Page 5 of One Last Touch

“You’ve got to be joking.”

Sage’s frown, if possible, became darker and his voice was harsh. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Ms Weathers looked back and forth between us, wringing her hands until I levelled my gaze on her. “Well it would give you a chance to settle in, dear, get unpacked and comfortable. Do you have more luggage that you’re going to send for?”

“No.” I shrugged. “I travel light.”

“Right, well. You must be tired after such a long day. Let’s get you comfortable and then I’ll leave you to it.”

She rushed to leave the room, her short legs carrying her forward at an alarming pace before she stopped, looking back at me and urging me to follow. I ignored Sage completely, focusing on Ms Weathers as we walked up the wide staircase that ran along the edge of the left-hand wall and made our way onto the first floor. The carpeted red runners on the floor were as dusty as the rest of the house and I made a mental note to hunt down a hoover tomorrow.

“Here we are.” Ms Weathers bypassed the lounge area and stopped outside of a door that looked no different to all the others, but inside the windows had clearly been open and the sheets on the bed looked fresh. The room still smelled faintly of dust but the floor had been swept and the cobwebs in the corners knocked down.

“This is perfect, thank you,” I said, surprised. Given the state of the other rooms I had expected this one to be just as bad, but it was roomy, with a four-poster bed that looked classic rather than old, and walls that were a mixture of faded floral wallpaper and exposed brick. As long as I didn’t wake up with a spider dangling in my face I didn’t really mind too much what the room looked like, but the relatively clean state of things helped set me at ease. Had my mother been staying at the house itself? Was that why this room was a little fresher than the others?

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Ms Weathers smiled. “I had some help.”

I wondered when Sage had had the time to help her, or why he would even bother, but for now I decided to just be grateful and not look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Sage and I will be on-site if you need us, dear, but we are off the clock once the sun goes down, alright? We’re just one floor up.” Ms Weathers seemed uncharacteristically serious as she paused with her hand on the door knob, like she couldn’t wait to leave. I nodded and she smiled slightly. “I know it may sound odd, but it really would be a big help if you could stay in here until the sun is up, dear. The house and grounds aren’t safe in the dark for those who don’t know their way and we don’t want you getting lost.” She didn’t wait for my response, just swept out and I found myself straining my ears, half-expecting to hear a key turn in the lock on the bedroom door, but all was silent. I waited a few moments to see if I could hear them chatting in the hallway before turning to the suitcase Weathers had propped on top of the stool at the base of the bed.

The room was grand in size, almost double what I’d had in my student accommodation though that made pretty much anything seem big in comparison. I had my own bathroom with one of those old-fashioned latch handles that always seems to stick when you try to pull them up again. I poked around the room, cautiously opening the wardrobe and half-expecting bats to fly out. When nothing swooped towards me or ran at me, I set about hanging up the small amount of clothes I owned and folded the rest, putting them in the clean, empty drawers of my nightstand.

The sun had fully slunk down behind the horizon but it was still far too early for me to even consider sleep. I had a handful of books I’d brought with me, as well as my e-reader. I generally only bought hard-copies of my favourites—doing an English degree had taught me to be stingy with my shelf space. I walked over to the largest window in the wall opposite my bed and peered outside. It was beautiful. So far from the city, the stars seemed so much brighter and when I cracked the window the breeze was cool and smelled like night time, heady and earthy. The trees were dark silhouettes against an even darker sky and the white-bleached fountain seemed to stand out like a beacon. The other two windows were so small that I had no idea what on earth they were for—they were too tiny and too low down to feasibly see out of but I drew their miniature curtains nevertheless.

I perched on the end of my new bed, clad in my summer pyjamas and a pair of thick woollen socks. My feet were the only part of me that ever seemed to truly grow cold and the late summer was no exception. I let the unfamiliar sounds of the house settle around me like a blanket. It was still with just the odd bird call or buzz of an insect outside disturbing the silence. It made me wonder where Sage and Ms Weathers slept—she’d mentioned being one floor up but I hadn’t seen any rooms that looked particularly lived-in when I’d snooped around earlier. I stifled a sigh, placing my three current favourite books on my nightstand, arranging them carefully so the bookmarks in each wouldn’t slip out. The Fall of the House of Usher, The Bloody Chamber and The Tell-Tale Heart seemed to stare up at me, but I couldn’t bring my mind to settle enough to read. I felt restless and wanted to explore, to find the answers I needed.

