“Mr. Mulhaven was a great man. A great man.”
The old woman who was renting the house wagged her finger as though she was scolding me, though I had no idea why. I nodded agreeably and murmured that I was sure he was, but Mrs. Abrams was already heading into another room filled with empty bookshelves and talking at me again.
“When my Hugo built this place, it was with the idea that we might one day want to live here instead of the big house,” she gestured across the road to the massive Tudor-style mansion that loomed there. She glanced at me and waved her hand at the floor and walls. “You know, less to heat and clean, and all on one floor.” She pointed a finger at me. “You young people, you don’t think about such things. But when you get old and stiff…small is better.” Her face softened as she gave me a shrugging smile. “But things are never what you expect. My husband is gone and now I can’t stand the thought of not living where I remember him.”
I felt a deep pang of sympathy for her, but wasn’t sure what to say. Before I could think of anything, she was going again.
“Mr. Mulhaven was such a blessing when he came on as a tenant. He was quiet and clean, never complained or,” she shot me a look before glancing around the room again, “threw loud parties, and he was always early with his rent. When he went missing…” her face tightened into a scowl, “it was a tragedy. And not just for me.” She caught my eye again. “He was a great scientist, you see. A genius.”
Abrams led me into a slightly sunken den, the room accessible on one side by three steps and on the other by a gently sloping ramp. She pointed to the latter. “See? My Hugo thought of everything. He was so good with his hands—did some of this work himself.” Gesturing to the large sectional sofa, she went on. “As the ad says, it comes furnished. This was all extra stuff I had in storage, and when Mr. Mulhaven came, he didn’t have anything but a suitcase and boxes of books and equipment.” She raised an eyebrow and added. “All of his effects are in storage, just in case he returns.”
I saw my opening to ask a question that had bugged me since I saw the ad. “Um, Mrs. Abrams, I was going to ask about that. The thing in the paper said the rental was ‘terminate at will by owner, any remaining rent will be returned at a pro-rated rate.’ Are you saying month-to-month, or…”
The woman frowned at me. “No, I mean what I say. If I don’t like you, you’re gone the next day. If you’re too loud or dirty, you’re out. And if Mr. Mulhaven ever does come back, it goes without saying that the house will go back to him if he wants it again.” Her tone was less sharp as she went on. “That’s why the rent is so cheap, you understand. It’s a big place—a nice place—for so little. But if I say you go, you gather your things and you go. If you can’t agree with that, I understand.” She gave me a small smile. “I’m sure I’ll find someone who will for such a good deal.”
I was already shaking my head. It was weird, and it might bite me in the ass, but she was right. It was dirt-cheap and seemed awesome, particularly since I had very little furniture of my own. And it wasn’t like I had seen any other place half as good.
“No, no. I’m lucky to have found it. If you’re willing to give me a shot, I’ll take it.”
I’d been there two months before I found what was under the bed.
When I say under, I mean just that. Like the rest of the house, the floor underneath the bed had been immaculately clean when I moved in, and I’d wound up sliding my suitcases underneath after emptying them into the large wardrobe standing guard at the far side of the master bedroom. It was only when I was pulling one out to go visit my sister that I realized that something had gouged a large cut in the top of the bag.
Not wanting to give up the storage space but not wanting to mess up anything further, I grabbed a light and slid under the bed. There was plenty of space—the bed was a massive four-poster monstrosity that looked like it could sleep a giant, though the mattress was probably the thickest, softest bed I’d ever had. Once I was underneath, I saw a jagged piece of box spring poking down toward the floor—that was what had cut my suitcase. I was about to slide out to get some pliers when my light caught something hidden between the springs of the bedframe and the mattress itself—two somethings actually.
They were books.
The first was a very old and weathered book with a grey leather cover. I was excited at first—it was like something out of a movie. Maybe it would be some strange ancient text filled with mysteries I could unlock. If not, maybe it was worth a lot of money.
I felt a pang of guilt at that—it probably belonged to either Mrs. Abrams or the science guy who used to live in the house. But if it did belong to him, was it really stealing? She wouldn’t say much about it, but I knew that last year Mulhaven had just…vanished. And if he was really gone, he didn’t really have claim to stuff he left behind, did he?
