Once Yours

The building was old. It was dark, it was solemn, and it stood casting a shadow larger than it had any right to over the forest that was trying to take back the land. In a past life, it had been home to only one family, who she imagined were well off. In its current incarnation, it was housing a young family, an elderly couple, a gorgeous, if nosy college student, and Elizabeth, who had blown into town a year ago and decided it was as good a place as any to settle.

The stairs groaned in exhaustion under her feet as she climbed to the giant wrap-around porch, feeling just as tired as they did after the end of her shift. A voice reached out of the darkness of the porch, startling her. "Who were you talking to on your balcony last night?" Amber, the college girl. Her lighter painted her face orange briefly as she lit a cigarette. "I didn't think you knew anybody but your books."

Elizabeth sighed as she shuffled through her bag for her mailbox key. "Nobody," she said shortly. She hadn't been talking to anyone, and even if she had, it was no business of Amber's.

"He had a sexy voice." Her cigarette glowed hot as she took a drag.

Finding her key and grabbing her mail, Elizabeth slammed the tiny mailbox shut in annoyance. "You were hearing things." She let herself in through the heavy wood door, shaking her head.

Amber's voice chased after her. "Keep your secret, then." She was clearly taking too many classes. The stress was breaking her. Elizabeth was careful to keep quiet on the first floor. It was past Caleb's bedtime, and she knew his parents needed the downtime.

She counted the stairs as she climbed. Fourteen to the first landing, where Mrs. Ward would have the TV on too loud because Mr. Ward was snoring in his armchair and her insomnia was raging. Fifteen winding up to the next floor, where ordinarily she would avoid Amber as she snuck quickly past her door, down the yawning hallway to her own.

Her brown hair begged to be released from its tight bun, her feet ached, and her calves demanded ibuprofen. She threw her bag on the worn out sofa and moved to the kitchen, the floor cold but soothing as she shuffled across it. Finding the half empty bottle, she downed a couple of round white pills and put the kettle on to boil. A little tea would help combat the draft that whirled through her apartment.

Really, it was little more than an attic made livable. But the ceilings were high, it had built in bookcases, the windows let in ridiculous amounts of light, and the rent was reasonable. Plus, she had a tiny, but peaceful balcony that was perfect for morning coffee- and apparently imaginary conversations with mysterious men.

The wind howled, the kettle whistled, and the leaves whispered outside, welcome home, welcome home, welcome home. Elizabeth answered them with a sigh. Theirs were the only voices she was likely to hear that night, and that was just fine with her. She made her tea and curled up with Jane Austen in the dim yellow light of her grandmother's old lamp.

****

She had no way of knowing how long she'd been asleep, or what it was that had woken her. The night had gotten colder; maybe that was it. She yawned and put her book down on the side table, her fingers caressing the buttery leather as she did. It was an old favorite; a dear friend. She stretched, feeling some of the stiffness in her body release and roll away, and reached to turn off the light.

It wasn't until the yellow light was replaced with the silver tones of the moon that she noticed. The noises. The rustling of the leaves outside. The ticking of old pipes in the walls. And the unmistakable creaking of the old wooden rocking chair on the balcony. She would have chalked that up to the wind, but the wind had stopped. There was no howling.

There was no fear in her as she moved across the room to the leaded glass door leading to the balcony. No hesitation marked her gait. She was supposed to open the door. She was expected to step out into the night air. So she did. And he was there, just like some part of her knew he would be.