There was definitely a scream and at a higher pitch that most people would be comfortable admitting to. Maëlle was fairly sure it hadn’t been her scream. Or rather, Maëlle was fairly sure her’s hadn’t been the only scream. There was some girl standing in her study, standing over her. She’d been standing over Maëlle! With, of all things, a cell phone.

“Get out!”, screamed Maëlle.

Max was frozen, what appeared to be a pile of clothes now seemed to be a person in an over sized hoodie, her dark face still hidden in shadows. The person was screaming for her to leave and her own fright at suddenly discovering a person set Max off step and flooded her brain with diverse commands making her hesitate to follow the stranger’s orders. She was about to follow the loudly issued command out of sheer instinct when a giant curling motion caught her eye in the dim light of the cell phone.

“A snake! Look out!” shouted Max, scrambling the opposite direction, which put her partially behind the desk. The owner of the over sized hoodie followed suit with a stilted lunge towards the door. The “snake” followed her, and as it passed closer to the faint light Max took in a more comprehensive look at the hoodie owner’s true appearance, gasped and took another step back.

If Maëlle’s own keen inspection of the floor didn’t confirm the misunderstanding, this stranger’s face did. Her obvious horror soon drew Maëlle full focus. They may have been frozen in such a position for a good deal longer, had not the phone’s screen naturally turned off from lack of input. The lighting change naturally drew Max’s eye to the forgotten device, but the flick of the eyes to the feared piece of technology, meant so much more to Maëlle. With a scuttle, Maëlle pounced on the offending device, pulling it from Max’s hand, and held it accusingly towards Max.

“Did you take pictures of me?” she demanded, eyes wide and hands shaking.

“No, no,” said Max advancing with hands up in a placating gesture. “I was only using it to see, I promise.”

Maëlle looked between Max and the cell at a anxious pace. “No, I don’t believe you,” she said fumbling with the security controls, “you have to delete everything.” The phone’s screen refused to respond to Maëlle’s clumsy fumbling and a grimace was deepening on her textured face while her eyes got wider. Maybe it was the extremely high pitched squeal of fear, maybe it was the feminine voice, or maybe the rather desperate attempt to operate technology past her ability, reminiscent of the very elderly, or extremely young, Max found nothing to fear from this stranger who was now violently shaking her cell phone.

Calmly, Max said, “Why not let me open the phone, and I can show you there are no pictures ...”

Her sentence was interrupted as Maëlle rumbled in frustration and threw the cell straight to the ground at her feet, breathing hard, lower lip thrust out, hands balled into fists on the hem of her hoodie, and glaring at Max defiantly through large tears.

Exclaiming, Max jumped for the tech as it bounced once and landed face down between them, finding, that either the carpet was truly plush in this room, or the adult sized five year old before her was surprisingly weak, for the cell phone screen was still intact. It still made Max indignant.

“What did you do that for,” she asked.

“You’re not supposed to be here, get out!”

“I know I’m not supposed to be here, I’m sorry I was just looking around.”

Maëlle wiped the tears away with her sleeve, crossed her arms and unconsciously stood a bit taller, “You can’t just walk into houses, its trespassing and I want you to leave or I’m going to call the cops.”

“It’s trespassing if someone owns the place, you obviously don’t own this place. It’s a dump, covered in dust, and has no electricity,” said Max slightly calmer now.

Maëlle jaw dropped open in surprise, and Max tried not to feel uncomfortable as the hoodie slid back more, revealing Maëlle’s bald head and the strange ridges on her scalp . Maëlle grabbed a remote from the nearby table aimed it the wall and clicked a button, causing the room to flood with noise and light from the twinkly gleam of a toothpaste ad, “see?” Maëlle mocked triumphantly. “It’s my house, now get out.”

Max noticed the other accusations went unchallenged which gave her the idea. The thing about ideas is, if you’re really emotional and don’t think about them too hard, any idea seems like a good idea. Perhaps it is just the brain being a bit too self-satisfied by what it does innately. Either way, the next sentence out of Max’s mouth was neither, well planned, wisely decided on, or wholly logical.

“Let me be your housekeeper.”

There was a long, strange pause of confusion and disbelief for both parties involved.

