The Only One Left by Riley Sager

NINE

I’m not surprised to discover that there’s no TV in my room, either. I’ve seen enough of Hope’s End to know it exists mostly in the past, from the antique box of a phone I spotted in the kitchen to the old-timey toilet in my bathroom, which can only be flushed by yanking a pull cord. While I don’t mind not having a TV—I never watched much anyway—I am glad I brought plenty of books.

I set the box of them on the floor and open it up, wondering if I have the energy to try to cram them onto the already-full bookshelf. Spending the day caring for Lenora while subconsciously overcompensating for the leaning house has left me feeling sore and exhausted. Being a caregiver is hard work. It uses muscles you never know you have until that first day spent with your first patient.

Or maybe it was talking about my mother that’s left me exhausted. It usually does. Speaking about what happened gives weight to the bad memories, making them feel raw and recent. Right now, I’m so burdened by them that instead of unpacking the box and my suitcase, I’m tempted to collapse into bed and not wake until the sunrise peeks over the horizon. But then I hear a sharp rap on my bedroom door. Mrs. Baker, I assume, ready to either criticize, chastise, or inform me of something else I need to do.

Instead, it’s Jessica I find standing in the hall. Gone is her uniform, which has been replaced by stirrup pants and an oversize Madonna T-shirt. The jewelry remains, however, jangling as she offers a happy wave.

“Hi,” she says. “It’s Kit, right?”

“Right. And you’re Jessica.”

“Jessie. Only Mrs. Baker calls me Jessica.” She starts fiddling with one of her bracelets. “Anyhoo, I just wanted to officially welcome you to Hope’s End. The name fits, by the way. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

I force a smile, even though her joke is more alarming than amusing. For the umpteenth time that day, I wonder what, exactly, I’ve gotten myself into.

“You settling in okay?” Jessie asks.

“Trying to.” I gesture to the suitcase on my bed and the box of books on the floor. “I haven’t had a chance to unpack yet. Lenora—Miss Hope—kept me very busy today.”

“You can drop the whole Miss Hope act around me. It’s only Mrs. Baker who cares about that.” Jessie puts her hands behind her back and stands on her tiptoes. “But since you’ve been busy, I guess you don’t feel like getting a tour of the house now.”

“Mrs. Baker already showed me around.”

“This is an unofficial tour,” Jessie says. “The murder tour. Mary did it for me when I first got here. She said it was good to know where everything went down that night. Who died where. That kind of thing.”

“That’s very nice of you, but I think I’m okay,” I say, repelled by the idea. It’s bad enough knowing what happened here. I don’t need details. “I was hoping to avoid those places.”

Jessie shrugs. “Fair enough. But how do you plan to avoid them when you don’t know where they are?”

A very good point. For all I know, a member of the Hope family could have been murdered in this very room. But that’s not the only reason I decide to take Jessie up on her offer. Between my father and Lenora, I’ve spent so much time with people who can’t—or won’t—talk back that I’ve forgotten how nice it feels to converse. Especially with someone under the age of sixty.

“Fine,” I say. “You can show me. And then I’ll know to never enter those rooms again.”

“Impossible,” Jessie says with an impish grin. “One of them isn’t a room.”

She sets off down the hall, going in the direction of the Grand Stairs. I follow, trying to keep quiet, even though Jessie’s rattling jewelry makes her sound like a one-woman wind chime as we pass Lenora’s room. Music drifts from behind the closed door of the room next to it. Something jazzy and old that takes me a moment to recognize: “Let’s Misbehave.”

Jessie lifts a finger to her lips and mouths, Mrs. Baker.

I slow my steps, moving on tiptoes. Even Jessie quiets down, walking with her arms outstretched to keep her bracelets from clattering. She stays that way until we reach the top of the Grand Stairs. I head down one side; Jessie uses the other.

“How do you like it here?” she says when we meet again on the landing.

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“Totally,” Jessie says. “But it’s not so bad. Have you met Carter yet?”

“Yeah. On my way in.”

“He’s, like, totally dreamy, right?”

“I guess,” I say, even though I’m in agreement there.

