She helped the children select what they wanted to ship to San Francisco, which in Caroline’s case meant her entire wardrobe, but given the size of the house they were moving into, Sybil didn’t argue with her. There was room for it all. And Charlie wanted to take most of his toys. Both boys wanted their favorite videogames and PlayStations, and Andy was taking his new Xbox. Sybil packed for her and Blake, while also trying to get ready for Christmas. Blake came home a few days before the holiday. He was spending their last ten days in New York with them, to help them get ready, and would fly back to San Francisco with them on New Year’s Day.
There were tearful farewells at school, mostly for Caroline. Andy was planning to come back in a few months to visit friends, and had invited some to visit him in San Francisco during vacations, and by the week after Christmas they were all ready. They had a peaceful Christmas Eve at home, with all their usual traditions, gifts on Christmas Eve, and a turkey dinner, and a lazy day on Christmas Day, in their pajamas, enjoying one another and their gifts, all of which they were planning to take with them to their new home. And Blake and Sybil gave an informal buffet dinner to say goodbye to their friends, even though she was planning to come back often for work.
Caroline and Andy went out with their New York friends for a last time on New Year’s Eve, and Blake and Sybil stayed home and toasted each other at midnight. It had been a busy month, and January would be even more so, getting settled in San Francisco, with the children starting new schools. Blake was loving his new job and associates, and Sybil was grateful to have a lull in her work schedule, so she could turn her full attention to the move.
“Here’s to our new home,” Blake said, and kissed her as the ball fell in Times Square on their TV.
“Thank you for finding it,” Sybil said sincerely. Blake had been lucky. She was falling in love with the house more day by day, although she had been stunned and horrified when he first told her. “And to no earthquakes as long as we live there,” she said half-seriously, and he laughed at her.
“There won’t be. I promise,” he said confidently, and she hoped he was right, since there hadn’t been a really big one in a very long time, and hopefully there wouldn’t be for the next two years, or for however long they lived there. She had stopped worrying about it in her excitement about the house. All she could think of now was how beautiful it was going to be. From their comfortable and predictable life in New York and their apartment in Tribeca, they were moving to San Francisco to live in an enormous mansion. It was going to be an adventure, and all five Gregorys could hardly wait.
Chapter 3
Caroline texted her friends until the plane took off at JFK, and Charlie looked faintly nostalgic as the plane circled over New York and headed west, and then he turned to his mother with his big brown eyes and dark hair just like Blake’s.
“You’re sure there are no ghosts there?”
“Positive. I promise.” She smiled at him, and handed him his iPad so he could play a game. They all watched movies on the plane and had lunch, and Sybil knew that the children were still faintly apprehensive about seeing their new home for the first time. They were intrigued by how big it was, Sybil said they’d get used to it, and told them how much fun it would be. They could have as many friends over as they wanted in a home that size, and play outdoors on the lawn.
Blake had reported that the painters finished their work on time on the two floors they’d been assigned to work on. The kitchen still needed some help, but was functional. IKEA had installed new cabinets and appliances. And they already had all the linens they needed. She had gotten the upholsterers started on the pieces from storage. The chandeliers and sconces were now in their original locations, and the rest of the furniture that had been stored was placed where Sybil believed it went originally, by guesswork and logical conclusion, and had instructed the movers accordingly. Blake had used the original photographs to place the chandeliers in the right rooms and they had filled in what the children needed for their bedrooms from IKEA. All their Internet and Wi-Fi connections had been set up, so they could use their computers as soon as they arrived. The only things they didn’t have yet were the flat-screen TV and pool table for the basement, but they were due to arrive in a few weeks.
They had worked wonders in a short time, but mostly because there was so much already there, particularly from storage. And the house was theirs now. It felt as though it was meant to be.
They went straight to the house from the airport when they arrived at one o’clock local time on New Year’s Day, and the realtor had very kindly offered to leave food at the house for them. Alicia and José, the Mexican couple Sybil had hired long-distance, with Blake conducting interviews, were off on New Year’s Day, but would be back the next day. They were enthusiastic and energetic, had good references, and said they liked kids. They were going to clean, and José would work outside too. Blake said they didn’t seem daunted by the size of the house. Several other couples they’d interviewed had turned the job down unless they hired more staff, which Blake and Sybil didn’t want to do. They thought two hardworking people would be enough, since they didn’t plan to use the entire house. Alicia had said she would babysit Charlie when Sybil needed her to, and all of José’s references had said that he was tireless and willing, with a great attitude. They were both in their early forties and had done domestic work for many years, since moving to California from Mexico in their teens. They were American citizens now.
Blake rented a van at the airport to accommodate all their equipment and bags. Everything else had already been sent. He had left his own car at the house, in the old garage, which had a chauffeur’s apartment they could use for storage. Blake had shipped his car from New York when he first moved out. And they were going to buy Sybil an SUV to drive the kids around, since she had left her old station wagon in New York for work. Both Caroline and Andy were maneuvering for cars of their own, but Blake was adamant about their waiting until they went to college, and Sybil agreed, which made her car a hot bartering item on weekends.
