Tagline: Don’t open that door!
Back tagline: “Lea, I’ve been waiting so long for you…”
Summary: Lea Carson can’t believe it when her family moved into the creepy, old house on Fear Street. Most creepy of all is the secret room up in the attic.
The room has been locked and boarded up for at least a hundred years. A murder was committed in that room, the story goes, and it has been closed up ever since.
Lea knows she should stay away. But she thinks she hears footsteps inside the secret room. And voices.
Someone – or something – is waiting for Lea in there.
Should she open the door?
Can she resist?
First impressions: Lea looks like Bobby from ‘The Brady Bunch’ lol. Not sure about that haircut. I like the outfit though! Honestly, the cover looks like there’s a skeleton wanting privacy and Lea’s being nosy and trying to open the door. Ooky spooky! Let’s read.
Recap
Gotta start with that roll call:
Lea – Our protagonist who’s just moved to Fear Street.
Deena – Lea’s only friend in Shadyside.
Marci – The school bitch.
Don – Marci’s hunky boyfriend and Lea’s crush.
Catherine – The g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!
Lea Carson has just moved to Shadyside with her family. Her dad has to move around for work a lot, so her parents like into move to old, dilapidated houses and fix them up before reselling when her dad transfers again, and it just so happens that they’ve selected the shabbiest house on Fear Street [Been a while since I’ve recapped a Fear Street that actually takes place on Fear Street!].
It’s Lea’s second week at Shadyside High and the only friend she’s made is Deena Martinson [Yay for continuity]. Lea’s carrying her tray of chilli in the lunchroom when she suddenly slips over and the chilli goes all over a girl named Marci’s new white cashmere sweater! Marci is fuming and storms off to clean her sweater while everyone laughs at clumsy ox Lea. Poor Lea. She’s struggling to find her place at school because she’s so shy. Don’t you go thinking she’s ugly though! She gets told she’s cute all the time, with her shaggy pixie cut and smile that lights up her face [Bobby Brady for sure!].
A boy, Don, who was sitting at Marci’s table, comes over to help Lea clean up her mess. He’s really sweet and cute, and Lea wishes she wasn’t so darn shy. He reassures her that Marci will get over it, suggesting her anger is justified because “she’s a redhead.” [Hahahaha ok]. He asks Lea on a date for Saturday night and Lea is super shocked, but accepts. Marci appears in the doorway and Don scurries over to her like a puppy dog. Lea then hears from Deena that Don and Marci have pretty much been dating since preschool and warns her to watch out for Marci [A Fear Street love triangle can only end up in one way – murder].
As Lea arrives home after school, she starting thinking about how creepy the house is and scolds herself to chill out [More like chilli out, am I right?! Hehehe]. We flash back to when Lea’s family first inspected the house with the real estate agent, Mrs. Thomas [The mother of Suki Thomas, the Shadyside bike! Suki appears in many of the early Fear Streets, never as the protagonist, though, and I think her biggest role is in The Overnight. While I’m just joking about the slut shaming, the Shadyside girls aren’t – from my knowledge, she’s always dating a new boy, whether he’s single or not. Embrace your sexual side, Suki!].
Anyway, Lea hated the idea of moving to Fear Street and was all gloomy and mopey about it [Which is totally justified, since her parents are uprooting her life every few years] and after her mother scolded her about putting in more effort [Which is totally unjustified, I reckon], Lea offered up a plate of pure sass:
“Okay. Wow! Let’s check out the attic!” She said with false enthusiasm.
[…]
“It’s so beautiful up here!” She called down to them, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I want to spend all my time up here, with all of the wonderful treasures.”
[Hahaha I think I’ll like Bobby Brady Lea]. The adults joined her in the attic where they discovered a boarded up door. Mrs. Thomas explained that most of the houses on Fear Street have some mysterious horror story, but reassured the family they’re most likely exaggerated. She reluctantly continued that the door is boarded up because a murder happened in the room behind it at least 100 years ago. She doesn’t know who, or why, just that it happened.
