out the windows over the garden, frowning for a time at the gazebo, standing still and white in the drenching rain. And then came the upper hall and the long row of bedrooms.
They walked past the bathroom … and then Katrina stopped in the hall so abruptly that Laurel ran into her from behind. Katrina turned on her with her face twisted in fury. “Don’t touch me!” she snarled.
Laurel was so startled that for a moment she couldn’t speak. “I’m sorry. My fault.”
Katrina’s face slowly lost its look of animal rage, and she turned blankly to the door they’d stopped in front of—the locked door to the right.
“It’s locked—,” Laurel began. Katrina reached and tried it anyway. To Laurel’s surprise, the knob turned for the girl, although when she pushed on it, the door refused to budge. Katrina stepped back, looking at Laurel expectantly. Laurel stepped forward and tried the door herself. The knob turned, but the door held firm. Laurel pushed her whole body weight on it, and then suddenly whatever was holding it released, and Laurel fell into the room, barely catching herself before she tumbled to the floor.
It was a little room with slanted rafters, a narrow antique bed, a closet door, and—inexplicably in such a small room—a fireplace across from the bed.
Katrina frowned into the room, stepped tentatively forward …
… then wrinkled her nose and shook her head, as if warding something away. She moved quickly out. Laurel lingered in the doorway after Katrina moved on. The one small bed in it seemed more like a prison cot than a bed, and it may have been her imagination, but the atmosphere was simply—thick. A hat stand stood in the corner beside the door. There was a dark O on the window, about three inches in diameter, painted, she thought, but when she stepped closer she saw it was not painted, but etched into the glass and then darkened in with ink. It gave Laurel a strong sense of unease. At the window, the filmy curtains stirred, trembling in some unfelt current of air, and Laurel felt the flesh on her forearms rise.
She remembered the clipboard she held stiffly at her side and lifted it, looking at her own copy of the floor plan. She hesitated about how to mark the room, and then put squiggly lines over it. Electromagnetic, she wrote; it was the only word she could think of.
She stepped out of the room, and experienced a palpable sense of relief. Katrina had drifted down the hall toward the next rooms. Laurel watched as she drifted through slowly through them, without comment and without writing anything on her clipboard. She didn’t stop again until the room with the faded animal wallpaper and the sleigh beds. Paul and Caroline’s room, Laurel remembered. But why would the room have been preserved as a nursery, obviously long after the children were grown?
Katrina was frowning and writing.
At the end of the long hall they moved into the perpendicular Spanish section again, with its larger rooms: the master bedroom, the two smaller rooms in the middle with their corresponding bathrooms across the hall, and the large library.
Katrina seemed to enjoy the master bedroom with its sweeping views of the garden; Laurel sensed that given the chance she would be moving out of her smaller bedroom forthwith.
They both turned at the sound of voices behind them.
Brendan and Tyler appeared at the top of the main staircase as the women reached the end of the hall.
“Nice timing,” Brendan remarked, and they all went into the big library together.
Brendan and Laurel stayed by the door as the two students wandered around the room under the watchful eyes of the rows of photographs. Rain blew against the windows outside in spatterings and lighting cracked across the sky, accompanied by the low rumble of thunder.
“Yeah, there’s some major heaviness here, all right,” Tyler drawled. “Almost feels like I’m being watched.” Laurel glanced at Brendan and he shrugged.
As Tyler turned back to the bookshelves, Brendan muttered to Laurel, “Actually he’s been pretty cooperative.” The warmth of his breath on her neck made Laurel flush, her ears tingle. “What about her?” he queried softly.
“Loving the attention,” Laurel murmured.
He smiled at her with sparkling eyes and she had to look away.
The two students were industriously making notes on their floor plans. Brendan waited until they were through and then spoke.
“Okay. Have we all gotten through the whole house?” Brendan looked to Laurel and Katrina, who nodded. The two