When I open the door closest to me, on the right, I’m hit by a hot, stale breeze, like the house is letting out a breath it had been holding in as long as the door was shut. I cough as dust collides with my face, and I run my fingers along the wall until I find another light switch. Some weak yellow light blinks down from the candle-shaped fixtures screwed into the walls, and I notice a few cockroaches scrambling for cover. Yuck. (At least they’re not spiders, though.)
There are two enormous chairs framing a fireplace—who was the architect who thought a fireplace was necessary here? Wood-paneled walls are lined with packed bookshelves, lilac-colored velvet drapes cover the large windows, and the floor is covered in a matted cream-colored carpet. It looks more like a room you’d find in an English country manor rather than a house in the middle of a jungle. It would be the perfect Jane Austen fantasy if it weren’t for the bugs crawling about, vines growing over the windows, and the humidity so powerful that the peeling lavender wallpaper looks like it’s sweating.
When I close the door, the house inhales again. I spin around like I expect to find a giant standing behind me, taking enormous labored breaths, but there’s no one there.
I open the next right-hand door, and inside is a bedroom. A big wooden bed covered in a peach blanket sits smack in the center of the room. I step inside and bounce onto the bed, giving it a try, feeling a little bit like Goldilocks testing out the three bears’ beds. It’s so covered in dust, it makes me sneeze.
Back to the hallway, and on to the next door: another exhalation, another bedroom. And another bed so covered in a dusty blanket—bright blue and silky this time—that I sneeze when I sit on it. But the lamp on the nightstand works and there are no visible bugs. Score one for the second bedroom.
I cross to the other side of the hall, opening the door closest to the bay window. The light switch in this room not only works; it reveals an elaborate crystal chandelier hanging down from the center of the ceiling that actually floods the room with bright white light.
The four-poster bed in the center of the room is so big that it could easily accommodate a family of five.
My breaths come quickly as I realize that this must have been my birth parents’ room. I run my fingers along the back of a silky green chair at the foot of the bed. There is a fancy desk with a mirror behind it on the wall across from the door. No, not a desk—a vanity. Where women sit and put on their makeup. Where Aidan’s wife sat to put on her makeup.
The wooden surface of the vanity is so smooth that it shines even beneath a layer of dust. There is a heavy brush she must have left behind; I bend down and see a few strands of brown hair still tangled in its thick bristles. I open the top drawer, and the strong scent of perfume fills the moist air. I sniff, trying to identify it—lavender, I think. With something else mixed in, something spicy to keep it from smelling too delicate. The drawer creaks when I push it closed, the scent fading until it’s all but vanished.
Slowly and carefully I back out into the hallway, eager to leave this room exactly how I found it. Exactly how Aidan must have left it.
The next room, I’m relieved to discover, is a bathroom, complete with working lights and running hot and cold water.
The carpet behind the last door—first on the left at the top of the stairs—is so plush that I have to push extra hard to get the door to open. The curtains in this room are pulled firmly shut so the room is even darker than the rest of the house. I finger the wall just beside the door until I find the light switch, but the light won’t turn on. I reach into my pocket. My fingers brush against the knife as I pull my phone out to use as a flashlight. For a split second I wonder which of the items in my pocket would be most useful.
Don’t be ridiculous, Sunshine. You’d feel it if there were spirits close by. Your heart rate would accelerate; your temperature would plummet.
Wait. It’s cool in here. Not, like, spirit-touching-me ice-cold, but a pleasant cool breeze circles the room, like this one part of the house has AC.
I choose my phone and flash a tiny beam of light around the room.
It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust.
And then I gasp.
It’s a nursery. Everything in here is white. I mean, it’s grayish now, thanks to the dust, but it was all white once, so bright that it must have been cheerful. There’s a crib in one corner and a dresser across from it. I open the dresser drawers, and inside are tiny little clothes, so small they look like they were made for a doll instead of a person. There’s a white stuffed animal on the changing table, an owl that looks almost exactly like Dr. Hoo, identical to the toy I saw at Victoria’s house, the one she said was Anna’s favorite.