one, and a pink one. They were all torn. They were all covered in dust.
Then, I heard a sound. It wasn’t Silas. It wasn’t the wind. It was coming from underneath the floorboards.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Something was moving under the house. And then, a tiny, weak voice whispered from the darkness of the kitchen.
“Is… is someone there?”
The Girl in the Floor
I held my breath. I stayed very, very still. My back was pressed against the hard wood of the front door. The house was silent again. But I knew what I heard. I heard a voice.
“Who is there?” I whispered. My voice sounded tiny in the big, dark room. “Please. Tell me who you are.”
I heard the scratching sound again. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. It was coming from near the kitchen table. I moved slowly. I didn’t want to trip. My hands touched the cold, dusty table. My fingers found something. It was a small box of matches.
I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking. I struck a match. Ff-tt! A tiny yellow flame popped into life. The light was small, but it felt like a miracle. I looked at the floor. Right under the table, there was a square piece of wood. It was a trapdoor. It was shifted just a little bit. A pair of eyes was looking up at me through the crack. They were big, brown eyes. They looked terrified.
“Don’t scream,” the voice said. It was a girl. She sounded young. Maybe twelve or thirteen years old. “If you scream, Silas might hear you. He hasn’t gone far. He never goes far.”
I knelt on the floor. The match burned my fingers, and I dropped it. The room went black again. I quickly struck another match.
“I am Clara,” I said. “I am Silas’s new wife. He locked me in here. Who are you?”
The trapdoor pushed open. A small, thin girl crawled out. Her face was covered in soot and dirt. Her hair was a messy nest of knots. She was wearing a dress that used to be blue, but now it was gray with grime.
“I am Lily,” she said. She was shivering. “I was the sister of the first one. The first wife. Her name was Sarah. She brought me here from the city. She thought we were going to have a better life.”
Lily looked at the bed in the corner. She looked at the three dresses lying there. “That blue dress was hers,” Lily whispered. “Sarah wore it the day we arrived. She looked so pretty. She looked just like you, Clara.”
Stop right there! This is getting very intense. I want to ask you a question. If you were Clara, would you try to run out the back door, or would you stay and talk to Lily? Tell me what you would do in the comments! Also, tell me where you are listening from.
I felt a cold shiver go down my spine. “Where is Sarah now, Lily? Why are you hiding under the floor?”
Lily reached out and grabbed my hand. Her skin felt like paper. “Silas is a bad man, Clara. He isn’t a rancher. He doesn’t have hundreds of cows. He just waits for women like you. Women who have no family. Women who are lonely. He brings them here. He takes their money. He takes their jewelry. And then…”
Lily stopped talking. She looked at the front door. She seemed to be listening for Silas.
“And then what?” I asked. I was almost too afraid to hear the answer.
“And then he gets bored,” Lily said. “He gets angry. He says the wives don’t work hard enough. He says they don’t obey him. He takes them outside at night. He takes his shovel. And they never come back in.”
I thought about the three mounds of dirt I saw outside. My stomach felt sick. I thought about my life back in Chicago. I worked in a laundry house. It was a hard life. The steam from the big pots of water made my skin red and itchy. My boss was mean. He yelled at me every day.
I remembered the day the laundry house caught fire. I lost everything. My small bed, my books, and the one picture I had of my mother. I was standing on the street in the rain with nothing. That was why I answered the advertisement. I wanted to be safe. I wanted a husband who would protect me.
I looked at Lily. “I came here for a better life, too,” I whispered. “I thought Silas was a good man. His letters were so kind.”
“He didn’t write those letters,” Lily said. She sat on the floor and hugged her knees. “He can’t read or write. Sarah wrote those letters for him. He made her do it. He made her write to the next woman. He made her describe the beautiful sunsets and the cows. He used her words to trap the next wife.”
I felt a tear run down my face. “So… the pink dress? And the yellow dress?”
“Those were the others,” Lily said. “Mary and June. They were kind to me. They gave me scraps of food. They told me to stay hidden. Silas doesn’t know I’m still here. He thinks I ran away into the desert a long time ago. He thinks the coyotes got me.”
“Why didn’t you run away, Lily?” I asked.
Lily looked at me with sad eyes. “There is nowhere to go, Clara. The desert is too big. The sun is too hot. And Silas… Silas has a horse. I only have my feet. He would find me before I reached the road.”
I looked around the dark room. I didn’t want to be a mound of dirt. I didn’t want my dress to be left on a bed for the next girl to find. I had to do something.
“We have to leave, Lily,” I said. I stood up. I felt a new strength in my legs. “We have to leave tonight. Silas is gone for now. We can find the horses.”
“No!” Lily hissed. She stood up and grabbed my arm. “You don’t understand. Silas didn’t leave. He never leaves the horses where a wife can find them. He takes the wagon down into the valley. He hides there. He watches the house. He is watching us right now.”
I looked at the windows. They were small and dirty. I imagined Silas out there in the dark. I imagined him sitting in his wagon, holding his whip, waiting for me to try and run.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“He wants you to be afraid,” Lily said. “He likes it when the wives beg. He likes to see them cry. He says it makes them ‘soft.’ But he is getting ready, Clara. I saw him today. He was sharpening his shovel. He only does that when a new wife arrives.”
