Carlton House

by B. Groves

  Shards of moonlight shone through the window, and Lily made her way over to unlock the door and head to the cottage. Her exhaustion was taking over with every stride. All she wanted was a quick shower and a bed.

  Lily opened the door into the chilly air and closed the door behind her. She glanced down at the keys that Mr. Carlton had given her. There were three.

  Lily fumbled with the keys and it had to be the last one that locked the door.

  She turned away from the house and faced the huge backyard. Pale moonlight gave an eerie quality to the land. The silence was intimidating to where no white noise even touched this house situated in the forest of a lonely road with scarcely a city within miles.

  Lily only heard her own breathing as she adjusted her bag on her shoulder and walked as swiftly as she could to the cottage. She didn’t dare to turn around and glance back at the house. Her mind had been playing tricks on her all night and she didn’t need any more shapes in a window to alarm her.

  She was out of breath when she walked up to the cottage and dropped her bag on the concrete. She realized she was surrounded by total darkness since the forest blocked most of the moonlight.

  She again fumbled with the keys and found the middle one opened the door to the cottage.

  She pushed the door open and again without letting her eyes wander, she closed the door and secured the lock.

  Lily inhaled deep breaths feeling safe now that she was inside the cottage. She found herself in total darkness and ran her hand up and down the walls beside the door desperately trying to find a light switch. She exhaled a sigh of relief when she flicked the switch and the lights turned on.

  Lily’s mouth fell open from the glorious sight in front of her. The cottage was one main room, but it was more spacious than her previous apartment.

  On the right was a galley-style kitchen with full-size appliances. All stainless steel, with gray and black marble countertops and bone-white cabinets.

  In front of the kitchen was a small dining table.

  Small? Lily thought with a snort. It looked like it weighed a thousand pounds.

  The dining table looked expensive and heavy. Behind the dining table sliding glass doors covered with vertical blinds.

  The walls were painted an elegant cream color all around the house with white trim running along the base and the top of the walls. Heavy decorative beams ran along the ceiling above her and a ceiling fan hung right in the middle.

  Next to the kitchen was a queen-sized bed with two nightstands on either side, a door that looked like a closet on one wall and another door that opened into the bathroom.

  The rest of the room filled with a cream-colored sofa with a red throw blanket lying on the cushion, a matching armchair, a coffee table, and another wingback chair at the entrance.

  End tables sat on each side of the sofa.

  Lily turned to the wall opposite the sofa and found a small gray stone fireplace underneath a small flat screen TV mounted on the wall above it.

  Lily turned to see a heating and air conditioning unit next to the fireplace.

  “Wow,” she said. “This is gorgeous.”

  Lily walked over to her new bed and placed the bag on it as her eyes soaked in her new surroundings.

  She didn’t know how she would handle all this space. She walked over and opened the door to the closet and grinned. It was a small walk-in closet, but all her clothes would fit inside with room to spare.

  She entered the bathroom. It was tiny, but who cared? It was hers, and she appreciated the opportunity to get back on her feet. She wanted to run over to the big house right then and thank him for letting her stay in such a beautiful place for free, but after checking the time, she thought better of it.

  Something occurred to Lily as she checked the shower and the bathtub. This might have been where Mr. Carlton was staying until he could safely move into the house.

  Lily frowned. Wait… did he recently purchase the house or did he inherit it?

  Lily shrugged because after the crazy day she had, remembering small details would be impossible. She’d find out as time passed and her employer learned to trust her to divulge more about his life.

  Lily walked out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the bed. The events of a few hours before weighing on her shoulders. When she and Jordan first separated, they agreed to act civil towards each other. They agreed to live separate lives, but together until one or the other came upon a better opportunity.

  Lily’s heart broke now that she realized that Jordan never accepted that. He obviously hoped she would run back to him someday and when she didn’t, whatever emotions he held back caused him to lash out in anger.

  Lily pushed back her hair and placed her head in her hands not wanting to deal with her emotions over Jordan. She assumed they would separate as friends, but clearly, he didn’t want to remain just friends.

  She lifted her head and thought about Jordan flying against the dresser. How did that happen? The front door flew open, something lifted Jordan in the air and pitched him against her dresser. Science would say it’s impossible unless something like a major hurricane or storm rushed through the area.

  She shook her head knowing that after a decent night’s sleep her mind would settle down and a plausible explanation would come to her.

  The silence inside the cottage unnerved her so Lily walked over and found a TV remote and pushed the power button.

