At the mist of dawn, chilled air filled Rosewood Manor like an icebox. The lonely mansion was all alone at a dead end road and had rusty historic panels as siding. Rosewood Manor was a family estate that had been in the family for more than a century, but times were changing. A new family from out of state was moving in. The secrets of Rosewood Manor would no longer be unknown.
“We are almost there!” my mother said in a cheery voice. My older brother Henry and I had been arguing the whole five hour car ride. Henry was excited to live in a new house while I wanted to stay back home. “Yay! I can’t wait!” I answered in a sarcastic tone just as we arrived at the new house.
The new house was as creepy as Halloween. It was guarded by a fence that read “Rosewood Manor”  and squeaked as it opened. The house itself was built back in 1940 for the very wealthy Rosewood family, but after one mysterious night, the neighbors called the police after hearing gunshots. The police later found a bullet in the wall with the initials W.L.R.. No one ever figured out whose initials they were. The “R” was thought to stand for Rosewood but the “W.L.” was unheard of.  
I started toward the entrance of the house while the others got the luggage. The stairs to the door were crumbling from years of usage. When I reached the dusty porch, I slowly turned the doorknob and entered Rosewood Manor for the first time. Before me were two grand staircases with a black piano in the center. The air was thick with dust and lint; I suppose no one has occupied the house for years. My family joined me in awe as they saw the grand staircases.   
“Oh Alice, isn’t it beautiful?” my mother stated. I nodded my head and went to explore the rest the house. I found the living room first and sat upon a fluffy cream loveseat. As I sat down, a puff of dirt flew into the air. I got up and moved to the brick mantel before the dirt could get into my eyes. There were two pictures posing on the mantel. One picture was boy and the other was a girl, and above the mantel was a broad portrait of a stern man.
“Alice, there you are!” I jumped and turned to see my mother talking to me.
“Mom!” I screeched. “Please don’t do that. This place already gives me the creeps.”
“ Sorry honey, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just wondering where you were in this enormous house.”  
“I was just looking at these pictures,” I answered, pointing to the mantel.
“Huh, I bet the picture above the mantel is Mr. Rosewood! The man who built this very house.”
“This house is named after him? The Rosewood Manor?” I turned back to look at the portrait him.  
“Oh yes! Honey, you can go look him up at the library in town if you’d like,” my mom suggested.
“Where’s the library?”
“In town near the coffee place. Henry knows where it is; take him with you!” recommended my mom.
I climbed the stairs, then walked down a narrow hallway to the bedrooms. Henry had apparently already claimed the first bedroom; however, my bedroom was next door. Henry’s room was much more spacious than mine with a window to oversee the front yard while mine didn’t even have a window. I knocked on his wooden door and quietly asked, “Will you come with me to the library?”
“Why do you want to go to the library? You’re suppose to be unpacking and getting settled in,” Henry replied.
“I want to lookup Mr. Rosewood, the guy who built this place,” I explained. “Please! I really don’t feel like unpacking right now. I’ll buy you a coffee.”
I knew Henry couldn’t resist coffee on a chilly day. “Okay, fine. Just let me grab my jacket,”
The walk to town was about 15 minutes. The library was a small building on the corner of two busy streets. Henry and I walked in and browsed around before we saw an employee; he was an older man, around fifty with gray hair and a round stomach. He had a rose print bookmark in the pocket of his shirt.“I’m Walter. Do you need any help?” the older man asked.
“Yes. I was wondering if you have anything about Mr. Rosewood?”
His lips turned upward in a smile, but his eyes turned dark. “Oh yes! Follow me please,”
I followed Walter alone to the counter where he pulled out a thick book with the title Mason Residents 1940s. Walter flipped the pages of the ancient book very carefully until he got almost to the end.
“Here we are: Mr. Rosewood! May I ask why you are curious about him?” he asked.
“My family just moved into the Rosewood Manor. I just wanted to know the history of the place,”
“Very well. Did you want to sign the book out?” Walter asked.
“Yes please,” I answered.
Walter signed the book out while I went to find Henry. He was still in the same place looking at the comic books.
“You ready to go get some coffee?” I asked.
