To her left, she noted a formal dining room. It was offset by an opening that held a pair of pocket doors, or so she hoped. It had one pocket door, at least—half extended, partially blocking the thoroughfare. The door had a wood frame, with glass panels and brass inlay details. If the other door was present and intact, and if she could extract them both, along with their rails and wheels, then Dad could probably ask …
… but no, she was doing it again, assigning price tags before it was time. It felt sacrilegious somehow, almost like auctioning off human organs before the donor has passed. Chuck had once accused her of being morbid when she told him that. He said you couldn’t compare a house to a living, breathing person—it wasn’t the same thing. In her sentiment, that was the sacrilege, right there.
Standing there in the Withrow house, she felt a deep sorrow anyway. It was an acute thing, a sense of grieving that the great old structure surely warranted. And maybe it was only a silly, blasphemous notion, but the mansion was such a lost thing. A sad thing, a tragic thing that deserved a better fate than the one it had coming.
An angry thing.
A chill ran from the back of her neck to her knees.
Angry?
Dahlia spent a lot of time angry these days, but the houses themselves were never anything but mournful. Had she called the word to mind, or had she heard it? Now she heard nothing, only that weird, white silence of a place that’s been so long closed up and unloved.
Unloved.
The word echoed between her ears, another odd intrusion. She shook her head, but it rang very faintly, a tinnitus-pitched hum that might mean a migraine was coming, or might only mean that her allergies were flaring up. She chose to believe it was the dust, because she didn’t have time for a headache. She carried medicine in her satchel for those unexpected just-in-case times of outrageous pain or congestion; but she’d left her bag in the truck.
It’d come back to her soon enough, along with the cooler in the back, stuffed with water, Gatorade, and Monster Energy drinks. Great for refreshment and popping pills alike.
In the meantime, there was plenty of house to see, and nothing she could do about the cotton-candy stuffiness that crept in through her nostrils and clouded her head.
She let go of the staircase rail, swayed, found her feet, and strolled over to the dining room, hoping for pretty built-in cabinetry. Pretty built-in cabinetry could distract her from a ringing in her ears and the uncanny sense that she had heard a voice say things like “angry” and “unloved,” because that was ridiculous. In all the years she’d been talking to houses, the houses had never talked back.
Except her own house, maybe—the one she’d lost to Andy being a vindictive dick, taking it away just because he knew she loved it. When that house had spoken, it’d said warm things, hopeful things that made her feel like all her decisions had been good ones, and that she was home—right where she was meant to be.
But that meant that houses must be wrong sometimes, because look how that had turned out.
Even though she’d done all the work herself, on her own time, at her own expense … and even though she’d saved up the whole down payment and gotten the mortgage herself, rather than going back to school for two more years and having something to show for those student loans …
It didn’t matter. According to the state, Andy had as much right to the house as she did.
Or that’s what his lawyer told her. Everybody already knows that lawyers lie—it’s part of the job. So maybe it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t afford to fight it. It was either take half the sale price, or let Andy have the whole house, and walk away.
Dahlia pushed her own house out of her mind. She had work to do. She concentrated on the clean-stamped footprints she’d left in the dust—little trails from the front door, through the foyer, to the staircase, then back across the sitting room to the dining room where, yes, there were pretty built-in cabinets. A whole wall of them, thank God.
She went to the nearest one and leaned her forehead and palm against it, touching it like she’d reached first base, and now she was safe.
“Safe from what?” she muttered. “Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me?”
Deep breath. There you go: pretty built-in cabinets. Push the fog away; it’s only dust from plaster and pollen. It’s only an antihistamine away from being solved. Concentrate. Ignore it, and you can beat it. Talk through it.