They chattered noisily on the ride from the airport, but when they drove up to the gate and saw the house, there was silence in the van. It looked bigger and more impressive than it had in photographs, and all three of the children stared as they drove into the courtyard when the gates opened by remote control. For a long moment, no one got out.
“Welcome home,” Sybil said gently, and she and Blake exchanged a smile. One by one they looked around, as Blake went to unlock the house and turn off the alarm. He left the front door open, and went back to the van to help them with their things, and carry Sybil’s bags.
“Go exploring if you want,” Blake invited them, as they entered the house shyly at first, carrying their tote bags and backpacks with what they’d needed for the plane. Sybil led them around the main floor. It looked nice now, and homier with some of the original furniture in it. It was a little sparsely furnished, with many items still at the upholsterers, but it was bright and airy with the fresh coat of paint. Sybil had selected a warm off-white color that went well with the house. All three children stared at the enormous hall with portraits hung along the walls, which Sybil and Blake had brought out of storage, and gave the entrance an ancestral air. The portraits in the hall were of various Butterfields. They looked like historical portraits in a British home. They peered into the living room and dining room, and the library, where she had put a huge partners desk they’d also found in storage. It was a beautiful English antique that was perfect in the room.
“Are there secret passages?” Charlie asked, turning to his mother with excitement in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had time to study the plans in detail yet. I’ll check,” she promised, after they peeked into the kitchen and straggled up the stairs to the second floor to find their bedrooms. They had checked out each room on the main floor from the doorway, but had not gone into the reception rooms like the drawing room and the library. It was a little overwhelmin
g. The chandeliers made the rooms seem more formal, and the long table in the dining room looked endless as Sybil glanced at it from the door, but it was meant for the room. She wondered if the Butterfields had given grand dinner parties, with all twenty-four chairs filled with elegant men and women in evening clothes, and then she ran up the stairs after her children and directed them to their respective rooms. All of them were pleased, particularly Charlie, who was directly across from his parents, and knew he could find his mother easily if he had a bad dream. All he had to do was walk out of his bedroom across the hall into hers.
Andy had a private suite, with a little living room of his own, and Caroline had a dressing room that Sybil had had painted pink, and an enormous pink marble bathroom with a gigantic bathtub. It was just as “cool” as Caro had hoped.
Then they all congregated in their parents’ room, and checked that out. Andy and Caroline and their parents had beautiful views of the bay.
“So what do you think?” Sybil asked Caroline and Charlie, while Blake and Andy brought up their bags. The things that had been shipped were already in their rooms. Blake had organized it all before he left.
“It’s BIG,” Charlie pronounced as he looked around, and his mother and sister laughed.
“Yes, it is,” Sybil agreed. “Does your room look okay?” She’d sent out his favorite pale blue bedspread, the chair he loved to sit in, and a lot of toys, along with his PlayStation. Charlie nodded in answer, and went back to looking around again, while Caroline explored her mother’s dressing room. Half an hour later, they all met in the kitchen to see what there was to eat. There was just enough for lunch and breakfast in the morning, and they were going to order pizza for dinner. Sybil was going to send Alicia to the store for them the next day. The kids had a few more days free before school started, and they were going to look around the city with Sybil, to get to know their new home. Blake was going back to work. He’d been off for ten days.
Sybil made sandwiches for all of them, they helped themselves to sodas, and she poured a glass of milk for Charlie and handed it to him. None of them were comfortable in the house yet, but they were fascinated by everything they saw. After they ate, Andy and Caroline explored the upper floors, which were unfurnished and unoccupied and still in the process of being painted, and they left Charlie in his room. He was still not absolutely certain that there were no ghosts, but the others continued to reassure him that there were none. So he focused on wanting to find the secret passages instead, and Blake said he doubted that there were any.
They went to bed early after the trip and the excitement of moving in. Charlie was asleep before his head hit the pillow. Andy watched a movie, Caroline texted all her friends and sent Instagrams of her suite and her bathtub, and Blake and Sybil retired to their room, pleased that their arrival had gone well.
“Well, that seemed to go okay,” Sybil commented to her husband as she lay on the bed and smiled at him.
“They’ll get used to it in no time, especially once they get busy at school,” he reassured her and lay down next to her. He was tired and knew he had a heavy day of meetings the next day. He was happy that his family was in San Francisco with him now, and Sybil was pleased too. They fell asleep in each other’s arms that night, and she could hear him in the shower when she woke up in the morning. They had the only proper shower in the house. The others all had tubs, with handheld showers added, which Andy had complained about and Caro loved. Blake had told Andy he could use theirs.