We grabbed the book from Walter and headed next door to Steam Pot Cafe. Henry got his coffee, and then sat down at a table while I was reading. The book described Mr. Rosewood as a handsome, respectable, caring man at the age of 30. His wife was killed by someone with the initials W.L.R., but the police never figured out who the murderer was. Mr. Rosewood himself died in 1970 in a car crash. Under children, the book had printed two, but someone crossed it out and put three.  I showed Henry the weird correction.
“Books make mistakes sometimes, Alice. Maybe they didn’t want to print another copy for one little mistake considering how many pages it has,” he hypothesised.
We headed home after Henry finished his coffee so that we didn’t have to walk in the dark. Once we got home, I headed to my room to start unpacking my belongings. As I was moving boxes, I noticed a door on the wall nearest to Henry’s bedroom. I yanked open the door to a secret bathroom. In the bathroom there was another door leading to Henry’s room; I pulled the door open. Henry was lying on his bed sorting out his belongings.
“Henry, did you know about this bathroom?” I asked him. He shook his head, and started walking toward me and into the hidden bathroom.
“Look at how much dust is in here,” Henry complained.
“Yeah, but Henry, we have our own bathroom. We don’t have to share a bathroom with mom and dad!” I cheered.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the door to my side of the bathroom slammed shut.
“What was that?” I screeched.
“I don’t know. Probably just the wind.”
“Henry, I don’t have any windows in my room.”
“Maybe it was just mom or dad playing a prank on us,” he suggested.
“Mom! Dad! Was that you?” We came out of the bathroom and into Henry’s room. No one answered. Henry and I ran down stairs to see mom and dad peacefully unpacking silverware in the kitchen. My brother then went back upstairs. I followed shortly after to go to sleep though I couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling of earlier.
Henry awoke me in the morning claiming he heard something crash downstairs. I told him to go tell mother, but he said “No! she’ll just tell me it was nothing and to go back to sleep.” I was going to tell him to go back to sleep although I wanted to know what the sound was too.
We each grabbed a baseball bat for protection before heading to the basement. The stairs leading to the basement were narrow and murky. We slowly crawled down the stairs to the dewy floors of the basement. The first thing that caught my eye was a lantern in the corner; I nudged Henry to look over at the corner. After a moment of conspicuous looks, I led the way to the lantern. When we got closer, I noticed a note that read, “Leave now or you’ll be next -W.L.R.” I showed Henry the note as I pondered about what it meant. While I was searching for reasonable explanations for the note’s meaning, Henry picked up something from the floor.
“Is this a bookmark?” Henry asked.
“I think so, but I can’t really see,” I confessed.
“Can we go upstairs then?”
We rushed back up the stairs in fear of what the note meant. When we heard our mother screaming, Henry and I ran into her room where we found our dad covered with blood. I froze in the doorway. Henry turned my body away from the blood covered body. It only took me a few moments to catch up with reality and realize my father was on the floor dead. After a few hours of crying, my mother gave Henry and I money to go get something to eat while she talked to the police. Henry followed me upstairs to get my coat when I started disputing with reality.
“Henry! What does this mean” I sweated.
“Someone doesn’t like us,” Henry claimed.
“But who? We just moved here. How could someone not like us? They don’t even know us!”
Henry was investigating the bookmark,“I don’t know. Did the book you got yesterday say anything about this house being haunted?”
“Can I see the bookmark?” Henry handed me the bookmark. It only took a glance at the bookmark to recognize where I had seen it before: the library.
“Henry! The Library! Walter! This is his bookmark! Give me the note!” I took the note with racing adrenaline. It was the same handwriting as the book sign-out sheet.
“It’s Walter! He’s the killer! He’s the W in W.L.R.! Walter! We have to go tell the police!” I raced down the stairs with Henry close behind me with the evidence.
After telling the police about Walter, I still couldn’t figure out why he had done it.
“We have reason to believe Walter is the long lost son of Mr. Rosewood. We’ve been looking for him since the killing of Mrs. Rosewood. He’s wanted to take back this home for years. He had almost taken it back too, but you guys had bought it. You’ll be safe now,” The policeman confirmed.