Even As We Breathe

by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

  I’d be eating better than any American I knew. The country was experiencing noteworthy rationing of the rich ingredients I readily found on my dinner plate. While fresh vegetables were nothing new, most families in the area having productive gardens and at least a few farm animals, I had to wonder if ordinary citizens were conserving so that stateside soldiers and their prisoners did not go without.

  I sensed that Essie had noticed my arrival, even if she was careful to offer no physical evidence of it. She hadn’t hurried out the door, so I took that as a sign that she wouldn’t mind too terribly if I joined her at her seat. As uncomfortable as Sol had made me earlier, I was glad that I had more news to tell her than just the trite and boring recollection of a day’s work. I sat my plate on the table and slid down the bench, planting myself directly in front of her.

  “Hiya! How was your first day?” I forced a smile.

  The ridge of her brow pinched, but her eyes did not move from her plate. “Sure. You can sit here.”

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.”

  “My day was fine. And yours?” Essie focused on the potato sculpture she was making with her fork.

  “Pretty good. You know. Pretty much what you’d expect. Did hear some interesting stories, though.”

  “Oh, did you?” It was obvious that she didn’t believe me. She looked tired. Or annoyed. Probably both.

  “Yeah, guy stuff. You know.” I crunched down on the juicy chicken, grasping for a napkin to catch the grease before it dripped from my chin. “You jusff stay mmnnsfide?”

  “What? For Pete’s sake! Chew your food.”

  I blushed through my tea glass. “Sorry.” I dabbed my mouth with the napkin. “You stay inside all day?”

  “Yes, looks like I might get out to the porches some, but I’ll be mostly cleaning guest rooms.”

  “Oh. Are they … I mean, do you have to …”

  “Don’t worry. They’re never in there, far as I can tell. We have to make sure the sign is not on the door before we go in, and we have to knock, too.”

  “Oh, good.” I reached for the saltshaker.

  “How about you? You see the guests at all?”

  “No. Not really. Don’t have time to. We were outside all day pretty much. ’Cept for cutting through the lobby once … which I will never do again.” Essie looked up. “That private was still there. He’s a real jerk.”

  “Oh, yeah. You need one of these. Then you can go another way.” Essie pulled a small iron key from the pocket of her white smock. “It’s a skeleton key. It’s supposed to unlock any room I need to get in. One of the other girls said it probably unlocks some of the doors I don’t need to open, too.” She smiled, twisting the key between her fingers.

  “Let me see that.” I reached out across the table.

  “No way. Do you know what trouble I’d get in? The shift manager says I can’t tell anyone I have it. Military doesn’t know we have them. They say it’s bad for security purposes, but the girls say our job would take three times as long if we didn’t have ’em.” Essie looked down at the key in her palm as if she held tangible power. She wrapped her delicate fingers around it and secured it back in her pocket. She smiled at me, tasting a small bite of potato from her fork. “I think I’ve already found a room they don’t even know about.”

  I swallowed hard and almost covered my chest in potatoes as I leaned toward her. “Really? How you know?” What I wanted to ask was why she thought she should tell me if she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Instead I assured myself that my imagined answer was far more satisfying than the truth. I also couldn’t help but wonder how she even had time to find another room on her own. I could barely keep in step with Lee’s to-do list.

  “There’s just too much for all of us girls to do. No way we can even work in pairs.”

  “I think that’d be safer.”

  “Oh, stop worrying. Anyway, I went up to the fourth floor and noticed my list had left off a room around the corner at the end. I think it must be one of those odd-shaped rooms.” She moved her fork through her potatoes as if she was drawing a map. Unsuccessfully, I tried to follow the gravy-laden path. “You know, when a building isn’t exactly rectangular, you’re going to end up with some odd rooms. I almost missed it at first. It doesn’t even have a room number on it.”

