The Secret of Cypriere Bayou. Jana DeLeon

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      John nodded. The library was where he’d found the pink button. “There’s a library straight back past the stairwell, then turn left down the hall.”

      “Great.” Olivia headed toward the hallway. “I didn’t know if you’d taken stock of the house yet or were only concentrating on the outside maintenance.”

      John followed behind her, his mind forming an idea that just might get him around Olivia until he could get rid of her. “Actually, I’m supposed to be working on the main house, but I didn’t want to disturb you this morning, so I worked in the drive. I’m an early riser.”

      Olivia stepped into the library and placed her box on a long, dusty table in the center of a room with floor to ceiling bookcases on every wall. “I love this,” she said, looking around the room. “All it needs is a good cleaning.”

      John placed his box on the table. “I’m not going to disturb your work if I go about my business upstairs, am I?”

      “I doubt it. What are you doing, exactly?”

      “Right now,” he said, as he formulated the lie, “I’m just assessing everything and making a list of necessary repairs so that Wheeler can order the supplies I need. I do a lot of banging wood and moving stuff, though.”

      Olivia waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ve trained myself to write in almost any circumstance. I acclimate to the sounds of a new house quickly, so your work shouldn’t bother me at all.”

      John stared at her for a moment, not certain what to say. A writer? He would have understood if she was an antique dealer looking to catalogue the furniture or a real estate agent looking to get a contract on the house, but why in the world would someone choose laMalediction as a place to write a book? “You’re writing a book?”

      Olivia nodded. “I know. Most people find it strange, but this is my niche. I stay in a reputed haunted house and write a ghost story about it. My next book is due soon and it will be set at laMalediction.”

      “Haunted houses? Do you believe in that sort of thing?”

      Olivia pursed her lips. “I think a fair statement would be that I don’t limit the universe to what I understand. I’ve seen things I can’t explain, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation.” She smiled. “The good news is I don’t spook easily, so you won’t have to worry about catering to a damsel in distress.”

      John nodded, feeling his options lessening by the second. “I’ll go grab another box,” he said and left the library.

      I don’t spook easily.

      She said that like it was a good thing.

      OLIVIA DROPPED the filthy sponge in a bucket of dirty water. Three hours of scrubbing and the room was finally fit for habitation. She sank down on the floor and leaned back against one of the now-sparkling maple bookcases. It really was a beautiful room. In fact, everything she’d seen of the house so far was gorgeous. It was a shame that no one lived there enjoying it, although she guessed most people wouldn’t enjoy being sequestered out in the bayou with only a small town of strange people and a swamp of all kinds of creatures as company.

      A crash above her caused her to jump and she slowly pulled herself up from the floor. John Landry had been making good on his noise-making promise. He’d been banging and knocking upstairs as long as she’d been cleaning downstairs. She sometimes wondered if he was creating more work.

      She grabbed the bucket, headed to the kitchen, and dumped the dirty water in the sink. She rinsed the bucket and placed it upside down in the sink to dry, then pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and rubbed it across her forehead before taking a huge swig of it. The humidity was something she’d expected to encounter but it was worse than what she’d imagined, especially with no air conditioning.

      She grabbed a bag of potato chips from the kitchen counter and headed back to the library. Unpacking and setting up her laptop and printer was next on her list, then she’d be ready to work. No more excuses. She smiled when she thought about all the ideas that were already flowing through her mind for the book, and then stopped short when she stepped into the library.

      Something is wrong.

      She scanned the empty room. Nothing seemed out of place, but yet, she knew it wasn’t like she’d left it. All five of her boxes were still stacked at one end of the long table and at the other end of the table was a lamp. She felt her breath catch in her throat. A lamp that used to sit on a tiny table on the far wall.

      Taking a step closer to the table, she checked her boxes more closely. They were still sealed and didn’t appear to have been shuffled around at all. A loud thump upstairs caused her to jump. Her water bottle slipped out of her hands and onto the floor.

      Get a grip. It’s just John, you know, the man you told you didn’t spook easily.

      Could John have moved the lamp just to mess with her? She thought about her trip to the kitchen, trying to recall if she could still hear him banging around when she’d been cleaning the bucket but she’d grown so used to the noise that she simply didn’t know. Surely, that was it. He was playing a joke on her. Trying to prove she wasn’t as tough as she thought she was. She crossed her arms across her chest, suddenly chilly in the previously stifling room.

      Well, it wasn’t a very funny joke, and she wasn’t going to stand for it.

      She picked up her water and set it on the table with a thump, then strode down the hall and up the stairwell, ready for battle. She found John in a bedroom at the back of the house, probably positioned over the library downstairs, and he was covered all over with something white.

      One glance at the gaping hole in the ceiling and the mess surrounding him on the floor gave her a clear idea of where the white substance came from. “What happened?” she asked.

      He was standing on a stepladder with his head poked up in the hole in the ceiling. Leaning down a bit, he looked out at her. “Ceiling fell in is what happened. Didn’t you hear all that noise earlier?”

      She remembered the loud crash she’d heard when she’d just finished cleaning. “That was the ceiling? Wow. I guess you were standing under it.”

      “Unfortunately. I thought the light fixture was loose but it was the entire ceiling that was sagging. I barely touched it and the whole thing came crashing down on me.” He stepped down the ladder and retrieved a water bottle from the dresser, leaving white tracks everywhere he stepped.

      Olivia stared at the white shoe prints then back into the hall. It was dusty and dirty, but not a single white ring in sight.

      “Did you need something?” he asked.

      “No. I just thought I ought to check and make sure everything was okay…you know, with the noise.”

      John narrowed his eyes at her. “So you thought I might be injured but waited a good five minutes to come up and check?”

      “Yeah,” Olivia said as she backed out of the room. “Sorry, you’re right. I should have checked sooner, but I was pouring out a bucket of dirty water.” She pointed down at his feet. “You might want to take your shoes off before you walk around much more. Not that the place is clean or anything.”

      John СКАЧАТЬ