The House

Chapter 54 - Day 6: The Solarium

"So," David says, shoving his fists into his sides and turning his back to the darkening windows. "She was standing here and pointing..."

"Here," I answer, placing myself in the approximate position where David was standing when the dead woman pointed at him. "When I came up here alone and saw her, a chain stretched from her neck to the wall."

I indicate the path from David to the bracket in the wall, shivering as I picture the scuffed chain rattling past me. I swear, I could smell the rust and see each speck of lichen on it.

We've turned on every light up here in the Solarium, but it is not doing much to chase away the gloom now that the sun is setting. I don't like being up here; my skin is prickling as if I'm allergic to the very air. I almost didn't come with David, but the idea of staying behind scared me even more.

I'm still trying to digest the news that his great-grandfather died in this house after falling down the same stairs I got dragged down. I know the two incidents aren't related, but the idea still makes me feel ill.

What if his great-grandfather shows up downstairs and starts pointing at things?! I don't think I would be able to handle that.

"She was pointing at me," David sighs with a resigned grimace. "There's nothing else over there."

There are some stacked paintings near the corner, but we've already gone through them to see if perhaps one of them was a portrait of a possible culprit. They're mostly just discarded half-painted landscapes and dirty canvasses with some lines drawn on them and splashes of paint.

They are disappointingly clue-free, and so are the boxes of old, mouldy art supplies piled on top of each other in the corner of the room.

"Maybe I look like the person who killed her," he suggests, and it's clear that the idea makes him really sad.

"Maybe I'm just nuts, and she was never even here," I shrug, really hoping I am wrong about the nuts part but right about the rest. I hate the thought of a helpless, battered woman tied up in here, and I feel lousy about accusing David of murdering that woman.

I may not know his deepest, darkest secrets, but I know enough about who he is now to be sure that he would never do something that horrible. He said he understood where I was coming from. He told me he would be freaked out and suspicious too, if he were a vulnerable young woman trapped in a house where weird things kept on happening to him - some of them dangerous - and his only ally was a man he didn't know from Adam.

Except that we seem to know so many strange little things about each other's childhoods. The knowledge stops in our pre-teens, but it helps to know that he was once a cute, shy little boy who loved to play with his cat. Many evil masterminds in stories also like playing with their cats, but David doesn't have a manic laugh or a pinky ring... and his cat was a dog.

I'm starting to feel safe again, especially when he turns his warm green eyes on me and smiles that lightning smile of his. It awakens swarms of butterflies in my stomach, even now, here, in this horrible solarium where I may or may not have seen a murdered woman. I answer his smile with one of my own, basking in the warm feelings filling my heart while we gaze fondly at each other.

He is by far the most beautiful person I have ever met. Inside and out.

I long to know more and more of him. I want to know everything there is to know about him, and then I want to learn some more. No man has ever had this all-consuming effect on me before.

I watch David cross the floor, moving gracefully like a panther, to join me and grin up at him when he stops in front of me. He reaches out and gently strokes a strand of flyaway hair from my cheek. I'm mesmerized seeing his eyes darkening while they gaze into mine, reflecting the myriad of emotions stirring awake inside me.