The interior of the inn was dark, cold, and dusty. Julie decided not to remove her boots. Her feet were like ice, but she suspected that the floorboards wouldn’t be much better. She left her suitcase by the door and fumbled for the light switch, thankful that her grandmother had made sure the water, electricity, and heat were turned on before her arrival.
The first switch her hand found didn’t work. She flicked it on, then off, then on again before cursing under her breath. A grope farther along the wall found a second switch near the first. This one brought light crackling to the small light fixture over her head. Thank goodness! If the inn hadn’t had electricity, Julie really would have run back to Boston.
The floorboards creaked under her steps as she continued past the coat hooks and dusty mirror—which threw back the distorted reflection of a woman with short, dirty-blond hair and an oval face—and through the short corridor into the house proper. She’d always been comfortable at the Cozy Holly Inn in part because it hadn’t felt like most B&Bs she’d stayed at over the years. It felt more like a home than an establishment, and that was reflected in the layout of the house. Most of the downstairs consisted of an enormous dining room to feed the guests staying in one of the inn’s eight rooms, but near the front door was the cozy little nook the family had used as a living room.
She found the light switch to this room quicker. It illuminated haunted, sheet-covered shapes of furniture. The back of her neck prickled, and her breath fogged up in front of her face. She needed to find the thermostat and crank on the heat.
There was one in the living room, but she nearly tripped over something sticking out from under one of the sheets. Muttering under her breath, she fiddled with the knob until she heard the rattle of the furnace kicking in. Then she tackled the offending item under the sheet.
Her grandfather’s rocker. All Julie’s rancor melted away as she saw the sturdy, if scratched, chair. Each of those scratches told a story, and she couldn’t help but run her finger along one of the deepest grooves. That one the chair had acquired from Julie when she’d been young and running through the house. Gram and Gramps hadn’t been angry at her for knocking it over and adding to the map of small scars the chair held. Instead, they’d been more concerned that Julie had hurt herself, though she’d been afraid of their reproach, crying at the time. More memories trickled back to her as she moved on to the other, less noticeable scratches in the wood. Gramps reading to her as she sat on his lap or the floor. Gram sitting in her chair and knitting or working on a quilt.
Julie turned, and the next sheet-covered lump she revealed turned out to be Gram’s chair. The upholstery was faded, the flowers in the once-white chair now faded into beige along with the rest of it. The other couch was newer and didn’t hold the same memories, but Julie’s throat still felt tight as she piled all the sheets in the room into a bundle for the laundry.
She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. Instead of the warm memory of the way the inn had smelled, she got a lungful of dust. As she doubled over, coughing, she couldn’t help but think wryly, There goes that happy nostalgic feeling.
Gramps wasn’t around anymore. Gram had moved on to a retirement home. There was nothing in this big, drafty house but ghosts.
When she could breathe again, Julie straightened and continued with the pile of sheets through the house in search of others to add to it.
The back parlor still had the comfy furniture and fireplace that guests loved. The dining room still had the giant server, chain cabinet, and mahogany table long enough for sixteen guests. All the chairs were now upside down on the top of the table. She left the chairs up. Cleaning the floors would have to be one of the first things on her to-do list.
As she turned away from the dining room, she paused. Was that a noise?
“It’s just a creaky old house, Julie. There aren’t actually any ghosts here.”
But there it came again, a vigorous scratching she might have attributed to the wind or branches hitting the windowpanes, except it seemed to be coming from inside the house.
She dropped her sheet bundle and armed herself with the contents of her pockets, which turned out to be a wad of unused tissues and a tube of lip gloss. In other words, useless. The sound came again. Julie held her breath as she tiptoed forward. Her wet boots found a creaky spot on the floor, and she froze, listening.
Was someone else in the house with her?
A loud ringing trumpeted through the air, and Julie yelped. It took a full thirty seconds for her to recognize the sound as her cell phone. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets again, only to come up empty. It must have fallen out.