We stand in the shadow of the stained-glass window, its colors muted by the darkness outside. Directly beneath our feet, an unruly red splotch two shades darker than the surrounding carpet takes up most of the landing. Earlier today, I thought it was caused by light streaming through the stained glass. Standing on it now, though, I see it for what it is.

A bloodstain.

A big one.

I leap away from it, onto one of the lower steps, where I find another, smaller stain. And another on the step below that. Hopping to the foyer floor, I stare up at Jessie and say, “You could have warned me.”

“And miss that reaction? I don’t think so.”

She descends the rest of the stairs, stepping on several more bloodstains in the red carpet and making me notice a pattern to the splotches. It looks like someone bleeding profusely had tried coming up the Grand Stairs before being stopped at the landing.

“Evangeline Hope,” Jessie says, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. “It’s assumed she was stabbed in the foyer, tried to escape up the steps, and was stabbed again on the landing, where she bled out.”

I shudder and turn away, looking instead to the large front door leading to outside. “Why didn’t she try to leave?”

“No one knows,” Jessie says. “There’s a lot about that night that remains unknown.”

She starts moving down the hall on the right, the one that ends at the sunroom. We don’t make it that far. At the halfway point, just past Lenora’s portrait, Jessie stops at one of the hallway’s many closed doors. She pushes it open and flicks a switch just inside. Light floods the room, coming from both a green-glass fixture on the ceiling and matching sconces on the walls.

“The billiard room,” she announces with an enthusiasm usually reserved for tour guides who really, really love their job. “Where Winston Hope met his end.”

My first thought is that yes, this feels very much like a room where a man of Mr. Hope’s stature would die. The décor is brutish. Various antique firearms hang on the walls, along with the heads of animals that were probably killed by them. A lion. A bear. Several deer. A pair of matching leather armchairs sits atop a zebra pelt in front of a fireplace. On one wall is a rack of pool cues, although there’s no pool table to be seen. The only sign it was ever here is a rectangular path in the middle of the room where the floor has been worn down by well-heeled soles.

“What happened to the pool table?”

“Winston Hope died slumped over it,” Jessie says. “Since his throat was slit, I guess it was too bloody to salvage.”

I turn her way, startled. “The rhyme says he was stabbed.”

“Oh, he was,” Jessie says. “Once in the side, before his throat was slit. I guess that was too complicated to make rhyme.”

“How do you know so much about all of this?”

“Mostly Mary,” Jessie says. “She knows a lot about what happened that night. She’s, like, totally obsessed with the murders. I think it’s why she took the job, you know?”

I don’t. Other than my father’s house, this is the last place I want to be.

“Why did you take a job here?” I say.

Jessie gives a jewelry-rattling shrug. “This place seemed as good as any. I needed to do something, right? Work is work and money is money.”

Now that’s a sentiment I can get behind. I never thought I’d be a caregiver, just like I’m sure Jessie never thought she’d be cleaning a murder mansion. But it’s better than nothing, which is what I had before today.

With nothing more to be explored in the billiard room, we leave. Jessie cuts the lights and closes the door before taking me to the one across the hall from it.

“What’s in here?”

“A surprise,” Jessie says as she flicks on the lights, revealing a library. I take in the floor-to-ceiling shelves, a leather sofa, and two matching armchairs scooted next to a marble fireplace. On the mantel are three cloisonné vases in a matching pattern of ivory flowers and twisting blue vines. Behind them looms a large rectangle of wallpaper darker than the surrounding area.

“Did there used to be a painting there?”

“Yep,” Jessie says. “An original Winslow Homer, according to Archie. Mrs. Baker had to sell it years ago.”

I move to the mantel to get a better look at the vases. Hidden among the vines are tiny hummingbirds with little ruby dots for eyes. In the center of each ivory blossom is a circle of gold.

“Why didn’t she sell these, too?”

“Those are probably the last thing she’d sell,” Jessie says. “It might even be illegal. I think there are laws about selling dead people.”

I take a step away from the mantel, understanding my mistake. These aren’t vases. They’re urns. And inside are what remains of Winston, Evangeline, and Virginia Hope.

“Want to take a peek?” Jessie says.

“Definitely not. Have you?”

Jessie makes a face. “No way. It’s bad enough I have to dust them once a week.”

