Here was a painting done in the impressionistic style, similar to Monet, but this was no charming idyll with water lilies and bridges over duck ponds. This was an impressionistic painting of a skull, all dashes of white and muddied browns in thick globs of paint. I didn’t like it even a little bit. Here was another painting, done in a cubist style—all long angles and bright, garish oranges and reds—of a cup of orange water. Again, it didn’t suit my tastes, though I know that all art is subjective. Gwen was too far ahead down the looping, turning corridors for me to even see her at this point, and there weren’t any doors off of the corridor—it’s as if the hallway was built specifically to showcase the art.
It’s as if the hallway went on forever.
I paused, then, paused because I couldn’t bear the feeling anymore. You know the feeling. The pricking sensation on the back of your neck, the hair on your arms rising. The feeling you get when you’re being watched. I turned, but I was in a peculiar place in the corridor, a little bend where I couldn’t see the hallway curve ahead of me or behind me. My skirts swished around me as my suitcase turned with my upper body. I glanced back.
But there was no one there.
“Come on, Rose!” echoed the far-off sounding voice of Gwen, somewhere down the corridor.
“Coming!” I called back, trotting down the hall with my chin over my shoulder, still glancing back. Even though I moved down the corridor, even though I moved past remarkable paintings, the hall turning and twisting under my feet with the odd red and black checkerboard of marble, even though I saw not a single other soul than the occasional back of Gwen…I still couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on me.
Maybe it was just me. I was tired—we’d been driving for most of the day, and I was never much for road trips. Eternal Cove was farther up the Maine coastline than I’d thought. I’d just uprooted my entire life, had given up the apartment I’d had for years, had given up the job that was familiar, that had somehow become a part of me. Of course I’d be feeling a little uneasy. I was still wondering if all of this was a good idea. Yes. That was it. I was just uneasy about the changes, the massive life changes I’d just undergone. But as I kept walking down the hallway, I’d glance over my shoulder every now and again, the hairs on the back of my neck pricking up, still unable to completely shake the feeling that there was someone back there, watching me.
But there was never anyone there.
“I know this seems like a long way,” said Gwen, her hand on a spiral staircase as I rounded the final corner of the corridor. The staircase was a dark mahogany, and seemed very old. It was ornate, carved with little vines and leaves and stylized filigree. “But, seriously.” Gwen wrinkled her nose. “You don’t want to go up that main set of stairs. They don’t call it the ‘Widowmaker’ for nothing.”
“They’ve not heard of elevators, then?” I joked with a grin as we both began to climb the wide spiral steps, Gwen’s fingers trailing along the banister, and me clutching and lugging up my now overly heavy suitcase.
“This place is too old for that,” said Gwen with a wink as we reached the first landing. “Anyway, this is the second floor,” she said, gesturing with her hand down the long hallway. It looked like any hallway in a nice, older hotel—the plush red carpet stretching along a well lit corridor that sported wallpaper covered in little golden flowers and ornate golden light fixtures that drooped from overhead like wilting flowers. “These are the rooms for the guests, when we have them.” Gwen pointed upward. “The old servants’ quarters are up on the fifth floor, and that’s where the employees live now. Not much has changed in like…two hundred years.”
“Great,” I muttered, following her up to the second level. And then the third and fourth. By the fourth landing, I was wondering if I could make it, and—mercifully—Gwen grabbed my suitcase and lugged it up the final set of steps for me.
“It gets easier after you go up and down these a few thousand times. That’s why my legs are looking so good,” she quipped as we reached the blessed final landing. “You didn’t say my legs were looking great when you saw me, by the way.”
