Chapter 12
Twelve
Some had been hidden under layers of old paint—until Samson scraped it away with the edge of his knife, careful not to mar the markings beneath.
She wished she’d thought to mark which rubbing belonged to which window before she’d gotten halfway through. By the time she realized, she’d already run out of clean paper. The only solution had been tearing pages out of forgotten books and pressing the pencil hard over the grain.
“They aren’t all the same,” she said, her voice unsteady. “But… they repeat.”
“But what do they mean?” Samson twisted one of the papers toward him, his thumb skimming the edge of it. “And are they supposed to look like that, or was it just hard to carve into the wood? I mean, they aren’t very big.”
“And the other question is, who carved them? They look like they’ve been here a while but there’s no way to know, is there?” She looked up at him hopefully.
“You don’t remember seeing these as a kid?”
“I never looked at the tops of the window frames when I was a kid.”
“Right.” He nodded, his focus on the pages on the table, a furrow between his brow. “I don’t even know where you’d start trying to figure out what these are.”
“Maybe the answer is in one of Grandpa’s books.”
The look he gave her was stricken, his face pale with it. “That’s a lot of books to go through to look for it.”
“I haven’t come across anything like it so far, but it should be easy to tell, don’t you think? With two of us, it might go faster?” Okay, so she hadn’t wanted his help, but now, well…she didn’t see how she could do it without him.
He was the only friend she had.
His shoulders slumped, and he nodded. “Let me get the window fixed up there, first, then I’ll bring a couple of boxes down, and we can get started.”
She worked in the study while he returned upstairs. The hammering and drilling was faint, but she was pretty sure that meant he’d left the attic door open.
She was paying closer attention to the books than she had before, now determined to see if something held a secret to the codes etched on the windows.
She hadn’t told Samson about the painting, or the white figure in her room, because, well, she couldn’t be sure the white figure hadn’t been a dream, and the painting, well.
She didn’t have a reason not to tell him that.
But she getting an inkling that maybe these symbols were somehow related to those events.
She wouldn’t say anything to Samson until she was sure, but she couldn’t shake the feeling.
So she looked at book after book, all disgustingly normal. And, well, just plain disgusting. She had a box half-full, ready to go to the dumpster, when she heard Samson’s footsteps on the stairs, slower than she would have expected.
She stuck her head out of the study to see him carrying two stacked boxes, peering around them to try to see where he was stepping.
She hurried forward, not sure why, maybe to catch him if he pitched forward. Both of them would be crushed under the weight of the books. “What are you doing?”
“You said you wanted this stuff downstairs. Honestly, I don’t know how your grandfather got them up the stairs, because they are heavy.”
“I did want them down here.” She didn’t want to go through them in the humid dusty attic. “But you didn’t need to risk your life carrying two at once.”
His eyes glinted as she tugged the top box—heavy enough that she staggered back when the weight shifted—to take from him.
“Maybe I was just showing off.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, would have done you a lot of good if you’d missed a step and broken your neck.” Just what she needed, another ghost in this house.
“I was careful. Where do you want these?”
“The front porch, maybe? In case anything that’s living in there wants to make a run for the swamp, and not the kitchen.”
He crossed the foyer and dropped the box on the stack of other boxes already there. Naturally the box disintegrated with the force, sending up a cloud of dust, and books tumbled out.
Well, sheets of paper, no longer bound in book form, the glue disintegrated. She crouched to pick them up.
He sighed and dropped to his knees beside her to help gather them.
“Not to add to your current project list, but you do have a pretty bad leak. You’re going to need to get it fixed or you’ll have more damage to the floor below.
As it is, that wood needs to be replaced.
No telling if there’s damage to the rooms below that. ”
She wiped a loose strand of hair back from her face with the edge of her hand. “Cal did mention that. Do you think it can be patched? Or maybe a tarp? Until I can get the money?”
“I’ll need to get up there to see, and the sooner the better. We’re scheduled to have rain all week.”
Disappointment speared through her. First of all, she didn’t have money, either to pay him or to buy supplies. Secondly, she really wanted to go through these books to see if they had answers.
