The noise in my head drowns out David's words as the blood rushes to my extremities, preparing my body to fight or run away. I'm on my feet and heading for the kitchen door before he is even done talking.

Belle!" he exclaims, grabbing me away from the door I opened, pushing it shut against the rain invading the kitchen's warmth. I try to shove him away, but he is too strong for me. The arms locking around me, crushing me against his body, are powerful and unyielding, and it suddenly dawns on me that I wouldn't stand a chance against him if he turned out to be evil and wanted to hurt me.

It makes no sense for my heart and body to react to that strength in the way it does, melting into it, embracing it, relishing it. I am a fool to feel this safe when the man could probably obliterate me if he wanted to. That is exactly why I'm feeling this warm wave of well-being flood over my senses, bringing my heart back from its flight and stopping the droning noises in my ears. David is strong, and he will always use that strength to protect me.

I know that with a certainty beyond any I've ever experienced before.

"We can't stay here if there's someone in this house, David," I try to reason with him, but what are the alternatives?

"I know," he whispers into my hair. Sensing that I've calmed down a little bit, not fighting him anymore, just anxiously casting glances around, searching for movement where there shouldn't be any, he lets me go and guides me back to the chair I've knocked over in my hurry to run away. With one hand, he plucks it off the ground and puts it back into position and with the other, he settles me on its seat while sitting down on the chair next to it, all the time keeping my hand locked in his.

Holding his hand is warm and comforting; I never want to let go of this hand with the long, strong fingers wrapped around mine.

"The reason why I didn't want to say anything at first is that I managed to shove whatever it was away and burst out of the room, and there was nothing. Nobody. Only your screams, coming from downstairs." He swallows, his nostrils flaring with emotion. 

"Hearing you scream like that and being unable to get out of the room was just..." he shakes his head, closing his eyes for a few seconds, and I can feel his fingers tremble. "Yeah, I didn't take a good look around; I just ran to find you, but if there really was someone, they couldn't have disappeared that easily and that quickly..."

He sucks in a deep breath and levels his gaze on me, his eyes boring into mine.

"Belle, you saw people hanging a man..." I nod, confirming his statement. "Can we agree that that definitely did not happen... at least not tonight?"

Swallowing, I nod my head again. It clearly didn't, or the man would still be hanging there. Nobody took him down while I was lying in the foyer; he was just suddenly gone. 

"Can we also agree that it is not possible for the man that was hanging there to be the same one who dragged you down the stairs?"

"Yes..." I can see that it cannot be possible. "So... What are you saying?"

"Perhaps you fell and passed out and-."

"People don't scream when they're passed out." I did not pass out and imagine the whole ordeal... I might've imagined some of it, but not all of it.

"No, you're right, they don't, but..." he pulls a face, unable to think of a more plausible explanation. "What exactly do you remember?"

"I was sketching the outlines for my next painting when I heard a crash; I thought something happened to you, and I ran down the solarium steps, and someone knocked me down and dragged me."

"Was it Hugolin?" he asks, narrowing his eyes and peering at my face.

"No, it definitely wasn't Hugolin; he would never hurt me. It was the man who stabbed me..." That, right there, is the biggest problem with this story. "The man who wasn't really there before... You were there when he stabbed me, and you saw nothing... and there were no wounds... This makes no sense..."

"Perhaps it was a residual memory or something. A strong one..." David suggests, but he does not look even remotely convinced.

"A memory so strong, it dragged me from the bottom of the solarium steps all the way over the landing and down the stairs to the foyer?" Nope, there is no memory strong enough to achieve any of that, and David lowers his head to look at his fingers weaving themselves with mine. His hand is large, tanned and calloused; mine is white and fragile-looking in contrast, safely embraced inside his.

"We need to go look at what you drew," he says, trying to find a practical angle from which to handle this bizarre situation.

"I really don't want to..." 

I don't think he really wants to do that either because he is not pulling me up and taking purposeful strides to the front of the house; he just continues to sit with his head down, studying our fingers as if he finds the sight mesmerizing. I know I find it mesmerizing, but then again, I find everything about this man mesmerizing.

"So... we both heard a crash," he finally says, lifting his head to look into my eyes again.

"Yes, our stories do seem to have that in common."

"I didn't see anything that would account for that crash," he frowns, thinking about it. "Nothing fell over or broke or anything... but I didn't really look... I should take a better look."

