Chapter 18
Eighteen
Sam hadn’t thought he’d sleep a wink last night. After going through a ghost—literally through it—his nerves had been strung so tight he thought his skull might crack under the pressure. That was why he’d offered the couch; he figured there’d be no sleeping anyway.
But when Erielle whispered that she didn’t want to be alone, he hadn’t been able to refuse. He’d seen her grit her teeth through plenty of hard things already, but nothing like the raw helplessness on her face last night. That look undid him.
He hadn’t expected her nearness to calm his own fear. They’d gone to sleep holding hands, needing that connection, and he’d woken up with her in his arms.
He’d never forget the feel of her pressed against him, warm and limp with relaxation. With trust. She didn’t trust easily—and he couldn’t blame her—but she’d turned to him in her sleep.
But now they returned to the scene of the crime, as it were.
As they mounted the steps to the house, Erielle still in the pajamas she’d fled in last night, he remembered they hadn’t locked the back door before they left. He barely remembered whether they’d closed it. He hoped no one had taken advantage of that.
If they had, God help them.
The lock clicked under Erielle’s key. The door swung easily, with none of the resistance from last night. They looked at each other in silent acknowledgement of the ghost’s power.
The painting hung on the wall. No surprise.
What did surprise him was that Erielle walked over, lifted it from the nail, and marched into the kitchen with it.
She set it on the table, face down, and studied the brown craft paper covering the back.
She poked a hole in it with her finger, then dragged her finger around the perimeter, ripping the paper off.
Behind the paper, a notebook, an old leather-looking thing, was secured to the back of the painting, which wasn’t canvas but wood. That definitely would have hurt if she’d hit him with it the first time she found him in her kitchen.
“What made you look behind there?” he asked. She’d seemed so focused, she had to have a reason.
“I didn’t know I’d find anything. I just wanted to see who the artist was.
I couldn’t see it because of the frame. I’d thought about it last night, but it was late.
.” She peeled the notebook from the back of the painting, leaving a yellow tape residue on the wood.
She dropped into a chair, set the notebook on the table, and opened the aged paper gingerly. Then let out a gasp.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s—it’s not in English. It’s the symbols from the wall. At least that’s what it looks like to me.”
He sat beside her and turned the book toward him, squinting to read the faded ink on the browning pages.
She tapped the inside of the cover. “This name—it’s Angeline Michel. My grandmother’s name was Angeline.”
He looked up at her. “Do you think it could be hers? Do you think she put the carvings on the windows?”
Erielle opened and closed her mouth as she reasoned this out. “I don’t know. I guess I could ask my mom what her maiden name was. But if it was hers, why would she hide it in here?”
“What is it?”
“I mean.” She looked through the pages carefully. “It looks like recipes. Lists. Instructions.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Was she secretive about her recipes? Enough to put them in some kind of code? And then hide it?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“But look at how it’s formatted. Doesn’t that look like recipes to you?”
He had to admit it did, a list followed by a paragraph. “Maybe you’re thinking that way because you’re a chef.”
“I don’t know. I’m going to go get my phone, see if we can figure out what language it is, since we have more to go on than just the symbols that were on the windows.”
He flipped carefully through the fragile pages of the book as he waited, hearing her steps overhead. She was braver than he was. After last night, he wouldn’t have gone up there alone.
She returned a short time later, dressed and wearing shoes, carrying her phone in front of her like it could read the notebook on its own.
“What language do you think this is?” she asked as she sat, opening an app on her phone.
“I can’t tell. Russian, maybe? Kind of looks like the Cyrillic alphabet?
“More like algebra. Or bad handwriting.” She squinted closer.
He glanced at her profile, noting the intensity of her concentration. That should not be as attractive as it was. But after last night, well, maybe he was looking at this whole thing in a new light.
He swallowed and turned his attention to the task at hand. “Could be. Could be a different language.”
“I wonder who we could ask.”
“Do you really want to let just anyone read this? We don’t even know what it is.”
She frowned. “What do you think it could be?”
“I wish I knew. Like you said, they look like recipes, but none of these words are remotely familiar, and I do know about food.”
