The night of the break-in I’d been out working, later than usual.
Before everything happened, I house-sat for some of the wealthier folks in town. Took care of the dog or the cat when they were away. Watered the plants. Whatever they needed. I had no reason to worry about the darkness, not back then. Life was safe and secure, and everyone seemed like a potential friend, even the people I didn’t know very well. Or at all.
This time, I’d been house-sitting for a professor and his doctor wife. The O’Connors. They were an older couple, one of my regular customers. They’d always been nice to me, the professor in particular. He knew I was college-bound, which was unusual for a town like ours, and that I studied hard and nearly always had my nose in a book. We’d talk about my latest read when we exchanged keys or met up for him to pass me a check.
Their place was big, mansion-like really, with its three stories and tall columns that stretched across the porch. They lived in the nicest neighborhood in town, where all the houses had that majestic look, sturdy and graceful, with manicured lawns and tasteful architecture and New England charm.
It was cold and rainy that day, and dark by half past five. The snow was melting, little piles of it like icebergs scattered across the lawn and dotting the tops of the bushes. Occasionally I glanced out the window from the third-floor reading nook of the professor’s library, watched the harbor far off in the distance, bleak and gray and lonely as the fishermen shut down for the night and headed off to the bars, the light bleeding from the sky. Sometimes I stayed there for hours, lost in one of the leather-bound novels the professor kept on the shelf by his desk. The O’Connors didn’t mind if I spent time there. The professor usually left out a stack of books for me with a sticky note attached to the one on top that would say something like FOR JANE CALVETTI’S PERUSAL AND EDIFICATION.
It always made me smile.
“Have a good time,” I’d said to Professor O’Connor as he and his wife were heading off on their winter vacation that same day. Their bags were packed, and they’d left their keys on the kitchen counter, right alongside the to-do list and instructions they’d written up for me. It was only six, but a single lamp by the fridge provided the only light in the grand, ghostly space.
Professor O’Connor glanced at the list, checking its contents. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call us. All our numbers are right here.”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine,” I said to him.
“I left you some novels upstairs,” he said. “There’s one in particular I think you’ll like. It’s on top.”
I looked up at his weathered face. I smiled. “Thank you.”
He rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Not a minute past nine p.m. this week, Miss Jane,” he said in his best fatherly-sounding voice, returning the smile. “You need your rest.”
“Yes,” said Dr. O’Connor, his wife. “I don’t want your mother at home worried about you being here.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Not even a minute.”
They hovered. Checked a few more things before they said their good-byes, and I locked the door behind them. Their footsteps echoed on the front walk, first loud, then more distant, until they disappeared altogether and I was alone in the house.
I should have listened to them. Left before nine. Left when it was still safe.
But I didn’t.
By eight that night, the rain had turned to snow.
I pulled on a thick gray sweater, the one I kept in my bag during winter. Tried not to shiver. The O’Connors had turned down the heat before they left, and I hadn’t bothered to turn it up. Soon I’d be able to see my breath in the lamplight. A thin layer of white covered the grass and floated over the wet of the street out front. The temperature was dropping fast. Everything would turn to ice during the night, and the world would have a thick coat of it by morning, the roads slick like glass and the trees turned crystal. The view out to the wharf was magical, the lights brightening the snowflakes as they fell across the ocean, where they disappeared into nothing.
The book open across my lap had so occupied my attention that I didn’t notice the moment the rain became a snowfall, not until it was already coming down. The forecast hadn’t predicted a storm, but then, it was never right around here. When you lived next to the water, all kinds of weather blew in unexpectedly.
I went to the kitchen and made myself some tea. Carried the steaming mug to the reading nook carefully. Set it next to the stack of books the professor had left me. Stared out the window some more at the snow and tugged my sweater tighter around my body. The tea warmed me as I sipped it, so much so that I had to stifle a yawn. Leaned my head against the wall for a minute, no, just for a second, to rest. Closed my eyes. Opened them to see the swirl of white. Closed them again. They felt so heavy. Sleep kept coming for me, tugging on me. It wouldn’t let me go.
I don’t know when it was that I drifted off.
All I know is that I did.