“I didn’t notice,” I told her seriously as we began down the wide hallway. There were large oaken doors every twenty feet or so on either side, their doorframes painted different colors, which looked out of place and interesting in such old surroundings. We passed a red doorframe, a blue doorframe, a pink doorframe…
“You’re green,” Gwen informed me, nodding to the fourth door on the right. It had a bright green doorframe, the color of green that usually was reserved for bottles of poison and rivers of acid. I grimaced as she took out an old skeleton key from her pocket and handed it to me. The slim brassy bit of medal looked like it belonged in a museum. “Go on,” she said, jutting her chin out toward the door. “See if it works.”
I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland as I fitted the bizarre old key to the lock. It turned easily with a bit of a squeak, and the sturdy door opened beneath my hand.
I guess I’d been expecting more Downton Abbey or Wuthering Heights beyond the door, with decaying red drapes, scarlet carpet that would swallow my flats and feet up to my ankles, and a canopied bed with far too many pillows that Jane Austen might have thought looked comfy. But I was very wrong.
Beyond the door was a beautiful little room, the walls painted a bright turquoise blue, the bed plain and modern with a purple duvet cover and two plump blue pillows that were different—but not jarring—from the wall set at angles on top of the coverlet. There was a nice old wardrobe, and a cushy-looking blue chair that seemed so comfortable that I immediately crossed to it and sat down. On the little mahogany table beside the chair was a stack of old hardcover books, and an empty mug of tea with an unopened box of organic earl grey beside it.
“How…” I began, picking up the light box of tea and turning it over and over in my hands, the plastic wrap crinkling beneath my fingers. Gwen stood in the doorway, my suitcase at her feet and a knowing smirk on her face as she crossed her arms.
“I told Kane some things you like. You know, that you love turquoise walls and earl gray…little stuff like that. She’d been asking about you. That’s the thing about Kane,” she said then, waving to the wall. “She’s very…thoughtful.”
“Thoughtful,” I repeated quietly, staring down at the tea in my hands. I set the box on the table and sniffed a little, looking up at the cool blue warmth of the walls. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. It was strange. I was…content.
The odd thing was, I couldn’t remember the last time I could have called myself anything even close to “content.” I opened my eyes, glanced at Gwen, who was now grinning smugly in the doorway as she toed my heavy suitcase forward and shut the door behind her. She leaned against it, glancing around again. I followed her gaze, taking in the little mini-fridge, the microwave sitting next to it on a broad mahogany serving table. There was a mahogany bookshelf, too, three shelves filled with old paperbacks, two standing empty. The curtains on the windows were drawn and tied back with scarlet bows, the curtains themselves a cheerful red color that went along with the blue marvelously.
I felt right at home, I realized. I didn’t question that feeling—I went with it, sighing in contentment as I folded my hands over my stomach, crossing my legs in a slow, leisurely gesture.
“I’ll come get you in the morning—show you around, introduce you to the other employees and everyone else,” promised Gwen, crossing the room and giving me a great big hug. She nodded toward my bathroom. “There’ll be toiletries in there for taking a bath or a shower, and I’m sure she’s stocked the fridge and freezer if you’re hungry after all those fries,” she teased. “I told her you were a vegetarian,” she added, before I could protest. “So you’ll be set. I’ll come get you tomorrow morning at…say eight?”
“Sounds fine,” I said, sinking deeper into the chair, glancing up at her with a smile. “Gwen…” I said, after she’d crossed back to the door, as she put her hand on the doorknob.
“Thanks for looking out for me,” I told her. And then, even quieter, I added: “I think I’m going to like it here. Thank you for everything.”
“I hope you do,” said Gwen with a grin, mouth all lopsided. “But wait to say that until after you meet Kane.” She shut the door softly behind her and I was alone.
Not many people in the world would care if their walls were painted turquoise or not. She’d done this to make me feel welcome. I stood up, walked to the bookshelves, glancing over titles. What an incredibly thoughtful woman.
No matter what Gwen said, I thought I would like Kane very much.
I had no idea how much.
