“I live just out back in the caretaker’s cottage. I’ve been looking after the Cheval mansion for practically as long as I can remember. Come on,” he says, gently placing a hand on my back and leading me toward the house. “Let me show you around.”
Aunt Bea has already vanished somewhere, so it’s just me as Boniface talks slowly about how he took the sheets off the furniture, shook the dust out of the curtains, and scrubbed the beautiful hardwood floors before we arrived.
“I miss your mama all the time,” he says abruptly as we come to the front door. “You’re the spitting image of her, you know. Same red hair, same green eyes, same lovely smile.”
He opens the huge black front door for me, and I feel a pang the moment I step over the threshold. I stand frozen in the front hallway as I’m hit with a barrage of hazy memories. But it’s not until I look to my right and see a set of closed double doors painted a somber red that I feel the breath knocked out of me. “That’s the parlor,” I say softly.
“You remember it?”
“I don’t know . . .” I’m confused. I don’t recall ever being inside the room, but something about it lurks in a far corner of my mind. Suddenly, my heart is racing and my lungs are constricting. I reach for the big bronze door handle, but Boniface steps in front of me.
“It’s locked, I’m afraid. Haven’t seen the key in years.” He’s already walking away by the time I can breathe again.
“What is it with this town and keys?” I mutter.
“Just wait until you see your bedroom,” Boniface calls over his shoulder. “I took the liberty of decorating a bit. I wanted you to feel at home here,” he’s saying as I catch up to him on the wide wooden stairway.
Upstairs, Boniface pushes open the door at the end of the hall and motions for me to step inside. The bedroom, which last held my little twin bed and the big armchair where my mother read me stories at night, has been transformed.
The walls have been painted sky blue—my favorite color—and are lined with colorful photos of flowers. There are framed shots of lilies in a field, lavender in a garden, sunflowers in a white pitcher on a farm table, and cornflowers in a vase. Pushed up against the right wall is a teak sleigh bed with a fluffy white comforter. Above it, a beautiful wreath of dried poppies and peonies hangs from the wall. To my left is a huge picture window framed by gauzy white curtains.
“It’s perfect,” I breathe. In fact, it’s nearly as large as our entire apartment in Brooklyn.
“Your aunt called and told me all about your interest in botany.” Boniface is smiling at me. “Well I’ll let you get settled, then.”
As he leaves, I feel myself beginning to warm to the place. But then I make the mistake of wandering toward the window, which is arched and beautiful and diffuses the rays of soft morning light. I’d forgotten that it overlooks the cemetery we passed earlier, and as I gaze out now at the sprawling, fogshrouded field of ornate crypts, I feel a chill go through me. Even when I back away and try to focus again on my great room, my veins feel like they’re filled with ice.
I’m sitting on the deck just after sunset, trying to figure out how it’s seventy degrees here in the dead of winter, when my phone rings.
It’s Meredith, who launches into an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” as soon as I say hello. “So how’s podunk Louisiana?” she asks when she’s done assaulting my eardrums.
“Well, it’s not New York. And this whole town is surrounded by a big wall, so it’s like we’re completely trapped.” I feel a million miles away from my best friend as I hear laughter and honking horns in the background. The sounds of the city sure beat the silence out here in the middle of nowhere. Aunt Bea and Boniface have gone into town to pick up some things for the new bakery, and I feel like I’m the only person left on earth. I absentmindedly flick on and off the flashlight I’d grabbed from inside, watching the deck alternately illuminate and plunge into darkness.
“You won’t believe how crazy the wedding was today without you,” Meredith says.
“The Michaelsons?” I ask, trying not to sound as sad as I feel. “Or the Harrises?” For the last year and a half, Mer and I have worked for Blossom and Bloom, a florist in our neighborhood. The owner, Pauline, always said I had a sixth sense about which blooms fit which brides. Working for her is one of the things I’ll miss most.
“The Michaelsons,” Meredith replies. “It was just me and Pauline because David called in sick. We ran out of lisianthus and had to figure out what to sub in.”