The Uninvited Read Online Free PDF Page B

yellow walls covered in paintings of furniture and fruit and women bathing in lakes in dresses that hugged their hips and bosoms. A green sofa and an armchair inhabited the center of the room, and a black Singer sewing machine, along with a naked dress form and a large basket of fabric, took up the leftmost side. The air carried feminine fragrances similar to the ones I remembered from my aunt Eliza’s house. Roses and lavender. Toilet waters and potpourri.
    A framed photograph of Eddie sat upon a table at the back of the room, and its presence seemed the only speck of evidence that a man had ever dwelled in the place. He wore his U.S. Air Service uniform in the photo, and he looked nothing like a fellow about to die. My eyes lingered too long on his fair hair and broad shoulders.
    “Who is the artist of all of these watercolors?” I asked, turning my attention to one of the bathing ladies.
    “I am.”
    “You paint?”
    “Mm hmm.” May nodded and straightened the image closest to her.
    “They’re beautiful.” I leaned closer to better observe the details of the rippling reflection of the woman on the water. “I used to wish I could draw well, but music’s always been my calling. My escape. Along with poetry.”
    “You should write songs, then, like George M. Cohan.”
    I laughed. “Maybe.”
    “So . . . this is the main room.” She held out her arms and swiveled toward a doorway in the back-left corner. “And that’s the kitchen back there. Nothing too fancy, but it has everything you’ll need. The room over there belongs to Eddie and me.”
    She spun on her heel toward a door to my right and didn’t correct herself for speaking of Eddie in the present tense.
    “And up here”—she headed over to a staircase that started next to the bedroom door—“is one big attic room, which can be yours, if the place suits you all right.”
    I followed her up a turned staircase with a small landing in the middle, and I noticed the steps made mere whispers of sound compared to the squeaks and hollers of our rickety stairs back home. The silence made me worry the Dovers’ house, like the Hotel America, might sit too still for proper sleep.
    Upstairs, we reached an open room with a bed smothered in white ruffles and a ceiling pitched like the roof. Everything that couldn’t fit into the rest of the house—crates, rugs, lamps, a toaster, two copper washboards, a chest of drawers, a doll’s crib, Eddie’s Buchanan High School football uniform—appeared to have found a home on the attic floor.
    “So”—May placed her hands on her hips—“What do you think?”
    “It’s nice.” I rested my bags in an empty square of flooring next to the bed. “Plenty of room. Good amount of sunshine.”
    “I’ll bring up my spare key after I head back downstairs.” She traced a finger through dust on an old credenza parked near the top of the stairs. “It has been lonely here, I do admit. I should have probably left that R O O M F O R R E N T sign up longer.”
    “I’m sure you’ve still been adjusting”—I eyed Eddie’s football jersey—“to life.”
    She nodded with her lips pursed, and her eyes, which also strayed to Eddie’s clothing, moistened.
    I suddenly worried I’d see Eddie up there, standing in the shadows amid his belongings.
    I don’t know why we females of the family see them—these Guests, Mama had said to me after I’d witnessed my first one when just a child. We just do. Granny Letty saw them as well. They always arrive before someone dies, as if to warn us to steel ourselves against grief.
    I rubbed at a chill that breezed across my arms. “Have you heard anything about the . . .” I licked my lips. “The incident that occurred down the street last night?”
    May furrowed her brow. “What incident?”
    “Did you ever meet those two German brothers who own a furniture store at the other end of Willow?”
    “Sure, that’s where we bought our sofa when we first moved into the house,