Chapter 18: The Glass

I waited ten minutes after Russell's footsteps faded at the top of the stairs.

Then there was a knock, soft, two taps.

"Eden?" Colette whispered through the wood. "Are you awake?"

I opened the door.

She stood in a cream dressing gown with her hair loose, holding out her hand.

"I can't sleep," she said. "Will you sit with me?"

"Where?"

"The gallery has that long window. We could watch the lake."

"It's the middle of the night."

"I know. Humor me."

She smiled, and for one moment she was the girl who had shared her cocoa with me when I was seven.

I had loved that girl.

I took her hand.

We crossed the dark great room together, past the long table, to the foot of the staircase.

"You first," said Colette. "I'll be right behind you."

I put my left hand on the wall-side rail and began to climb.

Walnut under my bare feet. Cold steel under my palm.

My legs did not shake.

I had been afraid of these stairs for weeks, and I found that I was only angry.

At the fifth step I heard her behind me, close, her slippers whispering on the tread.

At the eighth I smelled lavender.

At the tenth, a shape detached itself from the dark ahead and came down.

"Eden," Russell said. "I thought that was you."

He was in his shirtsleeves. His watch caught a gleam from the lake.

"Russell," I said. "You scared me."

"Did I?"

He came down two more steps and stopped beside me, on the open side.

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