Setting aside any moral debate or justification, I looked closer at the book in the fading afternoon light. The cover was embossed, but it was so faded I could just barely make out the words at all. And it looked like…fuck, was that French? Gingerly flipping through the book confirmed that the brittle, yellow pages were all filled with uneven type that seemed to be a mixture of French and Latin.
Muttering to myself, I pulled out my phone. Maybe I could at least translate the title and see if it was worth…
Two hours had passed since I went under the bed.
Blinking, my first thought was that my phone was messed up. There was no way that it had taken more than ten minutes for me to find the bent spring, see the books, and lift up the mattress enough to rake them out.
But when I looked at my alarm clock and the microwave, they confirmed the time had passed. Looking outside, I could tell the sun was lower too, which meant I really had lost time. It also meant I was late leaving for my sister’s.
I threw clothes into my suitcase quickly and was about to close it when I hesitated. I still hadn’t looked at the second book. Picking it back up, I saw it was just a notebook or journal of some kind, and all the pages looked blank. I thought about leaving the books behind, but I wanted to look at them closer, maybe even show them to my sister. Feeling a bit like a thief, I packed them into my bag and headed out.
“It’s called The Fragilities of Time and Space by some dude named Alexander Trudeau. Or at least I think that’s what it’s called…if I’m reading it right and the internet has translated Les Fragilites du Temps et de L’Espace properly.” Lena glanced away from her tablet to cock an eyebrow at me. “You’re not keeping it, right?” She hesitated before going on. “I mean, it’s not yours. You need to give it to your landlady.”
I frowned at my sister. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I will. I’m just looking at it now, okay? I thought it was neat.”
She looked slightly relieved and nodded. “It is. And the other book is empty?”
I laughed at her. “You make it sound like a bucket. But yeah, it’s ‘empty’. Or I think it is.” Picking it up, I sat it between us on the coffee table and slowly flipped through its white pages from front to back and then back to front. “See? Nothing. Just a bunch of bla--”
“Wait! What’s that inside the cover?”
I looked up at my sister and then back down at the journal. She was right—on the inside of the front hardcover was a dark red mark or…
It was a fingerprint.
I turned the book in the light of a nearby table lamp—I could see the rust-colored ridges and whorls of someone’s fingertip or…given its size and shape, maybe the pad of a thumb. Laughing, I turned it toward Lena. “Freaky. Maybe they were going to write goth poetry in it or something.” Looking at the fingerprint again, I gently probed it with my own thumb.
“Ew! Don’t touch it!”
I smirked at her. “I think it’s safe. It’s probably paint or ink anyway.”
Lena wrinkled her nose. “Fuck that. It looks like dried blood to me. Either way, it’s gross. Go wash your hands.”
Rolling my eyes, I sat the book down. “Bossy bitch.”
She shot me the look that always made me feel like a little kid, even at twenty-eight. “Just do it. It could be infected or something. You don’t know who’s had that thing or where it’s been.”
It was weird sleeping in a strange bed that night. I’d just started getting used to the bed back at my new house, and that was before I’d known I was laying on top of an old French book and someone’s bloody fingerprint. I glanced over at the moonlit silhouette of the books stacked on the nightstand. People were so fucking strange. Maybe that Mulhaven had been some smart scientist guy, but so far it seemed like he was just a Class-A weir…
Scritch scritch
What the fuck was that?
I sat up and turned on the light, looking around for the sign of something moving. A bug or a mouse maybe? But nothing was out of place or skittering away, and the noise had sounded close by. Maybe it was because I’d been looking at it, but I would have swore the sound came from the nightstand.
I glanced around on the table. Nothing. Just a clock, a lamp, and…well, the books. Tensing for a roach to dart out, I picked up The Frailties of Time and Space and then the notebook. Still nothing. I sat the French book back down and was about to put the other on top when I hesitated. Where had the sound come from? Could it be something between the pages?
I held the book out away from me and the bed as I opened it, and my eyes went back immediately to the red thumbprint on the inner cover. How’d I miss that before? It was so obvious. And it was so weird that it was the only…
There was writing on the first page now. Scratched out in thin grey letters that might be faded pencil or ghostly pale ink, it still jumped out on the stark white of the page. That hadn’t been there before. I knew it, and knowing that made it hard to breathe.
Just a small change. Just a single word. A greeting, or maybe an invitation.
---
Credits
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