The Spite House(24)
When they got to the end, she barely tried to hide her relief when she looked at him. “Not quite as bad as it could be, is it?”
“A little better than I expected,” he said, coming out behind her and taking a couple of extra steps away from the door. He sounded a little out of breath, like he might have had a small panic attack.
“You’re okay?” she asked.
He nodded, but said, “Wish there was a different way.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she said, then brought him up the last flight of steps.
The empty master bedroom took up the top floor. The waning daylight still warmed the color of the room. Dark curtains were drawn back from each of the room’s four tall windows, and through the windows you could see the orphanage’s large, Georgian country house. Its red bricks were faded and bleached by time, and even from this distance Eric could see that its front door was missing, which made it slightly resemble a startled face, mouth agape. Adjacent to its north wing was a small chapel whose cross was missing. Behind this church was a modest, forsaken playground largely overtaken by weeds.
Not far beyond the building, the church, and the playground, there stood a shorter but broader hill, which delayed the sunrise by at least half an hour during part of the year, just as the Masson House, atop the hill to the west, could sometimes pitch its shadow across the buildings below to hasten the sunset.
The windows in the house all faced east. Dana watched Eric approach them and wondered what he must be thinking. He seemed smart, and she believed he could add up certain facts—such as the house being called a spite house and its station on the hill—to determine why it was built where it was, and who exactly it had been meant to upset. She let him take in the view and didn’t make a sound or gesture that might steal his attention.
When he turned to her he said, “I’ll be sleeping up here?”
“Your choice. This is the room where the original owner slept, and where our previous tenants have slept, but you can stay anywhere else in the house if you prefer, as long as you’re getting your work done.”
“What happened with the previous tenants?”
“Eunice didn’t tell you?”
“She said they got spooked before they could finish the job.”
“That’s pretty much all there is to tell.”
“Really?” he said. “It’s a lot of money to just walk away from because you’re a little scared.”
“I don’t think they were just a ‘little’ scared.”
“I guess it’s just hard for me to see what could scare someone away from getting paid if it’s not really dangerous here.”
Dana chuckled. “You know, Mr. Ross, when I was a girl, my father thought he could sort of buy out my fear of roaches. I have it to this day, so bad that I get chills seeing one on TV in a commercial for bug spray. When I was a kid sometimes we’d get them in the house and I’d have to leave the house until it was, in my mind, ‘safe’ to go back in. My dad didn’t understand it because it’s not like they’re poisonous or they can attack you or anything. He thought he could fix my fear by offering to pay me twice my monthly allowance that I got for doing chores if I would just hold a roach in my hand for five seconds. I can barely get that sentence out of my mouth without wanting to scratch my palm. I told him no. I didn’t even try. I told him I’d rather do double the chores to make double the money. In fact I’d have rather done triple the chores for a lower allowance than touch one of those disgusting things for a second. Now, if I had literally no other choice, if it were the only way I could make a living now as an adult, I think I could fight through the fear, but never as long as I’ve got other options. It doesn’t matter that they’re basically harmless.”
Eric nodded. “It does make a difference if you have fewer choices.”
“Or if you just don’t scare as easily.”
“True. So what exactly would I be doing on the job, here? Is that something you can tell me?”
“I can. I’m just surprised you didn’t ask Miss Houghton,” Dana said.
“I probably got a little too excited when she said I basically had the job. So I just, what, report back if I see or hear anything notable?”
“That’s it in a nutshell. Miss Houghton has certain preferences. She likes things handwritten. She’s the oldest techie I’ve ever met but that’s the one thing she gets a little romantic about. But she’ll give you a journal and provide the details on that later.”
“Okay,” Eric said. “Can I ask one more question?”
“I can’t promise to have an answer, but sure.”
“Do you believe in it?”
Dana furrowed her brow. “Now you’re just seeing if you can skip ahead in the process, aren’t you? It doesn’t matter what I believe. The whole point of this is to record the observations of someone with no skin in the game.”
“I understand. It’s just, I’m moving my kids in here,” Eric said, “and I’m not doing it for kicks. I know you’re not supposed to say too much, but I don’t think it’s saying too much to give me your general opinion. You’ve been in here often enough. I’m not asking you to tell me about a specific time you saw a ghost or heard rattling chains or anything like that. Just whether you believe in it? Any of it?”