Chapter 13 The House on the Hill

 

Lila climbed the hill to the old house, and pushed the front door. It opened slowly. She walked inside and shut the door behind her. It was sunny outside, but inside the house it was strangely cold and dark. There was an unpleasant smell of dry wood and old furniture.

'I mustn't be afraid,' Lila thought.'I must find the old woman. She can tell me about Marion. Maybe I'll even find my sister here.'

So, thinking about her sister, Lila bravely began to move towards the stairs.

'You don't talk very much, do you?' Sam said to Bates in the motel office.

Bates, with his hands in his pockets and his back against the wall, laughed nervously.

'I thought that people who lived alone enjoyed talking. You're alone, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'I hate being alone,' said Sam. 'When I'm alone, I go mad.'Norman stopped smiling. 'Why do you say that?' 'I think that people who live alone go mad,' Sam answered, feeling quietly pleased. The smooth young man with the boyish smile was beginning to look uncomfortable. 'Don't you agree?' Norman's face went red.

Lila arrived at the top of the stairs and knocked on the bedroom door.

'Mrs Bates?' she called softly.

There was no reply, so she pushed the door open and walked inside. She couldn't believe her eyes. Everything was so old, from the heavy curtains by the window to the golden lamps on the darkly coloured walls. She walked across the room nervously towards the large cupboard with a mirror on the door. Opening the door, she saw a line of long, flowery dresses. The kind of dresses that women wore fifty years ago.

Lila closed the cupboard and looked round the room. Her eyes rested on a small table near the bed. She looked at the small glass cats, the silver soap-dishes, the old photographs of children... or were they different photographs of the same child?

Everything was very old, but there was something even more unusual than this. Everything was so tidy.This was very strange.

'If this is the mother's bedroom,' Lila thought,'why doesn't she touch anything? The only thing that she seems to use is the bed. I can see from the bedclothes that she was here a short time ago. So she's here somewhere. But where?'

'I don't think you're happy here,' Sam told Bates.'Why don't you sell this place and leave?'

'This place is my world,' Bates said. 'I grew up in that house. I was a happy child. My mother and I were very happy!'

Lila looked inside another room. It was a small room with an untidy bed and lots of books and children's things on the floor.

'Norman's room,' she thought, picking up some of the books. They were about the mysteries of life and strange illnesses. Looking at the unusual books and the children's play-things on the floor, Lila thought that she was beginning to understand something about Norman. 'He's a little boy who loves his mother,' she thought. 'An intelligent boy who has never grown up.'

'You look nervous,' Sam told Bates.'Have I frightened you?'

'What are you talking about?'

'I've said something about your mother, and you look afraid. How are you going to do it?'

'Do what?'

'Buy a new motel.You won't have to hide your mother if you go to another town.'

Norman's eyes became cold and narrow. He hated this man and wanted him to go.

'Where will you get the money?' Sam continued. 'Or do you already have the money? $40,000 perhaps?'

Bates valked into the room behind the office, and Sam followed him.

'Your mother knows about the money, doesn't she?' Sam said. 'She knows what you did to get it. And I think she'll tell us.'

Bates turned round, his eyes burning, his heart racing. 'I know why you're here,' he shouted. 'Where's that girl who came here with you?'

Sam said nothing. He turned away and began to walk out of the door. This was a mistake. Bates ran up behind him and hit

 

him hard on the head with a metal box. Sam fell to the floor, and Bates ran out of the office as quickly as he could.

'I must find that girl before she finds Mother,' he thought, as he ran up the hill towards the old house.