He can try to get up and go off to take that look, but I'm not letting go of his hand. For a few minutes, I try to replay the crash I'd heard in my mind to see if I can place the noise and recognise a possible cause, but I can barely form the sound in my memory now.

"Why are you so sure that it's not Hugolin? Did you see him clearly?" David asks after a long silence, during which I thought he was trying the same experiment as me, but apparently, he was obsessing about his ancestor. "How can you be so sure that he would never hurt you?"

"Come on, David," I sigh, smiling at him, but my smile feels slightly brittle. "I felt Belle's heart; you must've felt Hugolin's. Did he feel like he would hurt anybody?"

His eyes shy away from mine, the muscles of his jaw flexing in his agitation.

"I felt my own feelings for you, Luna, not Hugolin's feelings for Belle."

"Feelings that strong after only a couple of days?"

He shrugs, wiping a hand through his hair.

"All I know is that hearing you call my name in so much terror and being unable to get to you was enough to make me lose my mind... Luna," he says, finding my eyes with his again and holding them unblinking. "It was not just the normal kind of compassionate reaction any man would have, hearing someone call for help; it was so much worse."

He reaches out, stroking a hand over my damp hair, his eyes dark pools reflecting the warmth of the kitchen light. "It sure as hell wasn't Hugolin Chevrette-Bellier's feelings I felt. The man died over 90 years ago. Those feelings were mine." He swallows, his voice turning breathless and hoarse with emotion. "I cannot lose you..."

His touching words pierce my heart, crawl inside and make it their home.

I understand what he means. For me, too, Hugolin and David are two completely different people, and only one of them has my full heart. This man, whose warm hands gently trace the contours of my face while he looks at me as if I'm something valuable to treasure, is the owner of my heart.

"You cannot possibly be real, David," I tell him, an uncomfortable knot forming in my throat. "You're too perfect. I know I'm lying close to death, curled up in a hypothermic ball in the little room that keeps on disappearing, and my mind is escaping by dreaming of you."

"Are you dreaming this too?" he asks, taking my hands from his chest and lifting them between us to show me my injured fingers.

"Apparently..." I whisper, wondering how bad my situation would have to be for my brain to think dreaming of throbbing fingertips would be a great way to escape from the harshness of reality.

"I'm far from perfect, Luna," David assures me.

"Name one thing about you that's not perfect," I insist, honestly unable to think of even one.

"Well," he thinks about it for a few seconds. "There's the fact that I'm cross-eyed."

"You're not," I scoff, slipping my hand from his to push at his shoulder. "Besides, that would not be a big flaw."

"You didn't say it had to be a big flaw; you just said it had to be an imperfection."

I focus my eyes, looking deeply and objectively into his, startled when he pulls his eyes so that one looks straight at me while the other looks at his nose.

"You're right," I laugh, shrinking away from him. "You're not perfect; you're a dork!"

"Yes, I'm a dork," he chuckles. "I also tend to have the attention span of a guppy, which is why there are so many unfinished tasks in and around this place."

"Oh!" I giggle, surprised to hear that. "I thought you liked variety and were cycling between tasks. I have seen you returning to previous ones."

"I assure you, Luna, there's no system there," he says with an earnest expression that makes me laugh again. "Oh! I leave the toilet seat up all the time," he offers another unforgivable flaw, and I roll my eyes, unimpressed.

"I know how to put it down."

"Well... and this is a really big one," he assures me. "I am a 27-year-old hormonal, somewhat perverted high school boy."

"Excuse me?" Now, I'm just confused.

"From the first second I saw you when you tried to throw some juice at me, and every second after that, I've wanted to kiss you every single time I see your face or hear your voice. There is nothing I want to do more than that," he says in a voice filled with husky earnestness. "Even now, sitting in this kitchen with the storm going nuts outside and the house hanging around full of secrets that are apparently hell-bent on destroying us, all I want to do is hold you in my arms and kiss you until we're both senseless, Lunabelle Emmerson."

"I rather like that flaw, David Sterling," I assure him, feeling breathless due to his confession. I might be a hormonal school girl too, because I can feel unwelcome giggle explosions bubbling up inside me, and they are hard to suppress. "I would love nothing more than to be senseless... on purpose... because you kissed me..."

