Pac Man snorted and sneezed. He lumbered over, plopped on her foot and rolled to his back exposing his pink underbelly. Some faint scars littered his left side, a reminder of the abuse he’d sustained as a pup. "You are such a big baby. I am not rubbing your belly now. Let’s go up to my room so I can shower before the guys get here." Storm looked up the massive double staircase, modeled after the one used in Gone with the Wind. Cherry wood railings usually wound with seasonal lights were now bare, odd in and of itself; Aunt Trin had always liked the twinkling lights year round. The carpet that ran the middle of the stairs seemed worn, threadbare in a few places where they had been tread one too many times. She would need to replace the lot of it.
Twenty steps to the landing and she found herself gazing out into the back yard, the orchard where she hid as a child, the storage shed where she received her first kiss, the white washed cottage where Aunt Trin kept an herb garden for potions. All looked a bit worse for the wear but essentially unchanged. Storm relished the picturesque quality of the blooming trees; she’d painted the orchard several dozen times and actually won an award for a photography study of the trees. It seemed like an eternity ago. She found herself wondering about the harvest this year. Storm wondered who had handled it last season. Perhaps there were receipts in the study, though she doubted Trin kept much by way of books. Dammit. Stop procrastinating.
Storm’s large boho purse weighed on her shoulder and the duffel bag straps dug into her palm as she climbed the next twenty steps. The room at the top of the stairs had belonged to her mother. Through the open door Storm could tell that Trin had not touched anything since Sophie’s passing. The four poster bed still covered by an heirloom quilt and pictures of Storm on the bedside table, all antique pieces of course, exactly as they had been ten years ago. She forced her feet forward remembering the need for a shower when the stench of sweat and body odor overwhelmed her reverie.
The next two doors opened into guest suites with private baths where Dan and Shane would most likely pass the night. Storm had the room at the end of the hall, opposite her old studio. Storm sighed and pushed open the door to her past. It did not escape her notice that it was the only closed door she’d come across.
Her bedroom looked exactly as she’d left it. The heavy violet velvet curtains were parted and hung over wrought iron tie backs. Sheers of various shades of purple still draped the matching wrought iron bed, the lilac satin bedspread half turned down to reveal silky silver sheets. Yes, she had been in a romantic Goth phase before she’d left. The walls were still plastered with her favorite posters, a shirtless Jim Morrison, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, several John Hughes movie posters, and a tour poster for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Her bookshelf still overflowed with Stephen King, Jane Austen, and Tolkien. A well-worn copy of Catcher in the Rye lay half open on her nightstand.
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