by Sarra Cannon
His mind went back to the night before, which came in raw, sensory flashes. The fight with Derek, the bumpy ride home, the music on his scratchy old record player, the sight of Hallie in his shirt, the scent of her warm skin, the sound of her soft moans.
Fuck. What had he been thinking, inviting her to stay? To spend the night, to sleep in his bed? He was asking for trouble. But being with her was enough to shatter his resolve, to wreak havoc on his judgment. He got near her and he wanted her—needed her, and when they were together it was complete. The equation was that simple… and that complicated. How many times would he have to remind himself that he couldn’t have her? How many times would he lead her on, unable to stop touching her, only to change course and feel a stab of pain at the disappointment she tried to hide?
He was a cruel, selfish bastard, and he didn’t know why she couldn’t see that.
He rolled off the couch and stumbled to his bedroom, rubbing his eyes. He splashed water on his face, took a carefully-aimed piss, brushed his teeth, and pulled on a pair of jeans. Then he joined her in the kitchen.
“It smells amazing,” he said. “You didn’t have to do this. Also, where did you get bacon?”
“I ran to the store this morning, while you were asleep.”
“That early?”
“It’s almost eleven,” she pointed out, “and I was hungry.”
He gave her what he hoped was an apologetic look.
“Hallie, about last night…” he began, but she shook her head.
“Nope. No ‘about last night’ talk allowed. It’s over, forgotten, in the past. Hakuna matata.”
“I just want to apologize.”
She gave him a sharp look. “If you do that, I may have to misplace some of this hot grease on your face.”
He winced. “I just want to make it clear that it’s not you at all. I think you’re lovely.”
“Hmm, guess I don’t need a bowl to drain this pan after all.”
“Hallie, come on.”
She stepped back from the pan and leaned against the counter, staring at him over the breakfast bar. “Don’t play the martyr with me, Matthew. I know what last night was. You were drunk, and I wasn’t. It’s not like you forced me to do anything. It was my choice.”
He frowned. “I know that, it’s just…”
“You don’t want to lead me on.”
Somehow, agreeing didn’t seem like the right thing to do just then.
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m not following you? That maybe, just maybe, I can make my own choices? And that maybe I don’t want anything more than you do?”
Oh, Hallie. His heart softened toward her even further. If only she knew—if only she really understood—how much more he wanted. Then she’d know that with them, it was impossible to have anything less. To want anything less. He thought of the frustrated, overwhelmed tears in her eyes the night before. He remembered the way she fit so perfectly in his arms.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m being stupid.” What choice did he have but to let her convince herself she didn’t want him? Arguing wouldn’t solve anything… and if he got his way, if he accomplished the heartbreaking but necessary task he’d set out to do, she’d realize the truth anyway.
He busied himself with taking out plates, rinsing the dust off of them in the sink. As he sat down, she handed him a plate of bacon and a mug of coffee. They ate side by side at the breakfast bar, which faced the large kitchen window that looked out over the upward slope of his front yard.
“This is a beautiful house,” Hallie said, obviously trying to break the tense silence between them.
“Thank you.” He bit into a thick slice of bacon. It was delicious, the warm salty juice running over his tongue as he chewed. Then he swallowed, took a sip of his coffee, and nearly dropped the mug. It was scalding.
“Ah! Hot!” He stuck out his tongue, which was already going numb. She ducked her head, trying not to laugh, and he elbowed her lightly.
“Yeah, okay,” he said begrudgingly. “I deserved that.”
He dabbed at his tongue with his napkin and thought that it was a small price to pay for making her laugh.
“Thank you,” he said, biting off half of another stick of bacon, “for last night. Not the bedroom stuff,” he added quickly, “I mean the bar. Bringing me back here. Sobering me up. I was an ass.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“So we’re okay?”
“Yeah, we are.”
“Good, because I’d like to spend the day with you, if you’re up for it. We have a house to burgle.”
— —
It hadn’t taken long to explain the situation with the Belleyre house to Hallie, mainly because there wasn’t one. Which was why Dr. Signer had been careful not to have them discuss it during the general meeting.
The owners of the house, apparently descendants of Christine Belleyre’s brother, had held onto the house for tax purposes - and had exactly no interest in furthering Dr. Signer’s research. Christine had held onto the house and vanished without a will, putting the house’s ownership in jeopardy. It had gone to auction, and the Belleyre family had fought to maintain possession of what they considered their birthright. That insult, combined with the rumors Christine had left surrounding the old house, meant her descendants had distanced themselves from her legacy.
For Matthew and Hallie, this meant that any access to the old house would be two things: covert and illegal.
At the news, Hallie’s face had remained impassive.
“I was expecting a more horrified reaction from you,” he told her.
“I’m not a complete square,” she said. “Dani and I snuck into our fair share of empty houses, growing up the way we did. Sometimes you want more roof over your head than a VW bus can provide, but you don’t have the money for a heated, lighted hotel room.”