I looked at the kitchen. There was a small stove. There were a few plates. I saw a knife sitting on the counter. It was a small knife for cutting bread. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I walked over and picked it up. The handle was greasy, but the blade was sharp.
“We are going to fight,” I said. “I am not going to be a ‘mistake,’ Lily. And I am not going to let him hurt you anymore.”
Suddenly, the house shook.
THUMP.
It sounded like something heavy hit the porch.
THUMP. THUMP.
Footsteps. Heavy, slow footsteps. They were coming toward the door.
“He’s back,” Lily whispered. She looked like she was going to faint. “He’s back early! Hide, Clara! Get in the floor with me!”
I looked at the trapdoor. It was too small for both of us to hide quickly.
“No,” I said. “I’m staying here.”
I blew out the match. The room went black. I held the bread knife tight in my hand. My heart was drumming against my ribs. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The metal bolt on the door began to slide. Screeech. It was a slow, painful sound.
“Clara?” Silas’s voice came through the wood. He sounded different now. He didn’t sound mean. He sounded happy. He sounded like a child playing a game. “Clara, are you being a good wife? Are you ready to come out and see the stars?”
I didn’t move. I stood in the middle of the room. The door creaked open. A sliver of moonlight hit the floor. I saw Silas’s shadow. It was long and distorted. He was holding something long in his hand. It wasn’t a whip.
It was the shovel.
“I brought something for you, Clara,” Silas said. He stepped into the room. He smelled like the dry dust of the graves outside. “I realized I didn’t finish my work today. I have three mounds out there. That is an uneven number. I like things to be even. I think four is a much better number, don’t you?”
He took another step. The floorboards groaned. He was looking at the bed. He didn’t see me standing in the shadows by the kitchen.
“Clara?” he called out. “Where are you, my sweet bride? Don’t play hide and seek with me. I always win that game.”
He walked toward the bed. He lifted the shovel high. Then, Lily made a sound. She was still under the table. She tried to crawl back into the hole, but her foot hit a chair.
Clatter!
Silas froze. He turned his head slowly toward the table. A mean, nasty grin grew on his face. “Lily?” Silas whispered. “Is that you? I thought I smelled a little rat in my house.”
He forgot all about me. He started walking toward the table where Lily was hiding. He raised the shovel over his head.
“I should have finished you a year ago,” Silas growled.
I knew I had to move. If I didn’t move now, Lily would be dead. I gripped the bread knife. I took a step forward.
“Silas!” I yelled.
He stopped. He turned around. He looked shocked to see me standing there. He looked at the knife in my hand. He laughed. It was a loud, barking laugh that filled the small house.
“A bread knife?” Silas mocked. “You’re going to fight me with a bread knife? You really are a feisty one, Clara. I’m going to enjoy putting you in the ground.”
He lunged at me. I ducked. The shovel swung over my head and smashed into the wall. CRACK! The wood splintered. I ran for the door. I had to get outside. If I could get to the wagon, maybe I could find a real weapon. Or maybe I could just run.
I burst through the door and onto the porch. The night air was cool, but I was sweating. I ran down the steps. I didn’t look back. I ran toward the dark mounds of dirt. But as I reached the edge of the house, I tripped. My foot caught on something hard. I fell face-first into the dirt.
I looked down to see what I tripped on. It wasn’t a rock. It wasn’t a root. It was a hand. A pale, bony hand sticking out of the dirt.
And then, I felt a heavy hand grab my hair from behind.
“Going somewhere, Mrs. Thorne?” Silas hissed in my ear.
The Light of the Morning
My head was pulled back so far I could only see the stars. They looked like cold, white diamonds in the black sky. Silas had a handful of my hair. He was pulling me toward the three mounds of dirt. Every step he took, I felt a sharp pain in my scalp. I tried to grab his arm, but he was too strong. He was like a wall of stone.
“Look at them, Clara!” Silas shouted. He was laughing, but it wasn’t a happy sound. It was the sound of a man who had lost his mind. “Look at Sarah. Look at Mary. Look at June. They were all just like you. They all thought they could leave. But nobody leaves the Thorne ranch. Not ever.”
I looked down at the pale hand sticking out of the dirt. It was thin and white. It looked like a piece of wood. I felt a wave of sadness wash over me. These women had names. They had dreams. They had families who probably wondered where they were. They came here looking for love, just like I did. Instead, they found Silas.
“I am not going to be number four!” I screamed.
I still had the bread knife in my hand. I swung it behind me. I didn’t look where I was aiming. I just swung with all my might. The blade caught Silas on the arm. He let out a loud grunt and let go of my hair. I fell into the dirt. I scrambled away from him on my hands and knees. My heart was thumping so hard I could hear it in my ears. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. “You little cat!” Silas roared. He looked at his arm. There was a thin line of red blood on his shirt. He wasn’t badly hurt, but he was very, very angry. He picked up his shovel. The metal blade gleamed in the moonlight. “Now you’ve done it. I was going to be quick with you. But now? Now I’m going to take my time.”
