CHAPTER 28

Nisa and Melissa were waiting in the hallway, Nisa looking royally pissed off.

“Amanda took our room,” she announced. She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “Even after Melissa told her it was our room, she totally ignored her!”

“I’m so sorry,” said Melissa. Nervously, she loosened her do-rag, immediately reknotting it around her head. “I just thought you’d changed your minds about the sleeping arrangements.”

She stared down a long hall that ran the length of the house, a number of closed doors on either side. I sighed. “Look, it doesn’t matter. We can just—”

“It does too matter, Holly,” Nisa said angrily. “You’re the reason we’re here, you should have first choice.”

“What, are you twelve?” Stevie snapped. “You two can have my room—it’s right next to that one, right?”

He turned to Melissa, who nodded. Stevie said, “Great. Now if you can just show me where the inferior bedrooms are, I’ll unload my stuff and get settled.”

Melissa accompanied us down the hall. The first door on our right was cracked, giving me a glimpse of a large suitcase on the floor and a window opened onto the October afternoon. Amanda’s room.

Melissa halted. “How about this one, Stevie? The people who were here last, they were going to paint all the bedrooms. This was the only one they actually did.”

Melissa opened the door. I winced, as did Nisa. Stevie’s face tightened, but he just edged past Melissa into the room. “Great. This’ll be fine.”

“It’s the same size as the others,” Melissa said. “It’s just…”

She gave us a helpless look. Because the room was just… awful. Pale lavender paint had been applied without first removing the wallpaper beneath, so that the surface had bubbled and buckled. The plaster ceiling had a large medallion in the center—a stylized sun, I thought, then saw it was a face, only flattened like it had been smashed in a car wreck. Its eyes resembled two holes poked in soft dough and its smile seemed menacing, almost a silent scream.

A newish, Scandi-style bed was pushed against the back wall, flanked by matching nightstands, Anglepoise lamps, and a striped rag rug. A too-big bureau had been jammed awkwardly against another wall like an afterthought. The decor aimed at bright and airy but had the opposite effect. The room felt dingy and cluttered. In spots the wallpaper had peeled away, revealing an older layer of wall covering, a mottled purple paisley that looked like dead jellyfish. It smelled utterly neglected, which seemed odd for a room that had been painted only a year before.

“It’s just… so cozy.” Stevie finished Melissa’s sentence. “It’s like the room in a Bergman movie where the maid lives. The one who ends up sleeping with her employer, who then kills her and takes on her identity.”

“That’s a different movie,” said Nisa.

“It’s actually like five different movies. Bergman, Argento, Hitchcock, De Palma, I forget who else. Whatever.” He threw his duffel onto the bed. “I don’t care. Thank you, Melissa. It’s a lovely room and I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable. If not, I can just move, right?”

“Of course,” Melissa said quickly. I couldn’t tell if she was relieved or apprehensive. Both, I decided. “I’ll let you get settled. Holly and Nisa, you’re next.”

We walked down the hall to where Melissa had opened a door on the opposite side. Like Stevie’s, this room had been redecorated, portions of the dark wainscoting painted pale yellow. Remnants of wallpaper clung to the corners and the original pattern bled through, garlands of orange flowers darkened to rust. The wainscoting’s original wood stain showed through the yellow paint here and there like muddy handprints.

“Is that mold?” Nisa gingerly touched the wall.

“No.” Melissa remained in the doorway. “They left before they did a second coat. Tru keeps saying he’ll finish it, but…” She shrugged. “I don’t think anything’s really been done here since it was built. Things get started, but nothing’s ever finished.”

“Aren’t all old houses like that?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood. “That’s what I always hear.”

Melissa shook her head. “All old houses are definitely not like this one. Ainsley hasn’t been able to get someone to finish a job here for thirty years. Before the pandemic, it was tough to get anyone to come. Now it’s impossible.”

“But you’re here. And Tru.”

