The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story

When Diana awakes the next morning, Georgie is gone. She waits for him for hours, “but in the end [she can’t] stand the loneliness any longer” (99) and leaves to meet Lissa on the terrace, finding her “looking as lonesome as [Diana] felt” (100). Lissa wants to know why Georgie is so concerned about breaking the rules, but Diana changes the subject. She suggests they go to the trailer to avoid the oncoming storm.

Lissa shrugs off Diana’s suggestion and instead presents her with “a big, old-fashioned house key” (100) that resembles one entrusted to Diana’s parents when they worked for Miss Lilian. She stole it from her father and intends to go inside the old Willis place. She shares rumors about Miss Lilian, how she “never left the house […], her garbage piled up everywhere” (103) and wants to see where she died. Diana begs Lissa not to go inside; even Macduff refuses to move. Lissa ignores Diana, and she feels she has no choice but to follow.

Lissa bounds through the house, trying on Miss Lilian’s clothes and making even more of a mess. Diana grows anxious, the final straw being when Lissa bangs her keys on Miss Lilian’s beloved piano. Fearful that the noise will wake Miss Lilian in the parlor, Diana fights to keep Lissa off the piano. When she plays even louder, Diana weeps. Lissa feels guilty and agrees to leave. However, she sees the door to the parlor, rushes to it, and places her hand on the knob

Diana tries to stop Lissa from opening the parlor door. As the girls struggle, Diana hears a voice in her head telling her to let Lissa open the door. Despite Diana’s efforts, Lissa pushes her aside, swinging the parlor door open. A large gust of cold wind blows over them and up the stairs. At the top of the stairs is “Miss Lilian herself, […] tall and gaunt, bent with arthritis, wrathful, hateful” (116). She points at Diana and says “You! You!” (116) before letting out a loud wail and fleeing to her bedroom.

Diana stands frozen at the bottom of the stairs with Lissa, who begins to scream. Though livid at Lissa for not listening to her, Diana grabs her hand and drags her out of the old Willis place. They run back to the trailer and sit “huddled on the sofa, wet and cold and shaking” (118). Lissa claims she had no control over her body when she opened the parlor door. Frustrated with herself for wanting to be friends with Lissa, Diana worries about Georgie. She gets up and assures Lissa that Miss Lilian is after the siblings, not her. Diana leaves Lissa in search of her brother, hoping she will find him before Miss Lilian does.

Lissa writes about the incident, saying “it was like something had ahold of me and it was making me turn the knob and open the door” (121). She is convinced the strange force was the ghost of Miss Lilian. Lissa is terrified and even more confused about the grounds’ secrets.

Diana finds Georgie in the shed. She confesses to breaking the rules, and that it’s her fault that Miss Lilian is now free to hunt them. Georgie throws himself at Diana, blaming her for not listening to him about befriending Lissa. His anger eventually subsides, and he asks to hear the story about their old life and how they died. This time, he doesn’t want to skip their deaths.

Diana recounts her and Georgie’s days on the farm with their parents: In spite of Miss Lilian’s cruelty, their lives were beautiful and full of love. One day, Georgie cut his leg, and they went to look for their mother. Instead, they ran into Miss Lilian, who screamed and chased them around the house. To escape, Diana and Georgie ran to their special place—a room in the cellar they had made into a clubhouse, “hidden in a dark corner, behind piles of boxes and old furniture” (126). Miss Lilian locked the cellar door and said she’d only let them out “when [they were] ready to apologize” (127). However, she never returned. Diana and Georgie pounded on the door and yelled for help—but days passed, and no one heard them. They found candles to light and ate the few crackers in the cellar. Eventually, it grew dark and cold, and Diana recalls the two of them falling into “a deep sleep” (127). When they awoke, they were outside.

Without explanation, two rules formed in Diana and Georgie’s heads: “Rule One: Do not let anyone see you. Rule Two: Do not leave Oak Hill Manor” (129). The siblings could roam the grounds and play in the woods all day, but they couldn’t tell their parents what had happened to them. Eventually, Miss Lilian fired the children’s parents; a tearful Diana and Georgie watched them drive away from the front gate.

With their parents gone, Diana and Georgie decided to tease Miss Lilian. They would go in the house and make a mess, play her piano at night, and torment her in revenge. One day, the house was still, and “things changed again” (135). Diana and Georgie searched for Miss Lilian and eventually found her dead in the parlor. A week passed before someone came and found the body. Two new rules formed in the siblings’ heads: “Rule Three: Stay away from the house. Rule Four: Do not disturb Miss Lilian’s slumber” (136). With this story, it becomes clear that Diana, Georgie, and Miss Lilian are the ghosts said to haunt Oak Hill Manor.