Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) by Elizabeth Alix Read Free Book Online

scheme.
    Backing the car out of the driveway, she drove back to Main Street. It was still early, but the tourists were clearly out and about, taking up parking spaces everywhere. She managed to get one within a half block of the Brown’s hardware store and considered herself lucky. A couple of hundred dollars later, Marianne bought several gallons of high quality primer, paint, and other supplies and loaded the car with the help of the salesperson.  
    She was sweating freely by the time she’d unloaded the car into the living room of the house. Today was going to be as hot as yesterday. Luckily the house retained the coolness of overnight and was still comfortable. The two rooms at the back of the house were the least crowded, and she decided to start there. She’d never painted while she was married. Geoffrey would have had a fit. He always hired menial jobs out and seemed to take pleasure in being able to gripe about how poorly it was going.
    After her divorce, Marianne moved to her own place and ended up painting over the last renter’s color choices—black and red and silver—and learned quite a lot. So, she set up in the office and got to work. The faded and scuffed institutional green would be replaced by an off white with a touch of brown. She plugged in the little clock radio, turned on the classic rock station, and spent the morning preparing the room. A wooden kitchen chair served as a step stool for now. Oscar came and went as he pleased.
    It was strange that Mrs. Thomas had said the neighbors were difficult. Marianne hoped she would get along with them fine. She’d begun to meet people in her last apartment building and had gotten along even with the more eccentric ones.  
    After she’d been at it for a while, smiling as she listened to Oscar racing up and down the corridor, she heard him come tearing into the room. Moments later she felt like someone was looking into the room from the door and turned to see. No one was there. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Oscar crouched and lashing his tail, staring at the door warily. The radio chose that moment to break up in static, crackling and hissing. She got down off the chair and turned it off. Her ears buzzed and hummed in the silence.  
    “Is someone there?” She called out. The Internet installer was due tomorrow. Could someone else have strolled in without her hearing? She couldn’t see down the hall from here, so she went to look. No one was there, though she passed through a chilly zone near the door as if the A/C was on. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The house didn’t have a cooling system.  
    Okay, she told herself, that’s weird. She returned to the office and saw that Oscar was no longer staring fixedly at the doorway. He had relaxed and decided on a nap amid the folds of the tarp. The sense of coldness was dissipating, and she went back to work, spackling dings and nail holes in the plaster while the radio played tunes from the eighties. She would have to let it dry before she could put the primer on.  
    After lunch she moved into her bedroom and began repairing holes in the flat, oatmeal colored walls. By the time she was done, the room looked like an abstract painting. ‘Bird Poop on Sidewalk,’ she thought, grinning.  
    The office was ready to paint, and she sang along to classic rock tunes as she slowly turned the room a neutral flat white. She’d gotten most of the way around the room and was back at the doorway when the radio crackled loudly again, and she felt a shock of intense emotion. She cringed and shivered in the suddenly cool air, and she was reminded forcibly of Geoffrey in an ugly mood. I guess he’d hate this color and hate that I’m working like a day laborer, she thought shakily, trying to explain her sudden fear.
    Another part of her countered, where did that come from? He’s not here. He is no longer part of my life. I don’t care what he thinks. I do my own work, and I get to paint