Mice had been in the box on the counter. Bits of pasta and cereal lined the bottom, and a multicolored confetti of chewed-up packaging decorated the food containers inside. It was as good a place to begin as any. Might as well tackle the most recent stuff first and work my way down.
After the church bells quieted, there was no more noise in the house. The cat had settled in somewhere. I finished one box and moved on to another, sorting out ruined food, checking expiration dates, saving things the kids and I could use. It felt good to be working, to be moving in some direction after weeks of basically just scrambling to survive. Compared to wondering if you’ll have a roof over your head, boxes full of nibbled-on cornflakes and black mouse droppings mixed with white rice don’t seem like a problem at all. The job here was much bigger than I’d thought, though. I wondered if Brother Guilbeau had any idea. After an hour and a half of hard work, almost everything still looked the same. I’d filled four bags and packed a big box of food to take to the cottage, but I’d barely made a dent in Iola’s mess.
In the pantry, a mouse scampered over the cans and cans and cans of food that flowed onto the kitchen’s black-and-white hexagon-shaped tiles, a sort of card castle gone wrong. I counted the wax paper rolls stacked beside the cans. Thirty-two. Some of them were so old that the boxes looked like they belonged in an antique mall. Who knew what was in this house that might be valuable to the right people?
I had the temptation to explore the place and see what I could find. Nobody would even know the difference. . . .
The idea slid up my arm like the sleeve of an angora sweater, soft and pleasing at first, then itchy. Uncomfortable.
Unlocking the window over the kitchen sink, I let in a spray of cool spring air and thought of that one perfect summer on Hatteras. The scents outside were the scents of that summer, the air of that twelve-year-old girl who walked in Rodanthe, hand in hand with her grandfather.
You know things about yourself when you’re twelve, before your body changes, your hormones surge, and in the space of six months the whole world seems to be looking at you differently.
That summer on Hatteras, I knew I was made for something good. I knew the world was limitless. I knew that in spite of all my parents’ problems, and the things they said to me, two people in this world thought I was something special. Meemaw was sure I had the prettiest blue eyes and long brown hair she’d ever seen, and Pap-pap had always liked the fact that, whenever we visited, I went with him to his job inspecting properties for the insurance company instead of running around like Gina. I liked learning about how to repair houses after a storm and hearing Pap-pap’s stories of the old days in the Outer Banks and the Tidewater region of North Carolina. Stories about the people I came from —sailors and shrimpers and pioneers. Courageous people. I loved the story of the Lost Colonists, who’d been deposited on the Outer Banks years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Unlike the Pilgrims, the Lost Colonists had vanished, no sign of them remaining when their ship had returned again with supplies. When Pap-pap told me that story, the mystery of it ran over me in delicious shivers.
Maybe it wasn’t too late for me to dig around and find some piece of that summer girl who still believed the honey-sweet things Meemaw and Pap-pap said about her. Maybe there was a bit of her left here on Hatteras Island. Maybe there was a bit of her left inside me.
“What do you think, Iola?” I snatched the last trash bag out of the box and popped it open, letting it drift through the light like a filmy white parachute. It crackled softly, its mouth lapping up swirls of dust as I started toward a tower of newspapers with two leaking boxes of instant oatmeal atop. “Is it too late? Too much water under the bridge? It’s too late for this oatmeal, that’s for —”
I heard water running upstairs and tipped my head back, tracking the sound through the pipes.
“Ohhh-kay . . . cats don’t turn on the water. . . .” Someone was in this house. Maybe Iola had a roommate nobody knew about —a recluse or a mentally handicapped child who was afraid to come out. Maybe someone really had broken in here last week, and Iola’s death wasn’t an accident after all. Maybe there were secret passageways within the walls, concealed rooms. Perhaps someone was still hiding in them.
A rush of crazy possibilities whirled in my mind, the stories fleshing out over the bones in ways that almost seemed to make sense.
