Aspen shook her head quickly. “Everything’s fine. We just need you to stay in here. Do you understand?” I looked over at Lexi and suddenly understood that she was staying with me. I nodded. “Great. I’ll be back in a bit,” Aspen said, and then hurried out the door. “Lock it behind me,” she called from the other side.
My hand shook as I turned the bolt. I stood there in my robe, alarmed and confused. I looked over at Lexi, but she just sat in the chair, staring outside. When I walked over toward her, she pointed abruptly at the bed.
“Stay away from the windows. Just… just sit on the bed and… and read or something. Don’t talk to me.”
I wanted to tell her about my open doors, about what I thought I’d seen, but it couldn’t have been real, and if I was going to confide in someone, it wasn’t going to be Lexi. So I didas instructed, trying to make sense of the odd noises that trickled through the walls. There seemed to be more voices, more footsteps than made sense. And that siren, swelling up and then receding in an irregular rhythm, chilled me. I don’t know how long I sat there, but when it ended, it ended suddenly, and I noticed Lexi’s shoulders immediately relax.
“Is everything okay now?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
But she ignored me. A few minutes later, a heavy pounding sounded against the door and I startled, jumping off the bed.
“What’s that? Should I get it?”
Again, Lexi didn’t answer, but she stood, walked to the door, and opened it. No one was there. This surprised me, but it was clear Lexi hadn’t expected there to be.
“You’re free now” was all she said, and then she stepped outside and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone and confused, with a sick feeling rising in my chest.
I wasn’t able to get back to sleep for hours, and when I did, it was fitful, and I had a sense that someone I didn’t trust was nearby, too close. In the morning, I woke with a start, so frightened by something I couldn’t explain that I jumped out of bed. Now standing in my room, wincing at the light of the early-morning sun, I understood what it was that had alarmed me. The French doors to the garden stood wide open again.
“Hello?” I called, trying to sound menacing. When no one answered, I slipped into my robe and stepped out into the garden. “Who’s here?”
My heart thudded uncomfortably in my chest. The garden was empty, but when the steps down to the basement came into view, I knew I had to check down there.
“Hello?” I called as I started down the stairs, my voice echoing around me.
As I stepped into the dank space, it took a moment for me to process what I was seeing. Or rather, what I wasn’t seeing. The bottles were gone, completely gone. The basement was empty.
Shocked, I backed away and darted back up the stairs and into the garden patio. Movement I caught out of the corner of my eye sent a scream bursting from me, and I turned to see Finn poking his head over the wall.
“Are you okay?”
Standing there in my robe, half crazed with exhaustion and paranoia, I probably looked an absolute mess.
“I’m just… I think someone might have been here last night.”
“That racket. I know. I’m sorry you had to go through that. One of the dogs escaped and it was a whole thing.”
“No, it was before that. Initially I thought it was a dream, but now I’m convinced someone was in my room last night. I thought I saw someone, and then my French doors were open. And they were open a second time this morning. Now someone has been in the basement.”
Finn’s smile wavered, his expression shifting to a pinched sort of fear before finally settling on blank uncertainty. Did he know more than he was letting on?
“I’ll come check it out,” he said.
I let him in a moment later and was pleased to find he was once again wearing board shorts and flip-flops.
“Show me the basement,” he said, following me out into the garden. Together, we headed down the steps and into the dark, empty space.
“There were bottles hanging from the ceiling. Hundreds of them. And now they’re just gone.”
Finn shook his head. “Weird. Housekeeping probably cleaned them up.”
“Housekeeping? There’s a housekeeping staff? I thought everyone but you all went home ages ago.”
“There’s a small staff,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Probably responsible for the French doors being open, too. I bet they came in, wanted to air the place out, removed the bottles, and left again. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Together, we climbed back up the steps and into the garden.
“The cleaning staff, eh? And the sirens last night—was that the milkman?”
