Chapter
“This is the best room here, in my opinion,” she said, opening the door and allowing Emma to enter first. Emma could see why Sarah thought that. The room was huge, with a large fluffy mattress and several quilts on the bed. There were tall windows on three sides of the room, and a bathroom with a large clawfoot tub and stacks of towels. A lamp in the corner cast a soft glow over the room. “It’s beautiful,” Emma said in amazement. “Thank you so much.” “You can stay as long as you need to,” Sarah said, turning towards the door. “My room is on the third floor. You are welcome to walk around the second floor and the common areas on the first floor. The first floor has a library and a dining room. Breakfast is at seven,” she said, shutting the door behind her. Emma walked over to the bed and ran her hand along the edge of the mattress. It felt so soft and cozy. She decided to lay down for just a little bit before getting ready to go to sleep. Suddenly, Emma sat up and looked around in confusion. It took her a few seconds to process where she was. She had only intended to rest for a minute before getting ready for bed, but apparently had fallen asleep. She rubbed her eyes and listened for any movement in the building, but the place was eerily silent. Emma crossed the room to the bathroom and washed her face, then changed clothes and crawled into bed. She lay under the covers for an indefinite amount of time, tossing and turning. The grandfather clock in the corner showed three o’clock, then three thirty, then four. Sighing, Emma gingerly placed one foot on the hardwood floor, then the other. She was never going to be able to go back to sleep at this rate. Somehow the silence was actually making it harder to sleep. She crept out of bed and tiptoed around the room. She pulled the drapes back and looked down at the abandoned street. A lone newspaper blew down the street in the breeze. Emma shuddered. Despite the friendliness of Sarah and Jack, the town still had a creepy, almost haunting atmosphere. Against the wall adjacent to the bed stood a large wardrobe. Emma opened the doors to inspect the area where she would be able to hang her clothes tomorrow when she brought her belongings inside. She had a feeling she would be stuck here for longer than she originally expected. There was no way the axle could be fixed in time for her to make it to California by next week. Sighing, Emma was about to close the door to the wardrobe when something caught her eye. She bent down to inspect the object, which turned out to be a small book of some sort. She probably would have missed it, except for the fact that the draperies had not fallen completely shut after she looked outside, and the moon was casting a sliver of light through the open drapes and into the doors of the wardrobe. Emma felt the soft cover and frowned. A journal maybe? How would it have gotten here? She pulled the book out and brought it closer to the window. It was a journal whose dark cover would make it easy to miss in the back of the wardrobe when someone was packing their belongings or coming in to clean the day after this guest left. Emma sat in a chair by the window and gingerly fanned the pages open. It was definitely a female’s writing with loopy curling letters in a heavy-handed scrawl. Emma flipped to the back page and gasped, dropping the diary. The last two sentences read “He was never in love with me. If you find this, please he…” The last two letters of what Emma assumed would complete the word “help” were never formed by the writer.