“I’m surprised they weren’t buried.”

“I guess it was easier to cremate them,” Jessie says. “It was more private. Kept the looky-loos away, at least. By then, Lenora probably knew everyone thought she did it.”

We’re near the door now, having both unconsciously drifted away from the urns. Being near them unsettles me. The problem isn’t what’s inside the urns. That’s just the dust and ash of three people. What bothers me is how those people died.

Tragically.

Violently.

On the landing of an opulent staircase, sprawled across a pool table, and in a place I haven’t seen yet but am sure Jessie will reveal next. To get it over with, I leave the library, with Jessie close behind. Back in the hallway, we pause at the portraits, three covered, one exposed. Although the hallway is dim, Lenora’s green eyes still gleam from the canvas, as if it’s been lit from the inside.

“Why do you think she did it?” I say.

“Maybe she didn’t,” Jessie says with a shrug. “I have a hunch it was Winston Hope himself. The murders took place the night of October 29, 1929. Black Tuesday. The stock market crashed, a bunch of rich guys lost millions, and the Great Depression began. That’s why not many people outside of Maine even know what happened here. Black Tuesday hijacked all the headlines. People were too worried about being poor to pay attention to Winston Hope and his dead family.”

I can’t blame them. As someone who is poor, I understand how it can eclipse all other concerns.

“I think Winston Hope knew he was about to lose everything,” Jessie continues. “Rather than live like the rest of us—which, let’s face it, totally sucks—he decided to end things. He offed his wife, then Virginia, then—” She mimes dragging a knife across her throat. “A good, old-fashioned murder-suicide.”

“But what about the stab wound in his side?” I say, before an even more logical question appears. “And why would he let Lenora live? And why wouldn’t she tell the police the truth?”

“And what happened to the knife?” Jessie adds. “Winston’s throat was slashed and Evangeline was stabbed multiple times, yet no murder weapon was ever found.”

“Which means it had to be Lenora. She killed them and tossed the knife.”

“That’s what most people seem to think.” Jessie tilts her head, studying the portrait as if she’s an art scholar. “And this painting does make her look capable of murder, doesn’t it?”

“So why wasn’t she arrested and put on trial?”

“There wasn’t enough evidence,” Jessie says. “They dusted for fingerprints, but there were so many from every family member and servant that it was impossible to tell who was responsible. With the murder weapon missing, there was no way to prove Lenora was guilty.”

“Or that she was innocent,” I say, fully understanding the hypocrisy of my counterargument. Lack of evidence is the only reason I wasn’t arrested and put on trial.

“True. Then there’s the idea that maybe she lied to cover for someone else. Like him.”

Jessie points to a signature in the bottom righthand corner of the portrait. I lean in and read the name scrawled in white paint.

“Peter Ward?”

“The artist. That’s Mary’s wild guess. She’s full of theories. Another one is that Hope’s End is haunted. She claims to have seen the ghost of Virginia Hope roaming the second floor.”

The chill I’d felt the first time I was in this hallway returns. Definitely not a draft. It’s too cold, too unnatural. Even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I can understand why Mary thought one haunted Hope’s End.

“Is that why she left?”

“Yes,” Jessie says, her voice going quiet. “I think she was scared. Hope’s End isn’t a normal house. There’s a darkness here. I can feel it. Mary did. And I think she couldn’t take it anymore.”

We head back down the hall, Jessie checking over her shoulder, as if something is lurking just behind us. At the Grand Stairs, I can’t help but take another morbid peek at the bloodstains in the carpet. From there, we move through the other side of the house, stopping at the set of double doors before the hall makes a right toward the kitchen.

“The ballroom,” Jessie says solemnly before pushing open the doors. “Where Virginia Hope died.”

She turns on the lights, which include sconces set between large mirrors on the walls and three chandeliers that droop from the ceiling. They’re enormous, with more than three dozen bulbs each. Half have burned out. Others buzz and flicker, giving the room a jittery feel.

While Jessie roams freely, I remain on the edge of the parquet dance floor, knowing that wherever I step might be the spot where Virginia Hope’s body once lay.

“Don’t worry,” Jessie says. “Virginia died up there.”

