The Spite House(25)
Dana mulled her answer. It occurred to her that no other prospective or accepted resident had asked her this. Probably because they never entertained the possibility of it being real. Now it seemed so obvious a question that, in hindsight, she thought less of the ones who’d failed to ask. The grain of guilt she kept for never trying to dissuade anyone from staying in the house—the Renners especially—lost some of the small thorns and edges that made it tough to ignore. It wasn’t like they had ever considered the house a legitimate threat and she had talked them out of it.
That made this situation different, made her consider her answer a moment, deciding how best to word it. She didn’t want to lie and claim to believe in things that didn’t exist just to be able to say she tried to persuade Eric Ross to decline Eunice’s offer. At the same time, if he or one of his daughters ended up like Jane Renner, her guilt was going to regain its recently lost hooks and edges, and blow up to one hundred times its current size.
“I’ve personally never encountered anything to make me a believer,” Dana said. “But, again, you’re not the first person to accept this offer. If you stayed, you’d be the first to see it through. Now, none of the others suffered any physical injuries, I can’t stress that enough, but I also can’t pretend to know what made them leave. Whether it was anything real or just in their heads. If we knew that, one way or another, we wouldn’t be hiring you to find out for us. What about you? Do you get the impression that something is here? Or do you think it’s just easy money?”
“I’m trying not to make any assumptions,” Eric said, “least of all that it’s going to be easy. If anything I’ll assume it’s going to be the opposite. But I think it’s doable.”
“That’s a good approach to take. Sounds like you’re on board, then.”
“Like I said, my options are pretty limited. I’m guessing that’s what made me the favorite.”
She almost said, You guessed right, as a joke, but thought it might sound cruel, so instead she said, “Let’s get back and give Eunice the good news. I bet your girls will be happy to hear it, too. I have a family of my own, and for whatever it’s worth, weird as this house looks, if I had to choose between living here or living out of sketchy motels with God-knows-who as your neighbors, I’d pick here ten times out of ten.”
Even knowing what happened to the people who were here just before you, she thought, but kept to herself. Because she ultimately didn’t know what had happened to Jane and Max Renner. Part of her believed it couldn’t have been that bad. In Dana’s opinion, the house’s strange architecture and location just wore on people. The close walls, its placement on the hill, the sounds it must make at night, the way it must feel when a strong enough wind blew, like it might topple. All of that combined to tear people down, especially those who hadn’t mentally or emotionally girded themselves for how strange it would be. Even Dana, disbeliever that she was, had almost convinced herself just a moment ago that there was a third person with them in the floating hallway. How much worse did it get staying here overnight? Or, in the Renners’ case, three and a half weeks?
Eric Ross was different, though. He was a serious person, a single parent already dealing with an unknown, stressful situation. He wasn’t going to crack just because his confines were too narrow or because his footsteps echoed strangely in a hall. And he also didn’t strike her as the type to ignore the signs that things were getting worse without doing anything to help himself, blinded by a quest for fame like Max and Jane Renner. He would get his kids out if things got bad for them, and give himself a break if it came to it. If he had the foresight to ask Dana what she thought of the house, he would also think to ask Eunice about taking a night or two off if he needed it. He was the type of candidate they should have been looking for all along. Of all the people she and Eunice had met with about the job, Dana had the most faith in him to see it through.
CHAPTER 9
Stacy
What excited Stacy the most about Miss Houghton’s gigantic house was that it had its own library. Stacy had asked to see it earlier, but Miss Lafonda told her they couldn’t go upstairs today.
“I’ll show you later, promise,” Miss Lafonda said, which kept Stacy from getting to sleep after dinner, despite her being in the biggest, softest bed she’d ever been in. Her sister was next to her and didn’t answer the few times Stacy said her name. The first couple of times she had wanted to talk to her about the library. How many books would it have? Would it have any books for kids?
Even if it didn’t, that would be okay. Stacy had started reading just before she turned five and liked the challenge of trying to read grown-up books, but it would be nice to have something she could read all the way through without having to ask what certain words meant. She had read the few books she brought when they left home so many times she had them all but memorized and wanted something new. Dad wouldn’t let her go to a bookstore since they left home, though, and they couldn’t go to a library either. She told him that she wouldn’t take too long to pick a book out at a store, not like she would have back home when she went book shopping with Mom. She knew that was why he wouldn’t take her to a store now. They had to do things in more of a hurry, and he trusted her to go faster with a lot of things, but not with looking for something new and fun to read.