She looked up at him with a grin, which he hadn’t seen from her since before their scare last night. That relaxed him, a bit.
“First let’s see if we can find the symbols that are on the windows in this book. That would mean this is the book we’ve been looking for, and we don’t have to look for it any longer. Once we know that, we can go from there.”
He nodded and crossed over to the coffeemaker. “Mind if I make some coffee while you investigate?” He made a point of not reminding her she’d promised him breakfast.
She gave him a go-ahead wave. “Turn the oven on for the biscuits, too, will you?”
His stomach grumbled just at the word, and she lifted her head to look at him. “Here. We’ll switch. Go through the book and see if you can find the matching symbols, even if they aren’t all together, just to make sure they’re both from the same source. I’ll start the biscuits.”
“And text your mom to see if that’s your grandmother’s name.”
She grimaced. He knew she wasn’t close to her mom—Susan had shared enough about her when they were younger that he knew that. Also, if she were closer to her parents, wouldn’t she have fled to them, and not the swamp?
“Fine.” She picked up her phone and fired off a quick text, then set it down and opened the refrigerator to get out the butter for the biscuits.
Before she’d even closed the door, the sound of a returning text zipped through the kitchen. She picked up her phone to look at it, then nodded.
“Yep. Grandma’s last name was Michel.”
“Ask if she spoke another language. That could maybe narrow down our search.”
She typed in the message, then reached for a mixing bowl at the end of the counter.
He was distracted when she started mixing flour and butter with one of those D-shaped wire things like his grandmother used to use. She put all her muscle into it.
“Isn’t there an easier way?”
“Not if you want good biscuits. The butter’s not cold enough, but it will have to do.”
“I thought you weren’t cooking, just were heating stuff up.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Once some money started coming in, I was able to buy the ingredients. I felt incomplete without cooking.”
“I thought working with Hattie was helping ease some of that feeling.”
“I mean, yeah, some of it. We actually had a conversation yesterday. Not a deep one, but it’s a start.”
Another zip, another incoming text.
“Can you look at that?” she asked as she dumped the biscuit batter on the counter. “See what she said?”
“You don’t mind?”
She rolled her eyes. “It won’t be mushy or anything like that.”
“I remember your mom.” He flashed a grin in her direction. “I was not worried that would be the case.” He picked up the phone. “No.”
She glanced over at him. “Is that what it says?”
He held the screen in her direction. “Yep. Woman of few words, is your mom.”
“I often wonder where she came from, because she’s not like either of my grandparents.”
But she’d raised Erielle to be like her, guarded and careful. At least, this version of Erielle. The one he remembered from those summer days when they were kids had been happy and carefree. He wished he could bring some of that back to her.
He watched her roll out the dough and use a biscuit cutter, then toss the biscuits onto a cookie sheet. “Is all this your grandmother’s?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I cleaned everything off. I haven’t given anyone food poisoning yet.”
He grunted, because he had worried about that, since the house had been sitting empty long enough that she had to chase animals out of it.
“Any luck with finding the symbols?”
He pulled out his own phone to use the flashlight in the dimly lit room, passing it over the faded pages.
He looked between them and the napkins still held in place by silverware.
At the stove, she tossed some crumbled sausage into a cast iron pan she’d apparently been heating, and it immediately began to sizzle.
The scent filled the room instantly, and his stomach responded with an eager grumble.
They worked in silence for a bit, the only sound the sizzling sausage and the flip of pages.
“Got it!” He thumped the tip of his forefinger on the table for emphasis. “All here, and all in order. But it doesn’t say what it means.”
She crossed the room to look over his shoulder, wiping her hands on a towel she carried with her, and his skin prickled a bit as her warmth seeped through the back of his shirt. “There’s no key or table or anything anywhere in the book?”
He flipped to the front and back of the book to show her the blank pages. “Not that I can find.”
“Let me go grab my laptop. See if you can maybe look up what language it is.”
“I’ll go.” He motioned to the stove. “Where is it?”
“Um. Upstairs. Bedroom.”
He stilled for a minute, hoped she didn’t see. Where the ghost had trapped her. He hadn’t told her yet that he’d seen that ghost before, that he’d been here before. He should tell her. But maybe not right now.