There is nothing in the room before her at all.
Except, she suddenly makes out, something on the far wall.
On the farthest wall from the door, at chest height, a green button begins to glow. It pulses as if willing her to walk across the vast, empty space and push it. Maria watches it intently for a full minute, her expression tight with suspicion.
“Hm, okay,” she says finally, appraisingly.
Then Maria shakes her head, definitively steps away from the room, and lets the door automatically close in front of her—the room, button and all, safely out of sight again.
Probably best not to get involved in any of that, Maria reasons.
And then her thoughts go again to her absent client and his two children, and whether they will ever arrive, whether they even exist. The room’s strangeness breeding stranger thoughts: What is it for, and why had it been locked?
Back upstairs, Maria considers her options. She could call the woman with the too-tight chignon again and request an end to this job.
Or she could ignore the room downstairs completely until the electrician she was promised arrives, resets the fault, and restores the locked room to its former secured setting.
Or, of course, she could march straight into the white room and smash her hand onto that pulsing green button. What could it possibly do?
She stifles a giggle. Imagine if she was that fucking stupid.
Instead Maria makes her way across the living room to phone the woman. Best to cancel the job; it’s getting a little too weird. Canceling now could secure her at least a percentage of her fee as a goodwill gesture.
But then again, that would rely heavily on the client’s sense of fairness. She stops just short of lifting the telephone receiver. Fairness isn’t a common trait at this level—at any client level. Fairness, if it ever exists, is only optics. And there are almost never optics in dealing with hired help.
Her hand pulls back slightly from the receiver at the thought of losing her fee, of losing what should rightfully be hers.
And just as Maria decides she will stay a little longer, the sound of the front doorbell cuts through the empty house.
Maria turns to the chime, momentarily baffled, her thoughts caught short. Then, remembering the electrician, she heads toward the hall.
Through the front entrance’s floor-to-ceiling glass, she sees a man in his fifties with a kind face wearing a chain electrical company uniform. He gives her a hopeful smile, morning sunlight blinding him so he has to squint to see her through the glass. Clearly uncertain that he is in the right place, he gives her a hesitant wave.
Maria studies him a moment before deciding to smile back, return his wave.
He raises a security lanyard looped around his neck, the same as the one the gatehouse guards gave Maria the day she arrived.
Maria remembers that the property is surrounded by security. If this man was a threat, he wouldn’t have gotten this far.
His voice is muffled, reedy, through the glass. “Hi, it’s Joon-gi. They sent me up from the gatehouse. I’ve got to check the electrics.” The statement is half question.
The man misconstrues Maria’s curious gaze and adds, “I’ll be quick. Thirty minutes max?”
Maria remains silent for a moment then raises a finger and says, clearly, so he can hear her through the glass, “Just one minute.”
She disappears back into the living room to call the woman with the too-tight chignon.
Three minutes later, Maria lets the man in.
Twenty minutes later, he is packing away his tools and folding up his dust blanket. “Just a loose connection,” he tells her when she pops her head around the doorway of the master bedroom. “Happens sometimes with new builds. Things need to settle.”
For some reason Maria finds herself looking up at the ceiling as if it might be something other than a ceiling, knowledge of the strange room beneath them weighing on her mind.
A thought occurs to her. She watches the electrician as he fills out a service docket with a small red pencil. She is considering what she is about to say very carefully.
When the man looks up, he finds Maria staring at him. Misconstruing her look again, he reassures her, “Oh, you don’t need to sign anything. I’ll just leave the docket with you.”
Maria’s question solidifies in her mind. She raises herself up to her full height and gives him a winning smile. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, she adds, “Actually, I don’t suppose you could take a look at something else, for me, could you? Downstairs?”
