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“The estate doesn’t like you speaking about it, and it haunts me enough already. I… can’t tell you anything.”
My eyes narrow. “Alright…”
She looks around as if asking the room if she did a good job at deflecting my questions that hadn’t even begun.
“What about the master of the home?”
“Lucien? What about him?” Her thick accent makes every word she says sound magical.
“Do you see him? Interact with him? Does he actually exist?”
“Of course he exists. He’s just… changed after the fire. How couldn’t he be? He witnessed his father’s death.”
I swallow my bourbon after nearly choking. Of course, the articles I found said there was a casualty in the fire, but I hadn’t been intrigued by anything beyond getting the information I was seeking. I hadn’t actually read it.
“You must’ve seen him, too,” she says, and my eyes squint.
“What do you mean?”
“The electric,” she says. “He’s very dramatic when he’s upset. Seems he went wandering earlier.”
My belly clenches at the idea that the shadow I encountered was Lucien Valdrich, finally showing himself to me.
“I didn’t see anyone,” I lie.
She grins. “You’re like this house. You hold your secrets close to the chest. Good. I like that. He will, too.”
I swallow at the implication as I watch her finish the rest of her drink, then set the empty glass on the coffee table between us.
She stands, leaning into the last remaining flames of the dying fire to light her candle. When she turns back, she lifts it toward me. “They don’t like fire.”
“Who?” I whisper, but Sophie turns and leaves, leaving the door wide open. The draft flickers the fire back to life as she leaves.
A creak above draws my eyes upward, and my heart races behind my ribs.
I came here for a job and an escape, but somehow I think I’m in over my head here.
Holding the brass candle holder, I watch the flame flare as I step onto the fourth floor. It feels a little stupid to listen to Sophie’s superstitions, but the flame does make me feel better about exploring.
“Hello?” I call out.
What prompted my adventure at three in the morning, which was another stupid move on my part, was the constant footsteps and the rearranging of furniture that lured me from sleep.
At first, I bolted out of my room like a woman on a mission. Now, fear trickles through my spine like rain down a gutter.
My steps slow, the unknown threat weighing my feet down like cinder blocks.
No one answers, but the sound of scraping metal lures my feet down the hall to my left.
This part of the house has to be off-limits, because it feels that way.
But clearly, someone’s decided to come up here and shift furniture in the middle of the night in the room above mine, so I’m well within my rights to come tell them to keep it down.
Light emanates from beneath a door on the right side of the hallway, casting a thin veil over the dark runner littered with filth and random boxes.
When my feet finally stop me before it, my body vibrates so hard I can almost hear my knees knock.
White-knuckled, I grip the candle and lift it to read the placard above.