  “Did you ask the shift manager about it?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  I had no idea why she’d do that. I would. I’d ask everybody of authority I could find, most likely. But that was me, and I was pretty sure that that was most certainly not Essie. However, since the moment we got in the car together earlier in the day, I had been wrong about her.

  “Essie. It’s day one. Don’t do anything to get yourself fired already.”

  “You mean, don’t do anything to get you fired.”

  “That’s how it goes in places like this. Heck. I drove you here. Of course they’d send me down the road just as quick as you. Especially in places so tight on security and all. And look at us. It’s not like we’re like the rest of the help. Just be glad most of these guards are still trying to figure out what an Indian is. We so much as drink from the wrong fountain in front of some of these folks and that’s the end of this job.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to push my luck.” She rose from the table and walked to the coffee urn. I pretended not to watch as she poured herself a cup of steaming joe, stirring in cream and a teaspoon of sugar. She returned and slid into her seat. “Still.” Essie took a sip. “What would it hurt if we just opened the door? It’s in a corner that I am sure no one looks.”

  “We?”

  “Well, if you don’t want to go …”

  “It’s not that. I surely wouldn’t let you go alone. But still, it would be twice as bad if they caught us both and the guys were saying …” Essie leaned in, smiling. I tried not to get pulled into those brown eyes. They threatened, like bottomless pools, to pull me under. “Ahh. It’s nothin’. I just mean, let’s just say the guys talk about some of those rooms. You might be surprised who you’d find behind locked doors, that’s all.”

  “Cowney. Is this another ghost story?”

  I laughed and then stopped myself. “No. No ghosts or vampires. Let’s just say it seems like everyone around here likes his privacy and it can be hard to come by. You girls may not be the only one with a key like that.” I blushed at my own insinuation. When Lee and Sol told me about the other men and their conquests of sorts, it all seemed so—I don’t know—hopeful, I guess. That the workers could find more than just work here. But with Essie sitting squarely across from me, her eyes now so focused and serious, it all seemed stupid. Just more bullshit to complicate the rules of this place. Was I really going to tell Essie that she had one more thing to be afraid of?

  “Well, I’ll be. I didn’t get that part of the tour today.” Essie raised her eyebrows, further reddening my cheeks.

  “Don’t say anything. You know how fellas talk. Probably not even true.”

  “Just so you don’t get the wrong impression, Cowney Sequoyah. I want to see what’s in the room. You are welcome to join me. But let’s be clear. You and I going into that room is not what your fellas are talking about. I am not that type of girl. I’ve seen some of these chambermaids and …”

  I held up my palms in front of her. “I gotcha. Trust me. That’s the farthest thing from my mind.” Of course it wasn’t. Hadn’t been since Lee told me about secret rendezvous earlier in the day. But I was darn clear on where Essie stood and that anything between us, other than friendship, was more than a long shot.

  “When were you thinking about going?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “What!”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “You know, most people come from a ways to work at a place like this, they tend to be homesick. Spend the first week crying into their pillow. Too afraid to even talk to folks.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Was that on your agenda?” She
cocked her head. “Like I said, you don’t have to go.”

  “I’m just saying this seems a little quick. Don’t you want to check things out a little more?”

  “Thought that was what we were going to do.”

  I shook my head and was disappointed when she started stacking her dishes and cutlery.

  “I guess I better enjoy not doing the dishes tonight.” She rose to take them to the kitchen.

  “What do you mean?” I questioned her. “You’ve got all summer.”

  Essie let out a harsh laugh, one that made me feel like a rookie sitting on the sideline of some ill-defined game. “Well, all summer for you. They told us girls this morning that we will take turns with all the staff upkeep duties. Cooking. Cleaning the dorms. Luckily there are enough of us that we get a week off here and there.” Essie smiled slyly. “So, are you coming with me tomorrow?”

  “I don’t get it. Why are you so intent on going into some mildewed old room?”

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “What?”

  “Anything. Anything someone doesn’t want me to see.”