Maybe that was what had been scratching—or rather, vibrating against the floor with incoming text messages. She did not have the patience to talk to Cheryl again right now. If her friend told her to pack up and drive back to Boston, Julie might just do it.
She found her phone next to Gram’s chair and wiped the dusty screen on her pants before she answered it.
“Mom?” Her voice held more relief than she’d wanted to let leak through.
“Julie? Can you hear me?”
The line held more than a little static, but it was better than when she had been speaking with Cheryl earlier. Julie raised her voice. “Yes, Mom. Can you hear me?”
“Yes. Oh, we really need to hook up the landline in that house. The cell signal is terrible.”
“You can say that again,” Julie quipped. She was glad to hear from her mom, Margaret. She didn’t get to see her parents often because they spent their time jetting around the world so her mother could attend art galleries, teach classes, and create more of the art that her fans called masterpieces. Even though her parents weren’t around, they kept in touch with frequent phone and FaceTime calls.
“Did you make it to the inn okay?”
“Yes. Just pulled in a couple minutes ago.”
“How was the drive?” another voice shouted. Her dad, Gregory. Her parents must have her on speakerphone.
Great, until I left civilization and recently plowed roads. Julie bit back her sarcasm and answered, “Fine. It’s just starting to snow here.”
“Oh, the inn is so beautiful in the winter.”
Her mom sounded wistful.
The scratching sound came again, almost as if it was wistful too.
“On the outside, sure,” Julie grumbled. “Inside, it’s like a bad scary movie.”
“What was that?”
She sighed. “Nothing. The house is just making some weird creaking sounds. I’m going to check it out.”
“Don’t go in the basement,” her dad joked.
“Ha ha.” He wasn’t helping her mood.
Bracing herself, Julie followed the sound into the kitchen. The static on the line cleared—apparently, the signal was better in here. The sound came again. Not a scratching, exactly. A rattling.
“Is something in the basement?”
“Probably a serial killer,” Dad joked. “Take a baseball bat.”
“Oh, Greg, that isn’t funny. Stop that! I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Julie hoped her mom was right. “You’re right. It’s probably just a draft. Do you want me to call you back?”
“No, no. Stay on the line. Did you get the list of things you need to do for the party?”
Julie crept closer to the closed basement door, her heart pounding. She barely heard herself as she answered, “Yep. Cleaning out the house should have been on the top of the list.”
A sigh. “Well, it has been a couple years since Gram closed it up. I guess that’s to be expected. There might be a maid service in town…”
In Pinecone Falls? Doubtful.
“It’s fine. It’ll give me something to do. I have ten days until the party, and it’s not going to take that long to straighten out the catering and decorate.”
“If you’re sure…”
When she was inches from the door, it gave another rattle.
“What was that?”
Apparently, the noise could be heard even over the phone.
“The basement door.”
Her dad joked, “Just like in all the scary movies.”
“Oh, Greg, you are not helping.”
Julie took a deep breath. This was Pinecone Falls; nothing ever happened here. It was probably just a mouse. And if that were the case, she should check it out. It wouldn’t do to have mice running around at the party.
She reached for the basement door and yanked it open.
Meoowwww!
A ball of fur exploded from the basement and past her, out of the kitchen. Julie’s yelp was strangled in her throat.
“Julie? Jules, are you there?” Her dad’s voice sounded worried. For all his teasing about what was in the basement, he really was concerned for her.
She cleared her throat and said, “Yep. Some kind of wild animal, I think.”
“So not a serial killer.”
“Try not to sound disappointed, Dad.”
Mom interjected, “You should call animal control. Don’t confront it. It could be dangerous.”
“Good idea.” Julie doubted that animal control came out right away here in the middle of nowhere, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep with a wild animal running around the house. Hopefully, she could shoo it outside. She grabbed the first thing she found under the sink, which happened to be a plunger.
What kind of animal had it been? It had run past too fast for her to tell.