The parents agreed to leave the room alone and followed Mrs. Thomas out of the attic, but Lea lingered behind, wondering about the murder. On an impulse, she put her ear to the door and thought she heard breathing coming from the other side [Ooky spooky!]. She convinced herself it was her own breathing that she heard and hurried off to join her parents [I bet it was a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost! Or a skeleton if the cover is anything to go by].
Back to the present, it’s Saturday night now and Lea is on the phone to Deena before her big date with two-timer Don. She’s super nervous, looking in the mirror and considering getting a new hairstyle [Please do!] because she doesn’t want to be cute anymore, she wants to be sophisticated. OK.
Lea promises to call Deena tomorrow to tell her all about the date and hangs up the phone to wait patiently for the doorbell to ring. After a while, her mum calls up to her from downstairs to confirm Lea had plans for tonight, and Lea is a bitch:
Lea wanted to murder her! “Mom – I’ve told you a thousand times I’m going out tonight!” she shouted angrily. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
[What’s the matter with you, Lea? It’s not your mum’s fault you and your boyish looks have been stood up]. Half an hour after their planned pick-up time, Lea calls Don’s house to see where he is, and his mother tells Lea he’s out with Marci. Lea’s all like “But that’s impossible!”, as if it’s totally uncharacteristic for a boy she’s known for five seconds to do this to her.
Then for some stupid reason, Lea decides to call Marci, who laughs at her and explains it was all a joke – she told Don to ask her out, but she never thought Lea would actually fall for it! That’s what Lea gets for coming onto her boyfriend, Marci reckons [Which doesn’t really make sense, because Marci didn’t even see Don and Lea talking until after he’d already asked her out. Also, Marci hurried off pretty soon after the chilli incident, so she wouldn’t have had time to organise this little prank?].
Lea, without any real justification, convinces herself that Don does really like her and that Marci forced him break their date after finding out about it [Which makes a lot more sense than what Marci claims. But still, Lea, know your worth, girl!].
Later that night, Lea is trying to sleep when she wears what sounds like footsteps coming from the attic directly above her. Even though it doesn’t sound like the usual creaks and groan of the house, she decides she imagined it and drifts off to sleep [That pesky ghost!].
At school on Monday, Lea’s waiting to meet Deena for lunch, fighting the feeling that everyone who passes her knows about Marci’s cruel prank. She feels totally humiliated, poor thing. Don approaches, wanting to apologise, but Lea plays it cool, acting totally indifferent. He explains he wanted to call, but Marci just gets so jealous [Then maybe don’t ask other girls out while you’ve got a girlfriend????? Duh?????], then quickly scampers off when he sees his girlfriend down the hall.
After school, Lea’s collecting things from her locker when she realises Marci’s standing next to her. She takes the credit for Don’s apology and also wants to apologise, inviting Lea to a sorority meeting tomorrow afternoon in room 409. Lea’s [Apparently] not stupid though – Shadyside is only three storeys high, there is no fourth floor! Marci just laughs at her own dumb joke and walks off, leaving Lea to wonder why Marci hates her so much [If it’s all over some damn chilli, Marci you’re a loser. If it’s all over Don’s interest in Lea, punish him for it, not Lea???]. Lea’s not even interested in Don [I call bullshit there, Lea. You better not kiss him later!]. Exiting the school, Lea sees Marci talking to some other girls, most likely about her, and decides she has to get Marci back.
It’s Saturday night again and loser Lea is home alone watching ‘Ghost’:
Patrick Swayze is a real babe, she thought, stretching sleepily. He can come haunt me anytime.
[Naughty, naughty, Lea ;)]. She heads to bed and just as she’s drifting off to sleep, she hears the footsteps in the attic again. She bravely heads up to the attic to investigate and when the sound continues, she realises it’s coming from behind the boarded-up door! She calls out to whoever’s making the noise and presses her ear up against the locked door, looking up just in time to see a waterfall of blood dripping down from the top of the door [Huh? Why?].
