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But I got it done. When I finally resumed my work, it was because, once again, I’d pulled myself up to my feet. Like the coffee table books, the gazebo was another trophy I collected for living another day.
But I’d never see it again. It wasn’t there anymore.
I left the garden shed, treading through the wet grass, but instead of heading into the kitchen, I detoured into the greenhouse, pulling the ladder off the wall I’d spotted in here yesterday and propping it up underneath the broken panel in the roof.
Climbing up, I sat on the top of the ladder and started reattaching the rusted chain, using my pliers to open up the link and re-thread it.
I didn’t give a shit about this place. I knew I was just making beds in a burning house.
But this was who I was, and I wasn’t going to wallow away my time, waiting for my heart to catch up to my head, and if it was something as simple as keeping my hands busy in order to survive Will Grayson and how much I wished I could do everything over again, then that’s what I would do.
The calm in the chaos.
The only other option was to waste my time thinking about things I couldn’t change. He hadn’t said he loved me back last night. I hadn’t expected him to, but if I had any doubt on whether or not he still did, I had my answer now.
The past was dead.
I squeezed the link closed again, pulling some wire out of my apron and reinforcing the link in case the weight of the windowpane made it split again, and then I climbed down, winding the crank on the wall. I watched as the panes lifted open in unison, and then reversed it to close them again.
A shot of pride hit me—the pleasure of solving a problem a familiar feeling that almost made me feel normal again.
This was the one part of me I’d keep. At the very least, I’d found work I enjoyed and was good at.
Setting the ladder back against the wall, I left the greenhouse, avoiding the bed of snakes hidden under the dirt on my left, and walked through the house, looking for anything else to consume my time.
Who had this house built and why? There seemed to be very few personal pieces in the décor. No family portraits or jewelry boxes or engraved clocks. Nothing that gave away the house’s history, or even where we might be, based on any text I’d found. I hadn’t researched the books in the library to see if they were in English, but everyone here spoke English, so…
Were there more Blackchurches? There had to be, right? In different parts of the world? There had to be a lot more than five sons misbehaving out there. The idea of some mountaintop house in Nepal, or cabins deep in the rainforest made my mind slip sideways. There was an army of little shits out in the world, no doubt.
I turned down the hall just before I hit the gym, and passed a set of double doors that had always been closed. On impulse, I stopped and opened them.
A smaller ballroom than the one I’d seen on the other side of the house spread out before me, and I stepped onto the dance floor, taking in the red walls and the row of gold sconces around all sides.
A chandelier sat crashed on the floor, and I shot my eyes up to the ceiling, but I couldn’t see well in the darkness. Walking to the window, I threw open the drapes, the dust flying and catching in my lungs, and I coughed and stepped back, examining the mess in the light streaming through now.
How the hell did that happen?
The gorgeous room of decorative woodwork, mirrors, and crystal gleamed in the light, the only thing wrong with the place being the broken light fixture and the glass scattered all over the floor.
The chandelier was wider than I was tall, leaning to one side with almond-shaped pendants strewn about. Sunlight from the windows reflected in the shards, casting little rainbows over the walls, and I tipped my head back, inspecting the ceiling in the light again.
Wires were torn, the electric winch that was used to lower it for maintenance and cleaning severed. I walked over to the wall by the door and turned the dial, the lights in the sconces along the golden walls illuminating.
I tipped my eyes up again, checking out the suspension gear which seemed to still be intact, thankfully. This light fixture had been on its way down for cleaning or repair when it collapsed.
All it needed was to be raised again.
But, of course, the winch rope was ruined.
I would’ve heard this crash in the house. It must’ve happened before I came. Maybe long before I came. This door had always been closed, so perhaps the cleaning crew never got around to dealing with it.
Leaving the room, I found the breaker panels in the basement and turned off the electricity flowing to that room before grabbing some rope nearby that they’d used to tie up their deer, and then the ladder from the greenhouse, hurrying back to the ballroom. I didn’t want to be stopped, and the great thing about this big place was that it was easy not to run into people if you didn’t want to.
Since the winch rope was busted, and there was no way to replace that here, I checked the connections on the chandelier to make sure nothing was pried or loose before I set up the ladder, using the hand-powered drilling tool I’d found in the shed to drill a hole into the wall near the fireplace.
Placing in the bit, I wound the crank, digging into the plaster, which normally would only take seconds with a drill, but I didn’t have a drill here, so it was like 1898 and churning butter for three hours so you could have biscuits for dinner.
I grunted, my muscles burning. This was for the birds.
