Ivy
The inside of the cottage is warm and inviting, so long as I don’t think too much about the fact that the previous owner is dead.
To my immediate left is the kitchen. Copper pots and pans hang from hooks on the wall, and the cupboards are made of polished wood.
On the right side are the living room and breakfast nook combined.
The wallpaper has little rosebuds. The plump loveseat has another floral design with a crocheted blanket draped over the back.
It smells of cleaning supplies and lemons.
The kitchen table is rough-hewn wood, and on it lies a letter.
The writing on the front is luxurious and curved, reading “Claw and Law, Attorneys.”
Miss Smith, as per your aunt’s instructions, the entire cottage has been deep-cleaned.
Well, that explains the slight bleach smell.
The team replaced the bed and supplied new linen. If you need anything, you only need to mail a letter or come by our office.
Sincerely, Nicholas Claw
Well, that takes care of some things on my to-do list. I heave my suitcase up a set of stairs leading from the living room to a loft bedroom and en suite bathroom.
The modest sized bed takes up the majority of the room.
Two floor-to-ceiling gable windows bracket the room on either side.
I move to the one that looks out the back of the house.
It’s terrifyingly beautiful. The bluff stretches about fifty feet behind the house before a sheer drop-off to a sliver of beach below, and then it’s water as far as I can see.
Further out, a jut of rock-riddled, craggy land curves away from the shoreline, creating its own smaller island.
A lighthouse sits atop this outcropping.
It’s tall, and its white paint makes it glow faintly in the dying sunlight.
As I watch, the sun sinks just a little lower.
Not quite dark, but no longer sunny. The lighthouse beacon flips on and begins its slow turn.
It sweeps across the water, the sliver of beach, and the steep bluff.
It casts everything in an ominous pattern of interspersed light and dark, dark and light, until I have to look away.
Moving to the front window, I find I can’t see much at this point. Shadows have taken over the front yard and the road. Farther out, I can see the whole of Main Street.
Lights flicker off in the storefronts, but in the forest where most of the houses are, lights flicker on. Warmth glows from kitchen windows, bedrooms, and living spaces, casting out into the dark of the woods like stars into the darkness of space.
Down the bluff and up the road a little, I spot another house, cottage-style and clearly belonging to Dolly.
How do I know? Because it’s pink. Pink siding, pink trim, pink door, even a pink chimney.
From my vantage point, I can best see the back of her house.
The woods come right up to the edge of her small property and then stop.
I watch as the back door opens, spilling light out onto the back stoop, and Dolly steps out.
In her hands is a shallow bowl of something I can’t make out from here.
After a glance this way and that, the bowl is set down on the step before she hurries inside and closes the door.
Maybe she feeds stray cats milk or something?
Just as I’m about to turn away from the window to unpack, I glimpse something. I squint. It’s hard to make out in the dying light, but near the front gate leading to my cobblestone walk is… a man? Or a shadow? My nose presses against the window as my hands cup around my eyes.
I can’t tell if—
The outline moves. It’s definitely a man.
A gasp slips out as I step back from the window, the backs of my knees bumping against the bedframe.
I scramble for the light switch, and the room goes dark with a quick flick.
When I look out the window again, this time with a clearer view, he’s gone.
There’s no one near the front gate. No one anywhere.
It takes a moment to get my breathing under control.
I go around the house locking every window and the back door.
Keeping your doors unlocked? Who does that?
I don’t care how “secure and safe” the island is.
Once I’ve unpacked, changed, and slid into bed with clean new linens, I stare at the ceiling for a long time.
What am I doing?