Free Traces by Betty Bolte Page A

running through the list she’d scrawled in the little notebook downstairs. But she’d added things to her mental list in the meantime. Sleep didn’t factor into her plans during such a ferocious storm, so she may as well accomplish something.
    Unplugging her laptop to guard against ground strikes by the frequent lightning, she lifted it off the rolltop desk. She looked at her options, having to choose between sitting on the straight-backed chair by the desk or the cushioned window seat. The storm raged outside the glass pane, but she walked toward it, defying her own fears. She perched on the window seat, the flash of lightning at her back, and settled the computer on her legs. Focusing on creating an actual list of people to contact in addition to the handwritten list of chores to do would help free her mind to think and provide a distraction.
    With the rain and thunder providing antagonistic background music, she quickly typed a new combined list of tasks, including conducting a complete tour of the premises. She worried about only one room in the entire house. She longed to but also dreaded going into the attic. To finally discover what currently hunkered in the shadows of the large space. Fifteen minutes later she reread her list, satisfied she had a good handle on the necessities of the effort. In order to meet her work commitment back home in Maryland, she’d have to press.
    Closing the lid, she put the device on the rolltop and strode into the bathroom to take a shower. Lightning flashed, followed quickly by a boom so loud she jumped, both hands flying to her throat. Better delay the shower with the storm so close. Once dressed, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and then padded down to the kitchen. Grizabella appeared from a side hallway, her whiskers trailing a cobweb remnant.
    “Looks like Meg has more work to do around here.” Meredith swiped the offending gossamer string from the quivering whiskers and then scritched the cat’s back before sliding a hand from the base of her tail to its tip. Griz circled and rubbed against Meredith’s legs, her tail curling around one of Meredith’s calves. “No time like the present to begin, eh, Griz?”
    After starting a pot of coffee to brew, she ate a cup of yogurt. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she found her earbuds in her purse and plugged them in. She turned on her personal mix of underground electronica and R&B so she wasn’t surrounded by silence or, worse, the memory of childhood laughter. The tunes made her feel alive and young, and best of all didn’t sound anything like the music she and Willy had enjoyed together. James Curd’s “Open Up Your Mind” had her bobbing her head in time with the beat and her hands shaking invisible maracas for a moment. Then, while the pot gurgled and coughed, she grabbed a notebook and pen and pushed through the hallway door, walking in time with the music.
    She’d avoided venturing into the attic the day Meg first showed up at her door. But the day arrived nonetheless. Delaying only created larger mental obstacles to accomplishing the necessary tasks. Surmounting the ever-growing hurdles must begin with the first step, literally. Resting her hand on the newel post, she gazed up the flight of stairs, took a breath and let it out slowly, and then started to climb. Griz sashayed into the hall and sat at the bottom of the flight, gazing after her with curious eyes. Meredith turned at the first landing and began climbing the second flight to the attic door hiding in the dimly lit stairwell. She made a mental note to add a light up there, perhaps a battery-powered stick-on kind.
    One step at a time she neared the closed door, her imagination spinning yarns as to what lay behind the barrier. As a child they had looked forward to the infrequent times they could play in the attic, considering it a place of mystery and adventure. Of ghosts and spirits of times past. Now she needed to keep a firm grip on her sensibilities