“No, get out!”

“No, listen I’m a great worker. I can clean, do laundry, cook. I’m a pretty good cook. I could even run errands for you, I have a car. Groceries, dry cleaning,” she trailed off a bit on that one, it seemed far fetched, “whatever!”

In her excitement she was slowly advancing on Maëlle smiling in what she hoped was a friendly and trustworthy way. Maëlle retreated further into the room, “No, I don’t want any of that I just want you gone.”

“You won’t even know I’m here, I’ll be like the cleaning fairy, you’ll only see vacuum tracks and the distant scent of pine.”

Maëlle stopped and stood her ground, towering over the smaller figure, crossing her arms again and with more whine than command said, “You have to leave now. Right now.”

Max spread her hands palm up in front of her, smiled and nodded, before turning and walking to the door. There, she stopped and called back, “I’ll sleep in my car tonight, and we can talk over it some more tomorrow. My name’s Max, yours?”

Maëlle sprinted for the door awkwardly and slammed it close, “Just go away now!”

Maëlle was still slumping against the office door when she heard the front door also close, causing her to jump up, and run and lock it. She then skittered upstairs to her own room to pace. Maëlle had no idea how to deal with the problem that had invaded her house. She wanted to go back to sleep but found her blood boiling and a growing headache only irritated her more, so she paced back and forth until she wore herself out and laid face down on the dirty carpet to moan her misfortune. Everything seemed to be getting worse and worse for months. Food was running short in the house, the kitchen odors were becoming so obsessive that Maëlle was certain she’d be able to smell it from the rooftop in another day, and there was laundry to be done. Maëlle did realize she needed looking after, but this? A new person in the house after so much time was terrifying. The best thing would be to wait until she could think and then she’d call Colefax up and make him deal with the problem. Maëlle was just thinking she ought to get up and lock the bedroom door before she drifted off to sleep again.

Maëlle woke up the next day and couldn’t remember why she was on the floor. The quiet hum of the upstairs washing machine quickly reminded her of Max’s insistent request the day before. Maëlle sprang up quickly and locked the bedroom door as footsteps began walking back and forth across the hallway. Once they faded Maëlle found her cell phone on the bedside table. It was dead. Maëlle spent a while searching for the power cord calmly, but then found shouting and throwing clothes about fit more with her mood until a knock silenced her.

"You OK in there?"

"YES!"

The footsteps retreated again and Maëlle found the power cord also on the bedside table a minute later. She called Colefax’s office, which was naturally closed being seven pm, so Maëlle tried the cell number. Colefax had just answered when the footsteps returned and seemed to actually be staying right in front of her bedroom door! Of course Maëlle didn’t realize it was Max sorting the extensive pile of clothes Maëlle had accumulated between her door and the adjoining bathroom, but it made her paranoid enough to hang up the phone. Maëlle had no intention of making her unexpected employee mad before she had also arranged her to be out of the house first. So Max continued to make the house livable. She already had spent the afternoon removing rotten food and waste from the kitchen and adjoining dining room and sorting most of it as needed for garbage pick up. Once her own things were installed in the downstairs bedroom she’d also cleaned dishes and pans and in the process discovered the kitchen did come with multiple counter tops, an island, and a kitchen table and chairs. The next immediate task was to clean her own bedding, for who knew what had been sleeping in it, and while doing so found the pile of Maëlle’s dirty clothes actually obscuring most of the upstairs hallway. She could tell Maëlle was holed up in her bedroom, but that just meant she wasn’t being kicked out yet which equaled a win in her book. Maëlle could come out anytime she chose, and fire her, until then Max was only doing what she was hired to do, or at least hadn’t been told not to do yet. When Max finally collapsed into bed that night it was about the time Maëlle crept out of her bedroom to inspect the results. She couldn’t fault the job itself though she found herself irritated and indignant for being caged into her room all day. And there was still nothing to eat. She figured it would be best to let the kid stay until she at least went to the grocery store and got some food for Maëlle. Maëlle made a list, adding light bulbs with a grimace as she remembered Max’s earlier accusations on electricity, and left it on the table along with a credit card she fully expected Max to steal, before running out the back door.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3