Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
I inhale the cool autumn breeze, savoring the woodsy smell and scent of damp grasses lingering in the air. Maybe it’s nostalgia talking, but I am going to miss it here—the solitude, the feeling of being insulated from an ever-changing world. I’m going to miss it all.
I look over at Master. “Guess it’s time to get to work—figure out what to do with the stuff she collected. Right, boy?” Grandma has generations’ worth of books, silverware, china, and art. I’m sure there are a few good pieces in her collection, but most of it is “purely sentimental,” according to her. Then there’s her hoard of neglected antique furniture piled up in various rooms and too far gone to restore.
I’ve decided I’ll keep the most precious family heirlooms and any photos, but everything else has to go before we show the place. Buyers will only see a mess instead of the potential.
I head through the massive front door. Most of the white paint is chipped away, exposing the weathered wood beneath. Once upon a time, it matched the rest of the big white house. I suppose it still does. Falling all to hell.
I pause in the foyer, where I used to saunter down the grand staircase, playing make-believe princess when Grandma would allow it. This was my castle. Now it’s an empty shell of echoes from the past.
“How did it get like this?” I take in the dust-coated chandelier hanging over the white marble staircase, which is chipped and cracked. The hand-carved railing leans to one side. If you squint, you can almost imagine how beautiful it once looked. Every inch of this mansion was built by local craftsmen.
“Lake…” says a deep, faint voice.
My back jerks ramrod straight. I swivel on my heel, my eyes darting side to side.
I just heard someone say my name, but that can’t be right. There’s no one on the property except Bard, and he’s in his cottage, packing for a trip to his nephew’s.
After several heart-pounding moments, I decide it was the wind and the product of my tired brain. There’s no denying my mind is in a dark place, still stuck back in that hospice room, trying to accept that my last living family member is gone.
A frigid gust of wind spirals through the foyer, picking up dust, encircling me.
“God damn. What the hell?” I shut my eyes to keep out the dirt, my hair lifting from my scalp, floating in the air. A cold chill rips through my body, and I carefully back out the front door, unable to see where I’m going. I feel with my hand and manage to slam the front door shut.
What was that?
Still sitting on the porch, Master barks but doesn’t come near me. Maybe it’s because my entire body is coated in some crazy electrical field. The hair on my arms is like porcupine quills.
Jesus. What’s happening? I turn and head for the stone path that leads to my house down the hill. My head’s spinning, and my stomach is in tight, painful knots. The acerbic heat of bile rises up my windpipe, and I force myself to swallow it down.
I don’t know what that was. I don’t want to know. But it wasn’t natural.
By the time I get to my cobblestone front walkway, the heebie-jeebies are gone.
Did that happen? Or did I just have a panic attack?
No. That was a dust devil. But dust devils don’t form indoors. They don’t leave a sticky static residue all over your skin.
Fuck. I’m losing it. I go inside my cozy two-bedroom house, hit the deadbolt on my front door, and check all the windows to be sure they’re locked.
CHAPTER THREE
After last week’s unnerving incident, I haven’t entered the main house again, but there’s no avoiding it today.
A crew is coming to clean out the attic, basement, and remove ninety percent of the furniture. Anything salvageable that I don’t plan to keep will be hauled off by Dave, my ex, who runs an estate liquidation company.
Dave is who you call when your multimillion-dollar business goes belly up and that collection of rare wines just won’t fit in your new studio apartment above that massage parlor everyone knows gives more than just back rubs. He’s definitely slumming it dealing with my situation. But, hey, he owes me.
The sad truth is that a much younger version of me used to care deeply for him. Then he cheated on me and proposed marriage as a perverse form of apology. While still with the other woman.
How do I know? She paid a visit after finding out about me.
What an asshole.
Over the past eight years, he’s kept in touch—against my wishes—because he somehow manages to screw up every single relationship and comes crying back to me. “Oh, Lake, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I think I just never got over you. Take me back, and I promise to be a better man.”