  Lily realized there was a WiFi box sitting next to the fireplace with the green lights blinking. She checked her phone and although phone coverage was low, the WiFi signal was strong for the moment.

  She grinned and switched channels to the local news broadcast.

  She turned the volume down, walked into the kitchen, and discovered one of those one cup coffee pots with the pods next to it.

  Lily opened the refrigerator and found it stocked with water, but not much else. She opened two cabinets and found pots and pans but no food stored inside them.

  She opened a cabinet above the coffee pot and found sugar and that nasty powdered creamer beside some coffee mugs. It would have to do until the weekend and she could buy some groceries. She closed the cabinet walked out of the kitchen.

  She opened her overnight bag, grabbed her pajamas and decided a shower and sleep would clear her mind.

  Lily finished her shower and was drying her hair with the towel as she thought about her mysterious but handsome new employer. He was well spoken although reserved. Since she lived in foster care for most of her life, she learned to pick up on subtle habits and learned to read people at an early age.

  She decided that kind of instinct caused her to accept the job and leave her old life behind her. The instructions Mr. Carlton had given her were strange, but she didn’t sense that he was threatening. The house made her nervous as if it had a life of its own, but Mr. Carlton didn’t make her uncomfortable. She wondered if he had the same emotions about his own house. One could live in a place for years, but if it didn’t feel like home, then it wasn’t home. She recognized that from experience in the foster system.

  Lily dressed in her pajamas and got up from the bed to make her way to one window that faced the house.

  She knew Mr. Carlton said to keep the doors locked and curtains were drawn at night, but she had to take a peek at Carlton House one more time before she went to sleep.

  Lily pushed the curtain slightly to the side. Her eyes gazed at the house from her cottage. Without the moon shining on it, you would have never known a house was sitting there in the middle of a wide-open property. None of the windows showed any lights illuminating the inside of the house.

  Mr. Carlton must have gone to bed right after I left, she thought. How lonely that house must be all the time with only one person living inside it.

  Lily was about to go to bed when she spotted a very faint light on the second floor and to the right.

  She pushed aside the curtain a little further as curiosity got the best of her. The light brighten
ed inside the room and Lily watched as a human silhouette walked in front of the light from right to left.

  It walked by again and Lily couldn’t make out whether the figure was male or female, but assumed it was Mr. Carlton.

  The silhouette blocked the light in the window again and stopped. It turned and faced the window.

  Was it staring at her? Lily couldn’t draw her eyes away from the second-floor window. An uneasy feeling unraveled inside of her as she and the shadow stared at each other.

  Was that Mr. Carlton? That silhouette looked awfully feminine. Of course, Lily was far enough away from the house that she could have been mistaken.

  Goosebumps formed on Lily’s arms. An irrational fear coursed through her veins while she tried to find any features on the person standing in the window staring back at her.

  She tried to take deep breaths since they kept coming out shallow.

  The silhouette turned and walked away from the window leaving Lily staring at a faint light.

  Lily’s anxiety decreased as she pulled the curtain back in place. It had to be Mr. Carlton staring at her. But why would he do that?

  Lily shook her head. Her mind raced from questions about this mysterious house and even more mysterious owner.

  Curiosity lessened her initial fear. This place—out in the middle of nowhere—was fascinating, and she wanted to learn more about it, but tonight she needed sleep.

  She had nowhere else to go. Lily had no choice but to live in this odd place. She only hoped she made the right decision.

  Lily walked around the cottage one last time to make sure all the curtains were pulled and the doors secured like Mr. Carlton instructed.

  She made sure the heat was set at a comfortable temperature and kept one lamp lit near the sofa for her own comfort.

  She climbed into the bed and sighed from the softness of the bedding set. The bed was firm but not back breaking.

  She set her phone on the nightstand to charge and turned off the light on the nightstand.

  Lily didn’t realize she drifted into a peaceful sleep until she heard a scraping noise that jerked her awake.

  Chapter 6

  There’s Something Out There

  Lily sat upright in the bed, the blanket and sheet falling away from her. She shook her head and blinked rapidly, trying to clear her mind of her deep sleep.

  She pushed her hair out of her face and turned to gaze at the clock. 2:45 AM. She rubbed her eyes from sleep and searched the house. The only noise came from the low hum of the furnace.

  As her eyes cleared, she wondered she’d been dreaming.

  Her nerves had been so frayed the day before from her interview to her confrontation with Jordan that she wasn’t surprised that every sound would have awakened her even if she drifted into a sound sleep.