“We can save these. Some of them.” She didn’t speculate how many, or what they would cost. “That chandelier—oh, God, look at it. Original, I bet. Somebody wired it, somewhere along the way—but whoever he was, he did a nice job. I’ll be super careful when I take that out. And this table…” Solid and heavy. Quartersawn oak—with too many layers of varnish, but that was easy enough to fix. It was old, but not as old as the house. “Maybe I’ll keep this for myself. I’ll find some chairs to go with it, and put it in my new place. My home is not as nice as this, but better than letting anybody throw it away.”
She went on speaking to the house, instead of to herself.
She found her bearings again, and the strain behind her forehead retreated to a dull nuisance. A good sneeze might banish it altogether, but her nose only rustled up a dull leak. She wiped it away with her sleeve.
Onward, to the kitchen. She found it on the other side of a door—a Dutch door, which was kind of odd for an interior feature, but you couldn’t let anything in an old house surprise you. “People love Dutch doors,” she said, checking the fastener and seeing that yes, it worked just fine. It would open in one piece, or just the top half alone. “We get asked for them all the time. People want them for back doors, and porches … they want to keep pets and kids inside.”
The more she spoke, the calmer she sounded, and the calmer she felt. Back on solid ground, even though she was parting out the body before it was dead. It was awful, but it beat a migraine.
She kept talking, and the headache kept going away.
“The kitchen’s tiny, but I could’ve guessed that. It was all redone … maybe in the sixties? Seventies? Most of this is garbage, and I don’t expect you’ll mind if we toss it, now will you?”
She paused, half afraid she might get an answer, since she’d asked the house so directly.
When nothing replied, she continued. “Anyway, I’ll check the attic … or wherever some of the old appliances might be stashed, if anybody thought to keep them. I’d love to find an iron stove, or an icebox, or that sort of thing. Oh, I ought to check the carriage house,” she remembered suddenly. “Fingers crossed that the Withrows never threw anything away.”
Outside, she thought she heard the distant crunch of tires on turf. Time was running out. Soon, she’d switch into boss mode, business mode, whatever mode would get the job done. But for just a few more minutes, this wasn’t a job. It was a sanctuary.
This sanctuary had a porch, and a pantry, and a door that likely hid a back staircase. Dahlia skipped those for now. She wanted to see the second floor, while she still had a moment of privacy.
Back to the grand entry with its swooping staircase. Each step Dahlia took added new prints in the dust. Up on the landing, there was a hall with a carpet runner that was a sad and total wreck; moths had gotten to it, so its pattern was lost to the fluffy gray mush the little winged devils left behind.
Now, how many bedrooms were up this way? She began to count, but was interrupted by a noise from outside.
Yes, definitely tires. Definitely trucks, coming past the metal bar slung between two poles, which served as a gate. Tick went the clock, and a flare of anger spiked between her eyes—but that wasn’t fair. This wasn’t her house. This was her job, and their job, too. But God, she wanted them to stay away just a little longer. No. A lot longer.
She hurried through her resentment.
First door, water closet. Added or renovated sometime in the late fifties, if she judged the Mamie pink and the fixtures correctly. Ugly as hell, but some people really liked that stuff. A
t least the sink was savable, and so was the tub. If they were careful with the tiles, and if there was time, they could keep those, too. Some hipster someplace would be fucking delighted.
Second door, bedroom. Bed inside—a big four-poster, no mattress. No other furniture, save a rolled-up rug that was almost certainly as tragic and bug-ruined as the runner in the hall. Third door, jammed shut—but she could open it later. Fourth door led to another room, not as large as the others so far; but something about it—some faint odor, or lingering sensibility—suggested a lady’s boudoir. Maybe a dressing room, since the house was so big and (if Dahlia understood correctly) the Withrow family was not. If Augusta Withrow was the last, then either their fatality rate was appalling, or there were never very many of them to start with.
A truck door slammed outside. She shrugged it off and kept going.
