Taking the key, Wren passed a hand over the door so quickly I missed it and pushed the door open. Before I could grab them, she’d picked up the bags and taken them inside.
It was nicer than I’d expected, in all honesty. I mean, it was dusty, so it was more than obvious that it hadn’t been used in a while. But it didn’t feel archaic. It felt almost homey.
Wren turned the lights on, and they were so bright they made me blink.
“I think you’ll like it here,” she said thoughtfully.
I made a noncommittal noise, because in all honesty, my first day hadn’t started off on the best foot.
She grinned at me as if she could tell what I was thinking. “Mildred is not the welcoming committee. We’ll show you around tomorrow.” She led me further in. “It’s two bedrooms, one bath,” Wren said, showing me the bathroom first and then a smaller bedroom. “It’s only ever had one person or small families, as far as I remember.”
Next Wren showed me the master bedroom, the living room and the bathroom. Both had some furnishings, but they were dusty with disuse. I would use them for now, but the goal would be to go to a thrift store and replace them as soon as I could.
“Here’s the kitchen,” Wren said. Her smile was wide because it seemed to be her favorite part. It was airy and well lit, a seemingly bright place.
I couldn’t help but smile because I almost felt at home even though I hadn’t established home yet. Maybe all the stress from the last ten minutes was going to my head. I sighed. “Have you lived here long?”
She glanced at me, startled. “Been here most of my life,” she said. There was a faint smile. “Like your mother.”
As if by magic, the lights in the unused rooms dimmed, and I wondered what they connected to that would function as a controller. Maybe it was her phone. I knew there were apps that could do that.
“Here’s my number,” Wren said, handing me a Post-it note. I took it from her, uncertain. My phone was still tucked in my pocket, which was kind of funny in hindsight since I hadn’t even thought about calling the police. Maybe I hadn’t really registered Mildred as a threat.
Wren smiled at me, and it was a warm smile. “Really,” she said, her eyes bright. “We’re glad to meet you.”
I felt a little uneasy, almost like there was something going on that I was missing. But I’d felt that way in other situations before, and half the time it was my worry.
“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it.
She looked at me, surprised. Then she waved a hand. “You’re family,” she said, as if that explained it all. Maybe it did.
Chapter Two
I stood in the living room, my mind still spinning. I wasn’t ready to deal with all of this now, not yet. A new town, a new place was enough. I missed my Mom, and her absence was like a hole in my heart. But a new family? Maybe that was just a step too far.
I heard Wren let herself out the front door and close it behind her. It took me a few more seconds, but I dragged my attention back to what was, at least temporarily, my new place. It hadn’t been the best introduction, and I still didn’t know why Mom had wanted me to have it. Or if Mom even knew it came with a cranky neighbor, inasmuch as the woman running the shop downstairs could be considered a neighbor. If she didn’t live here, then where?
Mom had always believed in new experiences. Maybe she thought I needed to spend time living next to a cranky neighbor. It was exactly the sort of off-the-wall thing she would have left in her will.
The thought made me smile.
I picked up the bags that Wren had left near the front door and took them into the master bedroom. There was a surprisingly clean queen bed, with deep blue sheets. The walls were plain, almost bland. It didn’t have a lot of character. I checked at the bathroom next, both surprised and pleased to find that the water ran, and nothing else seemed wrong. I didn’t really have a lot to unpack. It had been a long move, so I had only brought the essentials. I had been more than prepared to sleep on an air mattress for a few nights.
While we’d settled in Washington when I was eight, Mom had sometimes told stories about all the traveling we’d done before I was old enough to remember. Dad had been in the military, so we’d moved all over the world. I didn’t remember him, really. Sometimes I’d dream of a warm, reassuring presence, but any time I tried to see a face it vanished.
Pulling out my phone, I started a list in the notes. Some stuff would be usable, but some needed replacement. The dresser seemed solid and would work for now. Starting with the smallest, most fragile of the bags I’d brought, I pulled out some framed photos of Mom and I when I’d been growing up and sat them on it, carefully ensuring they stood.
