The Bed Remembers Who Slept Here

How it begins

The mattress held the shape of a sleeping person, although nobody had used the room in seventeen years.

Maren pressed her palm into the hollow.

Warm.

She checked the radiator. Cold pipe, stiff valve, paint bridging the join. Beyond the window, the sea moved under a lid of fog.

The hotel had hired her to restore twelve original mattresses before reopening. Horsehair, wool, hand-tufted ticking. Work worth doing properly. She had expected moths and careless repairs, perhaps a stain that required discretion.

She had not expected warmth.

In the corridor, Ivo's trolley stopped outside the door.

“Room ready?”

“Someone has been sleeping here.”

The night porter looked at the bed. His hand tightened around the trolley's handle.

“Which side?”

Maren pointed.

He backed into the corridor.

She followed him. At the far end, a door stood open where every door had been shut that morning.

“Who has the keys?”

“Reception.”

“Who else?”

Ivo did not answer.

Maren went to the open room. Its mattress had been stripped to the ticking. In the center, a shallow impression formed while she watched.

First a shoulder.

Then the gentle slope of a hip.

A smaller hollow appeared beside it, where a hand might rest.

Maren knew that hand. Her sister had slept with her palm open on the sheet, even in hospital, as if waiting for someone to give her change.

The mattress dipped farther.

Ivo stood behind her.

“Do not sit down.”

Maren had not noticed she was moving toward it.

From beneath the ticking came a soft exhalation. The room smelled briefly of her sister's lavender soap, a brand discontinued before the funeral.

On the bedside table, the telephone rang.

Ivo reached past her and disconnected the wire.

It rang again.

This time, Maren heard someone lift the receiver on the other side of the bed.