Slipping a hand into the pantry, I wrapped my fingers around the closest thing that felt like a weapon and came out with a wooden-handled feather duster. Lot of good that would do me. I could tickle the intruder to death.
I tossed it aside and rummaged through the pantry mess, finally ending up with a wooden rolling pin and a can of wasp spray. The mental picture was distractingly funny as I started down the hall, cringing each time the floorboards creaked underfoot.
Overhead, the sound of water was so clear, it seemed like liquid would surely push through the ceiling any moment. I envisioned one of those spreading, seeping stains people see in horror movies. One that starts faint and clear, then darkens into blood or a black ooze, slowly feeding a tangle of clutching vines that sprout snakelike from the plaster, grab the unsuspecting woman who’s been hired to clean out the house, and drag her into the wall, where the plaster quickly closes up and goes back to normal, swallowing her whole. . . .
Maybe there was a reason Brother Guilbeau hadn’t hired someone he already knew for this job. Maybe he wanted someone . . . expendable.
A nervous laugh bubbled up, and I didn’t know whether to surrender to it or swallow it. If there was someone upstairs, he or she already knew I was here . . . and clearly did not want to be found by me.
My stomach squeezed into a pulsating knot the size of a walnut, and I considered making a run for the front door as I passed by the piano room again. The woman in the portrait seemed to be watching me, her tumble of strawberry-blonde hair shifting in the light, her green eyes curious. That wasn’t Iola in the picture. Iola’s skin was darker, more of a buttery olive color. The woman in the portrait had skin as pale and smooth as the china cups in the kitchen.
Maybe there had been two old women living here —cousins or sisters —but for some unknown reason, one of them hadn’t been out of the house in so long that everyone had forgotten her. Maybe she’d kept herself hidden during all the commotion when Iola died. Maybe she was the one who’d been letting the cat in and out and turning on the lamps at night.
If I had to believe the house wasn’t empty right now, I liked that scenario better —a helpless old woman. Someone frail and weak. Someone who would be intimidated by a five-foot-four-inch house cleaner with a rolling pin and a can of wasp spray.
Each stair creaked as I made my way up, stepping, then listening, then stepping again. I took the final three stairs right in a row, going for the rush tactic, then stopping in the hallway, swiveling both ways, pointing the wasp spray ahead of me, NYPD style.
The hallway was empty, deep and shadow-filled, quiet. Not a sound except for the running water. The doors to other rooms hung ajar, just as they had been on the day I’d found Iola’s body, but the door to the blue room was closed. Either the men had shut it after they’d taken her out, or it had closed on its own.
Or someone had closed it since.
I moved toward the sound of the water, pointing the wasp spray as I went, my finger trembling on the trigger, the rolling pin wavering above my shoulder. If someone came at me, I was going to start spraying and swatting without asking questions.
I peeked into doorways as I passed. The dark-walnut floors in the rooms were dusty, and even in the hallway, a thin layer of silt had started to settle over the random pattern of tracks left behind by the men who’d come for Iola’s body. There was no evidence that anyone had been moving around up here since then.
That wasn’t as comforting as it might’ve been. It brought up the question of who could possibly turn on the water in the upstairs bathroom without leaving footprints in the dust.
Maybe the faucet was old, and it just . . . sort of slipped on by itself?
The door was open only an inch or two.
I hiked up the rolling pin, readied the wasp spray. The humor of that vanished like a whiff of smoke as I moved closer. Nothing was left but a wild pulse thrumming in my ears and the rush of quick, shallow breathing, my lungs refusing anything more than tiny puffs of air.
“Who’s in there? Whoever you are, get out here. You’re not supposed to be in this —”
The door pulled back slowly, and I froze, the blood draining from my face, seeping downward through my body, leaking through the soles of my feet, pooling on the floor and leaching through. My heart rapped in an empty shell.
Everything in me was screaming, Run! But I couldn’t move.