  I collected my dishes and followed her to the kitchen. She placed her dishes in the stack beside the large sink. A clumsy matron jerked mine from my hands. Essie swung open the kitchen door and I trailed her back through the open hall.

  Before opening the door to exit she turned to face me. “We shouldn’t leave together. It looks inappropriate.” Essie scanned the dining hall. “Meet me at the cellar door on the west end of the lobby at 6 tomorrow evening. Most of the guests will be out of the hallways. If you’re not there, I’ll just assume you aren’t coming.”

  I shook my head and walked back into the hall, feebly searching for a reason to justify my lingering.

  The whole next day was a slow grind. I was tired. And hungry. And thirsty. Sol’s constant complaints about my work hit my better sense of reason at just the wrong angle. He was a crow, I quickly recognized. Cackling crows chase—no, terrorize—the hawks over the fields. There are almost always two or three crows circling the poor, though obviously stronger, hawk. That was Sol, a crow. I was too out of place for him. Didn’t look like him and that ensured harassment in his book. He was constantly looking for the other crows, expecting them to be there, but they weren’t. It was just me. I knew they weren’t because every time I stepped into a building or turned a corner, I would make sure I knew exactly where every guest, every uniform, every worker placed themselves. I would know how many steps stood between each human being and myself and which ones noticed my existence. I would note every beautiful woman and each serious-faced man clutching her. I would notice their almost carefree children stumbling after them. I would notice who noticed whom. Which men looked at which women. Which adult looked at which child and how they looked at him or her. The whispered rumors of the missing children still tortured my thoughts, so I made sure to notice. And while I’d never consider my will or strength that of a hawk, I could surely scare off an annoying crow flying solo.

  Ten minutes before Essie’s meeting time, I lay motionless on my tiny brass-framed bed, staring at the planked ceiling. I wondered about Essie. How could a girl be both a master fisherman and grammar prude? How could she speak so boldly to men in uniform and seek out secrets in new forbidden places? How did she arrive with such assurance on her very first day when I was still too cautious to even enter the main building willingly? I thought about the children I saw on the property and how they, too, played freely as if they weren’t caged between swaths of barbed wire and military khaki—about a little girl with a purple ribbon in her hair who smiled at me each time I passed, acknowledging our shared space.

  I was bored and anxious and could not imagine Essie wandering the halls of the inn alone. Surely she has no idea what she is about to do. At that thought, I bolted up and slipped out the door before anyone could notice.

  “You came,” she whispered as I crouched down beside her at the cellar door just outside the entrance to the lobby.

  “I couldn’t let you go by yourself, now, could I?”

  “We’ll see how brave you are when we get inside. Don’t rush it,” she coached. “Remember what they say; good things come to those who wait.” Her smile inspired every imaginable obedience in me except the deference to wait. I watched as she inhaled and walked through the doors.

  How someone from such a very different place could feel such a right to go where and when she pleased, I did not know. I still really don’t know to this day where Essie’s wellspring of certainty came from; but wherever that place is, it must have transferred from her fingertips to me, because I did exactly as she instructed, took my own deep breath, and walked into the inn like I had every right to be there.

  I tried not to run as I chased after Essie, up the staircase and into her hidden corner of this mysterious estate. Unsure if she was leading us into a wonderland-style dream or a nightmare, I followed with every ounce of courage I could muster. I tried to slow my pace, to assure her that I was only there for her protection, but my mile-wide eyes and breathlessness surely gave me away.

  The steps trembled beneath me as the shrill wail of a siren swept down the narrow passageway. I’d never heard such an alarm. I slid down the wall and sat on a step, certain that I would soon be met by a host of guards. My head dropped onto my knees.

  “Come on!” Essie bounded back down the stairs and tugged at my arm. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t you hear that? They must know—”

  “Of course they don’t. It’s probably just some drill. Listen. Do you hear anyone coming?”