The apartment did have a lot of potential. A bit of work could have done wonders.
“If,” I admonished myself, not letting me get carried away. If I stayed. Maybe Mildred’s visit had been an omen.
I wasn’t superstitious, not really, but my brain was looking for any excuse to go back home, to somewhere more familiar. Mom had left me this place, but it didn’t feel connected to her like our home had.
“No time to mope.”
Next were the clothes, which I tucked carefully in the drawers. My hands were shaking, not from nerves but from hunger. I’d skipped dinner to make it to Elder earlier. Sigh. At the least, I needed something to eat. Takeout would have probably been best, but I’d had takeout for most of the drive. I wasn’t really in the mood for more.
I looked over the kitchen, appraising it as quickly as I could. Fridge worked, oven seemed to work. They weren’t what I was used to, but they worked. There were even some utensils although given the dust around the place I wasn’t sure I trusted them.
I pulled out my phone and used the GPS. There was a Walmart not far away, close enough I could run to it and take back pretty much anything small I got. I wasn’t planning to do a huge grocery shop, not yet. There was more I needed to figure out before I did anything like that.
“Maybe Mom really was mad as a hatter,” I said to nobody. Then I smiled. It had been one of her favorite sayings. Madness isn’t only gifted, it’s inherited.
If this really was her family here, I could see where it may have come from. It’d always been one of her fondest words.
“Miss you,” I said to the photos on my dresser now, touching the wooden frame with my fingertips before I moved to the dresser. I changed out of the gym clothes I’d been wearing for most of the drive into a pair of light capris and a tank top. I’d have to redo my wardrobe if I stayed here much longer. How was it in the nineties in April?
I headed out the door and locked it behind me, then paused. I hadn’t thought to ask how to get out the regular way. As it was, all I could think of was down the same stairs I’d come up, then over the fence.
“All I wanted was dinner,” I told the doorknob, lamenting. And life was determined not to let me have it.
When I made it to the bottom, I reached out to push the door open and stopped. There was a rustling, and some grumbling on the other side, like someone was in the middle of moving things around.
Taking three guesses, I opened the door. Not at all surprised, I found Mildred staring back at me like I had caught her with her hands in the cookie jar. She had a small card table in her hands, like one made for a garden or patio of a coffee shop. What she was doing with it, I had no idea.
“What are you doing?” she asked, the words harsh.
“I fail to see how it’s any of your business,” I said as politely as I could, ignoring my stomach rumbling.
She wasn’t thrilled with my answer, but I didn’t really care.
“You leave my coffee shop alone,” she said tartly.
“I’m not going to steal your coffee shop.” I sounded exasperated, but I couldn’t blame myself. “Do I really look like I’m going to?”
Mildred studied me, her gaze suddenly more astute than I’d seen before. There was something knowing there, something almost dark. Hunted, if I had to guess.
Then her face cleared. “I know it was you,” she said.
I wasn’t sure she’d confirmed my prior opinion, but it was the logical assumption.
“Just got here,” I said. “Tonight. Less than an hour ago.”
“I know it was you who went through it.” She sounded almost aggressive.
It made the med tech in me want to check her pupils. Was she on something?
“Never been here before,” I said frankly.
“I called the cops on you,” Mildred said, her voice officious. “He’ll be here to get rid of you.”
“I didn’t even do anything.”
Mildred opened her mouth to argue, and I shook my head to cut her off. “Why?” I asked. It wasn’t often I got treated with that much hostility. It was almost a learned art.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “You’re intruding.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked, incredulous.
“What’s your problem?” Mildred snapped.
“What’s yours?” I snapped back, just as someone else came into view. Apparently, there was a gate I’d completely missed, because it opened easily to reveal a six-foot-two man dressed in business casual like a cop on TV. He had a shock of red hair, green eyes, and a wide, easy-going smile that looked almost out of place on his more serious face. Maybe he was related to Theo?
