Read It's All Downhill from Here for Free Online

library door at the end of the hall.
    â€œBut what happened after I woke up was even scarier,” Maggie said. “That’s what I need to show you. Come on.”
    She opened the door, and the two friends stepped into the library for the first time in the daylight. They saw a serious-looking room of dark wooden shelves filled with dust-covered books. Plushy upholstered chairs sat in each corner accompanied by a stained-glass floor lamp.
    Maggie imagined spending a rainy Saturday afternoon curled up in one of those chairs with a good bookand got a warm feeling for the first time since she’d arrived. Then she remembered all that had been going on since last night, and the warm feeling was replaced by the ever-more-familiar knot in her stomach.
    â€œSo last night, after I woke up, I came back to this room,” she continued. “I knew what I saw with that candle, and I knew there had to be a logical explanation. I found it right there.”
    Maggie led Sophie over to the wood panel on the far wall. She grabbed the square wooden knob.
    â€œA secret passageway leading to a hidden room!”
    â€œNo way!” said Sophie.
    â€œWay! Watch.”
    Maggie tried to turn the knob, which had moved so easily during the night. But this time, the knob didn’t budge.
    â€œWait a minute,” she said, now gripping the knob with both hands. Again, it stood firm. “I swear, Soph, this knob turned last night. Then that panel slid open, and I walked down a secret passageway.”
    â€œMaybe you were still dreaming?” Sophie suggested. “You said the dream about being trapped outside felt so real. Maybe you didn’t wake up and get out of bed.Maybe you only dreamed that you did.”
    Maggie searched her memory, replaying the events of the dream and what had followed once she woke up—or at least, thought she woke up. Could the whole thing have been a dream?
    â€œWhy don’t we check out the rest of the house, Mags?” Sophie asked, seeing her friend struggling to figure out what had happened to her.
    Maggie fought off her disappointment. She didn’t want to be mad at Sophie, her only ally in this miserable situation. And she realized that if the situation were reversed, she’d be having a lot of trouble believing Sophie.
    â€œSure,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    Heading back down the hallway, they stopped at a door on the left. “Good as any,” Sophie said, throwing it open.
    The two stepped into what appeared to be a small storage room. A startled spider scurried up its web, vanishing into a hole in the ceiling. Boxes and suitcases were piled in tall stacks. On a small table in the center of the room sat a pile of old photographs.
    Maggie thumbed through the curling brown photos of people who’d lived long ago.
    â€œLook at this one,” she said, handing it to Sophie.It was a shot of a man standing outside the Wharton Mansion holding a pair of skis.
    â€œIs this the guy you saw in the window and in your dream?” Sophie asked, trying to be supportive of her friend.
    â€œI’m not sure. It looks a bit like him, but . . .” Maggie suddenly recalled the paintings she had seen in the secret room. “No. It’s not him. It’s Samuel Wharton!”
    â€œWho?” Sophie asked.
    â€œI have no idea,” Maggie replied. “But I saw portraits of him hanging in that secret room.”
    After flipping through the rest of the photos, none of which provided any insight into what had happened during the night, Maggie and Sophie continued their exploration of the house. Mostly they saw old rooms in disrepair, lots of cobwebs, a whole bunch of spiders, and a mouse or two.
    None of this impressed Maggie or made her feel any happier about the prospect of living in this house. After a couple of hours more of exploring, Maggie heard the front door open, and an argument in progress entered the house.
    â€œBut you