“Very nice of you to bring him out here.” Her cheeks were flushed red, and she looked from Holden to Maxime. “Do you do a lot with your sister?”
My God this woman was chatty.
“I go where she goes,” he said with a shrug, playing the part of a bored teenage boy to a T. Instead of meeting her gaze and compelling her to leave us alone, he stared at his shoes and shut down any further questions she might ask him.
“Have you been—?”
“Oh good, the line is moving.” Next time, I didn’t care how lost we got, I was going to break in instead of mingling with human tourists. They talked too much. How could people talk this much to absolute strangers? What about me invited conversation? I didn’t think I had a naturally sweet face—and had been told as much on a number of occasions—so why me?
We were ushered into a courtyard where I intentionally angled my “family” away from hers.
“Secret made a new friend,” Holden teased.
“Shhh, you’ll make her come over here. That’s the last thing we need. If Ma Florida latches on to us, we’ll never be able to break away from the tour.”
That quieted him down.
Thankfully my line buddy had two sons who were desperate to annoy the ever-loving bejesus out of our poor tour guide. We were handed flashlights, and most of the sensible adults tested them once to be sure they worked, then left them off until the tour began. The Wilson boys from Florida, though, managed to have a full-on lightsaber battle with theirs, complete with poorly conceived sound effects.
Once their mother relieved them of the flashlights, they started in on a barrage of questions, only some of which related to the house.
I wasn’t a big fan of kids, and these ones were the type so annoying they might convince non-parents never to conceive, but they were a blessing in disguise. If our guide was busy dealing with their nattering for the whole tour, we might get more time before they realized we were missing.
Point one for the Wilson family from Florida.
The tour commenced, and the guide—a chubby, curly-haired kid who was about seventeen—began his monotone, memorized speech about the house’s history. Since we were on the moonlight tour, I gathered we’d be given a few spooky bonus facts along the way, but in the initial few rooms we relearned all the stuff I’d read on the website.
The guide led us into an old storage room where all the guests wedged in together to hear him tell us about the cost of carpeting and how many different kinds of wood were ordered to make the parquet floors. The back wall of the room was floor-to-ceiling glass, and behind it were several backlit Tiffany windows.
I caught Maxime’s attention and jutted my chin towards them, wondering if the window we were looking for might have been moved among them. I didn’t see it, but I wasn’t as familiar with it as the young vampire was. He might be able to see something I was missing.
He shook his head.
The group followed our guide up a set of switchback stairs—the Wilson boys stomping loudly and making ghost noises as they went—and we remained towards the back, letting everyone else get ahead of us.
The house was just as bizarre as I’d imagined from Maxime’s history lesson, but seeing it in person made me a little sad. It lacked a lot of the color and polish I’d seen in the older pictures. Maybe it was because I was seeing it at night, but I felt as if some of what made the house special had slipped away over the years.
For a house to have life, someone needed to live in it. And though hundreds of people visited the Winchester Mansion daily, everything had the gray, dismal feeling of abandonment. No one lived here, no one loved the place the way only a homeowner can. I was sad for the house, and sad for Sarah Winchester that her legacy was these depressing walls and weird corridors.
In one of the upper parlors a vignette had been staged with actors portraying Winchester and her psychic. They’d gone overboard on the clichés, dressing the psychic in full gypsy gear with giant hoop earrings and a glowing crystal ball. Her long fingernails clicked on the glass, making the small bulb inside vibrate. The employee they had playing Sarah Winchester wore a terrible wig and gasped at everything the gypsy said.
In the back of the room, beyond a velvet rope meant to keep guests out, I saw a weak blue-white light. It drifted, barely visible beyond the old glass doors, and I couldn’t make out a face. I knew a ghost when I saw one, and there was no mistaking that glow. It seemed to be watching the playacting with the same attention as the tour guests were. When the show was over, the light bobbed slightly, then drifted out of sight.
In a house this old any number of spirits could have gathered, but I had my suspicions I was seeing the former owner herself.
Poor Sarah. In life she’d wanted so badly to avoid being haunted she’d moved here to build this place. Now she was forced to roam the halls of her unfinished monstrosity forever.
We followed slowly, not wanting the acting employees to notice us lagging behind. They were an element we hadn’t considered, and I had to hope they’d go back the way we’d come in, rather than trailing after the tour.
Now that we were on the second floor my heart had begun to beat quicker. Every door teased me because it wasn’t the door in my dream. I wasn’t sure that door existed, but since it was the only clue I had to go on, I was going to follow my gut.
“And here we have the most expensive window and the least expensive window in the house installed side by side.” The guide’s delivery suggested this was meant to be a punch line, but I’d missed the joke if there had been one. The group’s forced laughter told me I hadn’t missed anything.
We were wedged into a corridor near a flight of stairs, our guide leaning against the wooden balustrade. He told us about how much the Winchester fortune had been worth, and how much Sarah had siphoned into the house on a weekly basis.
“The window to my right…” he pointed to his left, “…cost a thousand dollars at the time of purchase. For perspective, that was about the same amount Sarah earned in a week from her husband’s fortune. It was designed by Charles Tiffany for Sarah, in the hope he’d created the most beautiful stained-glass window to ever be touched by the sun.” Whoever wrote their speeches had a flair for the dramatic. “Unfortunately, when the window was installed, it was placed on this interior wall and has tragically never seen the light of day. Now if you’ll follow me…”
This was it. We were at the window. Part of me had expected our answer to leap out and bite me in the tush as soon as we arrived, but nothing happened. It was just a window—a pretty one—but nothing about it suggested it was worth killing or dying for.
I wondered why Eilidh wanted it so badly. Did she honestly think if she stood in the light as it passed through this window she’d be able to bear it? That seemed crazy to me.
But now that I’d walked in sunlight, even for a couple short days, I could see the obsession. I’d chased daylight too, because unlike vampires I’d never had an opportunity to experience it before. Now that I’d had it warm my skin without burning, would I give anything to have the feeling back? Almost.
I’d given it up willingly, but still dreamed of it some days, and those dreams were more of a vicious tease than anything soothing.
We weren’t here for the window though. Eilidh and the other Tribunal seats might have assumed I’d bring it back for them, but I knew how to abuse loopholes in vampire requests. They’d sent me to get Sutherland because he had something of value to them. Since the window was still safely mounted in the wall, it couldn’t be what they were after.