JULIA The day after going into the den and finding the locked drawer and her high school photo on her father’s desk, Julia made her way up to the third floor, hoping to find a way into the attic. She needed to figure out how the rats were getting in before the infestation got any worse. With Mother’s keys on her belt loop, she hurried up the second flight of stairs, something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl, when she used to stomp up and down the steps to see how many times she could get away with it before Mother scolded her for forgetting the third floor was off limits.
Except for the thick coating of dust and cobwebs hanging from the crown moldings and ceiling lights, the layout was the same as the second floor, with a wood paneled grid of hallways lined with red Turkish runners, brass sconces, and closed doors. Starting at the far end of the main hall, Julia stuck her head inside each soundless room, unable to shake the feeling that she was in an abandoned hotel. Every tight, narrow chamber was exactly the same, with double windows, a mahogany bed, a mirrored dresser, a dust-covered duvet, and a red and green Tiffany lamp on a bedside table.
She had no memories of visitors heading up to there to sleep, and could barely recall her parents having company. She also had no knowledge about the history of Blackwood, if it had been in the family before her parents owned it, or the age of the building. As a child, she hadn’t cared. But now it was easy to imagine a time when elaborate feasts and grand parties were held in the dining room and the sweeping front lawn, couples dancing and drinking before treading upstairs arm in arm to make love in the beds, or to argue, laugh, and cry within the privacy of the third-floor rooms. She pictured lovers meeting secretly, couples fighting, men taking advantage of women, drunks being put to bed, women weeping in chairs next to windows, men playing cards and smoking. It was quite possible that someone, maybe more than one someone, had died up here. Could it be that rats weren’t the ones making noises at night? Could it be that Blackwood Manor was full of ghosts? The idea made her shiver.
She pushed the morbid thoughts away and walked to the end of each hall, looking for a way up to the attic. If rats were getting in somewhere, the attic would be the logical place for them to hide. She searched for another door or staircase, but found none. She checked the ceilings for a trapdoor. Still no luck. It didn’t make sense. How did her parents get up to the top floor? Thinking she had missed something the first time, she looked in every room again.
Then, in the bedroom at the end of the last hall, she noticed there were two closet doors instead of one. She hurried toward it, then slowed. What if she found a nest full of rats in the attic? Or a loft full of bats? With a strange mixture of excitement and fear, she opened the first door. It was a closet, empty except for a dusty pair of men’s dress shoes with crumbling laces. When she slowly opened the second door and peered inside, the light from the bedroom revealed a narrow space the size of a large bathroom or small dressing room, decorated with wainscoting and fleur-de-lis wallpaper. Haphazard piles of hatboxes and shoeboxes lined one wall. She opened the door all the way and let out a screech.
A nude, headless woman stood in the back corner, partially obscured by shadows.
Then Julia realized her mistake and laughed, her fingers over her mouth. It was a dressmaker’s dummy. She stepped through the door, pulled a string on a bare bulb, and the room flooded with gray light. Unlike the eight-foot ceilings in the rest of the house, the ceiling in the small room was less than six feet tall. And if she stretched out her arms, she could touch two walls at the same time. At the far end of the space, next to the dummy, a hand-carved table with lion legs atop ball and claw feet sat beneath a cloth tapestry embroidered with a stone cottage surrounded by iris and lilies. Why anyone would hang a tapestry in such a small room was beyond her. She put her hands on her hips and glanced around. What had this room been used for? It felt chillier than the rest of the house and she couldn’t imagine why. Maybe it had been someone’s private sitting area or changing room. It almost seemed like a hidden chamber. A hidden chamber for what, who knew?
She picked up one of the hatboxes and blew a layer of dust off the lid. Just as she was about to open it, someone called her name downstairs. It was either Claude or Fletcher, she couldn’t tell which. She switched off the light, left the room, closed the bedroom door, and hurried toward the staircase.
Claude waited at the bottom, his face dark.
Julia stopped on the top step, surprised to see him in the house, let alone on the second floor. “What is it?” she said.
“Sorry for barging in unannounced,” he said, sounding winded. “I knocked, but no one answered.”
“I was in one of the bedrooms. What’s going on?”
“We need to call Fletcher. One of the mares is foaling.”
She started down the steps. “The phone is in the kitchen.”
Claude hurried down the stairs and Julia followed. He ran into the kitchen and went straight to the phone on the counter next to the pantry door. She couldn’t help noticing he knew where to find it. He dialed the number and waited, his hat twisted in his fist, his wind-reddened brow furrowed. Without saying hello or announcing who he was, he said, “Bonnie Blue’s in trouble.”
Julia drew in a sharp breath, then rushed into the mudroom and put on boots and a jacket.
“All right,” Claude said, and hung up the phone. He put on his hat and marched toward the door.
“Is he coming?” Julia said.
“He’s half an hour away,” Claude said. “And he might be too late.” He yanked open the door and went out.
She followed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Claude said nothing and sprinted across the lawn. Julia did her best to keep up.
It started to snow.
*
In the barn, Bonnie Blue lay on her side in the straw, panting, her neck and sides wet with sweat. The other horses nickered and whinnied and thumped against their stalls, sensing something was wrong. Julia stood in the doorway of Bonnie Blue’s stall and watched Claude, unable to stop the trembling that worked its way up and down her limbs.
“Is there anything I can do?” she said.
“Nope,” Claude said. He moved straw out from around Blue’s backside with his foot and lifted her tail. A small white hoof stuck out beneath her tail, like a child’s fist wrapped in white plastic.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Her labor’s taking too long,” Claude said. “That foal should be out by now and Blue’s getting weak. I checked to see if the foal was turned wrong, but I can’t tell. It’s too big.”
Julia could hardly breathe. If that beautiful horse and her foal died, she wasn’t sure she could take it. Not just because Blue and her foal were her responsibility now and she already felt a special connection to them, but because horses had always seemed so strong and majestic to her, like they were supposed to live forever. Seeing a horse die, a pregnant one at that, would be a tragedy from which she wasn’t sure she’d recover. And if this was going to be her initiation into the ownership of Blackwood Manor Horse Farm, maybe she should give up now.
“Is it okay if I come in?” she said.