The way he said ‘evaluating’ made it sound less like a grade and more like a courtroom verdict.
Mei gestured toward a side corridor.
“This way, Eighteen.”
“I wish you could just use my name,” I sighed, stepping away from the sofa.
Jacob fell into stride beside me, his boots silent on the polished floor. I could feel him there more than see him, body heat and the faint scent of sawdust and pine tar and cold air.
The further we got from the great room, the quieter it became. The muffled hum of conversation faded behind us, replaced by the creak of old wood and the soft whoosh of the heating system. Hallway runners muffled our footsteps. Portraits of stony-faced dead Stonewoods watched us pass with bored disapproval.
“I’ve always liked the library,” Mei said, glancing back at me. “It just hasn’t been used the way it should in quite a few years now.”
“Ben doesn’t read much,” Jacob said, voice low, like an involuntary comment slipped out of him.
Mei shot him a quick look.
He cleared his throat.
“Mr. Stonewood,” he corrected. “He does most of his work in his private study these days. The library was his father’s room of choice.”
There was something in the way he said father that made the hair on my arms lift. I didn’t push. My business at Stonewood Lodge was already complicated enough without poking at ghosts.
We stopped at a pair of heavy double doors. Mei opened one and stood back, letting me go in first.
The library smelled like dust and old paper and stale lemon furniture polish left over from some long-ago cleaning spree. My boots sank into a faded oriental rug. Three of the four walls were floor-to-ceiling shelves, dark wood lined with books in varying stages of dusty disuse. A fireplace sat opposite the door, its mantel cluttered with picture frames and knickknacks, all wearing a fine gray coat of dust. Heavy curtains covered tall windows, one pulled halfway open to let in a thin blade of winter light.
It was beautiful, but tired… the kind of room that would be perfect if someone just remembered it existed.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Jacob huffed a soft sound beside me.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m betting she’ll clean up decent when someone puts the work in.”
Mei smiled at us, but her dark, almond-shaped eyes were unreadable.
“You may request items from storage,” she said. “Extra lamps. Curtains. If there’s paint in the color you want, we can bring it. But there is no guarantee we’ll have everything.”
“So we should pick our battles,” I said, still turning in a slow circle. “Got it.”
She tipped her head, studying me.
“What do you want to start with?”
My brain tried to spin off in eight directions at once. Paint. Rearranging furniture. Finding somewhere to put a reading chair near the window. Then I looked at the thick layer of dust on the nearest shelf and felt the tickle in my throat just from breathing.
“Cleaning,” I said firmly. “There’s no point making pretty plans when the floor’s going to cough up a plume of dust every time someone walks on it. Do you have dusting stuff? And what about a vacuum for after we finish dusting this place from the top down?”
Mei’s eyebrows went up the slightest bit.
“Yes,” she said. “In the supply closet. I can bring you what we have.”
“I’ll go with you,” Jacob said. “We can haul more that way.”
My pulse skipped. I pretended it didn’t and nodded.
“I’ll… start opening things up, and get some light in here.”
