The elation I felt after meeting with Victoria at her law office was short-lived, especially when I had to return to an empty house.
It was a typical, late January afternoon, the temperature having returned to more seasonal values and light flurries scattering on the wind.
Actually the day looked dismal and gray which was probably more in line with how I felt inside.
I hated spending time in my grand but gloomy house and had closed off several rooms that echoed with secrets and memories I wanted to avoid.
But there were also other memories I sought vainly to recall but the trauma from dealing with identity theft and its subsequent psychological turmoil left me feeling vulnerable and uncertain of everything.
I consoled myself with the fact that behind the walls of The Shadows, I could feel at least somewhat concealed from prying eyes.
I lit a fire to dispel the chill in the draughty den and made myself a rum hot chocolate, heavy on the rum.
But I barely sat down to sip at my drink when I noticed a fleeting motion out of the corner of my eye.
A dark outline of a figure seemed to glide up the stairs, and it reminded me of watching cloud shadows in summer as they sailed over fields...
But this was much more ominous.
I got to my feet and went to investigate.
I didn’t expect to see anything and as expected, the stairs were dark and deserted but not entirely benign.
There was the unmistakable sense the air had been disturbed by the sudden passage of someone or something and I could sense a subtle backdraft in the wake of whatever had fled to the upper level.
Either my senses were incredibly sensitive because my attention was attuned like a radar disc, or I was deluded.
Whatever the cause I knew I had to go upstairs and check things out but didn’t want to do that.
I had a choice—brush off the incident as a trick of light or fear-induced imagining, or force myself to face my fear by going upstairs.
Being me, I opted for the latter. If I was nothing else, I was stubborn.
I looked around for a weapon and settled on the wine bottle. I took a deep breath and crept warily up the creaking staircase.
The stairs didn’t creak when I saw the shadow, I reminded myself. It’s just an illusion, my rational mind insisted.
But wending my way up the murky staircase, I wasn’t so certain.
I regretted not having an electrician replace the chandelier suspended high above me—another instance of stubbornness where I refused to spend the money on a repair I could do myself, if I had the scaffolding.
Yeah, that was crazy thinking, I admitted, knowing full well I simply procrastinated.
The upper hallway was deserted as I suspected and I made a thorough search of my bedroom that yielded nothing.
Mind you, there were five other rooms on the upper level, but I tried the doors and they all were still locked.
They were rooms I never ventured in for fear of what I might find there. I wasn’t afraid of ghosts, but on the other hand, I wasn’t ruling them out.
I lived out of three rooms in a 4,000 square foot house, and not because I was too lazy to clean, but because the thought of opening those doors simply terrified me.
