Chapter 8

After they left, the two of us hit the road. When we parked in front of the entrance gate, she wrinkled her nose.

"Are you sure, Cora?" she asked. "After what happened, maybe we should stay somewhere more…" She didn’t finish the sentence.

I grabbed my bag and opened the car door. Before getting out, I looked at her.

"It’s my house, Lucy."

She took a deep breath and pulled the key from the ignition.

"Alright."

My house was my favorite place in the world. My friends said it was a dangerous place to live alone, and I somewhat agreed, but I had invested a good amount of money in it and found it very safe. From the outside, the property was just an old, somewhat ill-fated and gloomy mansion that kept most people away. No one wanted to break into a house like mine, even if it was huge.

Basically, I lived in the middle of nowhere.

"Charming."

Lucy stood behind me, watching as I observed the house with a displeased expression.

"You’re kind of gothic."

I laughed.

"The house is, not me."

She raised an eyebrow.

Although it was part of a long row of old houses with a decaying aesthetic, mine still managed to stand out from the rest. It was a vertical structure, with tall, pointed towers on the sides that made it imposing and a bit eerie. Its stained-glass windows, mostly darkened by time, prevented anyone from seeing too much inside. The fact that a house like this existed in the middle of a small town in the southeastern United States might seem mysterious, but the explanation was quite simple.

"The owner of this house was an English architect," I explained, repeating the story I had heard from the real estate agent. "He was a great enthusiast of Gothic architecture, maybe even a little obsessed. He built this house when he was forty but only moved in permanently when he was close to dying. He spent his last years here, isolated from the town, enjoying the house."

"Morbid as hell," Lucy grimaced. "Did he die here?"

I shrugged.

"The agent said no."

"And do you believe that?"

I smiled.

"No."

Lucy wanted to insist on the subject—I could feel it in my bones—but she said nothing more. I suspected part of her hesitation was because Andrew had died, and she wanted to avoid any topic that came close to it. I wasn’t unhappy about that.

"The traffic in this area is minimal," I continued explaining. "Sometimes I hear cars passing by, but it doesn’t bother me. It’s a peaceful place to live."

"Don’t you feel lonely, Cora?"

"Lonely?"

"It’s a huge house, and you don’t have many neighbors," she said, looking around.

Right by the roadside was a huge, somewhat abandoned forest, which made my house very cool and quiet. In short, it was the perfect place for someone like me.

"Yeah," I finally replied. "It’s lonely sometimes, but I don’t think it’s any different from being surrounded by people I don’t know. It’s still loneliness, just with a crowd around."

Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Let’s go inside," I said. "It’s getting cold out here."

She nodded, following me.

It had been a long time since she last visited me. Usually, we met at her place or at Liam and Mark’s. Since I lived farther away than all of them, it made more sense to meet in the middle.

"I like your décor."

I smiled.

Modesty aside, I also really liked everything in my house and the way each item was arranged because it spoke a lot about me and my tastes. It wasn’t extravagant—far from it—but it had a unique charm. When I bought the place, the house was already decorated and furnished. All the furniture belonged to the previous owner. I never felt the urge to get rid of them, so all I did was add a bit of myself to the house. Now, besides the aged wooden furniture and expensive carpets, there were paintings and a huge library in what used to be the main guest room.

"You must be hungry," Lucy said. "How about we cook something?"

"I should have something in the fridge."

I hadn’t gone grocery shopping in the past few days for obvious reasons. My friend—sort of boyfriend—was dead, a killer was on the loose, and there was a crime scene at the bookstore. Thinking about everything that had happened almost made it feel like an illusion, a dream.

"I want mac and cheese," she said, already crossing the living room. "And some wine."

"And ice cream," I added.

She grinned.

"That’s my girl."

The kitchen lights were on.

I tried to remember if I had left them like that when I left because that was the kind of thing that never happened. I liked to check all the doors and lights before leaving. Always.

Strange.

"I think we have everything."

Lucy was hidden behind the fridge door, but I could see her arms moving as she placed items on the counter. I did a quick scan of the kitchen and stopped right where the ingredients were piling up.

At the edge of the counter rested a lone chess piece.

A white pawn.

I approached it and examined it before picking it up between my fingers. It was a common piece from a chess set. A pawn, the smallest piece in chess, carved in the standard conical shape—nothing unusual.

Except…

"Have you been playing chess?" Lucy was looking at the lone piece in my hand. "I haven’t seen you play in a long time."

"The last time I played was with Mark, at that café downtown," I replied.

And the pieces they had there were different. This one could easily be from my own set, except that it was stored in the closet, on the highest shelf, and hadn’t been touched in weeks. I was certain that piece hadn’t been there when I left and that it wasn’t mine.

It was unsettling not to have a logical explanation for something like this, especially because, suddenly, it felt like the control I had over my own home had been violated. I searched my memory for visitors who might have left the pawn in my house since the last time I was here—the night of Andrew’s murder.

"Did you come to get clothes for me?" I asked.

"I took the ones that were at my place," she said, distracted, rummaging through the cabinet.

"Did you give my spare key to anyone?"

Lucy turned around, eyebrows raised.

"Why would I do that, Cora?"

I drummed my fingers on the counter.

"What’s bothering you?"

"This piece shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t when I left the house, and no one has been here since."

"Maybe you just forgot."

I never forgot things like that, and when I did, I remembered perfectly—like the pair of earrings I left in the bathroom cabinet or the spoon on the counter from the pudding I ate that afternoon, which I didn’t have time to throw away. I remembered because I kept thinking about the ants that might show up because of it.

If I had played chess, I would never have left a piece behind.

"Yeah, maybe."

I accepted that this was one of those strange occurrences that never had an explanation but left a lingering doubt in the back of your mind. For a moment, that chess piece made me think of something—a detail about myself that should have remained buried.

In the end, maybe I had really forgotten the piece.

That night, we went to the movie rental store downtown. Gregory, the friendly employee, approached us when he found us standing in the best-sellers section. He touched Lucy’s shoulder—just a little too invasive—and asked if we had any questions.

I wanted to watch The Shining again, but given the circumstances, Lucy thought it wouldn’t be appropriate to see a man succumbing to madness and hunting his family with an axe. Gregory suggested Blue Velvet, which he described as "eccentric and kind of feminist"—which, judging by his tone, didn’t exactly sound like a compliment.

That was what made me pick the movie.

Even though I was desperate for a distraction, I knew a movie wouldn’t bring the relief I was looking for. In fact, given recent events, I suspected nothing would be able to shift my focus. The truth was, once Andrew was buried and the investigation took shape, I would become the center of a horror story that seemed far from over.