Chapter 4

That stunned me. She wanted to learn from me?

“But Candice, I’m pretty sure that you are a little older than me. I don’t know what I can teach you. You already have three more degrees than I do!”

“You’ll catch up with me, I’m sure,” she held out her hand. “Come with me and I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“I know this old house pretty well.”

“No you don’t,” she said with a sly smile. “Come with me.”

I took the hand Candice offered to me, finding it to be soft, firm, and warm. She pulled me to a standing position and we walked out of the office and into the library.

“I’ve spent a good deal of time in this room,” I said with a tinge of nostalgia in my voice.

“Me too, Mick. As a matter of fact, I’ve watched you sit in here and read quite often.”

“How? You and I have never been in this room together.”

“No we haven’t been IN this room. However...”

Candice walked over to one of the book shelves and reached up around the trim of one particular section. There was a soft click and the shelf section moved away from the rest of the shelves. It slid back and then to the left, leaving a large open doorway. Candice led me through the opening, explaining as she went.

“This is the observation passageway. From here someone can observe people in the library, the kitchen, the foyer, even the bedrooms.”

“No! Really? But why?”

“I’ll get to that eventually. But for now let’s just say that I spent a good amount of time watching you in the library. Here look at this.”

She led me next to the open shelf and pressed a hidden catch, causing the shelf to return to its normal position. She pointed back at the closed shelf and the entire back of the shelf was transparent! I was looking through it like it wasn’t there.

“Oh my. You watched me like this?”

“Yes. You would sit for hours and read every Louis L’Amour book James had. Did you know that he finally had purchased every book or short story that L’Amour had written? He did that just for you.”

I remembered sitting and reading those Western adventures for hours. I learned about doing what was right because it was right from those books. I learned to respect evil but to fight it where ever I encountered it. My tears returned.

“Here, Mick,” Candice said and I turned to find her hand, covered in freckles, holding a tissue. I dabbed my eyes and looked down into Candice’s very large soft brown eyes.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the passageway and to the other doors. The catch to open them is located in the same place so you don’t have to remember the layout of the entire house.”

We walked around the passageway and if not for the right and left hand turns I would say it was winding. We stopped at each place where someone might observe, in secret, what was going on in the opposite room. Then we came to a split in the passageway. The main portion continued straight ahead while just to the right was a staircase going up. She led me up the stairs and we came to the bedrooms. When we got to the room I normally slept in I came to a screaming stop.

“Wait!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Look! That is my room. You can see it clear as day.”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever watch me at night?”

“Yes.”