Chateau of Echoes

dozen times before I put the rug on top of it.”

“Very practical.”

“Cranwell-”

He held up a hand, as if to stop me. “Is that it?”

“No. All my furniture is slightly skewed. Like the bed. I had it lined up between two stones.” I walked toward the bed to show him, gesturing for him to follow.

“Did you look underneath the bed?” he whispered as he approached.

“No.” I whispered back.

“Why not?”

“What if someone had been there?”

“Then you would have known.”

“Cranwell!”

He was laughing at me. He crouched down and looked under the bed. Then got to his feet. “Nothing.”

Grabbing his arm, I drew his attention to the headboard. “See, I had it lined up between this square stone and that one.” The bed was clearly off center.

“What about the other furniture?”

Touring the room, I showed him exactly where everything had been and how I’d known they had been moved. I was feeling proud of myself when Cranwell ruined it.

“That’s very anal of you, Freddie.”

“Anal?”

“Must everything be exactly lined up at right angles to everything else?”

“Well-”

He paced past me to examine my bathroom.

“Anything disturbed here?”

“Look at the grooves between the stones.”

He put his glasses on and looked around at the walls. At the time the chateau had been built, a small spiral staircase allowed access from a corner of my bathroom to the attic. During renovation, I had it blocked. Cranwell had started halfway up the stairs. “Any reason anyone would want to go up there?”

He motioned me up and extended a hand for support. Above him, the stones blocking the access had been chipped at repeatedly.

It was menacing; I shivered.

“Would you like me to stay in your room tonight?”

“No.”

“Do you want to stay in my room?”

That was exactly what I wanted. I nodded.

“I’m working. I hope the typing won’t disturb you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

We made sure the door to my room was locked, and Cranwell made a thorough search of his own room when we got back. I stood on the area rug beside his bed hugging myself and trying my best to keep my feet warm. I hate cold feet. They bring back bad memories.

His search done, Cranwell pulled the covers back from the bed. I didn’t need another invitation. I scampered in. Cranwell was offering me what I wanted the most: safety. I doubt if I could have slept as soundly if he hadn’t stayed up all night typing. The sound of his fingers tap-dancing across the keyboard assured me of a human in proximity. Of a friend.

Once, in the darkness of my dreams, I found myself fighting with an unknown assailant. An assailant with a heavy crowbar. I must have cried out, because I thought, for a moment, that Cranwell sat beside me, smoothing my hair across the pillow, whispering soothing words. But then sleep claimed me, and I remembered nothing, but a phrase. It echoed through my head all night.

You are perfect, Freddie.

31

I began to come awake in small degrees of consciousness from a pleasant dream. Luxuriously I stretched. It was warm in bed. Sighing, I nestled more deeply into the warmth. Sliding my hips toward it, and burrowing my back into it. And I breathed deeply, drifting back into sleep.

In my next dream, an arm reached out from my memory and held me close. Somewhere in the darkness, I found Peter’s lips and began to kiss them. My fingers remembered the path up his neck and behind his ears to his beautiful blond hair, and they wove their way through it. I traced the line of his familiar jaw, ran a finger over his eyebrow. Then I recalled that there was something I needed to tell him. I needed to tell him that I was sorry. And then I was overcome with guilt. And the guilt is what wrenched me away from my dream and abandoned me in reality.

Of course, it wasn’t Peter at all. It was Cranwell. He was lying on the bed, on top of the duvet, like a true gentleman. And I was lying on top of him, kissing him. Just like one of his actresses or models.

At that moment, Cranwell woke up. I saw his eyes flare in surprise and then melt into glowing pools of amber. He whispered my name.

I began to sob.

At that instant all I really wanted was to be taken into those strong arms. And I wanted him to make the awful guilt go away.

But he searched my eyes, and as I looked into them, I could see them cloud with confusion.

Leaving him there in his bed, I ran up the stairs to my room. It was only when I put my hand to the door to open it that I realized the key was down in Cranwell’s room.

Banging on the door with my fist didn’t yield any results, so I leaned my head against it and cried. I cried for Peter. For the fact that he was probably living in eternal hell. For the fact that I could have told him at any time about having a relationship with Christ, about believing in God. But I didn’t. I let his claims of being an atheist go unchallenged. I gave up my relationship with God for a relationship with a man. Cranwell was right: Of course I believed in God. I just hadn’t been able to get past my guilt. I was too ashamed to face Him.

I cried from frustration. As I wept, I was filled with a loneliness that for months I had held at bay, hoping secretly that Cranwell would provide the cure.

I cried from shame. I couldn’t believe I’d been making out with Cranwell. Throwing myself at him in his own bed. Those tears, the tears shed in humiliation, were the worst.

Cranwell must have come up the stairs silently, for suddenly he was beside me. At least he had sense enough not to touch me. He simply turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, leaving me to find my own way inside.

I took my time showering. I had to think. When I went downstairs I would run into Cranwell, and I had to decide right then what I would do. I couldn’t just pretend things were normal. My actions had changed everything. I couldn’t imagine sitting down to breakfast and dinner with him as we’d been doing for the past six months. How could I bring myself to look him in the eye?

But then, he’d probably had women throw themselves at him all the time. How could my actions have been any worse? He was probably used to dealing with women like me. Like me! How could I have turned into a woman like that! Maybe the only thing to do was pretend like things were normal.

My guests solved my problem for me. There was always something that had to be done or someone, other than Cranwell, to talk to. Of course, whenever I came within proximity, I spoke to him just so he would know that as far as I was concerned, nothing had happened. But where before I could read his eyes, now they were blank.

At least they were when he looked at me.

I knew if I could just survive until Cranwell finished his novel, then he would be gone, and my life would be my