Dear Diary,
Tonight, something stirred that hasn’t stirred in a while. And no, I don’t mean Tiger’s appetite for anything not shaped like a perfectly symmetrical tuna medallion. I mean something at the Delecroix Mansion. Something… flickering.
It started just after midnight, when Tiger insisted on his “Evening Perimeter Patrol”—which is less of a walk and more of him being carried around the neighborhood like the world’s grumpiest royal infant. He refuses to set paw on the sidewalk after dusk, citing “dew concerns” (his words, not mine—but I can tell that’s what he’s thinking).
We were passing the gates of the Delecroix estate—those enormous, wrought-iron things that creak even when there’s no wind—when I saw it. A light in the east wing window. Just one flicker. Then darkness.
Now, let me be clear. That wing is supposedly sealed. “For storage,” according to the family. “No one’s been in there for years,” says Walter Hargrove, who knows everyone’s business whether they want him to or not. But I know what I saw. And more importantly—Tiger knows what he smelled.
He growled. Tiger does not growl. At least not unless faced with a vacuum, Pearl Baxter’s perfume, or a particularly assertive squirrel. But tonight, he let out a long, low, suspicious rumble from deep within his fluff. Then he flung himself into my arms with dramatic flair, as if to say, “Get us out of here, woman, before the wallpaper starts whispering!”
We made it home with no further incident, but I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts kept circling that window. That light. That wing. There are too many stories about that house to dismiss the strange so easily. Not after what happened in 1970. Not with the Delecroix secrets that still rattle around town like wind in the old bell tower.
I made a cup of chamomile. Tiger stared at the window. I took notes. He knocked my pen off the table. Twice.
Was it just a forgotten lamp on a timer? An overactive imagination fueled by midnight air and too many true crime paperbacks? Or something… else?
Tomorrow, I’m going to pay a friendly visit to the Historical Society. Just to look into old floor plans. And maybe ask Walter some very casual questions over lemon bar bribes.
Tiger will be coming with me, naturally. He’s far too invested now.
—Lydia
