Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“That’s what I like to hear. I hope you’ll give me the full benefit of your… creativity.”
It’s an innocuous statement, yet the way he purrs the last word… Ick.
A lump rises in my throat, but I ignore it and keep smiling. “So where did you want to start?”
There’s a long, lingering look, one that dips over my bare collarbones.
It’s like he’s actually touching me, and it feels unclean—but it also feels like he’s testing me, too. Trying to see how easily he can make me react.
I fight to keep my bright smile even if it feels completely vapid now. I’d rather let him think I’m stupid than figure out how uncomfortable he truly makes me. I have a funny feeling knowing it would just make him do it more.
He seems to like getting me flustered.
And I remember Micah said it would be easier for Xavier not to suspect me if he thinks I’m a fluttery mess all the time, but I don’t want to be that person right now.
I want to be someone Micah can rely on.
So I just look at Xavier, blinking like I have no idea why he’s just staring at me and not saying anything, until he finally looks away with a grim smile.
“This way. We’ll start with the first floor and work our way up.” He glances down at my feet. “I hope those shoes are comfortable?”
“Very, thank you,” I say brightly, moving to follow him at a slight distance as he leads me down the hall.
From that point on, it’s all business.
I’m too blissfully absorbed in my notes to notice if Xavier gets creepy-eyed again, writing down details about the Ionic columns in the grand hall, how the first floor uses oak for doors and accents while the second, third, and fourth floors rely on mahogany and ash wood. He tells me parts of them were built over generations, noting the number of bedrooms and suites and how each room seems designed to let in gobs of natural light from the gaping windows.
I quickly sketch the black-and-white pattern of the floor tiles in the main hall, taking down notes on the colors of the walls, the draperies, dimensions. I snap photos like mad to supplement.
I’m listening to Xavier, too, as he tells me how the place always felt like the Winchester House, to him—a living beast that just grew over decades in this rambling sprawl.
I get the feeling.
I studied the Winchester House during my architectural courses. Sarah Winchester, heiress to a rifle fortune, went kind of house crazy because she thought the ghosts of everyone killed by their guns were after her for revenge.
So she just kept building to confuse the ghosts and made the place as unnavigable as possible. Staircases that ended on empty air, rooms with no doors, hallways to nowhere, winding passageways and switchbacks.
The end result was a living Escher painting, baffling and sometimes dangerous.
Now, the Arrendell house isn’t that surreal and unstructured, but somehow, it’s got a similar eerie vibe.
This odd, disjointed thing that doesn’t quite fit together and doesn’t feel like a home, but more like a museum where people live.
It just feels like a twisted collection of ghosts and dead dreams.
“I think,” Xavier says as we stop on the very top floor, standing against the railing, looking down over the main hall with a close-up view of the giant crystal chandelier, “I would like this house to somehow feel smaller. Look at that.” He gestures to a pair of wingback chairs in the corner of the main hall, ivory-upholstered and gold-accented. “From up here, those chairs look tiny, don’t they?”
“Like they belong in a dollhouse,” I agree, pausing my furious scribbling.
“The backs of those chairs stand head and shoulders above my height,” he says. “This house was built to be imposing and grand, but all it does is make the people inside it feel small.”
I stop, looking away from the chairs to Xavier.
There’s kind of a Jekyll and Hyde thing with him sometimes.
Like there might actually be a human being buried deep under the smarmy rich creep. You see it in the little changes with how he talks, in his expressions. That change settles over him now as he looks thoughtfully over the enormous main hall.
There’s something distant in his eyes, something haunted.
Like maybe not all of the ghosts in this house are dead.
“Is that what you want us to do?” I ask. “Make the house feel warmer? Less austere and cold?”
“I’m not sure if that’s possible as long as a single Arrendell lives under this roof,” he mutters. I think it’s the first honest thing he’s ever said in my presence. “However, if you could make it feel more like a home—a stylish one, admittedly—and less like a human display case, that would be appreciated.”
“I can try,” I say firmly. “Do you have any ideas for what you want to start with? Any particular styles you love?”