His stomach hurt at the thought of her homeless, scrounging with Dani for shelter and warmth. For the first time he wondered about her financial situation, and whether the loss of Dani had left her precarious. He resolved to find a way to offer help. He had more money than he knew what to do with, and he’d rather have chewed off his own leg than leave her lacking in any way.
After breakfast, Hallie changed quickly, back into her club clothes, and had offered to drive on the condition that they stop at her apartment, so she could change into something “more appropriate for breaking and entering.”
Now, she pulled the Westie into her assigned apartment parking spot, wedging it in between a beat-up old Honda and a fire-engine red Mustang.
“Does anyone ever ask you about this car?”
“Sometimes they ask how I’ve kept it in such good condition.” She shrugged. “Louisa did most of the initial restoration. And I’ve got a good mechanic. He likes old cars and smokes a lot of pot. He loves this thing.”
He snorted. That sounded about right.
“Is it all right if I have a look in the back?” He jerked his thumb toward the backseat. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen one of these.” About fifty years, to be precise—everyone out West had wanted one back then. He remembered sleeping in the bunk of one once, with two other men who had more than a little interest in each other. The sixties had been strange, but kind, to a guy like him—on the road with no destination.
Hallie was biting her lip, as though to keep from laughing.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, “it’s just…I was thinking… you have a little bit of country in your voice, sometimes.”
It had been a long time since he’d given any thought to his accent. He’d mostly lost it, over the years, having traveled all over. But maybe being back in Abingford had changed him in more ways than he realized.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, knowing his denial would provoke her curiosity.
“It’s just a little drawl on your vowels, I think. You round them out… Where are you from?”
“I’m from all
over.”
“Originally, I mean.”
“Originally, I’m from here. Abingford.”
At this, she laughed. “Oh, wow.”
“What?” Now his own curiosity was provoked.
“You say it like the locals. No ‘g’ and a soft ‘r.’ I should have known. I thought you were from out of town. Most of the students are.”
“Oh, I’m not a student.”
Hallie froze with her hand on the door handle. “Excuse me?” She twisted around, her knee bumping the steering column. “I thought you were a graduate student!”
“Oh God, no,” he replied. “What would I want to be a graduate student for?”
He could think of few things more distasteful than chaining oneself to the academy for any period of time, much less the four to eight years most graduate students did.
“But then... What are you doing here? With the Belleyre House? With Dr. Signer?”
“What—a man can’t take an interest in his local history?” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to keep his face impassive as his stomach twisted with the lie. “Dr. Signer’s a smart woman—I asked to help, and she put me on the house project for the same reason she put you on it: local rapport. And what we're doing… it helps if I'm not officially a student.”
“Well, I don’t have local rapport… I’ve only lived here a couple of years.”
“No, but you’ve done volunteer work around here, haven’t you? The women’s shelter, the senior center?”
“What, have you been spying on me?”
Matthew chuckled. “Signer told me. Don’t be so paranoid.”
She elbowed him lightly.
“Well, if you’re not a student, what do you do?” She sounded so confused that he had to bite back a laugh.
“Do? Like, for money?”
She raised her eyes to the ceiling as if begging God to spare her. “Yes, ‘for money,’” she said, and he liked that this was winding her up so much, that she cared enough to want to know about his life.
“I’m a freelance photographer,” he said. He reached down and jostled his camera bag.
He saw comprehension dawn on her face. “Oh. Oh.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Find the darkroom last night, did you?”
She flushed, and he laughed, unsurprised that she’d had a look around his house while he dozed.
“All right, go on. Go change. Belleyre House awaits.”
As she ran upstairs, Matthew climbed over the front seat and landed on one of the back seat benches, which had been reupholstered nicely in red and white plaid fabric. All of the curtains were neatly clipped open. The van was clean, spare, tidy—nothing like the buses he’d been on in the past. He lifted the stove cover and found the two burners sparkling clean. The water tank beneath the sink was full, while the mini fridge held only a couple of sodas.
Feeling a little sheepish, he flipped open the cabinets beneath the benches. To his surprise, a mess of tattered paperbacks slid out of each. He flipped them over to read the titles, most of which were variations on One Night with some kind of rich guy. Billionaire, Prince, Sheikh, Duke, and so on. He laughed, trying to imagine Hallie reading one of these books, with their long-haired, half-naked men on the front, each clutching a sleepy or startled looking woman. He plucked one from the pile and stuffed the rest back in the cabinets.
In the taller cabinets, he found a couple of sweaters, a handful of hair ties and bobby pins, a bag of old makeup, and a stack of trashy tabloids and back issues of Cosmo. In another he unearthed a collection of state maps and landmark brochures, along with an assortment of camping gear: flashlights, batteries, a small collection of dishes, emergency flares, and even printed instructions on basic car maintenance tasks, like changing the tire or jump starting the battery. All the life, it seemed, all the history, was crammed into these cabinets—stuffed, he mused, where no one could see it. Hallie included.
