Lost in La La Land(18)

Did I dare to stay here, hidden and alone in the country like Miss Havisham? The house would have perfectly suited a pale old wig with ringlets and a tattered wedding dress. Or did I hide the equipment and return to the city to boldly face my enemy?

I needed to think on that.

I was bold, but also tired.

“Dear God, what a hot mess.” Marguerite gave me a horrified stare. “You can’t stay here. This place looks like an old insane asylum. I didn't even know there were old Gothic country houses out this way.”

“It’s been in Jonathan’s family for over three hundred years. He was the last child in his family, so of course it passed to him, and now me.”

“And never a stick of updating,” she muttered and climbed out when Stanley parked.

“Em.” He gave me a look. “Honestly. You can’t.”

“Let’s just take a peek inside.” I chuckled, pretending I wasn't terrified. “I think there was some updating done.”

“Does it come with the ghosts or are they added into the purchase, like a sofa or table?” Marguerite joked.

“I suspect the ghosts are part of the security system.” I pulled the old-fashioned key from my bag, a cut key with no microchip.

“How quaint.” Her eyes darted to the old key.

“The locks are fifty years old.” I sighed and put it into the lock, twisting once until it clicked, and turned the old handle. The house gasped, like a crypt unsealing as I opened the door.

“Spooky, Em,” Marguerite whispered.

“Super spooky,” I agreed and crept inside. The moonlight barely touched inside the house through the dusty old windows. What the beams of light did reveal didn't calm our fears, if anything they got worse.

Dust coated everything that wasn't covered in an old white sheet. Cobwebs and leaves were scattered about, making it all appear much worse for wear. The level of disrepair made the old house Jonathan and I were fixing up seem brand-new.

This was truly disturbing.

I flicked on a light switch, preparing for the old wiring to spark and light it all on fire, losing a second home.

But instead, it switched on, adding a soft yellow light to the room and creating more shadows than the old house needed.

“Not sure that helped things.” Stan nudged past us and started removing the white sheets. “This is too scary. We need to get rid of these.” He dragged them off quickly, making a pile on the floor. Marguerite and I didn't move. I didn't think I could.

Once the sheets were removed, we both stepped farther into the room, closing the door, and began to help get the lights on.

A trip around the main floor to turn on lights, revealed what the old mansion really looked like.

It was actually quite magnificent.

A grand sweeping staircase with a dark wood banister, the kind you could slide down if you were a kid, was part of the huge foyer. The large double doors were made the old way, thick and heavy. They creaked, telling a story of another time.

The windows were ancient and barred, in the old Tudor fashion, and covered with heavy drapes. I pulled those down, getting Marguerite to help me.

Dust filled the air, making the rooms hazy.

The wallpaper-lined walls were done to accent the room’s décor. It made everything feel rich, but old money, where the wealth was all tied up in land and not available cash.

The wooden floors had marks etched into them, like drawings done to depict the times the house had been through. The furniture suited it all, heavy and expensive but not a taste people had anymore.

Jonathan’s aunt Muriel had died a year after we were married. The house sat empty from then on, years of silence with the odd groundskeeper to check out the inside and power.

“This place is huge. It’ll cost millions to fix up.” Marguerite had made her mind up on the old place the moment we drove in.

“Maybe.” Stan shrugged. “But it would be worth tens of millions if done nicely. What’s the acreage?”

“Twenty,” I muttered, glancing about, wondering about Jonathan’s family.

“Yeah, tens of millions. The square footage has to be close to six thousand. Three on each floor, maybe four.”

“Ten thousand.” I turned to him. “Five thousand on each floor and a basement, but I don't think they ever fixed it up. The two top floors were modernized in the seventies.”

“You can’t talk about modernizing and then say seventies. That's nearly sixty years ago.” Marguerite rolled her eyes. “It’s settled, you’re coming home with us.”

“I have to pick up Lola after we hide the boxes.”

Stan nodded. “I’ll grab them. You girls figure out the creepiest place in the house to stash them.” He left out the creaking front door.

“Honestly, Em. You should sell this monstrosity.” She sneered and started searching for hiding places.

I wanted to agree. I really did.





Chapter Eight


Lola gave me a nudge as she whined and glanced at the door again. She didn't hate being at Marguerite and Stanley’s house the way I did. They had kids and a backyard. They had the sort of life dogs needed. The sort of life I think I once whispered to her that we might have.

I hadn’t been certain about kids until we bought the old house. Jonathan had always wanted them, but I wasn't sure. Then we got the old fixer-upper and something shifted. I found myself staring at the bedroom next to ours, planning on fixing it up but not to be the guest bedroom it was intended for. No. I saw yellow paint and animals lining the walls and a blue ceiling with clouds and a sun. And maybe a son. Or a daughter. Or maybe both.