Though people were milling around me nearly every moment I was in the house, it was as if I was utterly alone.
Alone with her.
And everything—
A calendar hung on the kitchen bulletin board next to some snapshots. One photo was of a blond girl in a cheerleading uniform, and the moment I saw the picture, I knew.
I knew her.
I’d always known her.
She was so obviously the one who lives in the girlish bedroom on the second floor whose every detail I memorized from the tour on the Internet.
And according to the wall calendar, this coming Sunday there would be an open house.
Below that, written in a slightly different hand — a girlish hand — was another notation: “Cheerleading practice.”
And then another notation, written small and by yet a third hand: “House-hunting. Dinner at Cafe des Artistes?”
So it will be Sunday. What could be more perfect?
After seeing her picture and reading the calendar, I moved with newfound purpose through the first floor rooms just slowly enough to seem nothing more than a mildly interested agent, then headed up the stairs to steep myself in the aura of my new love — my perfect child.
The instant I walked into her room, I knew that she was the focal point, the absolute center, not only of this house, but of this family.
The lovely aroma that imbued the whole house was strongest there in her room, and I wanted to sink into the soft comfort of her bed, to run my hands over the sheets that enveloped her body every night, to feel myself sinking not just into her bed, but into her.
Yet I restrained myself.
I had to be patient.
My digital camera — one so tiny it can be concealed in the palm of my hand — captured every aspect of the room, but when I turned to her bed, I couldn’t quite restrain myself.
I let the back of my hand run across her pillow, and as my skin touched the place where her head had lain, I could feel the residue of her psychic aura.
Oh, yes! It was her!
In that moment, I knew that my instincts had been right: this is the one! It isn’t just the way she looks, but everything else as well.
After I touched her pillow, I touched everything else, too: the things on her desk, the photos on her dresser, the stuffed animals on the windowsill.
I opened her drawers and touched the soft silky garments she wears next to her skin.
Surely it was only natural to slip a pair of her panties into my pocket, given how they soothed my tortured soul.
With my fingers clutching the silken garment that was hidden in my pocket, I drifted invisibly down the stairs and out the door.
And in all the time I was in the house, nobody spoke to me.
It was as if nobody even saw me.
Indeed, it was as if I hadn’t been there at all.
Just as it always has been — no one seeing anything.
As I made my way home, I held those panties pressed to my cheek, barely able to contain my euphoria.
Then, with her image clear in my mind, I crushed her panties in my fist.
Oh, yes — this is the one.
This is the girl, and finally I shall have her.
Soon. Very soon.
I can barely wait for Sunday.
Chapter Ten
Lindsay paused on the sidewalk, gazing at the house across the street. From here, it looked no different at all. It was still her house, still the familiar house she had grown up in.
The house that held all her secrets.
Yet even in the bright light of the sunny spring afternoon, something about it had changed. And she knew what it was.
All day long, people she didn’t know and would never know had been wandering through the house.
Strangers.
Going through her room.
Going through her things.
Just the thought of it made her shudder, and now that she was across the street, all the horrible thoughts and feelings that had been plaguing her as the day crept by came flooding over her once again.
Except now they were even worse.
Throughout the day, she had been so preoccupied with the idea of strangers milling through her house and her room and her things that she’d found herself behaving completely different than usual as she walked through the halls at school. Where she’d always reached out to everyone she knew, touching their shoulders or their arms or even just brushing against their fingertips as they passed, today she didn’t want to touch anybody else.
Then, when she’d gone to Dawn’s house after practice and tried to explain how she was feeling, Dawn hadn’t gotten it at all.
“They’re just real estate people,” Dawn said. “It’s what they do. They don’t even care what’s in the house, as long as they can sell it.”
“It’s creepy,” Lindsay declared, thinking of Mark Acton. But then she told Dawn about the Raven and they both started laughing, and for a few minutes she felt better. In fact, by the time she left Dawn's, the whole thing seemed silly.
But now she was home, and all her creepy feelings were back, only there was no place else to go.
Remembering that her mom should already be home, she crossed the street, walked across the lawn and onto the porch, and unlocked the front door.
The house smelled different.
And it didn’t smell good, like when the cleaning lady came.
No, it smelled like people.
People she didn’t know.
“Mom?” she called. “I’m home.” The clothes washer was going, but her mother didn’t answer. Lindsay dropped her backpack on the kitchen counter and ran up the stairs.
Her room smelled wrong, too, but not like the rest of the house. It smelled different.
There was a musky odor, and there was something about it that made her skin crawl.
Lindsay opened the window wide, and as she did, noticed that her stuffed animals had been moved. Why would anybody touch the stuffed animals she’d lined up on the sill?
“Mom?” she called out again, almost unconsciously.
She looked around. Everything else seemed to be in the right place. A fresh breeze came in through the window and some of the musky odor went away.
But not all of it.
And it was going to be even worse on Sunday, when dozens — maybe even hundreds — of people were going to go through the house. How could her parents stand it?
Lindsay hated the whole idea of it.
