I ring again. Nothing.
The cold and wet has numbed me almost to my core, but worry begins to seep in. What if there’s no one here? What if I’m at the wrong house? What if the entire upscale nanny agency was a setup, and I’m being filmed on some kind of terrible Netflix mockumentary about how desperate poor people are to find a job?
No. Listen, I tell myself. They probably can’t hear the doorbell over the storm.
This time I knock, but the heavy wood seems to stifle the vibration. It might as well be made from the same stone as the rest of the house for all the sound it makes.
I try to shield my phone from the rain with my body. I don’t have the latest fancy waterproof Apple device. Mine is the free-with-twelve-month-contract phone. With no signal. Don’t panic, Janey girl. That’s what Dad used to call me. I can still hear it sometimes, even if the voice is probably made up and sounds nothing like him.
If I’m in the wrong place, with no lights for miles around me, high in a mountain, and no phone signal, I would sit down in the sludge and cry.
Therefore, that can’t be happening.
I have to believe that the Rochester family of two is inside this house.
It’s only a matter of getting to them.
Four floors rise above the tallest point of the mountain. There isn’t a strong light to let me know that someone’s home, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty anyway. The house has a sort of melancholy presence that makes me feel like someone’s inside.
I head for the side of the mansion, dragging my suitcase behind me. If no one’s answering the front door, there’s probably someone in the back.
As soon as I round the corner, I realize exactly how massive the structure is. It stretches along the cliffs in rows of dark windows across a pale stone face. The farther away I get from the gravel road, the more rocky the terrain becomes. I squint down at my feet, trying to make sure I stand on grass or rock. The mud itself is too slippery.
That’s what I’m doing when I hear the roar of an engine.
I jump back as white lights blind me, moving in wild arcs across my body, across the building. It’s a car. It’s a car! And it’s coming for me. I scream and back up against the wall as if it can somehow protect me from the careening vehicle.
Lights flash and flicker. The stone is freezing cold through my clothes.
And then stillness.
As suddenly as the headlights appeared, they stop moving.
I’m still pinned against the mansion like a butterfly in a frame, but at least I’m still alive. A car door slams, and then there’s a large shadow looming over me.
“What the fuck are you doing? You could have been killed,” says the shadow.
Somehow his voice booms over the rain, as if it’s above ordinary things like the weather. I open my mouth to reply, but pinned butterflies can’t speak. Everyone knows this. Shock holds my throat tight even as my heart pounds out of my chest.
“You don’t belong here. This is private property.”
I swallow hard. “I’m Jane Mendoza. The new nanny. Today is my first day.”
There’s silence from the shadow. In the stretching silence he turns into a man. A large one who seems impervious to the cold. “Jane,” he says, testing my name. “Mendoza.”
He says it with this northeastern accent I recognize from the Uber driver. Mend-ohhh-sah. In Texas, most people were used to Mexican last names. I’m wondering if that will be different in Maine. Maybe I would do a better job of defending myself if I weren’t about to get hypothermia, if I hadn’t just traveled two thousand miles for the first time in my life.
All I can hear are the words you don’t belong here.
I’ve never belonged anywhere, but definitely not on this cliffside. “I work here. I’m telling the truth. You can ask inside. If we can get inside, I’m sure Mr. Rochester will tell you.”
“He will.”
I can’t tell if it’s disbelief in his tone. “Yes, he knows I’m coming. The Bassett Agency sent me. They told him I’m coming. He’s probably waiting inside for me right now.”
“No,” he says. “I’m not.”
My stomach sinks. “You’re Mr. Rochester.”
“Beau Rochester.” He sounds grim. “I didn’t get an email, but I haven’t checked lately. I’ve been busy with… other things.”
I fumble with my phone, which is incurably wet at this point. “I can show you. They sent my resume. And then the contract? Well, that’s what they told me anyway—”
He’s not listening. He turns around and circles back to the driver’s side of the vehicle, which I can see now isn’t a car, but is instead some kind of rough-terrain four-wheel thing. There are apparently no windows, only metal bars forming a crude frame. The kind of thing a rancher might use to move around his property or a good old boy might use for recreation.