---
I was ready, dressed and waiting at seven fifty the next morning. But as the minutes slid by, one by one, I began to get restless waiting for Gwen to come fetch me. I paced in front of my big oaken door. I felt a little like a caged animal. I loved my rooms, but I was very curious about the Sullivan Hotel itself. Now that it was daylight, I wanted to see what it really looked like.
Eight came and went, eight thirty came and went, and Gwen was still not here.
I’d tried calling her cell phone, and I’d sent her two texts, all of them unanswered. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer—my curiosity was getting to be a bit too much. I sent her one last text stating that I was going to venture out and explore the place, and then I did just that. I went to my big door, I turned the knob, and I opened it.
The hallway was cooler than my actual room, I noticed, as I shut the door softly behind me. I’d dressed in a black knee-length skirt, a bright blue blouse, and a black cardigan over it, but even with the extra layer, I shivered as I leaned against the cool wood behind me.
In the daylight, the bright colors of the doorframes down the corridor stood out even more than they had last night. I laid my hand on my own doorframe—last night’s poison green was now a pleasant meadow color in the natural daylight. Gwen had informed me that Kane had put me in the green room because Gwen was in the pink room, right next door. Her pink doorframe was the shade of pink that they use for breast cancer awareness pins. I thought I heard a noise from within the room, but when I stepped up to the pink-bordered door and knocked on it, waiting, there was no answer. No one home. Gwen must have started out early, gotten caught up in her duties or something. I was sure she’d find me, or I’d find her eventually.
I set off down the hallway, my stomach rumbling. On the drive up, Gwen had told me that the employees of Sullivan Hotel could get anything we wanted to eat at pretty much any time from the kitchens, and the cook there—a nice woman who Gwen had told me was named Fiona. There was also breakfast, lunch and dinner served at regular times, though as I tried to remember those times, they escaped me. Maybe I could find my way downstairs and find the kitchens, get a bite to eat, and perhaps Gwen would be there.
I went down the corridor in the opposite direction from the one we’d come from last night. I don’t know why. I wanted to see everything, wanted to take all of the architecture in, but mostly I just wanted to stare at the paintings on the walls, and one down the corridor to the right had caught my eye.
From what I’d gathered last night, Kane Sullivan was a great collector of art, and as I perused the pieces hung on the wall between the rooms’ doors, I knew it to be true. There were great paintings here, paintings that made my heart flutter, that took my breath away. I couldn’t imagine how much money she’d spent on the pieces of art on this stretch of hallway alone, let alone all of the stretches of hallway and rooms this sprawling mansion of a hotel seemed to have. As I continued walking down the hall, studying each painting in turn, the different styles swirling before my eye in a mixture of paint, artistic passion and the triumph of beauty, my heart began to stir in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time.
Art’s always been my driving passion, though I admit that it’s never paid my bills. Or, at least, that’s what everyone told me would happen when I declared my major of art history in college. I suppose it shouldn’t touch me now, that sad declaration that my passion would never make me a living, not all these years later, but that stigma’s stuck, and I suppose it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy. I went to school for something that made me happy, and it’s never paid any of my bills, it’s true. But it didn’t matter to me. It made me happy. It still does.
That’s the thing—art was my happiness. Besides Anna. And I stopped going to art galleries, openings, museums, after Anna died. I just didn’t see any point in it anymore. What was beautiful in the world, if she wasn’t there to share it with me? But I wondered, now, as I stopped in front of a particularly beautiful painting—a gorgeous landscape that looked American, perhaps 1920s, full of green, rolling hills and a few distant cows—if I shouldn’t have stopped partaking in what made me happy. Maybe it would have helped me through her death, helped see me out to the other side if I had gone to museums, if I’d looked at beautiful art.
