I’d love to talk when you’re ready.
- Jesse
I’d left the paper crumpled on the tray. That evening, he’d delivered a laptop along with roasted chicken, fingerling potatoes, and chocolate chip cookies warm from the oven.
No internet, though. I had the run of the house, but the world wide web was a bridge too far. Which tracked. Jesse had managed information from the start, parceling it out in whatever quantities he deemed appropriate.
A chirping sound jerked me from my thoughts. In the courtyard below, a small brown bird hopped across the stones. After a second, it fluttered to the balcony and perched on the railing. One round black eye fastened on me.
“I don’t speak French,” I said.
The bird didn’t budge.
The memory of Jesse’s voice ran through my head.“Fifty years. Maybe forty.”My parents might be dead by the time I returned to the States. But that was probably the point.
My stomach growled. The bird flew away, swooping across the courtyard before disappearing over the roof.
With a sigh, I stood and fetched the lunch tray from the hall. As usual, Jesse had arranged everything like a spread in a lifestyle magazine. Two sub sandwiches bulged with cold cuts, tomatoes, and three varieties of cheese. A glass dish held a mountain of macaroni salad. Dessert looked like strawberry shortcake but was probably something French.
He never served me brownies. He wasn’t stupid.
I ate everything. Then I looked at the door.
It wasn’t locked.
After another few seconds of staring, I grabbed my borrowed hoodie from the bed and left the room.
Ten minutes later,I’d explored most of the second floor, turning up four empty bedrooms, a linen closet the size of my parents’ dining room, and what appeared to be a master suite at the far end of the hall. I didn’t try that door.
The floorboards creaked under me. I moved slowly, not entirely sure why I was being careful. Jesse knew I was here. There was no one to hide from. Paintings covered the walls. Most were landscapes and bowls of fruit, but a few portraits showed men and women with stern faces and regal postures.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and kept moving. A pair of narrow double doors stood open, revealing a library with bookcases that stretched to a ceiling painted with golden constellations. Leather chairs and sofas surrounded a square table stacked with books.
I backed out and continued to the end of the hall, where a wide staircase led both up and down. Jesse was probably in the kitchen.
I started climbing.
When I reached the landing, I stopped and stared down another long hallway. But this one was twice the width of the one outside my bedroom. Sunlight streamed through big windows that lined one side. The view was better up here, several more castle turrets visible beyond the rolling fields.
The shafts of sunlight stopped halfway across the floor, the beams falling short of the artwork hanging on the opposite wall. Which probably explained the corridor’s width. I was no fine art collector, but I’d kept my baseball cards in those little plastic sleeves inside a binder. Sunlight could fade shit fast.
I moved down the wall of paintings, taking in more dour faces and curly wigs. Near the end, tucked in a shadowed corner, two smaller paintings hung side by side. I almost walked past them. Then something stopped me.
Both depicted the same dark-haired, dark-eyed young man. Or it appeared that way at first. The longer I looked, the more differences surfaced. The jaw in the painting on the left was narrower. The mouth thinner. The men were brothers, maybe. Or father and son. The painting on the left was faded, tiny cracks mapping the canvas. Layers of white lace circled the man’s throat.
The painting on the right was obviously more recent, with vibrant colors and a different style of clothing. But both men had the same dark eyes and hair.
I looked at the older painting. Jesse was born in 1896, but the man on the canvas predated that by at least a century.
“It’s not me.”
I spun around, a startled sound stuck in my throat.
Jesse stood steps away in a pair of worn-looking jeans and a tight black sweater with the sleeves pushed up his forearms. Faint lines fanning from the corners of his eyes made him look more like a college professor than the student he usually resembled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I pressed a hand to my sternum, where my heart still tried to burst from my chest. “Really?”