But she knew what her priority needed to be. “How are you going to get up there?” The house was three stories tall.
“There’s ways.”
“Samson, I can’t pay you right now.”
“You don’t need to.”
His answer frustrated her. She didn’t like being beholden to people, and that seemed to be her life now. Worse, she hated Samson, of all people, seeing her at her absolute lowest.
“I do if you’re going to risk your life getting on the roof.”
“I’m going to look for a ladder in your garage? See what I can find?” He said it like he was asking permission.
“I really don’t know if I’m comfortable with you climbing up on the roof after a rainstorm.”
“Here’s the thing. We get a lot of rain here. The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to get. I’ll take a tarp up there with me.”
She shook her head. “No, you can’t do that by yourself. Do you—have a friend who can help?” Because if he didn’t, she was going to have to help. And she hated ladders. But she couldn’t send him up there on his own.
“I’ll be fine.” Once the last of the papers was stacked in the remains of the box, he rose. “I know how to do a thing or two around the house. I fixed up my parents’ cabin in the bayou to make it livable.”
“Is it three stories?” She knew it wasn’t. She’d been to the hunting cabin herself, back when she was young.
“Not even two.” He flashed a grin. “Is the garage locked?”
“I never even got that far to check. Let me look for the keys.” But where? Maybe in the desk.
“I saw some keys hanging in the kitchen the other day when I was here for the stove.”
That made sense. Together they walked into the kitchen. An extraordinary number of keys dangled on the hooks near the back door..
“What are all of them for?” she mused as Samson took one keyring after another down, inspecting them.
He held up two keys with an auto manufacturer imprint. “What do you want to bet there’s an old car in there?”
Her heart jumped. Her grandpa had driven a Buick when she was a kid. Not that she’d known anything about cars, but he always called it “the Buick.” What kind of shape would it be in after all this time? Too much time had passed since her grandfather had lived here.
“I bet one of those other keys is the key to the garage,” she said, and started out the back door.
He had to test a few keys before finding the right one and getting the side door open.
Both of them stepped back, choking at the scent of decay mixed with oil and sawdust. Dust swirled as the wind blew in the open door, and he reached in to switch on the light.
Erielle was surprised when it actually came on.
There, under a tarp, was a car. Still, she hesitated at the door, because, ugh, what had died in here?
Samson slipped along the narrow path between the car and the—yes, more—boxes to the old-fashioned garage door, unlocked it and lifted it, not without some effort, since it was all one piece.
She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to muscle it open.
And once the door was open, the smell—and dust—dissipated.
He stood with his back to the open garage door and made a face.
“Looks like you had a skunk sneak its way in here,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
She would have been more than happy to let him, but she was done feeling helpless for the day. Taking a deep breath of almost-fresh air, she charged into the garage and took the shovel from him.
“I’ll do it. You look for the ladder.”
He considered her a moment, then relinquished the handle and pointed.
Oh yeah. Poor animal had clearly been trying to get out. She pulled the neck of her t-shirt over her nose, squared her shoulders and scooped up the carcass, then carried it out to the edge of the woods and tossed it in among the trees and weeds.
“Sorry, little guy,” she muttered.
The grunts and thuds behind her drew her attention and she turned to see Samson muscling boxes out of the garage to drop on the cracked wet driveway.
Her first thought was that whatever was in the boxes would be ruined by the wet ground, but they were probably already ruined by being in the garage with that horrible smell for who knew how long.
She walked over to peek inside the boxes.
More books. Why on earth had her grandfather stored books out here, besides the attic and library?
She turned to see Samson edging along the other side of the car, between boxes stacked to the rafters, looking for a way to get to the ladder hanging on the wall.
Defeat sagged her shoulders. More junk to dispose of. She’d never get it all done by herself before she had to turn the dumpster back in, and she did not want to ask for help.
Well. Any more help.
She trudged into the garage and grabbed another box. The smell was dissipating but definitely wasn’t gone.