Lea freaks out and calls Deena, then the police. Deena rushes over and Lea forces her into the attic, but there’s no blood dripping down the door or pooled on the floor [Classic gaslighting move, I guess this isn’t a nice ghost]. Deena is a supportive friend and doesn’t think Lea is crazy, but suggests it was a really vivid dream. Then a policeman rocks up, but with no blood to show him either, Lea lies that she incorrectly thought there was an intruder. The policeman does his job [In a Fear Street book? I am shocked!] and looks around anyway, telling her not to hesitate to call since it’s better to be safe than sorry.
After Deena and the policeman leave, Lea returns to bed but hears the footsteps again. The next day she tells her parents about it, who suggest it may be a squirrel or a raccoon. Her dad eventually looks up there, but finds nothing but dust bunnies and thinks maybe it’s a loose shingle on the roof. The footsteps become a nightly occurrence for Lea, which are less scary and more annoying at this point.
On another lonely Saturday night, because Deena’s too busy with her new boyfriend, she decides to investigate the attic again and hears a girl’s voice behind the door, although she can’t make out the words. Then several iron spikes stab through the door [What is going on with this room?!]. Lea shits her pants escapes the attic, shutting the attic door behind her.
She hears the phone ringing, and it’s Don, asking her to meet him at the mall so he can make it up to her for breaking their earlier date. Lea accepts, more so to get out of the house than anything, even though she has been thinking about Don a fair bit recently.
She pulls on some tan corduroy slacks and a yellow sweater [Which doesn’t look good in my mind] and heads to Pete’s Pizza, where she finds Marci sitting in a booth with Don. Don is super awkward and Marci is a bitch, which is nothing new. It doesn’t seem like a setup to humiliate Lea though, so that’s good I guess [But seriously, Lea, don’t give this boy any more chances]. After walking straight into a waitress, Lea hurries back to her car, furious. She could kill Marci, because of course this is always the other woman’s fault and never the problematic love interest’s [Lea, why the hell do you want to go out with a boy who already has a girlfriend? Why isn’t that a red flag to you? If he really wanted you over Marci, he’d do something about it].
Me @ LeaBack in bed, Lea hears the footsteps in the attic again and is determined to find out who’s up there, and investigates once again. As she approaches the locked door, she can hear a girl crying on the other side. Lea calls out to her, and the girl starts begging for her to open it [The door’s been locked for hundreds of years, surely you don’t think that’s a real person, Lea!].
After a brief deliberation with herself Lea proves to be braver than me [Or more stupid] and easily pries the old, rotting wooden planks from the door, surprised to find the key in the doorknob [I don’t know about you but if I wanted a room to never be opened again, I wouldn’t leave the key in the doorknob for some teenager to find years later…]. Lea opens the door and stares into a beautifully decorated room. Sitting on a large canopy bed is beautiful but old-fashioned-looking girl, about Lea’s age:
Her hair was a mass of golden ringlets, worn without a part, the tight yellow curls tumbling onto her forehead and down the sides of her perfect oval-shaped face. A black velvet hair ribbon was tied across the crown of her head.
She had white skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun, and tiny features, small blue eyes, a perfect, straight nose, a tiny mouth.
She was wearing a high-necked white blouse that seemed as if it would be stiff and uncomfortable. Ruffles ran down the front, and the sleeves were long and putty at the shoulders. Her black wool skirt came down over her shoes. It looked heavy and cumbersome.
She’s like a little Victorian doll, thought Lea, staring in from the doorway.
The girl tells Lea this is her house, and she’s been so lonely for years before Lea realises that she’s a g-g-g-g-ghost [The old-fashioned look and the deathly pale skin didn’t give it away, Lea? Or the fact the door’s been locked for 100 years? Idiot]. The girl starts moving toward Lea, asking to touch her and, more specifically, her hair [??] but Lea is terrified and backs out of the room. She slams the door shut and locks it again as the ghost please for Lea to come back so she can touch her hair [What’s with the hair fetish?].
