Chapter 4
FOUR
Blackwood Estate
The Guest Room
The guest bedroom at the far end of the eastern wing was beautiful, minimalist, and blessedly devoid of ghosts.
Pale gray walls. A crisp white linen duvet. An antique vanity that didn’t hold a single framed photograph. No smiling relatives. No laughing versions of herself trapped behind glass.
Most importantly, it was not the master. Not the room with the four-poster bed and the invisible outline of a body she couldn’t stop seeing.
It was a blank canvas—exactly what Aubrey’s brain demanded.
She had dragged her designer suitcase down the hall, her heels scuffing the polished wood, painfully aware of the massive white shadow tracking her every step.
Moose didn’t crowd her. He kept a precise five-foot perimeter, his massive head lowered, his dark eyes watching her with a heavy, judgmental stillness.
He’d trotted after her when she walked away from Mabel’s room like he knew she was retreating—but he hadn’t tried to stop her.
When she finally shut the guest room door, she expected him to wander back to the master and its Mabel-shaped absence.
Instead, a heavy, bone-deep sigh sounded from the hallway, followed by the dull thud of one-hundred-and-twenty-pounds of fur collapsing directly against the outside of her door.
He was guarding her.
Or keeping her under house arrest.
She wasn’t entirely sure which.
Aubrey didn’t change out of her suit jacket until past midnight.
She sat on the edge of the mattress with her laptop open, staring at a blank email draft addressed to the Ashford Hospitality corporate board. Her fingers hovered over the keys.
To whom it may concern, I am requesting a formal evaluation of my indefinite leave…
She deleted it.
How could she write a corporate appeal when her salary package had been laid out on a walnut table in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains by a dead woman?
No city hum. No sirens. Only the faint tick of the hallway thermostat and, beneath that, the slow, steady rhythm of Moose’s breathing on the other side of the door.
Eleanor’s voice from the law office echoed in her head. Without his expertise, those one hundred and eighty-seven acres would be nothing but a tax liability and tired dirt.
She had humiliated herself in front of the town hierarchy. She had looked at a brilliant, grieving man and called him a grifter because he wore flannel and drank his bourbon straight. Her pride, usually so unshakable, felt scraped raw.
The laptop’s screen saver kicked on, throwing soft, shifting light across the walls.
She closed it.
For a moment, the only illumination came from the hallway nightlight bleeding in beneath the door and the thin rectangle of moonlight slipping past the edges of the curtain.
She thought of the master bedroom again. Of the bed where Mabel had passed. Of Moose standing rigid beside Mabel's side of it, nose pressed to the mattress as though he could call her back.
Aubrey lay back on the guest bed without bothering to turn down the sheets. The mattress felt unfamiliar under her shoulders. The house creaked softly as it settled around her.
Her eyes slid shut.
They snapped open again when the sound came.
A sharp rattle cut through the quiet.
Aubrey froze. The hair along her arms lifted.
It came from downstairs.
A rhythmic, metallic scratching.
One of the side porch latches sticks.
Bennett’s voice echoed in her head—low and flint-hard.
You don’t know this house yet. And not everybody out here is going to care what you need, either.
Her heart lurched as she shot upright in bed.
She didn’t have a weapon. She had a manicured set of nails and a heavy metal water flask beside the bed.
She wrapped her fingers around the flask’s neck. The steel felt icy and slick against her palm.
For a second she considered calling 911.
And say what, exactly? Hi, I’m the stranger who inherited the town winery and my dog thinks the porch latch sounds suspicious?
Another rattle.
Aubrey slid off the bed.
Her bare feet hit the floorboards without a sound. She swallowed, throat dry, and crossed the room.
When she cracked the guest room door, Moose was already on his feet.
He wasn’t the heavy, sad lump from earlier. His body was a rigid white line in the dim amber wash of the hallway nightlight. Ears forward. Chest lifted. A low, prehistoric growl rolled up from somewhere deep inside him.
“Moose,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “What is it?”
He didn’t look at her.
He moved.
Silent, deliberate, terrifyingly focused, the dog started down the stairs. His paws made no sound against the runner. Aubrey followed three steps behind, her hand sliding along the smooth banister, the water flask gripped so tightly her fingers ached.
The grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs ticked steadily.
They reached the foyer. Long shadows stretched across the hardwood floor. The kitchen lay to the right, dark and still. The living room opened to the left.
Moose didn’t head for either.
He bypassed the living room entirely and went straight for the heavy oak door that led to the sunroom and back porch.
The glass pane in the side door rattled again.
A rush of blood roared in her ears. She tightened her grip on the flask and crept closer, keeping Moose’s massive body between her and the door.
Through the glass, the back porch was cast in shifting shades of silver and black. Wind moved through the white hydrangeas outside, their heavy heads batting against the railing. The wicker chairs sat empty, facing the dark rows of vines.
Moose pressed his nose against the bottom of the door and inhaled sharply, a long, searching breath.
The change was instantaneous.
The rigid tension left his spine. His ears softened. His tail gave a single, hesitant thump against the floorboards.
Then he let out a soft, high-pitched whine that sounded horribly like a question.
Aubrey edged up beside him, her shoulder grazing his ruff.
There was no one on the porch.
Just the empty chairs and the dark river of vines, the black barn crouched farther down the hill like a silent witness.
The latch on the side door wasn’t broken. She checked it twice, fingers trembling against the cool metal.
Locked.
Whatever had rattled it had been on the outside.
Or the dark beyond the porch had swallowed whatever made the sound.
“There’s nobody there,” Aubrey whispered, though she didn’t quite believe it.
Moose stayed at the door as if he hadn’t heard her. Nose wedged into the crack at the bottom, he breathed in slow and deep, waiting.
Eventually, Moose stepped back, then turned and padded silently past Aubrey toward the stairs.
He didn’t go all the way back to the master.
When she retreated to the guest room and eased the door almost shut, his body lowered once more against the outside of it. She heard the dull, familiar thud of him hitting the floorboards and the soft, weary huff of his breath as he resettled.
Guard. House arrest. Shared exile.
Whatever it was, she didn’t feel entirely alone.
Aubrey set the water flask back down and sat on the edge of the guest bed again, listening to the house breathe around her.
Her phone buzzed against the nightstand.
The Pennsylvania area code on the screen made her chest tighten.
Machelle: Haven’t heard from you. Are you alive? Do I need to call the sheriff of Mayberry?
Aubrey let out a sigh of relief.
Machelle: Also, important question: are the mountain men hot or do they all look like they own three pairs of camo and a tractor?
A photo popped up beneath the text—a dim bar back in Pennsylvania. Exposed brick, leather banquettes, and a neon sign reading THE BARREL ROOM in warm copper script. Two of their friends sat at a high-top in the background, laughing over drinks.
Home.
Before she could overthink it, Aubrey thumbed out a reply.
Aubrey: Alive. Possibly haunted.
She hit send, the joke feeling a shade too sharp as she stared at the dark corridor beyond her bed.
She hesitated, then added:
Aubrey: Tell Emma to order me a pinot at Barrel Room. I’ll drink it in spirit from… wherever I am.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
Machelle: …The WHAT?
Machelle: Babe. You own cashmere coats. You are not built for porch swings and church casseroles.
Aubrey stared at the screen, glancing from her phone to the guest room’s pale walls and the faint bar of light beneath her door with Moose’s shadow visible at the edge.
How am I supposed to do this for a year?
What was Aunt Mabel thinking? For the first time since the will reading, the answer felt almost as frightening as the question.
She typed, then deleted three different responses.
Finally she settled on:
Aubrey: I’m fine. Funeral tomorrow. Call you after.
It was the biggest lie she’d told all day.
She silenced the phone and set it face down.
She lay back on top of the covers, eyes fixed on the faint bar of light beneath the door.
The house settled around her with heavy, thermal groans. Outside, the wind rattled the high glass of the window frame, and every shadow in the corner looked like a figure standing waiting. Down the dark hall, Mabel’s empty room sat cold and waiting.
Sleep didn’t come quickly. She lay there for a long time, muscles coiled tight, jumping at every tick of the floorboards.
But when sleep finally pulled her under, it came only because of the slow, steady rhythm of the giant dog breathing against her door—the only living thing keeping the dark at bay.