The floorboards creaked under her steps as she continued past the coat hooks and dusty mirror—which threw back the distorted reflection of a woman with short, dirty-blond hair and an oval face—and through the short corridor into the house proper. She’d always been comfortable at the Cozy Holly Inn in part because it hadn’t felt like most B&Bs she’d stayed at over the years. It felt more like a home than an establishment, and that was reflected in the layout of the house. Most of the downstairs consisted of an enormous dining room to feed the guests staying in one of the inn’s eight rooms, but near the front door was the cozy little nook the family had used as a living room.
She found the light switch to this room quicker. It illuminated haunted, sheet-covered shapes of furniture. The back of her neck prickled, and her breath fogged up in front of her face. She needed to find the thermostat and crank on the heat.
There was one in the living room, but she nearly tripped over something sticking out from under one of the sheets. Muttering under her breath, she fiddled with the knob until she heard the rattle of the furnace kicking in. Then she tackled the offending item under the sheet.
Her grandfather’s rocker. All Julie’s rancor melted away as she saw the sturdy, if scratched, chair. Each of those scratches told a story, and she couldn’t help but run her finger along one of the deepest grooves. That one the chair had acquired from Julie when she’d been young and running through the house. Gram and Gramps hadn’t been angry at her for knocking it over and adding to the map of small scars the chair held. Instead, they’d been more concerned that Julie had hurt herself, though she’d been afraid of their reproach, crying at the time. More memories trickled back to her as she moved on to the other, less noticeable scratches in the wood. Gramps reading to her as she sat on his lap or the floor. Gram sitting in her chair and knitting or working on a quilt.
Julie turned, and the next sheet-covered lump she revealed turned out to be Gram’s chair. The upholstery was faded, the flowers in the once-white chair now faded into beige along with the rest of it. The other couch was newer and didn’t hold the same memories, but Julie’s throat still felt tight as she piled all the sheets in the room into a bundle for the laundry.
She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. Instead of the warm memory of the way the inn had smelled, she got a lungful of dust. As she doubled over, coughing, she couldn’t help but think wryly,There goes that happy nostalgic feeling.
Gramps wasn’t around anymore. Gram had moved on to a retirement home. There was nothing in this big, drafty house but ghosts.
When she could breathe again, Julie straightened and continued with the pile of sheets through the house in search of others to add to it.
The back parlor still had the comfy furniture and fireplace that guests loved. The dining room still had the giant server, chain cabinet, and mahogany table long enough for sixteen guests. All the chairs were now upside down on the top of the table. She left the chairs up. Cleaning the floors would have to be one of the first things on her to-do list.
As she turned away from the dining room, she paused. Was that a noise?
“It’s just a creaky old house, Julie. There aren’t actually any ghosts here.”
But there it came again, a vigorous scratching she might have attributed to the wind or branches hitting the windowpanes, except it seemed to be coming frominsidethe house.
She dropped her sheet bundle and armed herself with the contents of her pockets, which turned out to be a wad of unused tissues and a tube of lip gloss. In other words, useless. The sound came again. Julie held her breath as she tiptoed forward. Her wet boots found a creaky spot on the floor, and she froze, listening.
Was someone else in the house with her?
A loud ringing trumpeted through the air, and Julie yelped. It took a full thirty seconds for her to recognize the sound as her cell phone. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets again, only to come up empty. It must have fallen out.
Maybe that was what had been scratching—or rather, vibrating against the floor with incoming text messages. She didnothave the patience to talk to Cheryl again right now. If her friend told her to pack up and drive back to Boston, Julie might just do it.
She found her phone next to Gram’s chair and wiped the dusty screen on her pants before she answered it.
“Mom?” Her voice held more relief than she’d wanted to let leak through.
“Julie? Can you hear me?”
The line held more than a little static, but it was better than when she had been speaking with Cheryl earlier. Julie raised her voice. “Yes, Mom. Can you hear me?”
“Yes. Oh, we really need to hook up the landline in that house. The cell signal is terrible.”
“You can say that again,”Julie quipped. She was glad to hear from her mom, Margaret. She didn’t get to see her parents often because they spent their time jetting around the world so her mother could attend art galleries, teach classes, and create more of the art that her fans called masterpieces. Even though her parents weren’t around, they kept in touch with frequent phone and FaceTime calls.
“Did you make it to the inn okay?”
“Yes. Just pulled in a couple minutes ago.”
“How was the drive?” another voice shouted. Her dad, Gregory. Her parents must have her on speakerphone.
Great, until I left civilization and recently plowed roads.Julie bit back her sarcasm and answered, “Fine. It’s just starting to snow here.”
“Oh, the inn is so beautiful in the winter.”
Her mom sounded wistful.
The scratching sound came again, almost as if it was wistful too.
“On the outside, sure,” Julie grumbled. “Inside, it’s like a bad scary movie.”