The next morning, Lea convinces herself it was just a super realistic dream and heads to the tennis club with Deena. She explains everything to Deena, who suggests that the nightmares are caused by Lea’s anxiety from moving houses again [I really like Deena! What a great, supportive friend!]. Deena also reveals that Marci is spreading lies at school that Lea’s been throwing herself at Don, and warns Lea to just stay away from Marci and Don [Can a Fear Street girl ever listen to reason? I wonder…].
That night, Lea hears the footsteps again and realises she wasn’t dreaming last night and heads back up to the attic [How many times does she need to investigate this damn attic?! This book is so slow]. Then because she’s a complete idiot, Lea decides to open the door again and the ghost girl introduces herself as Catherine and proclaims she won’t hurt Lea. Lea asks if she’s going to haunt her [Hahahahaha], but apparently that word didn’t exist in Lea’s time because she has no idea what it means. OK.
Catherine explains that she was born out of wedlock and her parents, not wanting to tarnish their reputation with such an evil secret [I guess I’m evil], kept her locked in this room her whole life. When she tried to escape, they murdered her [Seems innocent enough but there’s gotta be more going on here]. Lea gets scared again [Stop fkn coming up here then!!!!] and tries to leave, but Catherine grabs her hair.
“What beautiful hair.”
“Let go of me!” Lea cried. “Let go! You’re hurting me!”
Catherine smiled and pulled harder. “What beautiful hair. We’re going to be great friends—aren’t we!”
“Let go of my hair!” Lea cried . “Please—let go of my hair!”
Lea breaks free and runs to her room but has to venture back up again because she can’t remember if she locked Catherine’s door behind her or not. She finds it shut and locked, much to her relief, but I’m gonna assume that Catherine just made it look that way somehow [If she can project a blood waterfall and giant metal spikes, I’m sure this would be a breeze]. Back in bed, the eyes of Lea’s favourite stuffed toy glow demonically red, terrifying her even more.
At school the next day, asshole Marci continues spreading lies about Lea and wanting to get back at her, Lea concocts a plan to scare Marci. Back home, she forces her fears to the side and hurries to the attic, where Catherine apologises for hurting her. Lea apologises for overreacting [Probably just to suck up, because her reaction was perfectly understandable] and Catherine admires Lea’s fugly hair some more. Eventually, Lea reveals her plan to Catherine – she’ll take her to Marci’s house where Lea will convince her she has evil powers, and an invisible Catherine will make things float around and move, terrifying Marci.
Catherine agrees and promptly invades Lea’s body without Lea’s permission, and Lea realises she has no control anymore [I don’t really get how this works, because it’s immediately established that Lea can’t feel her arms or legs anymore, but then when they walked to Marci’s house on the next page she can smell and feel again? Maybe the numbness is temporary but an explanation would be nice. And they’re both still talking to each other while Catherine’s taken over, so are they both speaking through Lea’s mouth? Does it look like she’s having a conversation with herself? Why do I care so much?] Catherine insists it’s the only way because she’s too weak to travel on her own and promises to exit when they get to Marci’s house. It’s a weird sensation, but Lea’s too focused on revenge to care that much, so they head off they go!
Catherine keeps her promise, exiting Lea’s body and turning invisible as soon as they arrive, and Lea is relieved to know she can trust her. Lea rings the doorbell and is greeted rudely by Marci, who tries to slam the door in Lea’s face. To the cow’s surprise, it won’t close, because the invisible Catherine is blocking it. Lea barges in, telling Marci there’s a reason she lives on Fear Street as vases, coats and even Marci herself are picked up and carried around the room by Catherine.
