someone might lock it. She knew she wouldn’t die till Deirdre died, and those were her instructions.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“Many times. The last time was a week ago, maybe less. Right before Deirdre died … when they first knew she was dying. She called me late at night and reminded me. ‘Burn it all,’ she said.”
“She would have hurt everyone if she had done that!” Rowan whispered.
“I know. My parents were horrified. They were afraid she’d burn it herself. But what could they do? Ryan said she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have asked me to do it if she’d been able to do it. He told me to humor her. Tell her I’d do it so that she’d be sure of that, and not go to some other extreme.”
“That was wise.”
He gave a little nod, then his eyes drifted away from hers and back to the house.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said. “I thought you should know.”
“And what else can you tell me?”
“What else?” He gave a little shrug. Then he looked at her, and though he meant to turn away, he didn’t. He locked in. “Be careful,” he said. “Be very careful. It’s old and it’s gloomy and it’s … it’s not perhaps what it seems.”
“How so?”
“It’s not a grand house at all. It’s some sort of domicile for something. It’s a trap, you might say. It’s made up of all sorts of patterns. And the patterns form a sort of trap.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m speaking off the top of my head. It’s just … well, all of us have a little talent for feeling things … ”
“I know.”
“And well, I guess I wanted to warn you. You don’t know anything about us.”
“Did Carlotta say that about the patterns, about its being a trap?”
“No, it’s only my opinion. I came here more than the others. I was the only one Carlotta would see in the last few years. She liked me. I’m not sure why. Sometimes I was only there out of curiosity, though I wanted to be loyal to her, I really did. It’s been like a cloud over my life.”
“You’re glad it’s finished.”
“Yes. I am. It’s dreadful to say it, but then she didn’t want to live on any longer. She said so. She was tired. She wanted to die. But one afternoon, when I was alone here, waiting for her, it came to me that it was a trap. A great big trap. I don’t really know what I mean. I’m only saying perhaps that if you feel something, don’t discount it .… ”
“Did you ever see anything when you were here?”
He thought for a moment, obviously picking up her meaning with no difficulty.
“Maybe once,” he said. “In the hallway. But then again, I could have imagined it.”
He fell silent. So did she. That was the end of it, and he wanted to be going.
“It was very nice to talk to you, Rowan,” he said with a feeble smile. “Call me if you need me.”
She went inside the gate, and watched almost furtively as his silver Mercedes, a large sedan, drove slowly away.
Empty now. Quiet.
She could smell pine oil. She climbed the stairs, and moved quickly from room to room. New mattresses, still wrapped in shining plastic, on all the beds. Sheets and counterpanes neatly folded and stacked to one side. Floors dusted.
Smell of disinfectant from the third floor.
She went upstairs, moving into the breeze from the landing window. The floor of the little chamber of the jars was scrubbed immaculate except for a dark deep staining which probably would never scrub away. Not a shard of glass to be seen in the light from the window.
And Julien’s room, dusted, straightened, boxes stacked, the brass bed dismantled and laid against the wall beneath the windows, which had also been cleaned. Books nice and straight. The old dark sticky substance scraped away from the spot where Townsend had died.
All else was undisturbed.
Going back down to Carlotta’s room, she found the drawers empty, the dresser bare, the armoire with nothing left but a few wooden hangers. Camphor.
All very still. She saw herself in the mirrored door of the armoire, and was startled. Her heart beat loudly for a moment. No one else here.
She walked downstairs to the first floor, and back down the hallway to the kitchen. They had mopped these floors and cleaned the glass doors of the cabinets. Good smell of wax again, and pine