“Ethan,” Mildred said, shooting me a dangerous look. “I’m glad you’re here. This girl has been breaking into my coffee shop–”
“She looks like a woman to me,” he said, winking at me. He didn’t seem to take what Mildred said seriously, which gave me some hope.
Okay, and my heart may have skipped a beat. It’d been a long time since somebody flirted with me.
Mildred sniffed loudly, making her disagreement obvious. Ethan—if that was his name—turned his attention to her.
“What proof do you have?” he asked.
“I don’t need proof,” she said haughtily. “I know it was her. She even got in the back door.”
“It’s not my fault the door was unlocked,” I said, sounding peevish.
Both Ethan and Mildred stopped and stared at me. I shifted in place, uncomfortable at the scrutiny. “It was,” I said defensively.
“Unlocked?” Ethan cocked his head to the side, emerald-green eyes intent.
“Yes?” I said hesitantly.
“Interesting.” Ethan watched me for a few seconds more, then nodded to himself, as if he’d made a decision. I felt out of the loop, but I’d mostly felt out of the loop for the entire night, so it wasn’t really a surprise.
“How about we work on increasing the security for your shop?” Ethan offered Mildred as a compromise. “Add a camera or something. That way we can make sure we catch whoever’s actually doing it.”
Mildred muttered under her breath and shot me another glare. “I know it was her.”
Ethan looked at her evenly. “Well, if it is her, let’s get your security system set up so that we can catch her in the act.”
She seemed mollified by this and gave me a glare before she followed Ethan out the gate and towards the storefront. I waited a few seconds before I followed, not wanting to crowd the crazy woman, but also not wanting to completely leave things unanswered in case the police needed to talk to me.
When Ethan caught sight of me, he winked. “Go run your errands,” he said. “I’ll catch you later. Consider it resolved.”
I hesitated for a split second, not that I was planning to do all the errands, not anymore. I was tired and Walmart was the only thing open at that hour. All I wanted was food and then to crawl into bed. However, delivery had been invented for a reason. Making a split-second decision to be responsible later, I headed back upstairs and ordered pizza. My favorite type of comfort food.
Thirty minutes later, I settled on the couch in an old robe and cotton pajamas, inhaling the greasy pizza. I would probably regret it later, but for now, it was like ambrosia. I would have to go shopping tomorrow. But that was for then-Lou, and now-Lou could chill on the couch and not think about things.
My brain didn’t agree. Instead, it kept steamrolling. I had to figure out what I was going to do to pay for utilities. Mom had left me some money, but it didn’t really grow on trees. I wouldn’t have to pay for the apartment—it was paid off—but apartments came with upkeep.
The wave of feelings hit me like a tsunami. I bit down on the piece of pizza, probably more savagely than I would have otherwise. New beginnings. Not that Mom was forgotten, but this was honoring her memory. Or something. It turned out grief sucked.
Setting aside the pizza, I headed to my bedroom and grabbed one of the photos of us together. In it, I was probably seventeen, and we were on a trip to Hawaii. Mom had her arm around my shoulder, we were both tanned and our sun-burnished hair was blowing everywhere in the wind, but we were smiling and happy.
Yeah that didn’t make me miss her any less. Not my brightest move.
Finally full of pizza, I considered bed and then discarded it. I was tired, yes, but my brain was still spinning. Anxiety wasn’t kind, especially if you were already in a high-stress situation.
Instead, I pulled out my sketchbook, tucked carefully in my backpack that had ridden on the front seat with me. Drawing had always been a hobby of mine, fantasy images with elves and dragons and all sorts of otherworldly things. I had a small collection of my favorite fantasy/sci-fi authors on my phone, which I re-read every so often.
I wasn’t a particularly good artist, really, but it was something to do when I needed to get my anxiety to chill. It was a good distraction.
