The Spite House(45)
CHAPTER 21
Eunice
For Eunice, sleepless nights were a vice as unaffordable as excessive drinking or smoking. She turned off any screens in her vicinity by 8:30 P.M. After this watershed, she also forbade herself any music with lyrics and that couldn’t be defined as soothing. She gave herself between thirty and sixty minutes to read in bed, and most often was welcoming sleep before the half-hour mark.
Her head had to be on a pillow and her eyes closed by 9:30 P.M. Any later and it might throw off her biorhythms for the next few nights. She’d spent a fair amount of time learning this about herself and about the benefits of sleep in general, how failing to get enough of it could lead you to an early grave. As such she even used to keep her phones silenced at night. The last of her relatives died decades prior, and there was never any business important enough for her to let it rouse her.
That was before she missed the midnight call from Maxwell Renner shortly before they’d fled the Masson House. She still didn’t think there was anything she could have done for them had she answered, but she should have been available to them. It was her business.
So when her phone rang and woke her at 4:14 A.M., and she saw that it was Eric calling, she felt a mixture of frustration and vindication. She wasn’t derelict in her duties this time, even though the slight twinge in her chest and tightness in her jaw made her regret feeling so obliged. On answering she thought, There’d better be something really wrong for you to call me now. One of your girls better be in trouble, or else why are you bothering me?
“We’re headed your way,” Eric told her. “I’m cashing in that open invitation for my girls to stay there.”
Something was indeed “really wrong,” and Eunice felt a rush that she had to quell with a deep breath. If they were coming to her, then something had chased them out of the house. Same as with Max and Jane, except Eric was not hightailing it out of town, he was coming to her. This was a good sign. It meant that the spirits hadn’t gone into hiding, and also that Eric was made of sterner stuff than anyone who’d been in the spite house before. He was going to give her a chance to keep him in there.
“You ought to stay here overnight, too,” Eunice said. “You sound flustered.”
“We’ll talk about it when we get there.”
After hanging up, she went to Lafonda’s room, two doors down the hall, awakened her, and told her what little she knew. If Lafonda had any questions, she kept them to herself, and joined Eunice in action. They went downstairs, prepared a pitcher of water and some lavender tea, things to help ease frayed nerves. Lafonda suggested putting some cookies in the oven, and Eunice said that was a smart idea. Not scratch-made, the quick-bake kind taken out of a package. They might not be done by the time the Rosses arrived, but the aroma would prove pleasant and calming, especially for the little one. It was important to present a welcoming atmosphere, convince Eric with every tool she had that he could trust his daughters with her.
Eunice made sure to be at the door before the Rosses pulled up. She read Eric’s dazed expression as he came to the door, Odessa’s wide and weary eyes. She felt like she could nearly see what they had seen just by looking at their faces. She was disappointed to see Eric hadn’t brought his journal with him. It was difficult not to demand he tell her everything that had occurred in detail so she could write it herself, but she held off even lightly prodding him. It would be imprudent. Now was not the time to show any impatience, give off any hint that she was anything except supportive.
They all spent some time together in the kitchen. She hoped the Rosses might open up to her after settling down, but the most they said was that “things got weird,” and “we just had to get out of there.”
That was fine. Eunice glanced at her watch several minutes after they arrived, while Stacy and Dess ate cookies. Her heart rate was still slightly elevated. Hopefully none of her excitement was evident in her face or voice.
If Peter Masson and the children—and whoever else might be there—were still stirring, that meant there was little chance they might no-show when she brought Neal and other observers to the site. That was good. Terrific, even. But it wasn’t enough. “Little chance” was not “zero chance,” and she could get to that, at last, as long as Eric remained in the house.
* * *
After breakfast, Eunice took Eric for a walk on the property’s trail while the girls stayed in the house with Lafonda, playing some alphabet game they said they would teach her.
“You’re looking better today,” Eunice said. “How are you feeling?”
“Anxious,” Eric said. “I don’t want you thinking I’m going to come running to stay here every time things get a little crazy in the house. Last night, I did that for my girls. I can hang in there by myself, you can trust that.”
Eunice smiled. “Here I was thinking you’d tell me you didn’t want to stay there anymore.”
“Most people don’t get paid to do what they want,” Eric said. “They do the work because they want to get paid. I need to get paid, Miss Houghton. Not the little bit that’s kept me and the girls treading water. I need the kind of money we agreed to. So as long as the work won’t kill me I’m here to do it.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but there is something that I want to share with you that I should have told you before.”