Slowly, on her tiptoes, she crept along after it. Her parents were nattering on in her ear, but she barely heard them between the renewed static and her thumping heart. When she reached the living room, she caught sight of a lump of fur in the shadow of Gram’s chair, licking its white fur clean of dust.
She lowered the plunger and set it against the wall. “Oh, it’s a cat.”
“A cat?” Clearly, she’d interrupted her mom in the middle of saying something, but she hadn’t been paying enough attention to know what.
“The wild animal. It must be a stray.” And that explained the noise. Julie relaxed, even though this only added to her problems. She couldn’t throw a cat out into the cold snow to fend for itself. It would be wrong.
As if knowing the bend of her thoughts, the cat glared at her with brilliant-blue eyes. She crouched, holding out her fingers for the cat to sniff. “Here, kitty, kitty.” She clucked under her tongue.
The cat looked her over as if she was a lesser being.
In her ear, her mother laughed, the sound half-covered with static. “You always did love cats. Remember Whiskers? You used to take that cat with you everywhere, even up to the inn in the summers!”
Whiskers hadn’t looked that different from this cat. Well, she might have, once this cat was properly cleaned. Whiskers had been a gray cat with white markings without being covered in years’ worth of basement dust. This one could be any color underneath all that dirt, though Julie suspected it was mostly white.
A pang of longing shot through her. She’d loved that cat and still missed her to this day. But after Whiskers had died, she’d gotten busy with college and then making her way in the world with her first jobs. Her apartment in Boston didn’t allow for pets, and even filling it with plants on every spare surface hadn’t quite filled that hole. But there was no sense in getting attached to this cat. She’d be going back home and wouldn’t be able to keep it. She straightened and returned to the kitchen to lean against the counter, where the cell signal was better.
“What am I going to do with it?”
She realized that she’d interrupted her parents’ reminiscences of their old cat only at the awkward silence. She cleared her throat.
“Sorry, my mind’s miles away. I moved back to the kitchen where I have better cell signal. What were you saying?”
While she waited for her parents to answer, she chewed on a thumbnail.
“I don’t see why this is a problem,” her dad said. “You love cats. Probably the only grandchildren I’m likely to get.”
Julie sighed. Her parents had recently started mentioning grandchildren, but Julie was in no hurry. She was only thirty-two, and there was plenty of time, wasn’t there? “Just because I’m not dating anyone right now doesn’t mean I never will, Dad.”
Her mom said, “Stop teasing, Greg. She’s clearly had a long day.” Julie opened her mouth to thank her mom for the intervention, only to have her mom add, “But I do agree with him, Jules. You love cats.”
“I don’t live here. I can’t keep it.”
The cat, in that uncanny way felines had of knowing when they were unwanted, slinked into the doorway. It had managed to clean itself until it was mostly white again, with only a bit of dusky gray on the muzzle. It glared at her and swished its tail.
“Well, there’s an animal shelter in town. Your gram’s friend, Myrtle, runs it, if I remember right.”
Julie pulled the phone away from her ear to check the time. After five o’clock. “I don’t suppose it’s open late.”
“Probably not, no…”
“And how am I supposed to get the cat there? I can’t take it in the truck. It’s a rental. What if the cat scratches up the seats?”
She was starting to get a headache. As if she didn’t have enough problems already, now she was going to have to go into town and hope there was a pet store to buy a cat carrier.
Thankfully, her mother came to the rescue. “Oh, you know Gram. She never throws anything out. I bet one of Whiskers’s old cat carriers is in the attic.”
“Perfect. I’ll look now. The signal here isn’t great, so I’m going to let you go.”
“Let us know how it goes tomorrow,” Mom said.
“And give a kiss to my furry grandchild for me,” Dad joked.
“Very funny, Dad. Love you both.”
“You, too, dear!” her parents chorused.
Julie hung up the phone and stared at the cat.
If this was how her stay was starting, it was going to be a very long ten days.
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