  “No. But what if there’s a fire or something?”

  “Get up now.” Essie shot me a warning and bounded, two steps at a time, up the stairwell. I had no other choice. I stood and ran after Essie as quickly as my body would allow.

  We slipped behind the hall’s final corner in unison. Doubting I could have found my way alone, I was positive that I could now not leave without her navigation.

  Before us was a door. Just a door, no different from any other in the hall. Essie was right. There were no longer brass numbers like on the other doors, just faded wood outlining 447. Essie held up the key. I turned and craned my neck around the corner to confirm no one else was in the hall.

  “Oh, come on. No one is coming.” She elbowed me in the shoulder. “I just hope it fits.” Essie inserted the key, paused, inhaling, and turned her wrist. I silently prayed against the sound of a click, but to no avail. The lock gave as if it had been awaiting the key’s arrival for decades, centuries, surely since the beginning of time. “Okay, ready?” she threaded her arm through mine.

  I pulled the Rayovac flashlight, given to me by Lee, from my hip pocket and clicked it on.

  “The bulbs must be blown,” Essie surmised, as she fidgeted with the closest wall sconce. I scanned the room slowly with my flashlight, terrified of what might be illuminated. “At least it looks like we’re alone. Stay here. I think there are more bulbs in the supply closet.” Essie bolted from the room before I could protest. The room was cold, even drafty, which further concerned me as it meant something was open to the night air. The floor was the same wooden planked floor as the inn’s lobby, though my feet stumbled across some sort of rug as I scooted inside. I scanned the ceiling, fearful of squirrels’ nests or perched bats. The light reflected from a large chandelier, twinkling back like a visual wind chime of moon’s glow. It brought a strange magic to the room, both hopeful enchantment and mysterious wonder. I wanted to be there, to see more. Not prepared for a solo exploration, I also wanted Essie to return immediately.

  “Got one!” Essie announced, far too loudly, as she entered the room again. She leaned in the door, removed the old bulb, and screwed in a new one. The light flickered on, seemingly as eager as I was to bring light to the space. “Let there be light!” Essie threw her arms out wide. I crouched a bit, still wary of varmint settlements yet to be exposed.

  The room glowed. We st
epped onto an oriental rug, dulled and worn thin. I expected a typical guest room, but there was no sign of a bedroom suite. Instead, a threadbare velvet chaise anchored one corner, and two leather couches, divided by a small, scratched cherry coffee table, faced each other in conversation. In front of them was a still-sooty stone fireplace with wooden mantel framing it from above. On the mantel, a golden clock, time frozen at 12:27. There was a tall brass lamp stand in another corner of the room, no bulb or shade attached. Half-filled bookshelves flanked the fireplace, indicating that this might have been a small library at one time.

  “Perfectly cozy,” Essie remarked.

  “Perfectly eerie, maybe.”

  “It’s just a room. Just an empty space. Nothing scary about nothingness. It’s the ‘something’ you ought to be afraid of.”

  “I didn’t say that I was afraid, Essie.”

  She paused for a moment. It was the first time I had addressed her using her name. She took it in like I had spoken it in some foreign language.

  “Well, anyway. I think it is a fine place.”

  “Now that you’ve seen behind the curtain, are you ready to go? I can still hear the alarm.”

  “Oh, Cowney. What’s the rush? It’s early. You know good and well that if we go back now, we’ll both just lay around listening to someone snore. And if that alarm is anything to worry about, we’ll hear people on the floor soon enough.”

  I sat down on the couch and wove my fingers together behind my head. “Okay, but much longer here and you are going to be listening to me snore.”

  “Surely there’s something interesting here.” Essie ran her hands carefully along the bookshelves and began pulling open the doors of the cabinets below them. Dust rose and dispelled into the darkness. “Here we go!” Essie held a tin box above her head. “I think we’re in luck!” She blew the dust from its raised lid design and placed the box on the coffee table.