Maggie Krell hastened down the deserted corridor of the Candlewick Inn. She barely registered where she was going as a thousand and one things occupied her presently frazzled mind. She was expecting a rather large party on the morrow and she was personally overseeing everything to make sure all went smoothly for her guests.
She had been rather astonished when she had received word from Henry Dunn a couple of months back. He had called to say that he was getting married and that his fiancée, Trish, and he wanted to have their wedding on the island. Which meant they would need a classy location to house the guests for a week. Maggie had jumped at the happy news and had quickly gotten to work readying the Inn and planning the wedding. She remembered him from when he was younger and he ran around with the local kids on the island years ago. She had practically watched him grow up alongside his brother, JD, and Abby, Kelly, Jimmy, Shane, and some of the other kids.
Maggie paused at the bottom of the stairs leading from the second to the third floor of the Inn. She smiled fondly at one particular memory she had of the local kids. It was during the Christmas season one year and the kids had been itching to do something fun. Henry and JD had come over from the mainland to spend the winter break from school with their friends from the island, but as there had been a consistent snowfall that year, they were restricted to indoor activities. The Candlewick had been closed for almost four months (since the end of the season in the beginning of September), but Maggie had been inspired to reopen the Inn for a Christmas extravaganza for the kids. It had been held two days before Christmas (or, what the kids liked to call "Christmas Eve Eve"). The day had started with the ultimate hide-and-seek game which kept everyone entertained until the early hours of the afternoon, after which there had been more sedate games in the main rooms of the Inn.
Maggie shook her head as she remembered how she had been patrolling this very hallway (due to the size of the building, the adults had taken it upon themselves to make sure the kids were well looked after). She had been casually pacing the corridor when Abby Mills had come blasting around the corner with Henry in hot pursuit. Maggie might have been alarmed if they had looked angry, but they were laughing and shouting in delight, so Maggie allowed them to pass with only minor calls to them to be safe and not to break anything.
Realizing the amount of work to be done for the out-of-season party, Maggie quickly returned to the present. Glancing down at the to-do list in her hand, she practically ran up the steps to the third floor. It was already way past sunset and Maggie had only to check the guest rooms one more time before returning home for the evening.
:: ~*~ ::
Maggie had just exited the last guest room when she heard a faint noise coming from inside the room. Peering back inside, she flipped the light on and gazed around the normal looking room. Even though nothing looked out of place, she had an uneasy feeling that someone was watching her.
As she was about to leave the room again, a slight ruffling of the bedside curtains brought her attention back into the room. Forcing a dry chuckle from her lips, she marched over to the window, only to find it open and a chilled breeze wafting through. She couldn't recall the window having been open when she did her walkthrough, but it was late enough and she was tired enough, that she probably just missed it.
Grabbing a hold of the window, she struggled for a few minutes to get it to come down and, as it was sliding closed, she spied a figure standing in the shadows just outside of the Inn. A shiver ran down her spine as she recollected that she was the only one still at the Inn, therefore, good or bad, she had to confront this person herself. The figure was standing there so calm and motionless that Maggie wondered what they were waiting for. In the dark recesses of her mind, she half imagined some crazed lunatic sneaking up behind her while his companion watched below. The thought was enough to make her turn around and peer into the corners of the room. Seeing nothing, she turned back towards the window.
She had started to open the window again, in order to holler down at the figure to see what he or she wanted, when she was startled to discover that they were gone. Glancing at her watch, Maggie saw that it was just past eleven. Shrugging her shoulders, she didn't put it past her to have imagined the closed window and the dark figure. She wasn't a big fan of crime drama television, movies, or books, but she had encountered a few here and there and they had left their marks.
Even as she locked up the Inn and started home, Maggie couldn't shake the dark and foreboding feeling that had seized her mind.