Sybil noticed, as she waited for Blake to emerge from the bathroom, that he had managed to open the window that had been stuck the night before. The painters had painted it shut, and neither of them had been able to open it before they went to bed. She had planned to ask José to do it, but now she didn’t have to. It was a sunny day, but the air was cool outside and felt fresh in the room. When Blake emerged from his dressing room, ready for the office, she thanked him for unsticking the window.
“I didn’t. Maybe it just worked itself open after we played with it last night,” he said blithely and headed downstairs. She forgot about it when she followed him to make breakfast, while he read the paper that had been delivered to their door. He preferred reading The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal online at the office, but had ordered the local paper for her.
They talked about his meetings that day, and he left a little while later. She kissed him goodbye in the great hall, and they both smiled at the Butterfield portraits they had hung there: Bertrand and Gwyneth, the couple who had built the house, a daunting old dowager in an elaborate gown with a fierce expression, wearing a tiara, and an older man in a kilt. Sybil wondered if those two were Bertrand’s or Gwyneth’s parents. And there were portraits of two pretty young girls in white dresses, a young man in a military uniform with a wistful expression, and a little boy who looked full of mischief and a little bit like Charlie. It made her think that she really wanted to get to Bettina’s book and find out who they all were. It surprised her that none of their descendants had wanted the portraits and had left them with the house. They were respectable works by different artists, and added dignity to the front hall. The Gregory children had looked at them when they walked in, but didn’t inquire who they were. They were too excited by the rest of the house.
Sybil walked toward the grand staircase to go upstairs, after Blake left for work, she noticed that two of the tables in the front hall had been moved from where she and Blake had wanted to place them when they came from storage, and she wondered if he had moved them. The tables had been switched to opposite sides of the room, but she had to admit they looked better in their new locations as she stopped to examine them for a minute, and then hurried upstairs to get dressed. She and the children had a busy day ahead too.
The children turned up in her room half an hour later, and they went downstairs so she could make their breakfast. They were still eating when Alicia and José arrived, and she introduced them to the children. They were warm and kind, and Charlie liked them immediately. A short time later, Sybil took the children out in the rented van. She was going to keep it until they bought her SUV.
She showed them all the sights, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz sitting in the bay. They followed a cable car downtown on California Street to the Embarcadero, and drove past Fisherman’s Wharf, up to Coit Tower and then around Union Square, and back up to Nob Hill, and then walked through Chinatown, looked at all the souvenir stores and markets, before they had lunch at Ghirardelli Square.
They had noticed a skating rink set up in Union Square, still there after the holidays, and she promised to take Caroline and Charlie skating that weekend. Andy wanted to go to a Warriors basketball game with Blake. After lunch, she drove Caroline and Andy past their new school, which wasn’t far from their house. She explained to Charlie again that he’d be picked up by a school bus every day, at a nearby stop, since his school was in Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge.
They seemed satisfied with their new city, and kept occupied in their rooms when they got home, while Sybil spent some time with José and Alicia, and told them what she wanted done first. They had been working there for several weeks, under Blake’s direction. Out of curiosity, she asked them if they had switched the tables in the front hall and they said they hadn’t, so she knew it must have been Blake, which was fine. She didn’t want anyone else changing the décor on their own.
Sybil had dinner on the table when Blake got home from work. It was already beginning to feel like home. The children told him everything they’d done, and he was impressed. And they were planning to drive around Marin County the next day, and drive past Charlie’s school too. He was a little nervous about it, since he’d never seen it and had no friends there, and Sybil thought a drive by might help.
They all played Monopoly after dinner, and everyone was in good spirits when they went up to their rooms. The move was going much more smoothly than Sybil had expected, and she tried to organize her own dressing room that
night. She still had shoes everywhere when she finally gave up and decided to finish the next day. She had lain down next to Blake on the bed and was dozing when he shook the bed from side to side. She turned to look at him with a puzzled expression when he woke her up with the sudden movement.
“What are you doing?” She’d already been half asleep.
“Nothing.” He seemed perplexed, and just as he said it, a violent jolt shifted back and forth and nearly threw them out of bed. The chandelier in their bedroom began swinging and they both realized what had happened, and was still happening.
“Oh shit! You lied to me!” she shouted at Blake, as she ran to get Charlie, who was wide awake and terrified in his room. It was an earthquake, and Sybil had no idea what to do. She pulled him toward her own room, as Andy and Caroline came running down the hall from their rooms, looking scared, just as the shaking stopped. It had lasted less than a minute, but felt like forever. And Sybil had noticed a horrible groaning sound that seemed to come from the ground outside while it was going on. She had never been so frightened in her life. The chandeliers were still swinging, and Sybil stared at Blake in terror. “Do you think that’s just the prelude to a bigger one?” she asked, still shaking from head to foot, as Charlie clung to her, and the other two children stood in her bedroom, panicked.
“No, I don’t,” Blake said calmly. “I think that was it. I don’t think it was even a very big one. There may be a few small aftershocks later,” he said, trying to soothe everyone.
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