Chapter One (part two)

Here's he second part of Chapter One. It starts right where the last post left off.
I'm going to try really hard to post another one this week, but we're moving friday and I haven't had time to write anymore. I have a lot of great ideas though! I pretty much have the whole thing planned out in my head.
Grace, you posted a question. Mike (or is it Matt? Can't keep my own characters straight! Ah ha! Matt is her brother you just don't know that yet! It's all coming back to me!) owns the house, I just haven't said that yet. At first he was just going to be part of a historical society, giving him access to old house, but then I thought more and he would have to own it for it to work. You'll see later how him owning it plays into the story.

Hope you enjoy this post!

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“Kind of a strange thing to be in a child’s book,” she mumbled to herself.
“What was that?” Mike asked.
“Oh nothing,” Kathleen replied, “Just a slip of paper that fell out of this book.”
“Let me see that,” he reached for the slip of paper and read what it said.
“Isn’t it strange? Why would something like that be in a child’s book?”
Mike laughed at her, then said sternly, “Kathleen turn off your over mysterious mind. Your brother has told me about the many times you’ve gotten yourself into trouble with it. This is just a harmless little piece of paper; she was probably using it as a book mark.”
Kathleen gave him an angry look. “I wasn’t thinking that it had something to do with her disappearance. I just thought it was sort of a strange thing for a little girl to have,” she retorted.
“Right. Like I said, it’s just a harmless little piece of paper. Nothing to it,” he gave her a smile. “Let’s go see the other rooms.”
“You go ahead and open them up. I want to look around in here for a little bit more,” as she said this she moved closer to the old music box.
“Alright, but don’t be too long.” Mike walked out of the room.
Picking up the music box, Kathleen looked it over. There looked to be something written on the bottom, but she couldn’t make it out. Carefully she gave it a wind and then set it down to play. The tune it played was some what eerie. It gave the feeling of someone watching her. She turned around and looked about the room.
“Just that creepy tune,” she said to herself.
While the music was still playing, she moved over to a trunk that sat in one of the corners. She tried lifting the lid, but it was either stuck or locked, and wouldn’t budge. She finally stopped looking around the room and went to go find Mike.
As Kathleen walked out into the hall she saw a figure walking a short distance ahead of her.
“Mike?” she asked. “Is that you?”
The figure turned around, obviously startled. Almost at the same moment that he turned around, Kathleen heard a crash from below. Surprised, she took the figure for Mike, and ran down the stairs to see what had made the noise, yelling as she went, “Come on Mike! That sounded like it came from the great room!” She flew down the hall and around the corner to the stairs. A few minutes after Kathleen reached the bottom and looked around Mike came down the steps asking, “What happened?”
Nothing appeared to have been moved.
Kathleen ran on into the next room and looked around. There on the floor by the front door was a vase, shattered into several pieces.
“We must have left the door open and the wind blew it off the table,” she surmised.
“I purposely did not leave that door open. I didn’t want anyone to follow us in.” Matt stood there thinking.
“Well what else could have happened? Unless…,” Kathleen drew out the word ‘unless,’ “someone else is in the house with us!”
“That is highly unlikely. How would anyone have gotten in?” Mike had a strange look on his face and Kathleen knew that she was probably right.
“I don’t know,” Kathleen replied, suddenly she remembered seeing Mike in the hall. “Hey Mike,” she asked, “What were you doing in the hall before the crash?”
“I wasn’t in the hall,” he looked at her strangely as she said this. “Did you see someone in the hall, Kathleen?”
Kathleen stood still. There was definitely a mystery inside that old house and she wasn’t going to stop until she found out what it was.

Firts Post!

Hi Everyone! This is my first book that I'm posting. I'm hoping that by having other people read and review my work it will help me to write better.
This is one of my Kathleen Rider mysteries. We may actually turn it into a movie this summer so be very critical and post comments often!
I'm going to post chapters in pieces so that I'll have more posts and they'll all fit.
Remeber to post commnets. I want to hear what you think. And please don't put only nice things, I need your oppinions. Don't be afraid to be too harsh.

Here Goes!


Chapter One



“This particular room was used by the original owner as a study,” Michael said. “He spent most of his time in here. No moving onto the next room,” he made a gesture to the door. Kathleen followed him out. She was very grateful to Michael, or Mike as he was more commonly called, for showing her inside the old house. An old house like this fascinated her.
The next room was the great room. It was furnished with expensive furniture and had heavy velvet draperies on the windows. Kathleen scanned it eagerly.
“This room was used for when the family had company. Since they were so rich, this room was used a lot,” Mike paused a minute and pointed at an old piano. “That belonged to the Hunter family’s only daughter. She used to be very good at playing it.”
Kathleen walked over to the old instrument. It was covered and dust, evidence of its not being used in awhile.
“As you know, the girl disappeared shortly after her parents’ death,” he explained.
“No one knows what happened to her?” Kathleen asked.
“Relatives searched for years for the girl, but not even a slight clue to be found that could tell them her whereabouts.”
Kathleen opened the cover to the keys. She could imagine a girl sitting there playing a song. The song was loud and happy, but suddenly it changed to something soft and almost sad. After a moment, the playing stopped and the girl turned around.
“Kathleen?” Mike asked.
“Huh? Oh!” she came out of her thoughts. “I was just, uh, thinking.”
Mike looked at her strangely for a minute, and then said, “Let’s move on to the upstairs.”
Kathleen followed him up the creaking stairs.
The first room they entered was a guest, as was the next two. After going down a hallway they reached the family’s rooms. The furnishings in these were not as nice as they had been in the other rooms. Kathleen questioned Mike about this.
“The guest rooms were furnished with a finer quality of furniture to make it appear that the whole house was richly furnished and to give the appearance of wealth.”
Kathleen thought a minute. “So basically they were just showing off?”
“That’s it exactly,” Mike laughed.
Kathleen smiled.
They left the room they were in and went into the next. Kathleen could tell by the décor that this had been the girl’s room. There were porcelain dolls, books about fairytales, frilly dresses, a music box, and a canopy over the four poster bed. It was once a very beautiful room, but now the wall paper had become faded and had started to peel away from the walls. Kathleen moved around carefully fingering some of the toys. When she picked up one of the books, a slip of paper fell out. She read it silently. “’Phell’s Factory,’” it read.