Dust mites danced in front of the flashlight beam as they crept down the short hallway, and her eyes took a moment to adjust. Then the space opened up. Samson stopped, shining the flashlight along the wall to their left. A spider scuttled out of the beam of light from its web in the corner, and the beam of the flashlight jumped as Samson twitched in surprise. He steadied it again, shone it along the far wall of the windowless room, lined with wire shelves. He moved the beam while staying in one spot, one foot turned toward the door, ready to bolt. The light revealed a workbench along the wall perpendicular, with wooden shelves fastened to the wall above it.
She should have figured something was here. If she thought about it, what had she thought was on the other side of the stairs? There wasn’t a room, and the library didn’t extend to the back of the house. So what had she thought was here? She pushed past him to the center of the room and turned in a circle, examining the space.
He stepped a bit farther into the room, and shone the light on the wall behind them, and it was covered with paintings with the same signature as the one in the foyer—paintings of the house, the bayou, the town, even Rumrunners, all at night, all marked with pale streaks—the ghosts of the bayou.
There, at the edge of the wall, was a light switch. She reached for it, flicked it on, only for the pop of an exploding lightbulb to make them both jump.
Because she wanted to explore further, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, swiped on the flashlight and crossed to the workbench. Jars of things she couldn’t easily identify lined up on the shelves above. Not canned fruits or vegetables or anything like that. Dried things, twisted in unidentifiable shapes. She wanted to pick them up, but a sense of foreboding warned her against it, so she instead turned to the wire shelves, where more jars—reused jars like empty mayonnaise and jelly jars—were filled with powders and other things not labeled.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. The labels had dried off and now crumbled on the floor below. She crouched to pick one up, only to have it disintegrate in her hand while some creature—possibly the spider—scuttled beneath the wire shelving.
The shelves were not old—she’d seen similar ones in the big box store when she’d shopped last. So this room wasn’t used that long ago. She turned to Samson, her brain hurting from searching for an explanation.
“What is this place?”
“I think we need to go talk to Allison,” he said, lowering the beam and heading toward the light of the library.
Twenty
“I can’t just leavethe shop to go over to your place,” Allison said, her tone exasperated, her gaze averted as she stood behind the counter of her shop. “I have to go pick up Hayden from school in a little while.”
Samson leaned against the wall beside the register, arms folded over his chest. “Just for a few minutes,” he said, his voice low and coaxing, as if sheer persistence might wear her down. He added his weight to Erielle’s earlier plea. “We found some things. Stuff we don’t understand. We think you might.” He tilted his head, watching her. “Come by, and then you can leave straight from there for Hayden.”
Allison’s lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, she looked at them—but not for long. Her eyes flicked past Erielle’s shoulder toward the street beyond the window, as if expecting someone to walk in at any second. “Why didn’t you just bring it here?”
Samson glanced over at Erielle, who shrugged. “There’s a lot of it, and honestly, that didn’t occur to me. Really, just a few minutes.”
Allison glanced at her wristwatch, then the clock on the wall. “I can give you fifteen minutes.”
That response puzzled Erielle, since it was not quite one o’clock. She didn’t know what time kids got out of school, though. Allison had agreed, yes—but why did it feel more like she was buying time?
“You’re coming now, right?”
“I just need to lock up.” Her hand hovered by the keys behind the counter.
But Allison still didn’t meet Erielle’s gaze. Erielle glanced at Samson, who shrugged one shoulder, pushing himself away from the wall in the same motion. He touched Erielle’s arm to urge her toward the door.
“We’ll see you in a bit.”
The bell over the door jingled as they stepped out, swallowing whatever Allison said in reply.
Erielle couldn’t settle. She drifted from the locked room to the kitchen, where the open journal mocked her with its unreadable symbols, before finally ending up on the front porch. Her arms hugged tight around her middle as she scanned the street.
Had Allison decided not to come? Or worse—had she lied?
She went back inside, determined to do something, anything. The stack of boxes called to her. That would be a good, mindless task. She carried out an armload of titles—they had the book now, so she didn’t have to be careful about what she got rid of—and tossed them one after another, from the porch, the repetitive motion keeping her from crawling out of her skin, the repetitive thumps soothing.
Behind her, the screen door creaked. Samson came out, boots heavy on the porch boards. He didn’t say anything at first, just leaned against a post and folded his arms, his gaze on the dumpster. His steady presence should have been reassuring, but instead it made her nerves hum.
“You’re wound tight,” he said finally.
“I’m trying not to think.” She walked past him to gather another armload of books, which she tossed two at a time into the bin with too much force. “What if she’s not coming?”
“Then we think of something else. Go to New Orleans if we have to, talk to someone there.” The post creaked against his weight and he glanced up, grimaced, and pushed himself away.
The hum of an engine distracted her, and she turned to see a familiar sedan pull into the driveway. Samson’s mother step out of the car. Mrs. Guillory offered her a strained smile before glancing quickly down the road, as if expecting company.
Samson was already moving, stepping off the porch as his mother’s car pulled in. She got out slowly, clutching her purse like it might protect her. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Hi, honey. Hi, Erielle.”