Yet another bedroom. This last one was the master, unless there was an even bigger, or more nicely appointed one, someplace else. It didn’t seem likely, given how grand this space was—and it had a bay window similar to the one in the parlor, but considerably bigger. The fireplace was one of the two with marble on it, and there were original fixtures left around the room. Antiques, too—regardless of what Augusta had told Dahlia’s dad. The stuff in here wasn’t junk, it wasn’t cheap, and it included a king-sized bed, along with a matching wardrobe that looked like walnut. She also saw two lamps with reverse-painted glass shades, and a cedar hope chest that just might have saved its contents from the moths.
Only two additions took the edge off the nineteenth-century charm: At some point, someone had installed a ceiling fan, and a rusted-out window AC unit jutted precariously into the room. Knowing good and well what a Tennessee summer felt like, she was prepared to forgive the retrofit.
“Dibs,” she declared of the room in general, though there was no one but the house to hear her. The bed didn’t have a mattress, but the bay window’s double-wide seat was bigger than a twin-sized mattress. It’d suit her sleeping bag just fine.
On the far side of the bed was a door. It wouldn’t be a closet, she didn’t think, and upon inspection, she was correct. It was a bathroom, added around the same time as the pink horror in the hallway—circa World War II. When she turned the sink’s handle, the faucet sputtered and coughed, eventually producing brownish-red water that went clear in a few seconds. She wouldn’t want to drink anything from those pipes, but they’d be fine for bathing, hosing things down, or running the wet saw, if they needed it.
“Definitely dibs, so I can have my own bathroom. And good on ol’ Augusta, for keeping the water and power on. Or for turning it back on, whatever.”
Of course they’d have to shut down the power toward the end, and use the generator in the back of her truck for all the equipment. When the real heavy work began, they’d be cutting into walls. Any live electrical system would be a hazard.
Another truck door slammed, harder and louder than was strictly necessary.
Now she heard voices, easily recognized. A window must be open somewhere, for her to catch them so clearly. It sounded like they were just outside the bedroom door.
She poked her head out into the corridor again.
Ah, there it was, down at the end: a window that wasn’t open, but broken. It was a six-pane grid with two panes missing. No wonder the sound carried so easy.
Dahlia left her officially dibbed quarters and peered through the glass, down at the salvage trucks. They were parked so near to the house she might’ve dropped a penny on the nearest windshield. Beside the trucks, her cousin, his son, and Brad-who-was-no-relation were chattering about the house’s exterior. The porch spindles were cool. Some of the gingerbread cutouts weren’t rotted out completely. Nice front door.
She turned away. Her time was almost up, and it wouldn’t do to waste it.
At the other end of the hall she found a second staircase, this one narrow and dark. She felt around on the wall for a switch, but didn’t find one, so she climbed up anyway. She felt a string dangle across her cheek and shoulder. She tugged it, and an overhead bulb crackled to life, revealing dark paneling on one side, and floral paper on the other. A recessed spot on the wall suggested a gas lamp fixture. The fixture was missing, leaving only a shadow and a warm-looking stain.
Out on the front lawn, someone called for her attention. “Dolly? You in there?”
It was Bobby, who damn well knew better than to call her that. She declined to respond. Really, she couldn’t possibly hear him, inside that stairwell that was scarcely wide enough for her to walk without rubbing her shoulders on the walls. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Her boots were heavy, and so was their echo on the steps, and under them. She paused, kicked gently, and yes—it was hollow under there. Storage? She hoped so. People leave great things behind in storage, when they’re done living someplace.
At the top, a trapdoor stopped her.
She pushed her palm against it and it moved easily, letting her up inside a spacious semi-finished attic. It was mostly empty, with no promising crates, trunks, or boxes; but she saw stray books, and the suggestion of toys. Old toys could be worth a mint. She’d take a closer look later on.
She stood on the stairs, her head and shoulders in the naked space—all of it lit by the attic windows (not leaded, not valuable) and as dusty as everything else. It was warmer by a few degrees up there, which made the air feel stuffy. In the exposed rafters overhead, she saw elaborate spiderweb clusters, nets, and balls; and she detected the nibble marks of rats or squirrels (please let it be squirrels) and, along the floor, droppings from the same (probably rats).
