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My heart felt heavy with emotions, and I realized it had been years since my father and I had done our holiday tradition. “May be some of my best memories with him.”
“I’m not a big holiday person, or a birthday person, or into celebrations in general,” she said. “Just another day.”
I made sure to pause and study her again. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making her sad or ripping old wounds by talking about my privileged upbringing, when I could clearly see she wasn’t as lucky to have had the same. Abilene didn’t seem upset, but rather very engaged in what I had to say. She really did seem to care and want to hear more. It was refreshing to have a captive audience… something I only got from my staff—people I paid large salaries to pay attention to me.
Standing up, I said, “I want to show you what’s behind the walls.”
She stood with skepticism in her eyes. “Behind the walls?”
I nodded with adventure flooding my bones, reminding me of how I felt as a young boy playing hide and seek in the hidden veins of the Oleander. I walked over to a bookcase and pulled out a copy of Moby Dick, and the entire panel opened as I knew it would.
“A secret door?” Abilene nearly squealed. She didn’t wait for me to enter but stepped past the panel with curiosity taking over. “Oh my God, there’s a hallway! Can we go walk around in there?”
I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight feature. I knew there was a light switch somewhere in there that would turn on the dim emergency lights, but I wouldn’t be able to find it on memory alone.
“I was hoping you’d want to,” I said as we entered inside.
“What is this for?”
“Doesn’t every manor come with haunted secret passageways?” I answered.
“Let me guess,” she said as I found the lights and we began our walk. “You and your friends played in here?”
“Could you blame us?” I said with a small laugh. I had such good memories playing with my friends in the shadows. “Mrs. H hated when we did, though. We always tracked dirt back into the main house.”
I tried to move cobwebs out of the way for Abilene, but she didn’t seem to mind them or the dirt around us. I appreciated that she wasn’t a girly girl, and her sense of adventure could very well match my own. I could see her as the type willing to hike to the top of Machu Picchu in Peru with me without complaining once.
Abilene giggled and then said, “I never thought I’d be so happy to be in a dark, dank, dusty place before. Anything is better than that room.”
“I have to agree with you there. We needed to get out.”
“You surprise me,” Abilene said. “You’re hard to read, and just when I think I got you figured out, you throw a curveball like this. Shouldn’t you be working?”
“I should be, yes. But I’m not always all business. I actually like to travel when I can. But I like to do things off the beaten path. I like to explore.” I chuckled. “I guess this is as close to exploring as I can get for a bit.”
She laughed loudly, and I realized I didn’t hear that often, if at all. I liked the sound of it.
A lot.
“I can see that. Are you sure we’re going to be able to get out of here? I can just see the Elders waiting tonight with no guests of honor to torture showing up.”
“I remember my way around.”
“Thank you for this, Beau. I needed it. I know this is considered your workday, so I really appreciate you taking the time out for a change of scenery.”
“I needed it too,” I said. “It’s getting harder each day, and I feel like it’s only going to get worse.” I glanced at her and could tell my words hit home. “But we can do this. We have up until now.”
“Focus on the endgame, right?”
Yes, the endgame. What exactly that looked like still seemed blurry.
7
Abilene
We’d had a nice day together. A really nice day, considering the monotony of life here the past month.
I was trying to stay focused, but it was hard. I had this feeling where everything was moving too fast and yet going so slow, I could barely move. Like being in a car when it’s flying down the highway at eighty miles an hour, but it feels so seamless it also feels like you’re barely moving at all.
One wrong move, though, and you’ll end up splattered all over the highway—the way it feels is deceiving.
That was what it felt like being here with Beau.
Like the calm before the storm.
But still, today, wandering the mansion with him as he shared his memories of growing up was so nice.
