At the sudden appearance of the trespasser, Harleigh Four was confused by a series of rapidly changing reactions. The first and most unexpected was a rush of eager excitement. Almost as if he were about to say something stupid like, “Hey! You did come back. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
But he managed to bite his tongue and consider some other, more suitable, remarks. Questioning remarks like, “What are you doing up there?” or “Who are you, anyway?” And another one that suddenly seemed especially urgent. “How did you get up there?”
Various possibilities were still shuffling through his mind like a deck of cards when she said, “Do you want to come up?”
Harleigh frowned, gulped, and nodded. “Yes, I guess so. How?”
Her head disappeared behind the piece of wall and then reappeared. “Here,” she said. “Get back out of the way.” A moment later something fell to the ground at Harleigh’s feet with a muffled clanking sound. It turned out to be a bag made of old stiff leather, and inside the bag were three iron rods, each about a foot long.
Harleigh was starting to ask when she explained.
“Look on the trunk of the tree about two feet high. No. More over that way. Do you see a round hole? Push one of those rods into it.”
He was about to say he didn’t see a hole when he found it, small and round and almost covered by a loose flap of bark. Inside the hole there seemed to be a hollow metal pipe that had been driven into the trunk of the tree. Following the girl’s directions, he slid the rod into the pipe until only a few inches remained outside the trunk.
“Now look a little over that way and you’ll see another hole. Put another one of the rods in and you can stand on them to reach the hole for the next one,” she went on. He followed her directions, but it wasn’t easy. Not that he had any trouble figuring out what had to be done. He wasn’t stupid. But it was just that even with the two rods firmly in place, it wasn’t easy for him to use them to climb up to where the trespasser was leaning down through a narrow opening between two wooden panels. Even after he realized that there was a another rod already in place farther up, he slipped and had to jump free and start over several times before he reached the point where the girl could grab his arm and help him climb on up. Up to where he was finally able to slide clumsily on his stomach onto a warped and splintery floorboard. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he looked around and quickly decided it was hardly worth the effort.
The planks that formed the floor and walls of the tree house were sturdy but rough and badly stained. Inside the small enclosure there were only a torn and ragged bit of braided rug and a small wooden box, on which sat a rusty tin can full of yellow flowers. Next to the pitiful flower arrangement was a small cup with a missing handle sitting on what was left of a cracked saucer. And overhead—nothing but a piece of ragged canvas.
“Did you build this yourself?” he asked.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head solemnly. “I didn’t build it. It’s been here for years and years. Someone probably built it for some Weatherby children a long time ago. A very long time ago.” She pointed. “I found that cup and saucer right down there buried in the dirt near the trunk. I think they’re very old. The children they belonged to probably died a long time ago.” She paused thoughtfully before she went on, “I don’t think they mind if I use their things.”
“How could they mind if they’re . . .” Harleigh began and then dropped it. A shiver was crawling down the back of his neck. Hoping to change the subject, he glanced up at the torn canvas roof and asked, “What do you do when it rains?”
She smiled, almost giggled. “Oh, I don’t come here when it rains.”
“Oh.” Harleigh considered for a moment. Considered the fact that he had almost been ready to believe that this was where she lived, right up here in the tree. He shrugged inwardly, excusing himself for having such a stupid idea by thinking that a person could believe almost anything about someone who looked so much like—like what?
Just as before, she was dressed in what seemed to be the ragged remains of a fancy costume, which glittered here and there with all that remained of what must once have been a pattern of shiny sequins. And beneath the sequined tatters, some skin-colored leotards that ended at her wrists and ankles. Her small feet, narrow and long-toed, were bare.
“So, how often do you come here?” he finally asked, and then, before she could answer, “And where do you come from? I mean, where do you live?”
She didn’t answer immediately, but at last she nodded slowly and said, “I’ve lived in a lot of places. Famous places like London and New York and Miami. But right now I’m living in Riverbend.”
“Well, sure,” he said, frowning. “I could have guessed that much. I mean, where in Riverbend.”
She sighed and turned her face away. When she looked back, she stared right into Harleigh’s eyes. Her own eyes were misty gray and very wide open. “I’m not allowed to say,” she said.
“What do you mean? Who won’t let you?”
Another mournful sigh. “It’s a long story,” she began. “My family are very famous people, but they have to be careful because they lead very dangerous lives. So sometimes they send me away to live in Riverbend because they think I’ll be safer here.”
Harleigh believed her. Or at least he came fairly close to it. He had to swallow hard before he asked, “So you were in danger when you lived with your family?”
“Yes,” she said sadly, still staring right into his eyes. “Sometimes I guess I was. I have a very strange story. Maybe I’ll tell you someday. But in the meantime, you can call me Allegra.”
“Allegra?”
She nodded. “Of course, I have been called other things, but my real name is Allegra. You can call me that.”
That did it. He wasn’t taking her “being in danger” story very seriously when he replied, “Okay. I’ll call you Allegra, if you promise not to call me Hardly anymore.”
She nodded and said she wouldn’t. But then she suddenly smiled and leaned forward.
