A simple farmer receives a horse from the gods, a man sells ice creams named after missing schoolkids, the demolition of a hotel brings an old horror to light, a wounded soldier finds the real enemy is in his own camp, a family inherits a peculiar r...
"Molly." She gave him a cautious smile. It made her look younger. In other circumstances he might have flirted good-naturedly with her, but he knew never to appear to enjoy his work too much. He was, essentially, a funeral director.
He climbed the narrow stairs behind her. She moved with a bovine, swaying motion, her left hip whispering against the wall.
He stopped halfway up to look at a framed black-and-white photograph. She must have heard his footsteps stop, because she reached out for the bannister and looked back over her shoulder at him.
The photo had been taken from the other side of William Street, from a first or second floor window. The street was a mire. The dresses of the two women standing beneath the hotel's awning were muddy from the knees down, though they both carried parasols and wore fine hats. Wagons plowed up and down the street. David could see the porthole window and the stark lettering: THE STEAM PACKET HOTEL. He squinted at the bottom right-hand corner, where there was a date (1861) and the initials E.K. He looked up at Molly, but she had already turned and resumed climbing.
"Anyone stay up here?" David said as he reached the first floor landing.
"Not for years."
"Why not?"
Molly shrugged and gestured up the hallway. The wallpaper was peeling. A large round water stain in the ceiling had gone black with mould. The wine-coloured carpet was worn through down the centre of the hallway and had rucked up at the edges like a pie crust.
"Dad did it up after the war," she said. "We had a few people stay, but they didn't last long. Some idiot journalist stayed here and spread a story that it was infested with rats. Said he heard them in the walls. The story caught on. After that Dad couldn't get any bookings."
"You ever stay up here?"
She gave him a strange look. "Once."
David waited for her to go on, but instead she turned and swayed off down the hall, the floorboards creaking under her weight. After a moment he followed her.
There were six rooms. Each featured a cheap art deco wardrobe, a single bed with no mattress, a bare bulb, and a window. There was a layer of dust on everything. There was no carpet in any of the rooms. David made a mental note to salvage the Baltic pine floorboards. Anything was better than nothing.
The sixth room contained a framed photograph. Again, a date (1862) and the initials E.K. Molly gave it an uneasy look, then turned back towards the hall. "That's all," she said.
"Who's the girl?" David said, leaning in towards the photograph.
She frowned. "E.K. was Elias Kettle. Owned the hotel in the 1860s. Ask Dad, he knows more about it than me. I think this was his daughter. Pretty huh?"
David nodded. The girl was five or six. She reminded David of his own daughter when she had been that age, and he felt an illogical rush of affection for the long-dead girl. "What's she holding?"
"Dragon egg."
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