1.2

“It’s somehow strange.”

The staircase leading to the second floor is located just opposite the entrance. And facing a crossroads: what to explore first - Leah began to rise again. If the house had a standard layout, then the living rooms were on the second floor, and in this case the first floor would have to wait.

Five closed doors plunged her into a slight stupor, since from the outside the house looked much more modest, but the very next minute, remembering the bathrooms, storage rooms and dressing rooms, she exhaled with relief. Knowing her mother, Leah could already be preparing for the assignment: cleaning the entire floor herself. However, there is a significant difference between five rooms and two or three.

Opening the nearest door, she saw a narrow staircase, apparently leading to a lonely turret. The dark corridor ended with another closed door.

Succumbing to curiosity, Leah climbed the groaning steps and pulled the handle.

Closed.

She squatted down, leaned forward, touching the floor of a small platform with her fingers, slowly moved towards the large keyhole and tried to look through it into the room.

Nothing. One thickening darkness.

I listened to the dead silence. And she said in a low voice:

- Hello. Is there anyone there?.. I hope we can become friends.

As expected, there was no answer. However, Leah was not very upset about this. Smiling at her childhood thought about the ghosts living in the attic, she rose from her knees and quickly walked downstairs. When she again went out into the square corridor of the second floor, she closed the door behind her without turning around.

The first room we examined turned out to be gigantic. Large windows stretching along the entire length of the wall looked out onto the road, near which the parents were still standing, talking with neighbors. But that's where all its advantages ended - at least for Leah. But Kayla will appreciate its size, biting off a decent piece for a dressing room, and she will also like good natural lighting.

Then she examined the combined bathroom, noting without pleasure the poor state of the plumbing: the entire inside of the prehistoric toilet was covered with a yellow coating, and a long, rough spot stretched along the bottom of the bathtub with worn enamel. And the tiles, in the seams of which there was perhaps no moss, which could not be said about the fungus, was also not left without attention.

“Mom will be happy ,” Leah remarked ironically.

The first thing she saw when she looked into the next room was a bright white sheet of paper against the background of a wooden floor. It lay in the center, with the lettering facing up. However, the words were written in too small letters to be read from afar, so she had to go and pick up the note the stranger had dropped.

“Your room ,” read the short phrase written in narrow, angular handwriting.

"Seriously?" — Leah grinned to herself and looked around.

The small, dark room suited her requirements, except for the window overlooking the neighboring house. However, for her this was an insignificant detail, since its location in the wall was much more important, and not the view that opened to the eye. Therefore, having more or less decided on her choice, she again moved towards the corridor, hoping to explore the remaining room, when she suddenly heard a noise from below.

The parents entered the hallway and, noticing her face peeking out from behind the staircase railing, smiled stupidly. Kayla immediately hurried to get up, babbling with exaggerated joy:

- What a wonderful town, and the neighbors are such wonderful people. Tomorrow Hugo promised to give us a tour of the city. At the same time, it will help you buy more things. And she invited Martisha to dinner on Saturday,” she smiled, putting her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. - Honey, have you already chosen your room?

“Yes, that one,” Leah shook her head, pointing at her.

“Wonderful, then I’ll go decide on the bedroom.”

— The attic door is locked. Don't have a key?

- What do you mean: “locked”? The realtor said that the attic and basement were not locked due to long-lost keys. He offered to change the locks for us, but I refused. “She smiled kindly and added in a gentle tone: “Maybe you didn’t lean hard enough on the door?” The house and doors here are old. Perhaps it was just jammed a little.

- Yes, you're probably right.

Kayla ran her hand along her back and headed towards the large room. And Leah, remaining standing in the corridor, looked thoughtfully at the closed door leading to the attic.

If you think about it like that, then she really didn’t make any special efforts: she pulled the handle once and calmed down. Now she was stifled by curiosity. On the one hand, I didn’t want to agree with my mother so easily because of the worm itching inside, wanting to defend its own; on the other hand, Leah never saw what the view was like from the round tower with a panoramic window. Therefore, having covered the distance to the door in a couple of steps, she opened it and froze.

Daylight fell on the steps from above.