She points to the chandelier in the center of the ballroom. It hangs lower than the others and at a slight angle, like the weight of Virginia’s body partially tugged it from the ceiling.

“So the rhyme was right about that.”

“Yup,” Jessie says. “Hung her sister with a rope.”

I take a few cautious steps toward the center of the room to get a closer look at the chandelier. While it’s low enough to possibly reach with a rope while standing on a chair, I can’t picture a girl of seventeen doing it and then hoisting her sister high enough to hang her. It seems unlikely, if not impossible.

Then again, none of these murders makes sense, including where they occurred. Three deaths in three different spots throughout the first floor. If it was Winston Hope, did he hang Virginia first, get caught in the act by his wife, and stab her at the Grand Stairs before going to the billiard room to kill himself? Or was he killed first—by Lenora or someone else—and did Evangeline find his body, run to the stairs covered in his blood, and bump into the killer on the landing? Without knowing who died first, it’s impossible to tell. And none of it explains poor Virginia’s fate or the missing knife.

“I wonder why Virginia was hanged when the others were killed with a knife,” I say.

“You and everyone else,” Jessie says. “I guess we could always ask.”

“We could. But Lenora can’t answer. Even when she could, she didn’t say much.”

“I meant Virginia.” Jessie nervously twists one of her bracelets around her wrist. “What if Mary is right and Virginia really is haunting this place? If so, we could contact her spirit and ask what happened.”

“If only we had a Ouija board.”

I mean it as a joke. For one, I don’t think Hope’s End is haunted. Nor do I believe Ouija boards can contact the dead. But as soon as I say it, Jessie’s eyes light up.

“I’ll go get mine,” she says. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Jessie scurries off, leaving me alone in the ballroom, my reflection caught in the many mirrors on the walls. It’s dizzying seeing so many different versions of myself. Everywhere I turn, there I am. It makes me think of Virginia Hope swinging from the chandelier. A horrible way to go. Made worse by the fact that, if her eyes were open, she would have seen a dozen reflections of the life being strangled out of her.

I pray she kept them shut.

Above me, one of the bulbs in the chandelier Virginia hung from buzzes and brightens before going dark with an eerie, electric pop. While I’m certain the cause is ancient wiring and a bulb that likely hasn’t been replaced since 1929, I take it as a sign to leave the ballroom.

But as soon as I’m about to exit, Jessie enters, carrying a battered Ouija board. Atop it sits a wood planchette that slides around the board as Jessie moves, as if it’s being moved by invisible hands.

“Aren’t we a little old for this?” I say.

“Speak for yourself.” Jessie places the Ouija board in the center of the ballroom. “I’m young and stupid. At least, that’s what Mrs. Baker says. Now join me or I’ll tell everyone you’re a scaredy-cat.”

I do, more for Jessie’s benefit than mine. It must be hard being so young yet living and working in this big, old house. I suspect this whole tour was the result of her feeling lonely and wanting to make a new friend. I want that, too. My circle of friends had shrunk to the size of a dot before my mother died. After her funeral, I found myself with none at all.

We place our fingers on the planchette, and Jessie says, “Is there a spirit present?”

“This is silly,” I say.

“Shush.” Jessie stares at the planchette. “I feel something.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I said shush. Don’t you feel it?”

At first, I don’t. But soon the planchette begins to slide toward the word printed in the upper-left-hand corner of the board.

yes

Jessie gasps with delight. I roll my eyes. She’s obviously guided us to the word.

“Spirit, is there something you want to communicate to us?” Jessie says.

Once again, the planchette moves, slowly circling the same word.

yes

It continues to circle, even though the pads of my fingers are barely touching the planchette. Which means it’s still Jessie’s doing.

“Spirit,” she says, “please identify yourself.”

The planchette slowly slides to the center of the board and the two arched rows of letters printed across it. Unsurprisingly, it comes to a stop near the end of the second row.

v

Next, it slides to the letter directly above it.

i

The planchette then glides back down to the second row and the inevitable next letter.

r

“Quit pretending you’re not moving it,” I whisper.

“I’m not,” Jessie whispers back. To the empty room, she says, “Spirit, are you Virginia Hope?”