He started walking toward me. He was slow. He knew I had nowhere to go. Behind me was the empty desert. In front of me was a man with a shovel.
Wait! Before we see the end, I need your help! If you are reading this right now, please share this story. Hit that share button and send it to one person. Let’s see if we can get 100 shares for Clara! Also, leave a comment. Do you think Lily is going to help, or is she too scared?
I backed up until my heels hit a piece of wood. It was the edge of one of the graves. I looked behind me. The hole was deep. It was dark. It was waiting for me.
“Silas, stop!” I pleaded. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll stay! I’ll be the best wife. I’ll cook and clean. I’ll never say another word!”
I was lying. I just wanted him to stop moving. I wanted to live. Silas stopped. He leaned on his shovel. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “You all say that,” he said. His voice was suddenly very calm. That was almost scarier than the shouting. “Sarah said it. Mary said it. Even June said it. But you don’t mean it. You look at me with those eyes. Those eyes that say I’m a monster. I’m not a monster, Clara. I’m just a man who wants what is mine.”
He raised the shovel again. He stepped forward. Suddenly, a shadow moved in the doorway of the house. It was Lily. She was carrying something heavy. It was the iron frying pan from the kitchen. She was shaking so hard she could barely stand, but she was moving.
“Leave her alone!” Lily screamed.
She ran down the porch steps. She didn’t look like a scared little girl anymore. She looked like a small, angry bird. She ran right at Silas. Silas turned around. “You!” he hissed. “I told you to stay in the hole, Lily!”
He swung the shovel at her. Lily ducked. She was fast because she was small. She swung the heavy iron pan. CLANG! It hit Silas right in the knee. Silas let out a cry of pain. He dropped to one bone-cracking knee. The shovel fell out of his hands and landed in the dirt near me.
“Run, Clara!” Lily shouted.
I didn’t run. If I ran, he would just get up and catch us. I saw the shovel. I grabbed the wooden handle. It felt heavy and cold. I stood up. I felt a fire in my chest. This was for Sarah. This was for Mary. This was for June. And this was for me.
Silas was trying to stand up. He was reaching for his knife in his belt.
“No,” I said.
I swung the shovel. I didn’t hit him with the flat side. I hit him with the heavy metal edge. I hit him right in the side of the head.
THUD.
Silas fell over. He didn’t make a sound. He just landed face-first in the dirt, right next to the hand of the wife he had killed. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. The desert was silent again.
I dropped the shovel. My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t hold it anymore. I looked at Lily. She was standing there with the frying pan. Her eyes were wide. Tears were washing clean paths through the dirt on her face.
“Is he… is he gone?” Lily whispered.
I walked over to Silas. I touched his neck. There was no pulse. “He’s gone, Lily. He can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
Lily dropped the pan. She ran to me and hugged my waist. She started to sob. I held her tight. We stood there in the middle of the Texas desert, surrounded by graves and ghosts. But we were alive.
“We have to go,” I said. “We have to find the horses.”
We searched the area behind the house. We found a small stable hidden behind a hill. Inside were two horses. They looked thin and tired, but they were standing. We found the wagon Silas had hidden. I helped Lily into the wagon. I climbed onto the seat. I took the reins in my hands. I looked back at the house one last time. The gray wood looked even uglier in the moonlight. I thought about the three dresses on the bed.
“Wait,” I said.
I jumped down. I ran back into the house. I grabbed the three dresses—the blue one, the yellow one, and the pink one. I took them outside. I laid them over the three mounds of dirt.
“You aren’t forgotten,” I whispered to the wind. “I’m taking Lily away. She’s going to be okay.”
I went back to the wagon. I shook the reins. “Hya!” I shouted.
The horses started to move. The wagon creaked and groaned. We drove away from the House of Shadows. We drove toward the east. I knew the sun would be coming up soon. As we drove, the sky started to turn from black to a deep, beautiful purple. Then it turned to orange. Then, finally, a bright, golden yellow. The sun peeked over the edge of the world. It felt warm on my face.
Lily was sitting next to me. She was watching the sunrise. “It’s beautiful,” she said. It was the first time I heard her voice sound clear and sweet.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
I reached into my pocket. I found the gold earring I had picked up earlier. I looked at it. It sparkled in the morning light. I didn’t want to keep it. It belonged to a life that was over. I tossed it out of the wagon. I watched it fall into the dust and disappear.
We had no money. We had no home. We were just two girls in a wagon in the middle of nowhere. But for the first time in my life, I felt free. I wasn’t a maid. I wasn’t a “bride.” I was Clara. And I was going to find a place where we could be safe.
I looked at Lily and smiled. She smiled back. The horses kept walking, and the sun kept rising, higher and higher, lighting up the whole world. We were going to be okay. We were finally going home.
I hope you enjoyed this story! This was for every person who has ever felt trapped and found the strength to walk away.
If you were in Clara’s shoes, would you have left the dresses on the graves as a final tribute, or would you have burned that house to the ground to erase the memory?