Third Place Winner: Samantha Caplinger

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The Secret at Seaside - download as a pdf

Prologue      “I know you kissed her!” Arabella accused.
     “These jealous rages have got to stop!” Clifton exclaimed.
     As those words came from his mouth her fury exploded as she shoved him. He staggered back, grabbing nothing but air, the heel of his boot catching the lace hem of the curtains. His hand reached out towards her, but grabbed only the window frame as the glass exploded. He fell into nothing but cold, sweet darkness.
     “Room service. I’ve got your Mimosa, Miss Windsor!” Charles waited for several moments, then noticed the door ajar, and called out again. Gingerly he pushed it wide open to see the beautiful actress dangling by her neck from satin sheets. And he fainted right there in the doorway.

* * *
     “Are we almost there? I have to go to the bathroom so bad!” Joey yelled.
     “Yes, we are only about two or three blocks away, do you think you can wait that long?” his mother asked sarcastically.
     “Cindy, be easy on the kids, will you? After all it’s their vacation, too,” the children’s father asked their mother.
     “Dan, they are going to learn to behave or we won’t do this anymore!”
     “Mom, my batteries for my CD player just ran out of juice! Do we have any more?” Erika asked impatiently.
     “Erika, I just said we’d be there in a minute. Put your things away, I think I see the hotel.”
     “Pull in here, honey,” Cindy told Dan. “Do you guys see the looks of that place? I hope this isn’t where we’re staying.”
     The first sight of the hotel started with a sign by the road that blinked every so often. You could barely notice that the sign read “Seaside Inn” because of the absence of the “a” and one of the “ns.” They got out of the car, afraid to walk into the old decrepit hotel.
     “Mom, isn’t there any other place to go?” Joey asked.
     “No, this is the only place on the island. Otherwise, we would have passed this place up.”
     “I think it’s kind of interesting. I wonder when it was built, or who stayed in it!” Erika exclaimed. “There is so much to check out.”
     Dan interrupted her before she could go on. “We need to get settled in first before you go off exploring.”
     After they got their room key and their entire luggage with them, they started to go searching for their room.
     “Well, where do you think our room is?” Cindy curiously wondered out loud.
     “There it is!” both the children cried as they ran ahead, dying to know what the inside looked like. “Come on, hurry up!” the children urged their parents.
     “Okay, okay,” Dan said as he shook the handle of the old door.
     He put the key in and turned the knob. It looked like a regular hotel room, except for the extravagant chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling.
     Erika pounced on the nearest bed, almost hitting her head on the antique lamp set on the nightstand. Cindy walked across the room, ripped open the curtains, and opened the window to let in the crisp salty air.
     She breathed in deep and exhaled, “This is wonderful.”
     Joey quickly answered, “Are you crazy! This place is nine hundred years old. I bet we don’t even have hot water!”
     “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving,” said Dan. “Let’s go check out the dining room.”
     “Yeah,” Joey yipped.
     “Bet you I get there first!” yelled Erika as she tore past Joey.
     “Wait up!” Joey said as he race to catch up.
     Cindy called out “Slow down you two!”
     Seated in the dining room, they began to discuss the room they were staying in. Old Mrs. Hagley sitting at a nearby table overheard the conversation.
     “Ya know, there’s a well-known rumor about what happened in that room. Seems a young actress found her lover cheating on her and murdered him, and she became so distraught she hung herself from the chandelier.” Mrs. Hagley said as she leaned into the table and slipped into the conversation.
     “That’s creepy!” Erika said.
     “That’s tragic,” Cindy sighed.
     “Mom, do they have any other rooms?” Joey asked.
     “Don’t be sill, boy,” Dan scoffed.
     Mrs. Hagley continued, “Not trying to scare ya or anything, but strange things are know to happen in that room.”
     “Like what?!” Erika questioned with her eyes wide.
     “Oh, curtains billowing when the window’s shut, lights flickering, and things like that.”
     “Cool!” Joey blurted.
     Walking back to the room Dan asked Cindy, “What do you think of that strange old lady?”
     “I don’t know maybe she’s telling the truth,” Cindy answered, uncertain.
     “Or, maybe she’s off her rocker. She’s scaring away business telling people that story!”
* * *      The next morning Dan and Cindy decided to go into town to shop for souvenirs, while Erika and Joey stayed back to investigate.
     “Where do you want…?” Joey was interrupted by what sounded like the weeping of a young lady.
     “Is that coming from the beach?” Erika questioned.
     When she looked out the window, she saw the faint appearance of a lady walking along the shore with her face lying in her hands.
     “What do you think is wrong with her?” Erika wondered out loud.
     “I don’t know, we don’t know her, why worry,” Joey asked.
     “She looks really sad,” Erika said, concerned.
     “Well, let me see. What lady?”
     “That lady right there . . .She’s gone.”
     “Whatever,” Joey said. “Let’s go snoop around.”
     “Yeah!”
     As soon as they got to the end of the hallway they saw a sign that said, “Employees only but they ignored it. They just followed their curiosity. They climbed the dusty stairs to a small attic door. To their surprise it was unlocked. The door creaked as they pushed it open.
     Erika jumped and almost screamed as a cobweb brushed her face. They saw a rusty steamer trunk in the far corner. When they approached it, they saw the faint initials of A.W. on it. When they opened it, they saw the fancy clothes of a woman and all sorts of newspaper clippings.
     Erika pulled a cameo out of the trunk and put it around her neck and turned to look in the mirror. One of the newspaper headlines was “Hotel Tragedy Shocks Town.”
     “Hey look, Erika, it’s that story the old lady was telling us about at dinner last night. It is true!” Joey exclaimed.
     “AHHHHHH!” Erika’s scream was blood curdling. She was gasping as she pointed to the mirror.
     “What, what’s wrong?” Joey asked.
     “In the mirror, it was her, the lady from the beach!”
     Joey was stone faced as he turned the newspaper to show Erika, “You mean her?” he said pointing to the picture of Arabella.
     “Oh my gosh, let’s get out of here!” Erika shuddered.
     Back in the room, Joey looked at Erika and saw she still had on the cameo.
     “Erika, you still have that thing around your neck; give it here, we have to put it back!” Joey demanded as he reached for her neck.
     “What are you doing? Stop it!” she said as she shoved him backward.
     Joey’s eyes were wide as he looked into Erika’s face but instead saw Arabella. He stumbled back toward the open window, when from thin air the shimmering white ghost of Clifton intercepted Joey’s fall. The cameo dropped from Erika’s neck, and just as it hit the floor, she blinked as if waking from a dream.
     “What just happened?” Erika asked.
     “Look!” Joey exclaimed as he pointed out the window.
     Erika looked up to see Arabella and Cliff embracing mid-air.
     “I think they forgive each other.” As she said that Arabella and Cliff floated down to the beach and walked hand in hand into the moonlight.