Marci is terrified and runs upstairs calling for her mother, who comes out of her room to see Marci suddenly trip and grab for the balcony railing, which gives way:
As Marci’s mother and Lea cried out in horror and disbelief, Marci plunged headfirst off the balcony, her hands frantically grabbing at air, grabbing at nothing—until a second later, a second that must have seemed an eternity, she crashed to the floor below with a loud cracking sound, like that of an egg breaking.
[Woo, now kill Don next!] All Marci’s mother can do is cry “Oh, no!” 49565985485876 and cradle her dead daughter while Lea calls 911. The ambulance and police arrive, but it’s too late or Marci, obviously. The police ask a few questions about what happened, but it’s determined that Marci’s death was just a horrible accident. Lea’s not so sure, though – did Catherine murder Marci? The police drive Lea home, with Catherine hitching a ride in her body again, and on the way, Lea tries to ask Catherine through thought if she killed Marci, but is only answered by silence.
After dinner that night, Lea is determined to find out if Catherine pushed Marci and storms up to the secret room to demand answers. Catherine just mischievously smiles at her and says it was “a dreadful accident”. Then Catherine completely transforms into a cold, hardened, older version of herself and argues that Lea owes her for her help, and she wants to live in Lea’s body [Honestly Lea, what were you expecting to happen? That a ghost that’d been trapped for 100 years would be fine going back to living in a single room?].
Catherine attempts to invade Lea’s body, but because it’s no longer a new experience, Lea’s able to resist the sensation and manages to force Catherine out before she can fully take over. Lea escapes the secret room, locking it behind her before rushing to her parents for help. Like true Shadyside parents, they don’t believe her, so Lea drags them up to the attic to prove it. But the secret door looks as untouched as the day they first discovered it, boarded up and everything!
Her parents call a doctor, and Lea is diagnosed with a fever and ordered to stay in bed for a few days. She wakes up later to find Catherine in her bedroom, who declares that this room was Catherine’s bedroom, not the secret room. Catherine explains that she was the one who boarded up the secret room all those year ago to trap the evil inside. After Lea went into the attic the first few times, Catherine realised how determined she was to open it, so created the visions of the blood and spikes to scare her away. When that didn’t work, she invaded Lea’s mind to make her hallucinate that she’d unlocked the room and been inside, when in reality she’d always been in her own room [OK, what the hell is happening right now? This is crazy even for Fear Street].
Catherine had gone to all that trouble so Lea would be comfortable in her own room and to sympathise and believe in Catherine. Now, though, they’ll be sharing Lea’s bedroom and her body, and this time Lea’s too weak from fever to resist [Honestly Lea, you did this to yourself. I don’t know what she thought was going to happen. Like, yes, she never opened the door in reality, but Catherine only planted those memories because Lea kept going up to it!].
Lea remains a passenger in her own body for the next few days as she waits for her fever to disappear. Catherine floats out of the body occasionally, but Lea is too sick and weak to do anything while she’s gone and Catherine always returns after a short while to control Lea’s every move and word again [What, so now Lea can’t talk while Catherine’s in her body? Why is nothing clear?!?].
One beautiful day, Lea’s body has some strength back and Catherine jumps at the chance to leave the house on her mother’s suggestion. Before heading out, Catherine in Lea’s body grabs some twine left over from the family’s moving boxes and declares to Lea that they’re going to have some fun and teach Don a little lesson, much to Lea’s horror [Get him, Catherine!].
They stroll to Don’s house where he’s conveniently home alone. They discuss how terrible Marci’s accident was before Don realises his mother’s chicken is still in the oven. He promised he’d turn the oven off while she was out when it was finished. He hurries to the kitchen to check on it while Catherine/Lea slowly follows, untangling the length of twine [Please kill him!]. Lea is an idiot and doesn’t understand what Catherine plans to do until she’s just about to strangle him [What the fuck did you think the twine was for, Lea?!? You already know she murdered one person, how did it not cross your mind she’d do it again? I’m sure you readers knew what Catherine’s plan was as soon as you saw ‘twine’, just like I did. I’m over this book]. The doorbell rings suddenly and Don is literally saved by the bell.
