Jenn Bennett - Grim Shadows

“Death by crystal,” he said.

She nodded, a nervous smile briefly lifting her mouth before she continued. “There was an incident when I was younger.”

“What kind of incident?”

“I don’t like to speak of it.”

He paused. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No, not that,” she said. “The details aren’t important. It’s in the past, but I haven’t quite been able to overcome my negative feelings associated with it. It’s usually not an issue, as people unconsciously tend to keep their distance from me. Which is fine. Things are easier at work, especially, when people stay out of my way. However, because of all this, I’ve become accustomed to having my private space.”

“I see.” Partly, anyway, but she didn’t seem to be budging on the “incident.”

“I’m sure it sounds pathetic. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m just unused to being . . .” She struggled for words, gesturing with her hands in a way that didn’t help to get her point across.

“Unused to being kissed?” he finally asked, fully intrigued.

Her cheeks flushed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not some chaste girl without worldly experience.” Oh, really? Definitely intrigued. Lowe was rather fond of Unchaste Women with Worldly Experience. “I’m just unaccustomed to being touched so casually. I prefer a barrier.”

“A barrier?”

“Gloves, or distance—I don’t know.” She shifted in her seat.

“No skin.”

She nodded. “I suppose I’ve unintentionally nurtured a phobia.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

He touched a gloved knuckle to her coat sleeve. “This is okay.”

“Yes.”

“But . . .”

“But,” she agreed dramatically, as if that summed up everything she’d just explained. “I’m not saying I enjoy being this way. It’s just something that seems to have happened.” She shrugged and exhaled heavily.

He thought back to that first night on the train, and her reluctance to shake his hand without gloves for their so-called gentlemen’s agreement. And again the next day, her flinching away from him when they were picking up files, and her insistence that it wasn’t caused by his disfigurement. And then the gazing pool. She’d gripped his hand tight enough then, but she’d been wearing opera gloves. And he’d never actually touched her face, had he? Only the flower in her hair. Even when she’d held on to him so tightly riding on the back of Lulu, there were clothes between them.

Sure, he’d grazed her bare wrist with his thumb a couple of times, but the first time he’d really touched her skin was when he’d clamped his bare hand on hers—when she was trying to take the paintings off the table. And seconds later he’d lunged and kissed her, thinking he’d grandly claim her and she’d just swoon in his arms. So much for that.

She smoothed the front of her coat. “Anyway, I suppose we’re even now.”

“How’s that?”

“You’d never told anyone the real story behind your missing finger, and I’ve never told anyone about this.”

“Not even Moneypants?”

The corners of her mouth quivered. She quickly shook her head.

Well, imagine that. She didn’t shrivel up and die at the feel of his lips on hers—or, rather, she might, but it wasn’t him in particular. And instead of just telling him never to try it again, she confessed her secret—partly, anyway.

It almost felt like a challenge. At least, that’s how his ever-optimistic brain interpreted it, as if she were saying: You want this? Good luck. You’re going to have to work for it.

Facing down a hurdle of this magnitude looked a bit like crossing the Rockies on a motorcycle during a snowstorm. But he’d always been fond of seemingly impossible and doomed tasks. So he spent the rest of the ride remembering what his uncle had told him about one of the Nubi workers who’d been deathly afraid of snakes. His uncle had said that the only way to rid the man of his fear was to feed him cake while he was forced to look at caged snakes from a distance, bringing the snakes closer and closer until the positive association of cake drowned the fear. Counterconditioning, he’d called it.

Simple as cake. Or was that pie? He wondered which Hadley preferred, because he suddenly had the most compelling urge to dabble in behavior therapy.

HADLEY WAS GREATLY RELIEVED when their taxi slowed near Pioneer Park. What on God’s green earth had possessed her to tell Lowe about her boundary issues? And now there was nothing but heavy silence between them. God only knew what he was thinking. She couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. Best to concentrate on the task at hand and pretend that conversation had never happened.

Rosewood Manor was one of a handful of buildings clinging to the top of Telegraph Hill, and quite possibly the wealthiest home in an otherwise working-class neighborhood. But it was far from impressive: the dull, gray paint that covered the boxy Italianate Victorian was peeling; some of the beveled glass twin-arched windows on the third floor had been boarded up; and one of the overhanging eaves was one storm away from being ripped off.