  Lily licked her dry lips. She listened again for any sounds before getting up to fetch a glass of water.

  Lily stilled and listened. Her eyes scanning every part of the one-room house for any weird shadows or movement. Nothing jumped out at her, and nothing moved.

  After about a minute, Lily slipped out of the bed and let out a small yelp. The wooden floor made her toes curl from the cold wood. She’d have to remember to buy a pair of slippers when she had money coming in.

  Lily hurried over to the cupboards and opened the doors. She found coffee cups earlier but hadn’t found glasses. She opened another cupboard and found brand new glasses inside.

  She pulled one out and realized they were so new that the little stickers with the barcodes were stuck on them.

  Lily filled it up with the tap water anyway and took a few sips.

  She stood there considering the scraping noise had to have been a dream.

  After a couple more gulps, Lily placed the glass inside the sink and turned to lay back down on the bed when a sound caught her attention.

  Scrape-silence-scrapes-silence.

  What was that?

  Lily froze as the fear crept up into her throat. She remembered Mr. Carlton’s warning about keeping the doors locked and the curtains closed.

  She needed to know what made that scraping noise, but at the same time, she didn’t.

  He mentioned animals invading the property, but the noise didn’t sound like an animal. It sounded like footsteps.

  It’s just an animal, Lily tried to convince herself. The Pinelands hosted all kinds of wildlife. It could be anything from a bobcat to a deer.

  Whatever it is, it can’t get in.

  Lily hurried over to the front door to test the lock. She turned to check the other doors when she heard the scraping noise again. She turned back around and eyed the window next to the front door.

  Lily didn’t want to find out. Mr. Carlton had advised her not to open the curtains or unlock the doors, but she what if her safety was on the line?

  She reached for the curtain and pulled it back ever so slightly. The moon cast an even sharper light onto the house making it even creepier than earlier in the night.

  The light in the upstairs window still glowed dimly through the window as Lily focused on the house.

  She pushed the curtain back farther not seeing anything unusual. There was no movement around the house and no silhouette staring at her through the window from earlier. She let it fall back into place and decided to look out of the side window and into the property.

  She pushed back the curtain and set her gaze on the rest of the property. Besides the creepy headless statue in the fountain, the moonlight was bright enough to give her a clear view of the property. No movement. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye.

  Lily closed the curtain. She frowned thinking she was being way too paranoid and needed more rest.

  She was about to head back to bed when another noise caught her attention.

  It wasn’t a scraping noise this time. She stopped and listened. Did it sound like a door opening?

  Lily rushed back over to the window and pushed the curtain aside again.

  Her eyes widened when she saw a figure standing at the back door.

  She knew right away it was Mr. Carlton. He seemed like he was struggling to open it. She stayed frozen in place as he tugged and pulled at the door. She thought she heard him make a grunting noise as if he was angry that it wouldn’t open for him.

  What was he doing? Why was he roaming around the property in the middle of the night?

  Did she venture out and ask him if he needed help?

  Lily was about to move when he spun around and stared in her direction. She let the drape drop back into place and backed away from the window.

  Lily heard another noise like a door slamming shut and then silence settled over the small cottage.

  Lily didn’t know how long she stood there, her mind racing from so many questions about her new employer.

  Had he been drunk? Was that why he struggled to get back inside the house? Was her new employer an alcoholic? She thought back to the days when her parents would leave her for hours and came home to do the same thing because they were high or drunk.

  Lily stayed there for a while and again wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake. She hadn’t even done any work for the man yet, and already he acted strangely from the moment she met him.

  Well, he’d been acting weird since they first met at the interview.

  Lily put a finger to her lower lip. She could always stay with her foster parents until she found a place of her own, but she didn’t want to disturb them.

  Mr. Carlton had done nothing wrong, though. This was his house and his land so no matter how he acted, he was the owner and could do whatever he pleased.

  Lily went back to the window and peeked through the window one last time. The upstairs light had been turned off and all she saw was inky darkness within the windows.

  She checked around each window. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye.

  Lily decided she would give this job a chance. She admitted the money was keeping her here and desperation fo
r a roof over her head.

  She looked around the one-room home and sighed. This place was modern, cozy, and spacious. She never lived in such a nice place before or after she turned eighteen. All her apartments had been cramped with old appliances that didn’t work or broke down half the time.

  Lily crawled back into bed, and when she did, sleep only teased her. She had plenty to do in the morning. Lily had thrown all her clothes and various other items she needed into the car. Eventually, she’d have to return to her old apartment and retrieve the rest of her stuff.