Wanted

Dalton

The cigar room on the second floor has been untouched since the early 1930s. The moth-eaten fabric that covers the furniture smells sharply of damp and mildew, and the once lively floral wallpaper is peeling from the walls, revealing horse-hair plaster beneath. 

I huff a breath as I look around, the darkened corners of the wide, square room beckoning to me. I ignore it, like usual, but that creeping sensation licking up my neck continually steals my attention as I lay out sheets of plastic across the mahogany floor and prepare to repair what wallpaper I can salvage. 

I’m not sure how I got into this line of work. My dad had been a contractor, and since it had just been me and him growing up, I spent a great deal of time following him from job site to job site, mingling with the various tradesmen and technicians he worked with day in and day out. He got a job in the Garden District in New Orleans–fixing up an old Greek Revival mansi