The murmuring ceased.
Could it be the voices of guests within the inn? Peering into the shadows beneath the porch, she didn’t see any movement. She continued on with her awkward waddle, not wanting to crawl on the muddy ground.
Another cascade of whispers, this time behind her.
She turned fast. Again, no one was there. Her heart beat faster. It had to be the acoustics under the porch warping the sound from inside somehow, but there was an edge to the whispers that made every inch of her skin prickle.
Moving more quickly, Calisa hurried toward the light and emerged from beneath the porch. She stood up straight, facing the overgrown gardens and the mountains in the distance. The rain had lessened, and she could see streaks of blue breaking through the clouds by the peaks. The whispers were silent.
Returning to the front of the inn, she skirted the hole and approached the door carefully. She opened it without incident and stepped inside, bringing her suitcase and backpack withher.
She exhaled, feeling as if she’d achieved a minor miracle by simply entering the B&B.
Inside, the lobby was shadowed. Light filtered through the dusty windows to bathe the foyer in a soft haze. She waited for her eyes to adjust. On either side of her were open doorways, all hooded and silent. The lobby’s peeling wallpaper was streaked with water stains. A mirror hung on one wall. It was so grimy that it looked as if it were reflecting smoke. Instead of her face, all she saw was a wispy smudge as she passed by. In front of her, between a set of stairs (which she assumed led to the second-floor guest rooms) and a hallway (which led who knew where), was the reception desk, with old-fashioned skeleton keys hanging from hooks on a board behind it. Only a handful of keys were absent from their hooks. She wondered if that meant the B&B was mostly empty.
There was a silver bell on the desk, and she wondered if she should ring it. Again, she wasn’t a guest, and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Her parents’ instructions hadn’t gone beyond which subway to take to Penn Station, which train to take to Burlington (as a parting blow, the train line was named the Ethan Allen—how far did she have to go to escape reminders of Ethan?), and what address to give the Uber driver. Plus she had clear instructions to text as soon as she arrived (or call if there was no Wi-Fi, though how could you have an inn without Wi-Fi?) so they’d know she was safe and sound and hadn’t gotten lost in the mountains and been forced to eat squirrels and berries to survive…. Her moms were worriers, especially Mom-Elise, who raised parental fussing to an art form.
Calisa peeked through the first doorway on her left into what looked like a sitting room. It was gray with dust, matching the shade of the outside of the bed-and-breakfast. Formerly white but now dingy sheets covered half the furniture, as if the room had been partially put into storage. A tea set of tarnished silver sat in one corner on top of a tea tray with wheels. A cobweb stretched from the handle of the teapot to the edge of the tea tray. No one was in the sitting room, except for an elderly white cat who lay on a faded red velvet chair. The cat opened one eye to look at Calisa and then closed it again—a very clear don’t-bother-me look. Respecting that, Calisa retreated.
Opposite the sitting room, on the other side of the lobby, was a library. It too was empty of guests or Auntie Zee but had clearly once been nice. The shelves were dusty, and shespotted a few cobwebs on the top shelf, but it had a perfect window seat tucked in between bookshelves and beneath an arched window. The shelves themselves covered every wall, filled floor to ceiling with books, and a ladder on wheels leaned against it so guests could reach any book they wanted—or just glide along the perimeter of the room. Calisa resisted the urge to try it out.
First find Auntie Zee, then play with the library ladder.
And pet the cat, if it lets me.
She peeked into the next open doorway, into the dining room, which looked as if it hadn’t been used in years. A vase of dead flowers sat in the center of the table, and a chair with only three legs leaned against a wall. Beyond the dining room, tucked behind the stairwell, was another short hallway that looked as if it led to a handful of guest rooms.
On the other side of the reception desk, down the hallway she’d noticed before with peeling wallpaper, Calisa found the kitchen. It was old-fashioned, with a brick oven on one wall, rafters that had dried herbs hanging in batches, and a large butcher block island with a few rickety stools around it. Unlike the other rooms, it had been cleaned recently, but it still looked unused and unloved. Pots and pans were stacked on the stove, piled high as if the burners were never turned on, and the measuring spoons that hung on the wall looked more like permanent decorations than cooking tools. Overhead the dried herbs were desiccated nearly to the point of crumbling.
She crossed to the sink to look out the window at the backyard. Outside was an old and sprawling apple tree, with curvedbranches and a riot of leaves. She spotted a few unripe apples, small and green, between the leaves. Beyond the tree were the mountains. Sheathed in misty clouds, they looked ethereal, as if they might dissolve if she stared for too long.
Where is everyone?
If it weren’t raining, she’d have suspected that some guests were out strolling through the forest or hiking up a nearby mountain. Just because she had zero interest in hiking didn’t mean that the guests did. Or maybe they were out in whatever town was nearest, going antiquing or doing some other Vermont-ish activity? Or they were in their rooms, tucked away from the world, enjoying their escape from whatever disappointment or stress or heartbreak had sent them fleeing into the wilds of New England…. But where was Auntie Zee? She should at least—
“Little Cali,” she heard behind her.
And Calisa turned to face the innkeeper, her great-aunt, Auntie Zee.
Auntie Zee was half a head shorter than Calisa and had startlingly white hair, skin so wrinkled that she very closely resembled a walnut, and sunken eyes with pupils rimmed with milky blue. She looked, Calisa thought, far older than her eighty-two years. “Hi, Auntie Zee,” Calisa began. “It’s great to—”
“You can stay the night,” Auntie Zee cut her off. “But then you have to leave.”
Calisa felt her mouth drop open.
“I neither need nor want you here.”
Chapter Two
“I can fix it,” Calisa said immediately, thinking of the porch.
“Unlikely.” Auntie Zee let out a mirthless laugh. “You’re your mother’s daughter.”
Ouch.She meant Mom-Kate, who was Auntie Zee’s biological niece and Calisa’s bio mom and was not what one might call handy. She’d once infamously confused a wrench for a screwdriver. But Calisa thought she could figure it out, if she had an afternoon and access to a few YouTube videos. Also wood, a hammer, and nails. Plus a saw? “I can try.”
“She couldn’t help me, and she tried for years when she was your age. No, I have enough on my plate as it is. It’s better if you leave now before you muck up anything for my guests.”
She isn’t talking about the porch,Calisa realized. This was broader than that. It was possible that Auntie Zee didn’t even know about the hole. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she said, “I thought my moms talked to you.”