“We’re here because we need the work,” she retorted angrily. “Tru can’t find another cooking job, so he’s helping Ross Littlefield deliver firewood and fills in at the gas station on weekends. He did catering off and on for summer people from the city but they all left after Labor Day.

“One of them stiffed him,” she went on, staring pointedly at me. “We’re barely getting by. I had clients in Ashton, but with the price of gas, that’s too far to drive. And no one will hire me if I raise my rates. Thank god for Ainsley. She’s keeping us afloat. Barely.”

I grew hot. Did Melissa think I was some rich city person, acting like a diva because I didn’t get the bedroom we’d been promised? I wanted to snap back with the truth, that this was an unimaginable luxury for all of us. Well, maybe not Amanda, but certainly for me and Nisa and Stevie. I started to argue but felt Nisa’s light touch on my shoulder, as she looked sympathetically to Melissa.

“It sounds like you’re the one keeping this place afloat,” she said, and smiled.

Melissa didn’t smile back. She remained in the doorway, arms crossed, and tilted her head toward the bedroom. “So, what do you think? Is this okay with both of you? It’s right next to Amanda’s—the two rooms are identical. Not the furniture but everything else. There’s a shared bathroom, but Amanda didn’t seem to have a problem with that. If you change your minds, you can always move into one of the other rooms. Let me know and I’ll put on clean sheets.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Nisa said. “This looks fine. Thank you so much, Melissa.”

“Yes, thank you,” I said, and Melissa gave me a grudging nod.

I took a step into the room along with Nisa. We’d known about the shared bath—another reason we wanted Stevie next to us, and not Amanda Greer. I saw the effort it took for Nisa to bite her tongue as she surveyed the space, taking in a sleigh bed, bird’s-eye maple armoire, a worn green velvet armchair, and Persian carpet in shades of mustard and celadon. On the wall, an etching of an English country house, where a tiny figure pushed an old-fashioned lawn roller through the formal garden.

The antiques all appeared disgruntled and out of place, well-heeled guests marooned in a crappy budget motel. Tentatively, Nisa sat on the bed. The mattress didn’t give an inch. She grimaced. “It feels like pavement.”

“It’ll be fine.” I turned to Melissa. “Thank you very much. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“We appreciate it.” Nisa got to her feet and walked over to Melissa. “From what Ainsley says, Hill House has quite the history.”

Melissa ignored her comment. “You should be able to find everything you need in the kitchen,” she said. “I left some granola in the pantry, along with coffee and tea. Tru left your dinner for tonight in the fridge with instructions for heating it. There’s lasagna for tomorrow night. I got you some cold cuts and salad fixings. Probably we’ll be by tomorrow morning, but if there’s anything else you need, just text me or leave a list. If he gets a work call, I’ll drop off what I can.”

“I hope we get to meet him, too,” I said. “Maybe you can have dinner with us one night?”

She shook her head. “We don’t ever come here after dark.”

“Never?”

“Never,” she repeated emphatically. “So don’t ask.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll finish up a few things downstairs, and then I’m taking off.”

Nisa and I thanked her yet again, stepping into the hall. The door to the room next to ours was now closed. “Is she really in there?” Nisa asked Melissa.

“Oh yeah. She’s here all right.” Melissa shot me a look I couldn’t unpack. “You have a good night.”

We returned to our bedroom. Nisa walked to the window and pulled back the sickly yellow-gray curtains. “Ugh, this house!”

She tied the curtains back and cracked the window—the room was stuffy, heat wafting up from a brass floor register.

“It’s not that bad,” I said, opening the armoire to put away my clothes. “And if we don’t like this room, we can just move to another. We can move in with Amanda.”

“I still don’t believe she’s here. She could have sent a body double. A replicant. She might have used a 3D printer to duplicate herself. Wouldn’t the real Amanda have come out and given us a chance to express our undying gratitude for her taking the role?”

I laughed, as Nisa put a finger to her lips and tiptoed to the bathroom door. She got down on all fours to peer through the crack beneath. And screamed.