Nearly an hour later, they could reach the ladder, and honestly, Erielle was so exhausted she didn’t see how Samson would have the energy to climb up to the roof, if he could even make the ladder extend that far..
“We can get this tarp, too, off the car and put it up there for now,” he said, grabbing one end of the tarp from beneath the bumper and pushing it off the trunk and up the back windshield.
The reveal of the car that her grandfather used to drive her around in took her breath away, and the tears that filled her eyes caught her off-guard.
“Oh,” was all she said, and pressed a hand to the body of the car, as if touching it would replay all the wonderful memories she’d experienced in it with her grandparents. Why had she stayed away so long, when she had so many good memories here?
Samson looked at her. “You okay?”
“Just missing my grandparents. My fault. Should have come visit more. Just kept making excuses.”
“We all do it,” he said, his tone kind. “Think there will be time, when there’s not.”
There had to be more to that story. She looked at him, but he turned away, toward the ladder hanging on the wall.
“I think I can get it now, if you can help me.”
Together they managed to get the ladder to the house, where he extended it, resting it in a corner of the eaves for stability.
But though it was extended as much as possible, it would not reach the top of the attic roof.
Samson rested his hands on his hips, studying the problem, then turned back into the garage. Erielle followed him.
“What are you looking for?”
“A smaller ladder. I saw one, but it’s on the ground. Who knows what shape it’s in.”
“How will a smaller ladder help?”
He turned to her. “I’ll take it up to the second floor and brace it on the roof.”
“On the pitched roof?” Her voice was a little shrill. “No, thank you. I do not need your broken body on my conscience. We can wait.”
“For what? The longer it leaks, the more trouble you’re going to have. At least let me get a tarp up there. I’ll just need your help getting the second ladder up.”
She took a step back. She did not enjoy heights, and she was not great at ladders. But she wouldn’t let Samson, of all people, think she was a coward, either, so…
“This is against my better judgment,” she declared.
Oh, man, getting that ladder up the other ladder was not fun, even though Samson did most of the work.
Arms sore and shaking, Erielle sat on the roof over the study and watched him extend the second ladder near the peak of the attic, right by the window that hadn’t locked.
How had someone managed to climb up here and into the house?
She watched him secure it the best he could, then give it a shake to prove to her it was sturdy. She remained doubtful.
He took one look at her, opened his mouth as if to say something, then climbed down the tall ladder himself, returning moments later with the tarp, a hammer and nails. Of course he would have to attach it somehow, or it would end up in the next parish with the first gust of wind.
A rumble of thunder made her jump, and she twisted to look out over the bayou. Sure enough, dark clouds gathered, coming up from the Gulf.
“When thunder roars, go indoors,” she said, pushing to her feet and swaying a bit on the uneven roof.
“This will just take me a few minutes,” he promised, scrambling up the ladder.
“That may be too long.” But she wouldn’t leave him up here alone. She swallowed. In fact, she wouldn’t let him go up to the attic roof alone, either. He was halfway up when she started up after him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
“It will go faster if we’re both working on it,” she said.
“It won’t. I’ll hammer one corner, move on, it will be fine. You stay here and hold on to the ladder. It won’t take me long, I promise.”
His last words were swallowed up by another roll of thunder.
Great, just great. She was here holding an aluminum ladder with a thunderstorm approaching.
She watched the canopy of the bayou start to swirl and sway.
Birds took to the air and headed this way to avoid the storm.
Above her, she heard Samson hammering the tarp in place, heard the wind catch the tarp, heard him swear, stomp, and then another crack of lightning preceded a clap of thunder by about ten seconds.
Hammering sounds. That was two corners. She hoped he was just doing the corners. More swearing as the first raindrops hit.
Hammering. Three corners.
Oh, thank goodness. The roof would be be slick, the ladder slick. She was glad she’d stayed up here to hold it steady.
And then a crash that was not thunder. She pivoted to look, and could no longer see the top of the long ladder.
Samson’s face appeared over the edge of the roof, his hair plastered to his head by the rain. “What was that?”
She looked up helplessly. “The ladder fell.”