“Rats aren’t so bad,” she told herself, and mostly meant it. “The rats will give you gifts, and the bugs will give you kisses. Right, Dad?” Could be worse. Could be rabid raccoons, or needle-toothed possums. Besides, any rats in the Withrow house wouldn’t be the big black plague rats of lore, but little brown wood rats from the mountain. Give ’em fluffy tails, and you’d feed ’em peanuts in the park.
“Dahlia?”
This time it was Gabe calling her name. She dropped the trapdoor back into place and headed down the stairs—then over to the broken window, which opened when she yanked on the latch. She hung her head out, and hollered: “Up here, boys. Come on in, and take a look around.”
“We can’t.” Brad shielded his eyes against the sunny morning glare. “You locked us out.”
“I did no such thing…?”
“Then the door locked behind you. Come on down here and let us in,” Bobby pleaded.
“Well, shit. Hang on.”
Dahlia left the window to stand at the top of the grand staircase and gaze across the first floor. The door was, in fact, closed. Had she shut it? No, she was pretty sure she’d left it ajar … but then again, old places, old floors, old frames, old hinges. She hadn’t heard it move, but that didn’t mean that the wind, the warped wood, or some quirk of gravity hadn’t seen fit to shut it anyway.
She took the stairs slower than she could have, stalling the inevitable every step of the way. She didn’t want to let them in. She didn’t want to start work on the Withrow house. This wasn’t some favor she was doing for an old friend; this wasn’t a restoration gig to preserve a landmark. This was a vivisection, a slow slaughter of a thing on its last legs. She loved the house, and she loved all its parts, so she hated her job, this time. She didn’t want to take anything. She wanted to fix everything, but that wasn’t up to her.
The door was indeed locked. Its dead bolt was turned.
Maybe she’d shut the door without thinking. All right, maybe—but Dahlia was about 90 percent sure she hadn’t done the dead bolt. Ten percent was a hefty margin of error, though, and she’d been lost in her own head, hadn’t she?
Lost.
The house was insistent, but its defensive resources were few.
On second thought, Dahlia knew good and well that she must’ve locked up without thinking about it after all. It was exac
tly the kind of thing she’d do. She was still dragging her feet. Still barricading forts that had already fallen. Scavenging mementos. Harvesting organs.
But it was like she’d told the house in the first place: It wasn’t her decision to make; it was just her job to sift through what was left. Did that make it easier, thinking of herself as more archeologist, less grave robber? It still sucked.
She unlocked the door. “Come on in, guys.”
3
“IT’S ABOUT TIME,” Bobby grumbled. “We’ve been out there yelling for you for, like, ten minutes.”
“No you haven’t.”
Gabe agreed with Dahlia. “Don’t listen to him; we just got here. Man, this place is huge!”
Brad brought up the rear, crowding them all into the foyer. For some reason, no one was in any great hurry to go any farther. “It’s almost 4,500 square feet, that’s what Chuck said.”
“And that’s just the house—never mind the outbuildings.” A gust of wind took hold of the door, but Dahlia caught it, and closed everyone inside. The wind still pushed, so she reached for the dead bolt. It stuck, and wouldn’t move even when she shoved it with her palm.
“Damn…,” Gabe said. He strolled forward, into the empty formal room. “Dahlia, you were busy in here.”
His father added, “Really busy.”
She struggled with the lock for a moment more, working it back and forth until it surrendered. “I poked around a little. Tried to get a good sense of the place, so we can get our priorities in order. I figure we start with the barn and carriage house. Once we’re done with those, we move inside and take the marble fireplaces.”
As if he hadn’t heard her, Brad asked, “Would you look at that floor…?” He lifted his voice at the end, turning the suggestion into a query.
Dahlia finally turned around to see what the fuss was about.
The floor wasn’t just crisscrossed with footprints in the dust—it was scored in a large pattern like a wobbly figure eight, drawn in the drag marks of somebody’s feet.