Big Swiss(13)

“How many donkeys?”

“Two,” Sabine said. “I only wanted one, but it’s necessary to purchase them in pairs. Otherwise, they die of loneliness.” She brought a hand to her chest. “They were born yesterday—literally—on a farm up north, and need to be weaned. We’ll get them in a few months.”

The stairs that should have led to the front door were missing. They walked around to the back. As they crossed the yard, the crumpled paper bag rolled slowly toward them. Greta stopped and stared as it rolled right up to her feet. It was not a paper bag, she saw now, but a rooster. A uniformly brown rooster.

“That’s Walter,” Sabine said. “You never know which end is up because he has feathers on his legs.”

“Looks like he’s wearing UGG boots,” Greta said.

“He only shows up on weekends,” Sabine said. “He lives across the road, but he doesn’t have any hens.”

“Does he have eyeballs? He just walked into that wheelbarrow.”

“He’s a nightmare,” Sabine said. “Just ignore him.”

At the back of the house, Greta followed Sabine up a rotting staircase. The back door was unusually wide and beautiful and didn’t have a doorknob. Instead, you had to turn a huge rusty ring handle in the center.

“This door,” was all Greta could say.

“I know,” said Sabine. “It’s why I bought the house. This brick side is where you’ll be living. It was built slightly later, in 1755, after the Dutch got wealthy. You can tell they had money because the ceilings are high and the windows are twelve-over-twelve.”

“What?”

“Each window has twenty-four panes,” Sabine said. “That’s a lot of glass for back then, and it wasn’t cheap. The only bummer is, this place is uninsulated. Are you good with a woodstove?”

“Kind of.”

She’d never built a fire in her life. Until very recently, she’d assumed seasoned firewood contained actual seasoning, like paprika and chicory. She followed Sabine into the living room. All the furniture was covered in white sheets like you see in the movies. The walls had that distressed look people pay tens of thousands of dollars to reproduce. Although distressed was probably the wrong word. These walls were… tormented.

“What’s that noise?” asked Greta.

“Are you allergic to bees?”

“No,” said Greta.

“Good. There’s a hive under your feet,” said Sabine. “Downstairs, I mean. I’ll show you later. You want to know why this room’s so beautiful?”

Greta pointed at the ceiling, which was covered in cracks and had been painted with decorative, mostly worn-off designs.

“The ceiling’s great,” Sabine agreed. “But the main reason this room is beautiful is because it’s perfectly square. A perfectly square room is extremely rare. It does something to your brain chemistry.”

Sabine closed her eyes suddenly and bowed her head.

“Are you praying?” Greta asked after several seconds.

Her eyes flew open. “I’m fifty-five, Greta. I’m exhausted.”

Greta sniffed. “Is something baking?”

“Weed,” Sabine said. “I’m making sugar for pixies and gummies. I sell edibles, which you’ll find around the house. Help yourself.”

“Eating weed makes me cry uncontrollably,” Greta said.

“I hear you,” Sabine said. “Anyhow, I’ll move some of the furniture out of this room so you can put a bed in here.”

A figure emerged from what looked like the closet, a young, shirtless man with ropey arms. He seemed sleepy and didn’t acknowledge them. In Greta’s confusion, she knocked over a standing lamp, which was caught by the couch, luckily, and didn’t break. The young man righted the lamp and looked at them.

“This is Mateo,” Sabine said proudly. “He’s been staying in the little cave we call the Vermeer Room, but now that you’re here, he’ll move upstairs. Right, Mateo?”

He brushed past them without a word and headed for the door.

“Go mow the field before it gets dark,” Sabine called after him. “If the mower runs out of gas, there’s a can under the porch!”

“Your gardener lives with you?” Greta whispered.

“That’s my son,” Sabine said. “The one I adopted from Nicaragua.”

Greta had forgotten about him. There were two others: one from Chile, the other from Honduras.

“He’s only here for a week, unfortunately,” Sabine explained. “He’s building a shed for the donkeys and cutting down some trees. I’m heading to the city later today, so you’ll be glad to have him around. Trust me, it gets lonely in this house at night.”

“Because it’s haunted?”

“It’s cursed,” Sabine said. “Which is slightly different.”

“Cool. Does that mean I’ll die here?”

“No,” Sabine said. “I’m having the curse… canceled.”

“How?”

“A lot of women around here call themselves witches,” Sabine said, and gave Greta a guilty look.

“You’re a witch?”

“Afraid so,” said Sabine.