As I gaze into David's eyes, the fear and anxiety start to fade away, replaced by warmth humming in my heart, lulling me into a dreamy state. I think I'm sleep-deprived at this stage; it must be past midnight. I'm drained, and in the aftermath of the terror from earlier, I'm feeling sleepy, my brain foggy and longing for escape.

I didn't think I would ever feel sleepy again, not with dread gnawing at my intestines, but the sensation has dulled down considerably and sitting here with my hands in David's, gazing into his face, feeling my heart skipping beats as my eyes trace his lovely features, I no longer think that I really was dragged down the stairs by my ankle any more than I'd seen a man being hung from the rafters.

It's not possible. The man who stabbed me wasn't here to do it; the one dragging me wasn't here either. I probably fell down the solarium steps and was disoriented and in a trance again and then stumbled and fell on the main stairs, sliding on my back, trying to grab onto something to stop my fall. Some of what happened could've been the reality of me falling, and some could've been a dream.

Who knows? Maybe I'm even dreaming now...

I stop thinking altogether when David leans closer, slides a hand from my cheek to my neck and captures my lips with his. All thoughts and sounds drown out, fading into the distance; all I'm aware of is the softness of his lips, the warmth spreading from where they're caressing mine to encapsulate my entire body, enclosing it in a cosy bubble of safety and longing. Groaning, I lean into him when he wraps his arms around me, pulling me from my chair onto his lap to fulfil his promise of kissing me senseless.

He is doing such a good job of it. There is only David and me, our racing hearts and ragged breaths, and the thunderous rain against the windows, accompanied by the soft, tentative sounds of piano keys coming from the front of the house.

With a shocked gasp, I jerk away from David, once again staring into eyes so black, I can see myself reflected in their sheen.

"A mouse," he says hoarsely after about a minute of looking as startled as I'm feeling while I hold onto him, staring into his eyes, trying to clear my mind and understand what I'm hearing.

"Interesting mice you have here," I whisper in a voice, almost completely gone now between my screaming from earlier, the sheer bliss of the kiss and the fear gaining a stranglehold on my throat again.

"There's a piano in the library," he informs me, swallowing convulsively. "There must be a mouse in it, chewing on the little cables that draw the hammers away from the strings. Or it's nibbling on the dampers. Mice have caused damage to many things in this house through the years. There's probably an entire family living in the piano."

"That does make a lot of sense," I breathe. "You need a cat. I know mice can wreak havoc on the delicate parts of piano keys."

"Yes, they can..."

"Except...

"This mouse knows Liebesträume..."

David leaps to his feet, holding me in his arms so that I don't end up on my butt on the floor, and once I'm standing, he takes off down the corridor to the foyer. I run after him, my heart lodged in my throat, trying to strangle me.

"David, wait!"

I catch up with him when he reaches the wall section with the secret door leading into the library, and I can hear the piano deafeningly loud now. It is no longer haunting and tentative; the piece has reached its crescendo parts, the house reverberating with the tune, grinding on my nerves. 

David presses the centres of various wallpaper flowers in sections of the wooden panels; some of them subtly sink inwards, and others are clearly wrong, but eventually, the door opens with a soft click. I grab hold of his jacket, following him through the curtains of cobwebs into the dusky interior. The only light is from the foyer, painting the dusty room in dense shadows.

As the final notes resonate hollowly in the atmosphere around us, I see the unmistakable imposing shape of a grand piano covered under a dust sheet near the ivy-covered windows. I really wish we'd brought the flashlight; the place is alive with the possibility of malevolence in every dark corner.

"Maybe it's one of those Pianolas that play by itself," I offer in a nervous whisper, though what we heard was an actual piano with a rich, full sound; I've never heard an automatic piano that sounded like that.

I would really love to turn around and go back to the kitchen now, but David is not afraid. I've only seen him afraid the few times he thought I was in danger or hurt, not when he thinks he can face an actual enemy. Right now, he has the same angry decisiveness I've observed a few times since I met him. 

If I were strong and had some big-ass muscles like him, I would probably not be this scared, either. I'm no Buffy Summers, that's for sure. I won't be worth much in a physical fight. I'll cry or die at the first punch, but give me a sarcastic show-down, and I'll take no prisoners.

David purposely strides over to the piano, and without hesitating, he turns on a large floor lamp standing near it. The brownish, tasselled lamp looks older than Methuselah, but it turns on immediately; it is, however, only able to carve a small area of illumination in the suffocating darkness.

