Tess stood up to see him out. “So, you think it’ll be today?”
Wyatt nodded, pulling on his parka. “Depending on what my guy has going. But like I said, things quiet down in the winter, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he can make it happen today.”
Tess closed the door behind him and watched him climb into his well-worn truck, tossing the tool kit into the back. Okay, she said to herself. This is happening.
Tess snapped on Storm’s leash and bundled up. She felt like taking a long walk, despite the cold. After wandering around town, Storm sniffing here and there, her waving to Jim through the window as she passed the grocery store and to Beth St. John, who owned Wharton’s independent bookstore, Just Read It, she circled back and started up toward home.
From her vantage point, a couple of blocks away from the house, she could see that back room on La Belle Vie, with its windows that had been boarded shut for generations.
Except, now, one wasn’t.
Tess could see the glass reflecting the sun, as clear as day, while the others were dark. She hadn’t noticed it before. When was the last time she had been around to the back of the house? She couldn’t recall.
All at once, she saw a shadow in the window. Movement, a dark thing. She held her breath. There it was again. A shape.
So, it was true. Something was in there. Or was it a trick of the light?
She quickened her step, hurrying up the street toward the back of the house where she saw it. Sure enough. One of the boards on the windows had been taken down.
Tess just stood there, looking up at it, wondering, the tightness growing in her stomach. Could a raccoon do that? She had heard of raccoons taking covers off chimneys, pulling away flashing, and even peeling off roof shingles to get inside. She squinted up at the window. It wasn’t broken that she could see. But whatever it was might have found itself trapped inside and somehow pried off the shutters in an effort to get out. She needed to call Wyatt. He was right. It had to be today. She didn’t want to spend another night without this being taken care of.
It was dangerous not only for her and Storm but also for the animal that was trapped inside without food or water. She hadn’t thought of that before. Delaying would mean a slow death for whatever was in there, and Tess couldn’t stomach that.
She hurried back inside and snapped off Storm’s leash. She crossed the kitchen to the hallway alcove to call Wyatt, but before she had a chance to reach the phone, it started to ring.
It was him. “Hey, Tess. My guy from Salmon Bay can be at the house by about two o’clock. Is that too soon?”
“No!” she said, louder than she had intended. “I was just out for a walk and noticed one of the shutters is off one of the back windows.”
He was quiet for a moment. “It wasn’t like that before, I’m assuming?”
“Not that I noticed. Ever since I can remember, those windows have been shuttered, dark.”
“Got it,” he said. “I’ll bring another hand to help me get that door off, and we’ll see what we’re dealing with. My guy from Sammy is going to bring some traps and other gear. We’ll get this handled for you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Tess glanced at the clock on the wall. A couple of hours to wait.
She had been planning this renovation for months, but always made some excuse to delay the project. And, now, she remembered the reason why.
When she thought back on her childhood of growing up in this house on summer vacations and holidays, she realized she had always felt a sense of unease about that door. She’d hurry by it if she was going down the back stairway or, better yet, avoid it altogether by using the main stairs. There was always something vaguely malevolent about it to her. She could feel it, but her grandmother, and later, her parents, would always pooh-pooh it away as nothing but a child’s imagination.
It wasn’t just that door, she realized. She had remembered, earlier that day, feeling uneasy in the basement, too. But wasn’t that normal in very old houses? The basements weren’t exactly inviting. They were usually unfinished, dank, smelly, and filled with things that would scare young children: old trunks, ancient toys, mementoes from another time. History hung in the air in those types of basements. No matter how much spit and polish you used to renovate them, they still clung to the past. And whatever demons that past might contain.
But at the same time, Tess realized that, as the years passed, those childhood fears had faded, as childhood fears do. The boogeyman didn’t live under beds. Mirrors weren’t gateways to the unknown and didn’t harbor specters that would appear if you chanted their names three times. Monsters didn’t lurk in closets. Things that went bump in the night were just old radiators, and the groans of an aging house were just its bones settling down for a nap. Sure, they bubbled to the surface now, but Tess figured that was the memory of the past rekindling, as it did with other memories of her lifetime growing up in the house. Board games in the drawing room. Music after dinner. Playing in the backyard.