The planchette again moves to the upper-left corner of the board. Faster, this time. A sudden, startling jerk.

yes

Jessie looks at me from across the board. There’s surprise in her eyes—and just a touch of fear.

“That wasn’t me,” she says.

It had to be. I certainly didn’t do it. My touch on the planchette is so light it barely exists. But when I look down, I see that Jessie’s fingertips are also barely touching it. Yet the planchette still moves, sliding back and forth beneath the word yes as if trying to underline it.

Jessie gulps and looks to the chandelier directly above us, as if Virginia Hope is still hanging there. “Virginia, did your sister murder you?”

The planchette rockets to the other side of the board, zooming directly onto the word in the upper-right-hand corner.

no

The planchette keeps jerking forward, its tapered point stabbing at the word. Then it flies off the board entirely before skittering across the floor.

I jerk my hand away from the Ouija board as Jessie lets out a shocked cry. “What the hell just happened?” she says.

“That’s not funny.”

“But I didn’t do it! I was barely touching it! It had to—”

Jessie’s mouth drops open and her eyes go wide, startled by something behind me. I whirl around to face the mirrored wall at my back, expecting to see—well, I don’t know. What I do see is my alarmed reflection and, just over my shoulder, Jessie breaking into a wide grin she tries to hide by slapping a hand over her mouth.

“Not cool,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” Jessie says, laughing openly now. “But you should have seen the look on your face. I, like, totally got you.”

I stand and brush dust from the skirt of my uniform. “So what you said about Mary thinking this place is haunted is—”

“Totally made-up,” Jessie admits as she picks up the Ouija board and retrieves the planchette. “I was just messing with you.”

“Then why did Mary really leave?”

“I don’t know.” Jessie turns off the lights and leaves the ballroom. I follow, closing the doors behind me. “One day, she was just . . . gone.”

“Weren’t the two of you close?”

“I thought we were,” Jessie says. “Close enough for her to tell me she was leaving, at least.”

“And no one else knows why she left?”

“Nope.”

We’re in the kitchen now, Jessie heading to the service stairs and me leaning against the center counter. “Aren’t you worried about her?”

“A little,” Jessie says. “But Mary’s smart. And normally super responsible. I know she wouldn’t leave like that without a good reason.”

“Do you think Lenora had something to do with it?”

“Like Mary was scared of her?” Jessie shakes her head. “No way. She adored Lenora. I think she left because of a family emergency or something. Her parents live in the next county. One of them probably got sick and she had to leave, like, immediately. I’m sure she’ll reach out and tell me what happened when she gets the chance.”

I hope that’s true, for Jessie’s sake. But I know from personal experience it doesn’t work that way. When I left a patient to care for my mother, a replacement for me needed to be arranged. I didn’t just leave in the middle of the night like Mary did.

“I should get back to my room,” Jessie says with a tiny yawn. “I’m about to start recording a new book for Lenora. Lace by Shirley Conran.”

“I read it,” I say. “It’s good. Racy.”

“Awesome. Lenora loves racy.”

I wish her goodnight and stand for a moment in the vast, empty kitchen. I run my gaze along the walls, trying to estimate its size, which might be larger than my father’s entire house. This fact would have impressed the hell out of my mother. Not so much my father, who hates the rich almost as much as he hates politicians.

I touch the telephone, which is so old it could be in a museum. But it still works. Lifting the receiver from its cradle, I hear the steady buzz of a dial tone. Quickly, I dial my father’s number, rationalizing it by telling myself he’ll at least want to know where I am. According to the kitchen’s equally ancient clock, it’s just past ten o’clock, so I assume he’s still awake. Sure enough, he answers after three rings.

“Hello?”

I say nothing, the urge to speak fleeing at the sound of his voice. In the background, I hear a woman talking. It might be the TV. Or it could be his new girlfriend, allowed to stay the night now that I’m not there.

“Hello?” he says again. “Who is this?”

I hang up and back away from the phone, worried he’s certain it was me and will now try calling back. An impossibility. He doesn’t know where I am or the phone number for Hope’s End. And since he didn’t want to talk to me while I lived with him, I see no reason why he would now that I’m gone.

The only thing I’m certain about as I head upstairs is that at least now my father knows how it feels to be met with silence.