Decision made, I stood and crept as quietly as I could to the bedroom door, halting when I heard a thud outside. My heart beat a little quicker as the footsteps stopped outside my room and I held my breath. It felt oddly nostalgic. As a child, I’d often wanted to stay up late reading and would sneak out of bed and to the bookshelf in our living room to pick out a new book—my mum had taken away my book before bed, knowing I’d only stay up to read if I could. But somehow, whenever I would attempt to steal away to the shelves in the living room, she always knew. Always. I would creep up to the bedroom door, much like I had now, and footsteps would sound outside. I would freeze and the footsteps would stop, my mum’s shadow disrupting the light that flowed in from under the door, and I would hold my breath so she couldn’t hear me on the other side. The feet never moved, not until I’d retreated back to my bed, my eyes on her silhouette the whole time. Then she would walk away.

I had the same feeling now.

Impossible, of course, my mother was dead. She would never stand outside my door again and chide me for staying up too late reading—but sometimes it hurt less to imagine. I moved back to my bedside and quickly flipped on the lamp, the yellow glow soothing me and the glass top cast swirling patterns on the walls. I glanced back at the door and clasped my hands over my mouth to hide my gasp.

There, beneath the door, a familiar shadow disrupting the light that flowed around it. I blinked and the shadows remained. My hands trembled as I moved closer to the door and rested my cheek against the wood, listening intently.

Nothing. No breaths or rustling of movement.

I blew out a long breath. I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking, it was probably just a chair or something else outside creating the illusion of a presence behind the door.

I let my shoulders relax and turned away to head back to bed when the smell reached me, sweet and floral, and I inhaled greedily before it faded.

I sat down quietly when my legs hit the edge of my bed and then folded my body down, my eyes fixed on the gap between the door and my floor boards. The shadow was gone. It had been a long day, I was tired and grieving and of course I had smelled my mum’s signature scent, she’d probably stayed in this room too.

The click of the lamp sounded loud in the silence as I turned off the lamp and felt my eyes grow heavy. But for just a moment as my head hit the pillow, I could have sworn I heard familiar, light footsteps walking away.

Chapter Three

I woke up the next morning freezing. I double checked the windows—all closed—and had eventually put down the draft to the fact that this was an old house. The curtains in my room did very little to prevent the watery sunlight of an early dawn from washing over me and likely less to keep the heat in, but it had been oddly refreshing to wake with the world. I guessed the countryside made me contemplative, because I’d spent the first twenty minutes or-so that I’d been awake just lying in bed, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling, getting to know the individual cracks in the wall before I even dared to stick one toe out of the bed.

I’d hurried over to the en-suite, the old door creaking in a way that made my skin recoil, and hurriedly brushed my teeth over a tiny sink and spotted mirror. The toilet was tucked away awkwardly into one corner and I used it as quickly as possible once I spotted a spider nearby, slowly inching its way closer to me. The cold seemed to be different here, chilling me to the bone, so I thought a nice hot shower would help warm me up. But as I turned the surprisingly modern shower on, I’d yelped at the ice-cold temperature, jumping away, and then shrieked again when my leap put me face to face with yet another long-legged creature. Movement in the corner of my eye had me frantically waving my arms above my head, batting away non-existent creepy crawlies, only to pause when a familiar scent had a lump rising in my throat—roses, violets and vanilla. My mother’s signature scent.

I’d spun around, looking for her as the smell was so strong it was like she was in the room and the footsteps I’d heard last night had me on edge. I’d yanked open the shower door so fast that I’d skidded on the old tiles, not really sure what I was doing or what I was looking for. She was gone. Maybe being here in this place would do more harm than good, being so close to her and yet so far away. I knew she was gone, had seen her body myself, but still I looked for her. Grief was funny that way. Like seeing the back of someone’s head in a crowd and feeling your pulse leap because for a second, for a single split moment, you think they’re them, even though you know better.

I’d caught myself on a dusty towel rack, panting, and then frozen in place when I noticed a familiar bar of soap sitting in the shower wall recess. The same kind my mother had loved and used every day, no wonder I could smell it… her.

Tears formed, my eyes stinging like my body wanted to punish me for having foolhardy hope when logically my mind knew that I would never see her again but the soul was quick to forget that fact. As was the heart.

By the time I made my way downstairs to the kitchen, I was wearing three pairs of socks. I was normally relatively warm-blooded and though we were now well into September, the air remained muggy as the days attempted to shrug off the final vestiges of summer. I shivered in a thick cream cable knit jumper that was probably the warmest thing I owned, with semi-wet hair and my three pairs of socks and Ms. Weathers fussed over me as she took in the puffiness of my eyes. Sage hadn’t even looked at me and that was fine, I supposed. I was here because it felt right, because I needed to be here if I wanted any hope of discovering more about my past, about my mother and what had happened to her.

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