I didn’t pay attention to steps or turns or which direction I was going as I walked along. I simply followed the art. Though there was a sea of beauty and the paintings began to blur in front of my eyes, several pieces still managed to stand out to me: one of a girl with a rabbit in her arms, done by the same artist who did portraits of Marie Antoinette a very long time ago. This girl’s dress was so blue that it made my eyes ache, her expression playful and insolent, like she was hiding something besides the rump of the rabbit in her hands. There was a painting of four horses, their heads reared back in fear or triumph, it was difficult to tell. If you stepped far enough back, they looked savage and joyful. If you stepped closer, they looked terrified. Here was a painting of several young children, clustered around their mother’s skirts while a father, his arm in a bandage, held her hand lovingly. Here a nude of a woman, her body resplendent as she threw her head back, her arms spread, storm clouds growing overhead like an omen.
It was then that I reached the stairs.
I hadn’t realized that I had been following a sound for the past few moments, not until then. But there they were, two murmuring voices just out of reach enough for me to be unable to make out what it was exactly that they saying, but even though the words were muffled and unrecognizable, I still knew Gwen was one of the speakers, easily. She has this really bright voice that you could probably hear through six feet of concrete. It’s the kind of voice that makes you smile.
The voices were down one simple flight of steps, and as I stared down the steep stairs, I recognized the red and black checkerboard of the first floor. I hadn’t counted how many times I’d gone down staircases, but I must have gone down all of them. So this was the staircase from last night, next to the front desk. The Widowmaker. It must be. I’d never seen a steeper set of stairs. From up above, they looked simply like the rungs of a ladder in a barn—so steep and so tall and almost impossible to even think of taking.
It’s not that I don’t like heights—I’m pretty okay with them. But these stairs were something else. I wasn’t taking these steps—I’d have to circle back somehow and find the other spiral staircase down to the first floor
As I turned, I caught the first floor out of the corner of my eye. Because of the cathedral ceilings of that first floor, it seemed much farther away then I’d thought it was.
It was then that something strange happened.
The ground seemed to spin under me for a moment, bucking and heaving like I was trying to walk on waves of carpeting, not good firm floor. Or did it really? Was it just a trick of the eye? Either way, I took a step backward as a shadow fell in front of me, but there was no floor beneath that foot stepping backward, then, and I was tumbling backwards, shock cold enough to burn me flooding through my body as, impossibly, I began to fall down the stairs.
A hand caught my arm. I hung suspended over the abyss of the air, my back to the emptiness, and in one smooth motion, I was pulled back.
Saved.
The hand was cold, and the body I brushed against as I was hauled out of the air felt as
if the person had stepped out of a prolonged trip through a walk-in freezer. I looked up at the face of the woman who had saved me, and when I breathed out, I will never forget it: my breath hung suspended in the air between us like a ghost.
She was taller than me by about a head, and I had to lean back to gaze into her eyes. They were violently blue, a blue that opened me up like a key and lock as she looked down at me, her eyes sharp and dark as her jaw worked, her full lips in a downward curve that my own eyes couldn’t help but follow. She wore a ponytail, the cascades of her silken white-blonde hair gathered tightly at the back of her head and flowing over her right shoulder like frozen water falling. She wore a man’s suit, I realized, complete with a navy blue tie smartly pulled snug against her creamy neck. She looked pale and felt so cold as her strong hand gripped my wrist, but it was gentle, too. As if she knew her own strength.
I saw all of this in an instant, my eyes following the lines and curves of her like I’d trace my gaze over an extremely fine painting. And, like an extremely fine painting, she began to make my heart beat faster. That was odd. I was never much attracted to random women, even before I dated Anna, even before Anna…well.
But this wasn’t just my heart beating faster, my blood moving quicker through me. This was something else. A weightlessness, like being suspended in the air over the staircase again, the coolness of her palm against my skin a gravity that I seemed to suddenly spin around. When she gazed down into my eyes, she held me there as firmly as if her hands were snug against the small of my back, pressing me to her cool, lean body that wore the suit with such dignity and grace that I couldn’t imagine her in anything else.
I was spellbound.
Meeting Eternity (The Sullivan Vampires, Volume 1 Page 3