“Tell me about the House,” she said. “About Weatherby House.”
Pulling his mind back from a lot of unanswered questions, Harleigh shrugged and asked, “Why? What do you want to know about it?”
Her smile widened. “Everything. I really like old houses. All old houses are full of mysteries and stories, and I think the Weatherby House is the most mysterious one in the whole world. I want to know everything about it. Like how many rooms there are and what they all look like. And oh yes, what it looks like right inside those great big front doors. The ones with the carved panels and the big marble posts on each side.”
It was Harleigh’s turn to smile. “The pillars, you mean. They’re called pillars, not posts.”
“Yes, pillars,” she said eagerly. “They’re beautiful.”
Harleigh was nodding in agreement when he suddenly wondered how she knew about the pillars, and the doors as well. “Hey,” he said. “I guess you haven’t spent all your time up in this tree. I mean, how do you know what the front entrance looks like? You can’t see it from anywhere outside our fence. I guess it could be seen from the front gate a long time ago, but not since the trees and bushes got so tall. So you’ve been sneaking around on Weatherby property?”
Her nod was quick and positive. “Oh, yes. I’ve been all the way around the House. It takes a long time, but I’ve been all the way around it.”
There was something about the way she said the word “House” that made it seem to need a capital letter. “The House,” she said again. “Tell me about the House.”
“Well,” Harleigh found himself saying, “I really can’t say for sure how many rooms there are. I’ve tried to count them, but I always lose track. But about what’s inside those big doors? It’s not exactly a room. It’s more like a big lobby or entry hall. Right inside those doors, there’s this big wide area with fancy antique tables and cabinets and clocks and lots of famous paintings on the walls. There’s even”—he tried to make his grin suggest that he thought it was a bit much even for Weatherby House—“there’s even a suit of armor. You know, like a whole man made out of pieces of armor. And with a sword and a shield.”
She nodded hard. “Yes, I know about medieval suits of armor. I thought there might be one. And what’s after that?”
“After what?”
“After the entry hall? What comes next after that?”
So he went on about the drawing room. “It’s like an enormous living room, only nobody lives in it anymore, so all the furniture is covered with dust sheets. And there’s this domed ceiling painted with pictures of flying birds and angels sitting on clouds, and things like that. I guess it’s all sort of faded, but it still looks pretty good.” He was about to start in on the library when she interrupted.
“Now about the people. Not the ones who built it. Tell me about all the people who live there now.”
Harleigh was puzzled. He had begun to think he’d figured out what she was about. She was, he’d decided, just another person who loved expensive stuff, particularly if it was old expensive stuff. Like the people in Riverbend who pretended to be Aunt Adelaide’s friends, but really didn’t like her much. People who, as Aunt Adelaide was always saying, only asked her to teas and parties because, even though they knew she’d never accept their invitations, they still thought if they asked her she might ask them to Weatherby House. This girl, Harleigh had decided, was just another person wanting a Weatherby House invitation. But now she was unexpectedly changing the subject to people.
“What about the people?” he asked.
She tipped her head and stared off as if into a far distance. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Who they are and what they’re like?” Turning back to face Harleigh, she went on, “And the ghosts, too. What are they like?”
“Ghosts? What makes you think there are ghosts in Weatherby House? I’ve never seen one.”
“No?” She sounded incredulous. Unbelieving. “Not even one? Not even the one who walks around on that long balcony sobbing and crying?”
For a moment Harleigh was dumbfounded, but then he laughed. “Oh, that must have been Sheila. She’s not a ghost. She’s just one of the descendants. Everybody calls her Sad Sheila. Aunt Adelaide says she’s hysterical.”
“Hysterical?”
“Yes. Whatever that means—besides making her go around looking sorrowful all the time and crying a lot. She came to Weatherby House a long time ago with papers that proved she was related, so Aunt Adelaide let her move in. But most of the other descendants don’t like her because they think there must be something funny about the way she descended. Some of them complained about all the noisy crying, so now she goes out onto the balcony to do it.”
The girl who called herself Allegra seemed even more fascinated. When Harleigh ran out of things to say about Sheila, she sighed and said, “Oh that’s such a sad story. I wish I knew what makes her cry. Don’t you know what she’s crying about? Haven’t you ever asked her?”
Harleigh’s answer was simply, “No,” but its tone said, No. Of course not.
“Oh,” Allegra said. Just “oh,” but something about the way she said it was definitely disapproving. For a long moment she went on frowning, but then suddenly she stood up. “I have to go now,” she said. “But next time I want to hear more about Sheila and the others. All the others. And about the House, too.”
She left then, but not by climbing out and dropping off the limb. This time she used the iron rods to climb down to where she waited, calling instructions until Harleigh was back on the ground. Then she pulled out the three lower rods, put them in the bag, and tossed them back up into the tree house. And when Harleigh asked her why she did that, she said, “So no one else will use them.”
“So how will you get up the next time you come?”
Her eyes were wide and solemn as she said, “Oh, I don’t need them.”
Harleigh was still staring up at the tree house wondering about that when there was a rustling noise in the bamboo patch, and when he whirled around she was gone.