Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [45]
They munched sandwiches and sipped hot, fragrant soup, talking softly as they gazed around the shadowy room. Ancient damask wallpaper was threadbare, peeling in places, lending to the air of faded grandeur. The house was like an aging doyenne, trying to present the elegant faqade of youth, but showing instead its wrinkles and gray roots. One bottle of wine split among four of them gave each a little less than two cups apiece. Kathryn found herself wishing there were more; a rosy warmth had permeated her body, a pleasurable sensation that enhanced the glow she always felt when she was with Cheb.
"All right," he announced, "time to explore the rest of the house. Wait till you see the bed on the third floor. It's a huge four-poster with this incredible brocade canopy."
Cheb led them into a huge entrance hall, around which wrapped an ornate carved staircase that climbed four stories to a central skylight high above. It was intimidating and foreboding, but utterly inviting at the same time. The young people moved toward the stairs, ran their hands over a burnished wood banister that, strangely, was polished and dust-free. Kathryn inspected her fingers.
"You'd think it would be covered with dust. It's almost as if someone has polished it." She sniffed at her fingers and caught a faint scent of pine oil. "And not long ago."
Cheb shrugged. "Magruder's will provided for the house to be kept up. There may have been a cleaning crew in here recently."
But now Kathryn detected another vague scent, a woody, smoky trace that was there one moment, then gone. "Do you smell that?" she asked. "It's like... like a fireplace that's been left to smolder."
The others stared at her. She realized that she was the only one of the group who would have had any experience with a fireplace. There was one in her house, and her parents lit a fire frequently. But that was because they were traditionalists; most families whose children attended the Institute would not have such an archaic feature in their homes. They had climbed to a landing which held a huge, elaborately carved armoire. It, too, had been recently polished, and gleamed in the reflected light of their palm beacons. Again, Kathryn couldn't resist running her fingers over the lustrous wood, as though by doing so she could make a connection to the former inhabitants. But Cheb pulled her on. As they climbed upward, their lights created strange, ghostly shadows, elongated patterns, distorted and eerie. Kathryn found herself feeling apprehensive. She was not a fearful person, and gave absolutely no credence to ghost stories-and yet she found herself remembering what Cheb had said about the former mistress of this castle. Had she met her death here, at the hands of a willful, possessive husband? Did her bones lie silently within the walls of this edifice? Had it become not only her monument but her tomb?
She tried to shake off the feeling. She was now a little light-headed, a sensation she owed to the wine, and it wasn't pleasant. She didn't like not feeling completely in charge of her faculties; it made her vulnerable. She vowed not to drink real alcohol again. "There-there it is again," she said. "Don't you smell it?" This time the others had to acknowledge they did. Noses wrinkled against the odor of burned wood, rank and sour. Kathryn looked upward, eyes straining in the murky darkness, looking for signs of an answer to this mystery. Long shadows played on the walls, which were