My head jerked up as I felt the steering wheel begin to lurch in my hands. I shook my head, trying to clear it, before I realized what was happening. Carefully, I moved my car back onto the road and away from the ridges that had just prevented me from dozing off completely.
A red corvette honked loudly as it sped by me, and I resisted the urge to retaliate. Besides, I was far too tired to do anything but drive. I yawned and began fiddling with the radio, once I realized that the station had turned to static several miles back. After settling on a rock station, in hopes that it would keep me awake, I turned back, trying to blink the fatigue out of my eyes.
I knew I shouldn’t be driving. I had been up late the night before, and hadn’t expected to do any traveling for a long while. However, when my sister’s husband called and said she was having her baby early, I hadn’t much choice. The fact that it was a fourteen-hour drive fromDe Soto,Wisconsin, toCollinstown,Mississippi, hadn’t registered with me until I was already halfway throughIllinois.
I yawned widely and reached for the Starbucks cup sitting in my cupholder, before remembering that I had finish my mocha java over an hour ago. The Bon Jovi song blaring out of the radio throbbed against my head, and I let out a moan. After deciding quickly that I had better get off the road if I wanted to avoid a wreck, I pulled over to the shoulder. With a sigh, I laid my head onto the steering wheel and rested my eyes. The coffee had seemed like a good idea at the time, but since it was now wearing off, I was beginning to feel the crash.
The best thing for it, I decided reluctantly, was to check into a hotel for the night and continue on the road in the morning. I reached down into my seat, pulled out my phone, and brought up my Hotel Finder app. After pinpointing my location on the car’s GPS, I let the phone find the nearest hotel. In a matter of seconds, a search result popped up: L’Auberge d’Antan.
My brow furrowed in surprise. It wasn’t often that a hotel fancy enough to have a foreign name was within my price range. This one, in contrast, was dirt cheap. It occurred to me that the low price must indicate some sort of major problem with the hotel, but I was so sleepy at the moment that I decided to go for it anyway.
With my GPScarefully guiding me, I reached L’Auberge d’Antan within five minutes. It was an elegant-looking structure situated right on the edge of town. The décor seemed to have been done in a classical style, from the furnished oak doors to the marble gargoyles leering down from either corner of the slanted roof. I was surprised to see that there was no parking lot. However, I was in no mood to find one and then walk all the way back, so I stopped my car on the edge of a road adjacent to the hotel, making sure to keep well away from any “No Parking” signs.
I stepped out of my car, wrenched open the trunk, and grabbed the one bag containing the necessities I’d need for the night—toothbrush, comb, razor, et cetera. Bag in hand, I climbed the polished steps and pushed through the large doors.
My first look at the hotel lobby was a shocking one. If I had thought the exterior of the hotel was fancy, it was nothing in comparison to this. Every furnishing in the room was a perfectly-tailored Victorian style, from the settees and ottomans to the pictures on the wall. A large, elegant fireplace burned at the far side of the room, and in the center stood a stone statue in the shape of a cherub. Several small chandeliers glittered from the ceiling, and I would bet that the little gems out of which they were made were genuine crystals. Even the few guests milling around the lobby were exquisitely dressed.
I suddenly doubted that I was at the right place. There was no way this was the cheap hotel I had found on my phone. I turned to the front desk—which was constructed of pristinely polished ebony—and addressed the young woman who stood there in an old-fashioned-looking hotel uniform. “Excuse me,” I said tentatively, “Is this L’Auberge d’Antan?”
