Page 6 of Mama Si's Paradise

Then he turned. “Seems there is an opening in housekeeping, miss…”

“Hayes,” I said. “Autumn Hayes.”

He brought his wrist to his lips again and whispered my name in what was probably a tiny mic I couldn’t see.

“You will be searched before entertain the building. Is that all right with you?”

Searched.“Yes.” My answer sounded like a question but the guy didn’t mind.

“Very well. Please proceed, Miss Hayes,” he said, waving at the large golden gates behind him.

My heart tripped all over itself suddenly.

They were going to actually let me in.

Wait, wait, hold on a minute…I hadn’t been serious, had I? I mean, I was sure that they would never let me through those gates. Look at the way I looked—hair uncombed and tied in a messy ponytail, no makeup, wearing an old shirt with bleach stains around the sleeves and an old pair of jeans because I’d wanted to make a point out of taking only the things that had cost very, very little. Only things that had cost Brandon just a few bucks—including those four books in my bag. So, of course, nobody at this gorgeous, sophisticated,fancy-as-fuck palace was going to let me in!

Except they were about to.

The gates groaned as they slowly began to move backward, opening without anybody even touching them. Goose bumps rose on every inch of my body.

My instincts confused me. The ghosts were no longer there—I was no longer thinking, only feeling. And my feelings were confusing as hell because half of them insisted I keep going, right into that building that seemed more a beast now than an object, and the other half begged me to turn around and run. Run and never look back. Run all the way back home to Detroit if I had to—justrun.

“Miss Hayes,” the guard said, waiting for me to move, because I still hadn’t. I was still right there in the middle of the street.

Taking in a deep breath, I started walking forward, straight through the golden gates, and the guard followed behind me. There were more of them standing near trees I hadn’t seen from the outside, all around the large building. They all wore suits. They all looked at me. Maybe I was paranoid, but I got the feeling that they would kill me before I could blink if I so much as made a sudden movement they found suspicious.

The fear climbed, making my heart slam against my ribcage.What are you doing here, Fall? Turn back now!a voice in my head said, but how could I when the guard was behind me? How could I when the gates were swinging closed again all on their own?

Suddenly, I was in front of those white doors that looked so shiny and glossy, like they were covered in a layer of glass. Another guard came closer, holding a black device in his hand, saying, “Please, step to the side and spread your arms, miss.”

I did. Like in a dream, I watched him wave that wand thing all over my body on both sides slowly, and the light blinking in the middle of it remained green.

That seemed to please the guard, whose face I couldn’t even focus on. All I could look at was that green light.

“Please, proceed,” he finally said, and waved for me to step in front of the doors again.

Everything was happening so fast.

The next second, the left door opened a bit, and a woman came into view. She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t look much older than me, either—maybe twenty-six or -seven? She only pulled the door back until she could see all of me, then looked down at my body much the same way the first guard had.

“Autumn Hayes, applying for the opening in housekeeping,” he said from behind me, and I almost jumped back. I hadn’t even noticed that he was still there.

This is happening.I’d actually come to Mama Si’s Paradise, and they were letting me in.

“Right, then,” the woman said, stepping to the side. “Please follow me. Anddon’t touch anything.”

With a quick glance back at the guard breathing down my neck, I walked inside.

Insidethe mansion-slash-palace-slash-castle. Inside the Paradise.

And I didn’t have the slightest clue that my life was about to change forever.

Focus slipped from me.I followed the woman inside the Paradise, into a hallway so large I was doubting my own eyes. The gold railings on the two sets of stairs, the crystal chandeliers over our heads, the paintings, and the walls with so much detail and gold and beautiful pastel colors…

I was suffocating on thin air, and I had no idea why.

“Do you…do…do you work here?” I choked, desperate to make a sound, to prove to myself that this was real.

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