In this small oasis of light, dust particles lazily drift in the air, and I'm, once again, burying my nose in the neck of my sweater to keep myself from sneezing. The piano stands amid these floating bringers of hay fever, and David unceremoniously yanks off the cover, showering the air in more glittering dust.

It is a beautiful dark wood piano, but it's had its share of hardships. Instantly in love, I involuntarily run my fingers over the smooth surfaces, loving the texture. It's been years since I last had my fingers on the keys of a piano. I'm terrible at playing it, but that has never stopped me from trying. I carefully open the lid and, positioning my hands, try to play a couple of scales to get a feel for it.

The piano's sound is dull and hollow, typical of an old piano in desperate need of care and tuning, and I hit at least three dead notes. Very disappointing. It hurts to hear such a beautiful instrument in so much pain. This is not the piano that just filled the house with the sounds of Franz Liszt's Liebesträume.

"Is there another piano?" I ask, wrapping my arms around one of David's, unsure if I'm hoping for a yes or a no, but either way, relieved when he pulls his arm free to wrap it around me and hold me tightly against him.

"No..." he starts to steer me back towards the foyer but suddenly stops, stepping away from me, peering up into the shadows of the study above us and in the furthest corners of the library. I nervously grab his hand, narrowing my eyes, trying to see into the gloom. I have no idea what he's looking at.

This was a trap, wasn't it? We got lured in here and will not be able to leave again. I dig my fingers into David's skin as I scan the library for any signs of an impending attack. The secret door into the foyer is still open, the warm light calling us to safety.

"David?"

"It's nothing, Luna; I'm just... so friggin' tired of this bullshit!" He started his sentence off calmly, bellowing the last word loud enough to make me jump and drop his hand. "Seriously! It's the middle of the bloody night! Keep the friggin' recitals for the daytime!"

I cannot help it. My nerves are stretched to breaking, and that last sentence of David, shouted in such a menacing voice into the dense shadows around us, suddenly has me giggling hysterically. He turns to me, looking surprised, and then he is laughing too. We laugh, and we laugh, our laughter stirring the myriad of silver particles in the air, making me sneeze and cough and hiccup and laugh some more.

I flee to the warm light in the foyer to catch my breath while David is brave enough to switch off the lamp before he follows me, closing the wall behind him.

Where to now?

"Let's go sleep in the truck," I suggest. I'm bone tired, overstimulated, covered in cobwebs, and my eyes are puffy from the dust. I've always had a severe sensitivity to smoke and dust and can already feel congestion building in my sinuses and a light headache knocking at my temples.

"No, Luna, I am not letting ghosts and memories and weird-ass shit steal this house from me. This place is my future. My home. I'm taking it back. We're taking it back," he says, and I can see by the determined set of his chin that I am not going to convince him to spend what's left of the night in the cramped confines of the cold truck.

I have two choices, I can either stand in the foyer all by myself, or I can allow him to lead me by the hand up the terrifying stairs.

"It's okay, Honey, I won't let anything hurt you," he says when I hesitate to climb the stairs, and I believe him. If our tormentors were wise, they wouldn't mess with David when he is on a mission, resolved to reach his goal. I walk up the stairs with him, clinging to his arm, searching the shadows as I breathe harsh breaths.

Nobody is hanging from the rafters when I finally dare to look up, and there is no lynch mob on the landing when we cross it to enter my bedroom. David locks the door behind us and hastily searches every possible hiding place, proving that we are quite alone in the room.

I don't argue when he pulls back the bedding and nods his head towards it, indicating for me to get into the bed. When he lies down next to me, pulling the duvet over both of us, I snuggle into his arms, nestling my face into the warmth of his neck, enjoying his manly smell and the vein pulsing against my cheek, letting me know that he is alive.

"We left all the lights on downstairs," I observe, and I can feel him shrug.

"I don't care," he grunts, making himself more comfortable.

"I've found your one flaw, David," I tell him, sounding rather pleased about it.

"Yeah?"

"You're extremely stubborn."

"Yeah," he chuckles, kissing the top of my head, "but I call it steadfast and tenacious."

As I feel my body relax and exhaustion taking its final toll, I hold onto David a little tighter, praying that when I wake up next, it will not be naked and alone in the little room that hasn't existed for at least nine decades.

☼☼☼

https://youtu.be/InKk1aowFZ4