Someone likes things a certain way, she thought.
Grace led her inside. The house was cool and still. A long hallway stretched ahead with polished tiled floors and framed paintings on the walls. Light came through the tall windows in long golden stripes.
Everything was clean and in its place.
“Wait here,” Grace said, pointing to a bench in the hallway. “I’ll go and tell him you’re here.”
“Tell who?” Rebecca asked.
But Grace was already walking toward the study at the end of the hall.
Rebecca sat on the bench, placed her bag on her lap, and looked around at the quiet, orderly world of the house. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere, the faint rustle of papers, the distant muffled sound of the city outside, made smaller by the thick walls.
Then she heard footsteps. Steady, unhurried, coming closer.
She straightened slightly and looked toward the hallway.
Mr. Caleb appeared in the doorway.
He was tall and silver-haired. He was wearing a pressed white shirt and dark trousers. He walked with the kind of quiet confidence that comes not from arrogance, but from a lifetime of knowing exactly where he stands in a room.
He looked at her, and something happened.
There was nothing visible from the outside. No gasp. No sudden movement. Just a pause, so brief it lasted less than a second. His eyes met hers, and something behind them shifted, the way a flame shifts when a small breath of air reaches it. The feeling was familiar and strange at the same time, like a word on the tip of the tongue that will not come forward.
He blinked, and the moment passed.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice calm and even. “You must be Rebecca.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, standing. “Good morning.”
He studied her face for just a moment longer than was necessary, so briefly that she barely noticed it. Then he gestured toward the sitting room.
“Come in,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
She followed him inside.
Neither of them spoke about the strange feeling that had passed between them. Neither of them had words for it yet. But it was there, quiet and patient, waiting like a door that had not yet been opened but whose handle had just been touched.
The sitting room was large and neat, the way the rest of the house was neat. Everything was in its place. There were 2 deep leather chairs facing each other across a low wooden table. A tall bookshelf covered most of 1 wall, filled with thick books arranged by size. A single potted plant sat in the corner by the window, its dark green leaves healthy and still. Above the fireplace hung a large painting of a river moving through tall trees, the kind of painting that did not ask you to feel anything in particular but gave you a sense of quiet all the same.
Mr. Caleb sat in 1 of the leather chairs and gestured for Rebecca to take the other.
Leave a Comment