“It’s unoccupied,” she said as she shut the taxi’s door. “What a terrible shame to let a home so grand slide into such disrepair. Look at that stunning tower and those bracketed cornices.”

“A shame?” Lowe’s nose scrunched up. “It’s spooky. ‘Gloom Manor’ is probably what the neighbors call it.”

“I think it’s handsome and rather pleasant up here. It’s nice and quiet, away from all the traffic, and the views of the Bay are stunning. What a lovely old palm tree there in the side yard.”

“To each their own. But the fact that it’s clearly unoccupied doesn’t help us today. Maybe we can track down—”

A bespectacled man with ginger hair emerged from the house. “Hello! Are you the Davidsons? I’m Mr. Farnsworth, the real estate agent.”

Hadley’s gaze flicked between Mr. Farnsworth and the FOR SALE sign hanging next to the front door. She immediately knew what Lowe was thinking: no sense kicking a gift horse in the mouth.

“Yes, we’re the Davidsons,” Lowe said with a smile. “Are we too late?”

“No, early, in fact. I just wanted to open up the house to air it out before our tour. You do want to see the inside, yes?”

“Absolutely.”

“Some folks are only interested in the land, but the bones of the house are in excellent shape. Survived the Quake, so she’s sturdy. Just needs some repair and paint. Electrical wiring and heating might need updating, and there’s no telephone. But she’s got a lot of character, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Hadley said, getting caught up in the charade. “A lovely old thing.”

“Please, Mrs. Davidson, come inside and let me show you around. Then we can talk price.”

The moment Hadley crossed the arched threshold, she felt it—just barely. The same unsettling twang she’d felt around the djed’s base. One of the crossbars was here!

She glanced over her shoulder at Lowe, who was craning his neck to survey the foyer. Oblivious. But he’d felt the energy in the amulet base—he’d admitted so on the train. Was she wrong? Because several other factors gave the old house a decidedly gloomy ambiance, as Lowe had put it. The thick layer of dust. The furniture draped in canvas cloth. The pungent, musty scent. The crude drawings scrawled on the old wood walls and floor—occult symbols, cartoon depictions of sheet-covered ghosts having sex in multiple positions, and the words “Stay Away” painted in red on the stairwell wall.

“My apologies regarding the vulgar graffiti, Mrs. Davidson,” the real estate agent said.

“I had no idea ghosts were so creative.” Lowe turned his head sideways to examine the drawings. “It’s hard to tell if this fellow here is more attracted to his ghost buddy or the girl ghost.”

Farnsworth laughed nervously. “Seems the house was broken into several times before the bank took possession a few years ago. Probably just a roving group of youths.”

“Oh, those roving youths,” Lowe said with a slow shake of his head.

“I can assure you that once the house is occupied, that won’t be an issue,” Mr. Farnsworth said. “Now, if you’ll notice all the natural light coming in from the living area at the back of the foyer . . .”

Hadley trailed the two men through several rooms, nearly tripping over an empty gin bottle in the kitchen doorway. “Not our stock,” Lowe whispered as he steadied her with a firm hand on her arm. They both stared at the place where his hand rested. He cleared his throat and released her, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a roll of peppermints. “Would you like one?” he said, peeling back a strip of the tinfoil wrapper.

She accepted and savored the minty white confection while he popped one in his mouth, too. As he repocketed the roll with one hand, he rested the other on her upper back. She eyed him suspiciously—had she not just opened her heart to him about her phobia?—then shuddered when his hand strayed down her spine. Down, slowly, then back up. A rub. Definitely a rub. Was he mocking her? Mild anger sifted with panic, but before she even had a chance to pull away, he withdrew his hand, loudly questioning Farnsworth on the total number of broken windows inside the home.

Seven was the man’s answer. Seven was also the number of seconds it took her to grind the mint between her molars—something that did not escape Lowe’s notice. She put some space between them and continued to keep a lookout for the urn while Lowe conducted a flawless performance of a wealthy husband looking for a quiet old home to renovate for his “mother-in-law.”

The stairs were barely passable, and on the second story, a spacious landing ringed by four bedrooms greeted them. “Two full bathrooms on this floor,” the real estate agent pointed out. “Not the prettiest things, but the plumbing seems to work. And there’s a third one in the servant’s hall behind the kitchen.”