Turning more modern for the evening, I worked on doodling the floor plan of the place, trying to make a layout clear enough I could use it to figure out organizing over the next few weeks.
Then my mind started to wander, and the doodles turned more unfocused. A face here, a speech bubble there. Random strokes that called to me. Something that could have been a door or a book, another thing like a dog. My pencil scritched randomly across the paper, like a bee flitting from one flower to another.
Did I really want to live here? Above the coffee shop of the woman who didn’t like me? The more rational part of me spoke up; she may not have liked me now, but maybe that would change.
Maybe I’d made the wrong decision, coming here. But even with everything covered in dust and only the bare minimum in home comforts, the apartment felt like home, cozy and warm in a way that the house had never felt after Mom died. She wasn’t here, but her memory was. She’d left this place to me, and I wanted to know why.
I nodded, flipping to a new page and settling on the couch with my knees propped up enough to hold the sketchbook at an angle. That was a good plan. If Mom really had grown up here, I could make it my goal to learn more about her. If it was her family, maybe they had pictures of her when she was small, or things they had done. She’d always been surprisingly scarce on the details, saying that she didn’t like talking about it. That it was painful. Not in a way that spoke of abuse or maltreatment, but more like something she held dear that she’d given up for a good reason.
There I was, getting fanciful. I really needed to sleep.
“Why can’t this be more simple?” I said mournfully to the sketchbook in front of me. I’d started doodling something that had started as a hazard symbol on the right side, then spiraled into something like a lightbulb on the left. The symbols were nonsense, but they were soothing. Static was buzzing in my ears, that weird sort of way it does when silence literally starts ringing. I kept drawing, distracting my mind, giving it something to cling onto.
I turned the video back on my phone, drowning out the buzzing. It was a random movie from my playlist, background noise as I drew. I was familiar enough with it that I mouthed the words along with the dialogue and smiled.
Then there was a flash of bright light, and I blinked, noticing my pho
ne had turned off. I must have forgotten to charge it.
Swearing under my breath, I turned to get off the couch and froze. There was a dog sitting on the floor, staring at me with intense brown eyes.
I may have screamed and dropped my sketchbook, then tripped over the coffee table. Hey, I never said I was dignified.
The dog was medium-sized, probably 30 pounds, with a tricolor coat. The face was mostly white, and the saddle on her back, black with brown flecks. The tip of the tail was white, and so were the feet. The rest was brown. All in all, it looked like a very unimpressed hound.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I’d just asked a dog a question. Maybe I’d forgotten to lock the door? But it was the second floor.
“You’re the one that called me,” it said.
But dogs couldn’t speak, and its mouth didn’t move.
“I’m definitely going crazy.” I looked at the box of pizza sitting on the coffee table. Had there been something in it, or was I hallucinating?
There was a sigh of exasperation. “I know you can hear me,” it said.
“No, I can’t,” I said. “You’re a dog. Dogs can’t talk.”
“Is that what they teach you young people nowadays?” the dog asked. It shook its head as if I should’ve learned something in school. I just stared.
“So, what did you need me for?” the dog asked. Now that I thought about it, it had a feminine voice, and the exasperation in its tone was definitely maternal.
“Are you a girl?” I asked, tripping over my own words. Definitely hallucinating.
The dog let out an irritated huff. “Yes, but that’s not an answer.”
“I didn’t call for you?” This was a new hallucination. I’d wanted a dog growing up, but Mom had always said no. While I’d dreamed of them before, I was still fairly certain I was awake.
Maybe I’d fallen asleep on the couch. I pinched my arm, and was disappointed to see that the dog was still there.
The dog looked at me sharply, her brow furrowing. “You didn’t mean to summon me, did you?”
“Summon you?” My brain short-circuited. If I was awake, then I was definitely hallucinating. Right? But it was a pretty detailed hallucination. But there was no chance it was real. Or something. “What?” I asked desperately, as if it would make the world make sense.
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