When she walked into the bedroom, she caught the scent of perfume. Her new perfume, since she’d tossed out what Brandon had given her for Valentine’s Day the year before.
The bottle stood with the three decorative ones, and not beside the hand mirror.
“Sonya?”
“Sorry, I missed that.”
“Could be because I’m talking so much and so fast. Send me the contract. I’m in for the works, and I’ll get you the pictures. I’m going to ask my guy to help with the bio. He writes a lot of the publicity stuff for the hotel.”
Deliberately Sonya walked over to the dresser, moved the perfume bottle back where she wanted it. Groggy this morning, she thought. She’d been groggy.
“I’ll send it this afternoon. You should have one of your three handsome lawyers look it over. I can take care of getting your business cards printed if you want.”
“I’ve got a source through the hotel, so that’s no problem. This is all better and easier than I expected, Sonya. And a whole lot faster. I really do love everything.”
“You’ll love it more when it’s fully built. Send me the pictures you have. We’ll need one of the piece you made today when it’s finished.”
“Sometime tomorrow for that, but I’ll send the rest. Talk soon.”
“Talk soon.”
After a quick happy dance, she unwrapped the bowl she wanted for the table on the second floor of the library, the candle she’d bought for the bathroom counter.
She pulled out one of the books, set it and a bookmark on the nightstand. After draping on the scarf to put away downstairs, she took the other books and the bowl into the library.
Rather than put the books on a shelf, she put them on a table by the sofa, and since she’d work, laid some logs in the hearth, lit a fire.
She took the bowl up, admired the way it looked, then walked down again to get a Coke out of the kitchen.
“Stairs, lots of stairs in this place. I probably don’t need to try the gym if I keep going up and down all these flights every day.”
The part of her that wanted to explore in what she still thought of as secret passages warred with the part that imagined getting stuck down there. Somehow.
“Maybe tomorrow. I’ll have my phone, so if I do get stuck, I can call somebody to get me unstuck. I’ll feel like an idiot, but so what?”
Plus, she needed to take a good look at what she had in storage spaces.
Over the weekend, she told herself. Just like a professional. Workweek, weekend.
“I’ll begin the going down there, going up there on Saturday.”
As she started upstairs to do that work, the music came on.
Elton John, shouted out: “It’s getting late, have you seen my mates? Ma, tell me when the boys get here.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
After jogging up the rest of the steps, she turned into the library. Sir Elton sang away on her iPad.
“What’s wrong with you? And that’s too damn loud.”
She lowered the volume, and shaking her head, sat.
Fine, just fine, she’d have turned on the music anyway.
First, she downloaded the photos Anna had just sent.
“Okay, yes, yes. These are very good. In fact, perfect. Exactly what I want. Nice work, Anna’s mom. So here goes.”
She brought up the contract, sent it, then went back to the photos.
As she worked on layout, she caught herself singing along with the music. “Saturday, Saturday, Satur—”
She broke off, looked back at the tablet.
“That’s weird, isn’t it? Kind of weird that I was thinking about Saturday, and this starts up.”
As her belly jumped, she rubbed her hands on her thighs.
“It’s just a song, a song and a glitchy app. I’m going to work now. I need to concentrate.”
And this time she couldn’t be sure if she talked only to herself.
* * *
That night, a clock struck three. And she dreamed she walked the long halls of the manor where somewhere echoed the sound of a woman’s weeping.
She dreamed she stood before a mirror framed with predators that seemed to snap and snarl. But rather than her own reflection in the glass, she saw another.
She dreamed of a woman with hair the color of roasted chestnuts falling nearly to the waist of her long white nightgown.
As she watched, the woman walked out of the great doors of the manor and into a snowstorm. In the dream Sonya heard the crash of the waves, the feral howl of wind, but the woman, smiling, trudged through the snow in bare feet.