Tye shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll settle up in the
morning.”
“Thanks.” He drained his glass and stood up. Nothing fell over; the floor
didn’t rise to meet him. He laughed a little. “I lost track of how long
I’ve been sitting here.”
“You’re not the first,” Tye answered. “Sweet dreams.”
Carrie led him to the far side of the room, where the old reception desk with
slots behind it for mail and keys emerged bulkily out of the shadows. She had
begun to climb the stairs when he remembered his manners.
“Here. Let me carry that stuff.”
“I’ve got it, thanks.”
He trailed after her around the elegant curve, trying not to gaze at the taut
figure on the step above, sure she would read his mind and dump the linens on
his head. He thought of food instead.
“That salmon was unbelievable. How— What did you do to it?”
“The salmon?” She sounded incredulous.
“Yeah. I would never in a million years have let it anywhere near a deep
fryer. My mother would have fired me. But you—”
“You’re asking me about the salmon?”
“Well. Yes.”
She flashed him one of her wide-eyed glances, a bewildering mix of amazement
and exasperation. She made a noise indicating something major wrong with his
head, and opened the door at the top of the stairs.
“Ella, Hal, and Tye all sleep on this floor; you won’t be alone up here.”
She dropped her armload on a tapestry-covered chair and flicked on a lamp.
“Bathroom’s in there. Don’t worry. It’s not a chamber pot, and there is
hot water.”
“What did I say?” he asked softly, genuinely wanting to know. To his
surprise her expression became complex, bittersweet, and strangely sad. Should
I ask you to stay? he wondered. She turned away quickly, whipped a sheet open
across the bed.
“Nothing. You said nothing.” She shifted around the bed, tugging the corners
tight without looking at him. “There are so many things nobody will answer
when I ask. I thought you might—they might answer you. If you had asked.”
“Asked what?”
Her lips pinched again; she only said, “Go down and get your things while I
finish this.”
When he came back, she was gone.
He woke sometime in the dark of the night, chasing down a fading dream in
which something he wanted very badly kept eluding him, no matter how fast he
moved, how desperate his desire. He was covered with sweat, as though he truly
had been running. It took him a few groggy moments to remember where he was.
When he finally did, he fell back into sleep as into some soundless,
bottomless nothing.
He woke with a start in a pool of light from the unshaded window. He saw blue
water, a paler blue sky, the sun burning away the last of a morning fog. He
groped for his watch. The lovely room caught his attention first: the rich,
dark wainscoting, the pale rose walls, the high ceiling and fine moldings of
an earlier era. Light, airy, full of morning, it drew him upright to walk down
the shaft of sunshine, peer at the bay and wonder, as he saw the fishers
already out, how long the world had gone on without him as he slept.
He showered, dressed, and packed quickly. He heard no sounds in any of the
rooms around him. Everyone was up, he guessed, and he hoped the restaurant
might still be serving breakfast. When he went downstairs, he found the bar
empty. He dropped his bag on a velveteen couch and went to push at the
swinging doors. They refused to budge. He found the sliding bolts holding them
fast, pulled them out of the floor and looked into the restaurant.
He heard nothing from the kitchen: not a voice, not a clatter of pot or plate,
not a sizzle.
He turned after a moment, slid the bolts back into place, and listened. Not a
floorboard creaked; not a door opened or closed. Maybe they were outside on
the water, or running errands, shopping. The bar had been cleaned, everything
tidied, put away, shut up. He wandered aimlessly a moment, waiting for Tye to
appear, present him with a bill.
A gleam in the shadows near the reception desk caught his eye, drew him over
to look at it more closely, for something to do while he waited. A tall, wide
glass cabinet stood between the desk and the massive fieldstone fireplace. Its
curved door was made of intricate diamonds of beveled glass framed with thin
brass rods; its latch and hinges were a bygone age’s fantasy of brass,
curved, etched, scrolled. Inside the cabinet he saw the gaff, the gold
platter, the cauldron.