He settled back on one of the long benches and began to read the romance novel he’d pilfered, waiting for her to return. It didn’t take long, and when she climbed in the front seat and glanced back at his reading material, she turned beet red.
“What are you doing?”
“Catching up on my reading.”
She tossed her backpack in the backseat with him. “Those are Dani’s,” she said, her face still glowing red. God, he loved teasing her.
“But you’ve read them, haven’t you?” He leaned forward into the front seat, holding the book open in front of him.
“So what if I have? I’m an adult. Those are just—it’s—they’re entertainment!”
“I’ll say.”
She looked at him over her shoulder and caught his eye, found the affectionate smile playing at his lips. Her blush faded as her confidence returned.
“So what?” she said lightly, as she put the Westie in reverse. “Don’t tell me you’ve never enjoyed some… erotic entertainment. I promise you that book is a million times better—and less degrading—than anything you men have ever produced.”
“Are you calling me a porn producer?”
“I’m calling you a man.”
Matthew laughed and climbed back into the front seat. “All right, fair enough.”
The Belleyre House was located a few miles out of the center of town, along a quiet farm road that wound through the hills surrounding Abingford. The house itself was set on a hill, named for its occupant, but to reach Belleyre Hill, you had to drive through a sleepy, close-knit neighborhood of families who’d lived in Abingford for centuries. Families whose ancestors Matthew knew… and hadn’t liked much.
It was hard to shake his own prejudice against this town, and sometimes he still wondered why he’d returned. All his memories of these people, of their families, of this house and its history were memories of pain, of suffering, of cruelty.
Trees rose around them as Hallie turned off the farm road and deeper into the surrounding neighborhood. Most of these houses were large ranch houses, each with barns and haphazard collections of livestock, but as you got closer to the base of the hill, the houses grew more cramped and run-down, like you were driving straight into the past.
Impossible to ignore, too, were the class and racial divisions that remained here. Though not as rigid as they once were—and certainly not as dangerous, Matthew could attest—people didn’t often mix. Respect ranged from genuine to begrudging. The less Matthew thought of it, though, the better. He couldn’t be trusted to brush it off as nothing, as old history, as the way they were raised. He rubbed his hands against his thighs and sighed.
“Everything all right?”
“It’s fine.” He paused, unable to tear his eyes from the window. “It’s just this place. This town. Sometimes I wonder why I came back.”
“Why did you come back?”
He angled his head to look out the window at the stately old Belleyre place. “To get into that house.”
That house held the truth he needed. Answers about Emma, his beautiful, darling, clever and daring Emma. And about Christine—the one person besides himself who had known his secret, who had looked out for the two of them.
The road had narrowed drastically, so Hallie was forced to slow down as they crept through neighborhood, with its low-hanging tree branches, unkempt hedges, and the occasional bleating goats and graceful deer grazing in the lawns. As she ground the bus to a halt at the base of the road leading up to the house, she turned to him.
“That’s a pretty steep hill… and this is a pretty old car.”
“You don’t think she can make it?”
“I’d rather not try to find out. Think we can walk?”
Matthew nodded, but as they turned to get out, they both were startled by a haggard old woman standing directly in front of the Westie, which couldn’t have been more conspicuous in a sleepy, down-home, small town Southern neighborhood like this.
They both rounded the bus to greet her. Hallie smiled kindly.
“Hello,” she said. Matt
hew tried to shake off the stiffness in his shoulders, but he couldn’t shed the nerves he felt at approaching this old place again.
“What are y’all doing here?” the old woman snapped. She wore a green shawl and too many necklaces, which jingled and clanked as she spoke. Her teeth were gray and mottled, but her eyes were sharp, and they glanced from Matthew to Hallie and back with surprising focus.
“Uh—I’m Hallie Medina, and this is Matthew Roanoke. We’re students up at the university, and we’re here to visit the old Belleyre House.”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at them and bared her teeth from behind saggy lips. “That old house is forbidden. Condemned. Nasty things happen to people who go in there.”
There they were, all the defenses they’d anticipated in a single, succinct threat.
“Actually, ma’am,” he said, “the house has been examined by the county several times—it’s hardly condemned. It’s in very good condition for a house of its age.”
Hallie shot him a look, and he knew he’d sounded condescending.
“Ms.—Ma’am,” she said, her voice gentle and patient, “we’re only here to preserve the contents of the house. It’s a great historical landmark… a pillar of this community. I haven’t lived here in Abingford long, but I’ve become very fond of the place myself.”
Matthew noticed that she pronounced “Abingford” the way he did, with a soft accent, in homage to the way the locals said it. It was a nice touch, especially because he didn’t for a second feel that she was being anything but genuine.
The old woman gave Hallie a hard look. “If you’re fond of that place, then you must have a little witch in you, too.”
Hallie looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”
“Why d’you think that old house is so well preserved?” Now the old woman glared at Matthew. “Ask him,” she said. “He knows why.”
Matthew felt his neck grow warm. What did she mean? She couldn’t possibly…