Trouvaille (#featured)

· s e v e n t e e n ·

Faye's landline and mobile phones have been ringing off the hook ever since she got back to her loft. At first, she decided to ignore the calls. She knew who they would be. Her aunt, surely, and likely some other people from her hometown. There was no one she wanted to talk to at the moment as she worked furiously on her knitting. And so after a few hours, she pulled the power off every communicating device in her home.

The thought of doing a knitted straightjacket festered in her mind until she had become set on doing it. Not the straightjacket, though. Just a jacket. She didn't continue knitting for therapeutic purposes. In truth, it was the most frustrating thing in the world. All too frequently, she lost count because of the events three days ago. She just continued doing it because there was absolutely nothing else to do. Going out was certainly out of the question. She had no face to show the world. The last time she had seen the dreaded video, it took her some months before she could get over the fact that 15 people have seen it. What more a few hundred?

Wait, was that last stitch a seven or an eight?

Faye screamed with her mouth closed as she removed the weave to start counting again. Knitting was definitely infuriating.

She threw the unfinished jacked down and strode toward the door hearing five consecutive raps. She opened it a crack and took several envelopes from the mail. Ad with that, the visit was over. The mail was promptly dropped on the table and a hard thud stopped her in her tracks. There was something else there besides the usual bills. Something that was solid underneath all those envelopes.

Her hand reached for it and then recoiled. No. She was on vacation. All she really had to mind was the bills. And as it were, she was not in the mood for checking them. She wasn't in the mood for knitting either. In truth, she was not in the mood for anything – not even being lazy.

Another rap on her front door released her from her confusion. The boy delivering her mail was going to get it, and from her agitated mood, he was going to get it good. Her instructions about sending the mail was clear: he was only to send it once a day at precisely two thirty. There was no reason for him to make an exception.

"Didn't I—" Faye stopped. The boy seemed agitated and he bore nothing on his hands.

"Ms. Westbrook, would you please let that man up?" the boy asked.

Faye blinked at him in askance. "Man? What man?"

"He says his name is Nathan Prescott. From your hometown," he said shifting from one foot to the other. "He's been there since yesterday."

Faye's stomach tied into knots and at the same time, volcanoes erupted in her insides. There was an indefinable feeling roiling within her, but there was one clear emotion she could not mistake for anything: rage. "Well, didn't you tell him I'm not here?" she snapped.

"We did. But he said that he knows you're here. And if you aren't he will wait for you to come. He's already slept in the lobby and some guests are worried about a strange man hanging about."