Silence seeped into his skin like a frost. No one answered, though the quiet seemed to leer like a living, breathing thing. He suppressed a shiver, rubbing feeling back into his arms.
His house in Worcester made noises at all hours. House noises—joints cracking, foundation groaning, soil settling. It was a never-ending cacophony of disruptions. The radiator clanged. Wind whistled through the weather stripping.
By contrast, the Farrow house was as still as a tomb.
He wasn’t sure he liked it.
He slid out of bed and tugged on a shirt, toeing carefully out into the corridor. The hallway stretched out like an artery in either direction, disappearing out of sight into the shadows.
“Hello,” he said again, speaking into the quiet.
His voice had an echo.Hello. Hello. Hello.
Far overhead, there came the muffled thud of a door. Uneasy, he returned to his room.
After that, sleep evaded him. It wasn’t that he was scared of the dark—it was small spaces that did him in—it was only that he’d gone to bed with a hunted feeling in his chest, and now that he was awake again it was back. He fell to pacing, doing his best not to let his first official day on the job replay on a loop in his head.
It was a futile effort. Everything out of his mouth had been the exact wrong thing. He’d tried to be friendly. Amicable. Charming, even. He’d done his level best to win Vivienne over. And yet, the harder he’d tried, the worse he’d seemed to do.
He’d told her she reminded him of a praying mantis.
He flopped onto his bed with a groan and pulled his pillow over his face. The fabric smelled cold and clean, like bleach. It wasn’t an objectively bad smell, but it pitted his stomach all the same. It wasn’this. It wasn’t home. Reaching across the mattress, he groped for his phone and pulled it under the pillow, scrolling through until he found the contact he was looking for.
His sister picked up on the second ring.
“You asshole,” she said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Hello to you, too.” He rolled out of bed and crossed to the desk, sinking into the large armchair situated before it. He could hear the television blaring in the background. “Hey, would it hurt your feelings if someone compared you to a praying mantis?”
There was a pause. He heard the sound of Tessa munching on popcorn. Then, “You told someone they remind you of a praying mantis?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Literally, why else would you ask such a stupid question? You’re a terrible liar, Tommy. And a terrible flirt. If that’s your best pickup line, you’re going to die alone.”
“I wasn’t flirting, I was—” He groaned and sank deeper into his chair, crooking his elbow over his eyes. “Never mind. What are you watching?”
“Some creature feature on TV. It’s got lab-mutated crocodiles.”
“Nice.”
“The acting is so cringe, it’s giving me secondhand embarrassment.”
“So, your favorite kind of movie.”
“Exactly.”
Quiet stretched between them. He felt a sudden, yawning homesickness deep inside his chest. When he was younger, he’d resented his cluttered house with its carpet of cat fur and the ceaseless whir of his mother’s machinery—the way his father’s things were everywhere, even long after they’d buried him. He’d despised the way death clung to everything.
Hated that there was never anything he could do to help.
Well. He was doing something now.
Tomorrow, he would do better. Be better. He had to be.
“Mom is fine,” said Tess finally, as if she could hear him trying not to ask. “She misses you, though. We both do.”
“Trust me, I’d be home if I could. This guy’s offer was too good to pass up.”