It’s his friends, Cory Brooks [Protagonist of The New Girl!] and Gary Brandt [From The Overnight], who are here to pick Don up. They offer to give Catherine/Lea a lift, but she’d rather walk. Lea’s relieved that Catherine’s plan is thwarted for the day, but I’m not [I don’t know why I hate Don so much, probably because the book is trying to make him seem like such a nice guy when he was trying to cheat on Marci and flaked on Lea so many times. To be honest, though, at this point I’d be ok with everyone dying except Deena].
That night, Lea wakes up with full control of her body, woo! She contemplates how to get rid of Catherine before she gets another chance to kill Don and realises the answer to her problem must lie in the secret bedroom in the attic, or else why would she have gone to such lengths to keep Lea away from it? [That’s a smart decision, but at the same time, there could be evil behind the door, just like Catherine said. Worth a shot I guess!].
She heads up to the attic and pulls the boards off the door. Just as she’s about to unlock it, a furious Catherine appears, shrieking at her not to open the door! She tries to invade Lea’s body again, but Lea manages to keep her out long enough to unlock the door and thrust it open. Inside, the room looks the same as Lea’s false memories except for the skeletal, decaying remains of Catherine’s parents sitting on the canopy bed:
Their bodies had begun decomposing, revealing the skeletons beneath. Fleshless hands with stick-like, bony fingers hung out from the ends of their sleeves. Their faces were skeletal too, locked in hideous, open-jawed grins. Tiny pockets of green, decaying flesh still clung to the crevices of their skulls.
The man had one eye in place, the other a deep, empty socket. The woman had no face at all. Strands of spidery black hair snaked down from the top of her yellowing skull bone. A huge black worm crawled out of an eye socket and dropped down the front of her blouse.
[Love this description!] While Lea’s distracted by the horrific sight, Catherine manages to slip into her body again. The terrifying ghouls lunge for Lea and begin to strangle her, wrapping her in a cadaverous hug. Catherine escapes Lea’s body to save herself and accuses her parents of wanting to murder her again. The ghouls reveal that it was actually Catherine who murdered them, sealing them in the room forever, but they vowed never to rest until they could stop the evil.
Then they literally hug Catherine to death. Yes, you read that right. They smother Catherine until all three of them melt into “a glowing, malodorous ball of flame, which slowly vanished in a choking cloud of yellow, sulfurous smoke.”
Lea faints and wakes up in the hospital nearly a week later. Her parents tell her she’s had a high fever and they’ve been so worried, and Lea assumes that everything with Catherine has just been vivid fever dreams. Her parents also tell her that Don has been calling every day, worried about her, hehe [Fuck off, Don].
Three days later, Lea is able to return home and she really wants to check the attic to make sure it really was all a dream. Her parents force her to stay in bed, though, keeping a close eye on her, so it’s not for a few more days that she finally has a chance to look. She’s relieved to find the secret bedroom all boarded up and returns to her room, where she finds Catherine’s black velvet hair ribbon on her dresser.
Lea realises it was all real and feels a pang of guilt about Marci’s death. It doesn’t last long, though, and Lea decides she will keep the ribbons origins a secret:
The secret bedroom must remain a secret. Another secret of Fear Street, a street of secrets.
She put down the ribbon and made her way downstairs to fix some breakfast.
[Hahaha Is it just me or is that, like, the stupidest final line of any book ever? It should have ended with “a street of secrets”].
Final thoughts
This was not a very good book. It was just a lot of back and forth going to the attic and thinking everything was a dream over and over again. Lea was stupid, the plot was dumb and pretty much nothing exciting happened the book was nearly over. I didn’t hate it, like Trick or Treat or Mirror, Mirror, but it wasn’t good either – it was sort of just a nothing book.
I forgot how often these earlier Fear Streets mentioned previous characters, though! Some continuity is always good.
Anyway, 2 hugs of death out of 10!
