Chapter 1 - Grandfather

The rain started so suddenly Claire barely had time to get in from the porch and close the doors behind her before the downpour delivered a deafening drum solo on the roof. Claire’s grandfather was rushing through the house, as he used to do under these circumstances, closing up doors, windows and shutters and making sure everybody was inside, safe from the storm. The young woman smiled, tracking his movements through the house by the noises he made - feet shuffling on the floor, sounds of doors opening and slamming behind him, footsteps up and down the stairs, the screech of the attic ladder being dragged on the floor in the hallway upstairs. 

Claire’s grandfather was a force of nature, he blew rather than walked through the doors, in a motion more akin to a rushing wind than to a living breathing person. He never closed a cabinet or a drawer, and when he moved through a room small napkins and pieces of paper which happened to be left on the table got caught in his draft like leaves in the wind, stopped from trailing behind him only by the doors which invariably slammed shut after he walked through them. Claire didn’t even realize how much she had missed those noises. She spent a few minutes listening to this symphonic racket like she would to a fine piece of music, failing to notice she was standing in the alcove between the mirrors again.

The storm intensified, heavy with lightning and thunder, blowing the rain in horizontal bands and prompting Claire to rush over and close the storm shutters which had been left open. The light in the house dimmed to almost dusky levels as bruise colored clouds crowded the sky, so thick and so pregnant with rain they almost dragged on the ground.  As she moved out of the darkened alcove she caught a glimpse of her reflections in the mirrors in a flash of lightning, and they appeared to be of a much older her, staring back with a knowing gaze that was simply annoying. Claire hesitated, waiting for the next flash of lightning in order to figure out what this was all about, but the next lightning revealed nothing other than her usual expression, if only slightly puzzled at the moment.

“Good God, I’m going to lose it one day!” Claire mumbled to herself, resuming her rush through the house to close the shutters, too late to prevent the pouring rain from reaching the wood floors. “Maman and her mirror superstitions! Now I have to wipe off all of this water!”

“Gracious, bebelle, if you open a door you must remember to close it behind you, not leave it ajar so anything and anybody can let themselves in! Look at all this water on the floors!” Grandmother protested and went to the kitchen to get a mop and a bucket.

Claire mumbled under her breath that her grandfather always left the doors open and nobody ever complained about that.

“He knows which doors need closing, he never leaves a door open that has to stay shut. And get out of the doorway.”

“Why is it bad luck to stand in the doorway?” Claire returned to the unsatisfied curiosity that had plagued her entire childhood.

“You should be either on one side of the door or the other, not in between. Besides, you’re blocking traffic.”

“But there is nobody else here that might want to get in, not in this weather, that’s for sure,” Claire replied, bewildered.

“You never know, there may have been,” Grandmother replied matter of fact, defying logic. Her face darkened for a moment and then resumed its usual expression. “Empty this outside, will you?” She handed Claire the bucket which was now half full of water and continued wiping the floors until they were completely dry.