Page 76 of The House on Prytania
“Fine.” I bent down so I could fill my glass from the large bottle dispenser ubiquitous in New Orleans homes. When I’d straightened, I started to walk out of the kitchen the way we’d entered. I was almost at the stairs when I realized that Beau wasn’t behind me. I retraced my steps, but Beau wasn’t in the kitchen, and I would have seen him if he’d walked by me. The only other way out of the kitchen was out the back door. More than a little annoyed, I walked past the banquette and into the adjacent morning room that contained three walls of windows but no doors.
I stuck my head around the corner. “Beau?”
I was already headed back toward the kitchen when I heard him call my name from behind me. I startled, my hand flying to my throat as I spun around. “Where did you come from?”
“The hidden stairs behind the wall.” His face was serious, but his eyes made it clear he was messing with me.
“Of course,” I said. “The hidden stairs. Because according to Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo, all old houses have at least one set.”
“Something like that.” Beau slid his finger along the thick chair rail on the wall without windows until I heard aclick. A small portion of paneling popped open, revealing a set of worn wooden steps, faded dips in the middle of each stair where over a century of feet had landed.
“Servants’ stairs,” I said, an educated guess based on the hundreds of historic houses I’d studied during the pursuit of my master’s in preservation.
“Good guess,” he said. “But I bet you’ve never seen a set like this. They were altered at some point since the steps don’t lead to any living area anymore, and the hidden door was added. Which probably sounds strange to you until you actually see it for yourself.”
Intrigued, I followed him up the narrow stairwell with plastered walls until it reached a landing with one door in front of us and one to the left. The only light came from the open door behind us. Beau rested his hand on the knob of the door in front. “Be prepared to be amazed.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said.
“Yeah, but this time it’s for real.” He held the door open and waited. Just as I reached him, he said, “Watch where you step.” I turned my head to where our noses were almost touching in the small space, and I could see his eyes laughing.
I stepped through the narrow door and immediately felt the chill of an unheated attic. A wide footpath of unstained wallboards crossed over the studs and ended on the far side of the attic. There were no handrails, which reminded me of pictures I’d seen of workers on high-rise scaffolding, their legs dangling into the abyss below.
Beau stepped through the doorway and moved to stand next to me. “Hold on to me, and then look down.”
My instinctive response to Beau telling me what to do meant that I immediately looked over the edge of the wooden path. The disorientation hit me right away as my eyes attempted to adjust to what seemed like a fun-house mirror on the floor. I knew my feet were on the ground, but my mind didn’t agree, thinking instead that I wasriding a wave on a surfboard. I started swaying, tilting more and more to one side despite my matter-of-fact mind insisting that I needed to stand up straight or I’d fall. Yet my body kept tilting, one foot letting go of the walkway and then the next sending me toppling over the edge.
CHAPTER 25
Beau’s strong hands grabbed my arms from behind, immediately pulling me back onto solid ground. At least physically. “You might want to get your hearing checked, Nola. I told you to hold on to me before looking down.”
I gave a quick nod, too shaken to say anything.
“I’ll keep holding on to you, but when you’re ready, look again. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
I took a couple of deep breaths before looking over the edge again, and then a few more as I registered what I was seeing. The floor beneath us was only about a foot away. It also wasn’t actually a floor. “It’s...” I began, unsure how to explain what I thought I was seeing.
“You’re looking at the reverse side of the dining room ceiling mural. It appears to be painted on the ceiling, but it’s just canvas that’s been ingeniously installed to look like paint on plaster. In daylight, and at night when the lights are on, you can see straight through to the people eating below. And the acoustics are so good you can hear people whispering to their tablemates.
“When Mimi had her dinner parties when I was a little boy, I’dsneak up here after I was supposed to be in bed and I’d spy on her and her guests to see when dessert was served. That always meant that it was time to sneak down the secret stairs and into the kitchen, where Lorda would make a plate for me with extra dessert.”
“Why is this even here?”
“I would bet that the idea came from my grandfather’s brother, who had the mural painted. My great-uncle had a lot of questionable friends and business associates, including Antoine Broussard. When I discovered this space as a kid and told Mimi, she wasn’t surprised. Spying on guests was exactly the kind of thing people would have expected my great-uncle to do. What I don’t know is if my grandfather ever knew it was here.”
I thought of the all-seeing eyes in the hall portrait, and the failed attempt to send him into the light. “My guess is that he did. From what I know of him, he doesn’t seem to be the type of person who would miss much.”
“Let’s go,” he said, gently placing me in front of him. “I’m going to keep my hands on you to guide you until you’re safely out of the door. Please notice that I didn’t pose that as a question.”
Even though I was grateful for the steadying pressure of his hands, I still looked back at him so that he could see my frown. As soon as we were out on the landing, he dropped his hands and turned toward the second door.
“I’ll go first. Just in case there are critters. Dead or alive. I haven’t been this way in a while, so there’s a good chance there’s something here that shouldn’t be.”
I wondered if he might not have been referring to the nonliving invaders, but I didn’t want to ask in case he told me.
Beau opened the door and revealed another set of steps. He began climbing them, and I followed him up to another dark room like the one we’d just left, with exposed rafters and beams, except this flooring covered the entire space, negating the need for a walkway.
“We’re in the attic space above the upstairs hallway, in case you’rewondering,” Beau said, reading my mind. “And no, there aren’t any peepholes into the rooms below. None that I know of, anyway.” When he looked back, he was grinning, which meant he was joking. I hoped.
