He ate his breakfast while she ate hers and checked her emails.
“Gotta go to work,” she told him.
He followed her to the stairs, started up with her. Then stopped by the hidden door, wagged his tail.
“Something in there?” She shook off a chill. “Maybe, but we’re not going in there. Not today.”
In the bedroom, she let out a long breath at the bed—freshly made, pillows plumped. Yoda’s dog bed had been nicely smoothed out.
“Okay. Okay, thanks. It’s not necessary, but thank you. Fine.”
After she’d changed into sweats, Yoda walked with her to the library.
He took his place under the desk; she put her mind into the work.
Twice she heard doors closing. So did he, as he lifted his head.
“It’s not me,” she muttered, and kept working.
She decided to consider walking-the-dog time as thinking time. The catering project had some challenges. The packages, the à la cartes, all the images, the pricing. And she wanted it appealing but streamlined so potential clients wouldn’t have to wade through everything.
By the time she shut down for the day, she’d rejected two designs before settling on one that hit appealing and streamlined.
And because Yoda paused by the damn hidden door every time she went up or down, she opened it.
“You want to see, we’ll go see. I’m supposed to work out anyway.”
He did a lot of wandering, and occasionally stopped, wagged at nothing. At least nothing she could see.
He seemed entertained by the poor excuse for a workout she managed before she just wanted out.
This time, as she passed the bells, she heard one ring.
“The Gold Room. Which one is that? I think that’s on the third floor. It’s closed off.”
She steeled her spine.
“We’re going up.”
She picked Yoda up as much for comfort as to spare his little legs the steps. She wasn’t sure of the room, but she’d start where she had a blurry picture of a large room papered in deep gold. One of the important suites, she thought she recalled.
When they reached the third floor, she set Yoda down.
“It’s cold up here. Colder than it was before.” She opened doors one at a time. Draped furniture, floral wallpaper or creamy panels.
And as she reached for the knob of the door at the end of the long hall, Yoda growled.
She looked down to see him standing stiff-legged, his teeth bared.
“I won’t let them hurt you. Or it.”
Though her stomach clenched, her heart pounded, she pushed open the door. She swore the air flowed like ice. The drapery over the furniture shook with it. At the threshold, Yoda barked like a mad thing.
“It’s my house.” She scooped him up. “It’s our house.”
But because the dog trembled—or she did—she shut the door again.
“It’s all right.” As she walked away, she kissed Yoda’s head. “Everything’s all right. Let’s go downstairs. You can have a treat.”
He didn’t manage a howl, but more of a whine. Still, she took it as a good sign.
In the kitchen, all the chairs at the small table lay on their backs on the floor.
“Somebody’s trying to scare us, but they won’t.”
She put Yoda down, righted the chairs.
Then rewarded the dog with a treat, and herself with a glass of wine.
* * *
The dog brought comfort, a sweet little warm body to share her space. After their last-round walk, she decided to skip Poole family history for a night, and went back to her novel with Yoda curled in his own bed by the fire.
And slipped into sleep with the book sliding out of her hands.
Did she dream?
She stood in front of the mirror, the mirror from her father’s dreams. The predators framing the glass seemed to snap and snarl.
But rather than her own reflection, she saw a room beyond, shadowy movements, as if the glass was a window and not a mirror at all.
The shadows began to shift, and the light grew brighter.
Firelight, candlelight illuminated a bedroom.
Hers?
Not the same bed, no, and the walls were covered with full-blown flowers with pink-tipped petals over a field of the palest gold. But she recognized the room she’d claimed in the manor as her own.
A woman lay on the bed, obviously in labor. Though Sonya had never seen a live birth, what she saw through the glass was unmistakable.
Two women attended her—midwives?—one bathing her face, the other kneeling between her legs.
And through the glass, Sonya heard voices, cries, muted at first, then growing louder and more distinct.