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She accepted them wordlessly, staring from them to the driver, feeling bereft as he walked away without looking back. He’d done his job, and now it was time to get home, have a shower, dinner, and bed.
He left them staring at each other in wonder.
“Maybe it’s better on the inside,” Rhys said, always the optimist.
She nodded without saying anything and struggled to get the rusty key into the lock. The door groaned open like an iron maiden in a forgotten dungeon and, dragging their bags behind them, they crossed the threshold.
Nope, Rhys, you were wrong,she thought. It’s not better inside.
It was clear that someone had been sent to clean, as she could still detect a whiff of cleaning fluid and wet mops. At least there was that. But the sagging windows looked even more forlorn from the inside, and she could feel the cool night air blowing in through cracked panes. Having been born and raised in large cities, she wondered anxiously whether it was safe even to close her eyes in a house without locked windows.
With that in mind, she locked the front door, shaking it slightly to ensure that it was solid, although what good would that do if anyone with third-grade level climbing skills could make it through the window?
She held Rhys’s hand, feeling it suddenly small in hers, and wordlessly, they moved from room to room. Conscious of the fact that he sported a body cam too, she chewed on her lower lip so as not to be recorded expressing the thoughts that were roiling inside her head.
Flaking walls, stained ceilings, skirting that looked like it had been gnawed by family dogs—or, God forbid, rats. Furniture that had probably been bought during the term of President Charles de Gaulle stood morosely about like a bunch of bored people at a party who didn’t know each other and didn’t want to be there.
“Mom?” Rhys’s voice was tremulous, his eyes wide and questioning.
“It’s okay,” she soothed him. “We knew when we were coming here that it was going to be a fixer-upper. That’s my assignment, right?” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt, because ‘fixer-upper’ wasn’t the term she would have used. ‘Emergency kindling’ would have been better. Or ‘sanctuary for homeless and orphaned ferrets’, perhaps.
She couldn’t imagine accomplishing what would be needed to turn this house around in eight short weeks. Not on her own! She would need lots of help. How did you go about hiring people in France? And what about communicating with them? How many carpenters, painters and welders spoke English here? She had no idea.
She felt a large boulder of anxiety in the pit of her stomach, and had to shove away her doubts, silence the voice that hissed at her that this was a mistake, and that she never should have come.
It was late, and flying was exhausting, even though you generally did nothing but sit. Even flying first class, with its comfy seats and good food, could wear you out. Rhys’s little face was pale and creased from fatigue. So she said briskly, “Let’s just get some shut-eye. It will all look better in the morning, yeah?”
He nodded, mustering a smile. “It’ll be fine,” he assured her.
They wandered deeper down the upstairs hallway, noting that there were five bedrooms, and each one was dominated by a massive bed of iron or brass. Two of them smelled damp, while another was almost windowless, and the idea of shutting her eyes there gave her the creeps.
She threw open a large armoire and to her relief found a stack of fresh, new bed linens, along with pillows still in their plastic wrapping. She had an idea. “Hey, remember how we used to make pillow forts when you were a kid?”
“Yeah.” Rhys eyed her curiously, dubiously.
She gathered an armload and pointed in the direction of the stairs with her head. “What do you say we set up camp downstairs in the living room? That way, we could be together on our first night.”
He seemed to think that was a good idea, and Melanie was grateful when he didn’t protest, but rather followed her down. Together, they spread out quilts and sheets, tossed down pillows, and clambered in. Down here, it was a little drafty, but at least they weren’t separated or trying to get comfy in stereotypical haunted-house bedrooms. Hopefully here there wouldn’t be the sound of chains rattling in the cupboards or glowing green entities gliding three inches off the floor.
It was only when they settled in and she propped up her purse near her head that she realized she’d forgotten to bring a European adapter for her phone, which was now near death. She’d wanted to set an alarm so she could get an early start on strategizing about this monstrosity. She hoped that at least her body clock would do her a favor and jar her awake at a decent hour.
They lay shoulder to shoulder, heads close together, and just in that moment, Melanie felt content and happy. She loved the fact that Rhys’s hair still smelled like it did when he was a baby, that warm scent of boyish innocence. His warmth and quiet strength were reassuring. She drifted off, feeling more positive than she had when they’d arrived.
When she opened her eyes, the brutal glare of sunlight made her hastily shut them again, wincing. She reached for her phone, knowing even as she did so that it was stone dead. There was no way to tell the time, but it was clear that it was pretty late and she had slept for hours.
“Rhys,” she murmured, wondering if he was still dead to the world. But the space next to her was empty, the indentation in the pillow cold. Probably got up to use the bathroom, she figured. But the door to the downstairs bathroom yawned open, empty.
Rising, muscles protesting after a night of sleeping on the floor, she went back deeper into the house, calling his name, hearing it echo against stone and metal. He wasn’t there.
Feeling her heart beginning to trip like a trap set, she spun around, wondering where to look now. An awful thought entered her head, filling her chest with clammy dread. Had something happened to him? They were sitting ducks: two American tourists, a woman and a child, who didn’t speak a word of the language, in an old, empty house secreted away on a lonely country road.
What if her fears were realized and someone had entered the house in the dead of night and spirited him away? She’d lost Rhys twice before, had him snatched twice before, and each time, a part of her soul had died.
Trying to quell her rising panic, she raced upstairs, throwing open doors, yelling for him. There was no sound but the thudding of her feet upon worn parquet.
Back downstairs now, making a quick circuit of the lower floor, kitchen, sitting rooms, dining room, maid’s quarters… nothing.
Her heart was so thick in her mouth she was sure she would swallow it once more and choke.
