The dull gray twilight made the house seem so dark, so lonely. And those trees—really, it was amazing, how the smell of mold and damp could survive even freezing temperatures. The minute she got her crew back that whole copse was going to be firewood. Honestly, how hard could it be to cut down a tree? Surely there was an axe somewhere in the pile of tools that had been left behind. Maybe she’d do it herself.

The cold was creeping through her coat while she stood there procrastinating. She sighed, strode towards the door, the frozen ground crunching under her boots, and in one great motion wrenched it open and stepped through.

She stopped just inside, her hand clutching the doorknob behind her. Sam had taken down the window boards, but the dying winter light didn’t permeate the grime of the remaining panes. The blackness inside brought back the days after she’d left Alain, when she simply hadn’t bothered to open the heavy velvet curtains in her flat. The stories in the papers had gotten fairly awful by then, and the bright sun of the Paris summertime had seemed only to tease her with impossibilities. She could almost feel the heavy oppression of the darkened rooms, the apartment swaddled as though in mourning.

Alva shook her head. The strength of the memories had been worse since she’d returned to America, seemingly waiting for her at every turn. Right now she could have sworn she’d caught a hint of Alain’s cologne, lavender and rose, custom blended for him by the House of Guerlain. The sickly sweetness of it had clung to her clothes and possessions for weeks after leaving, haunting her where once it had been part of the fabric of her existence.

Enough of all that. Alva lit the lantern she’d brought, froze briefly while she waited for a ghostly hand to snuff it out, and stepped briskly into the room.

Sam had moved his equipment, so the only things left in the room were the covered mirror and the pile of lumber. He’d taken the lunch pail away, she noticed. She gave the mirror a wide berth—after all, she’d already walked through the front door. She didn’t need to prove her bravery further.