It was early August, swelteringly hot, and I came home late at night. I'd been away for nearly two years at college, spending the summers there as well. I'd take the fall semester off and planning a simple few months at home, relaxing, running, and catching up on all the pleasure reading I'd been missing while I was studying.
My parents and my younger siblings, a brother and a sister, had all left for vacation - anything to dodge the heat. They'd invited me to fly out and meet them on vacation, but I was really looking forward to the quiet time at home. I have a tendency to drive myself pretty hard and though it served me well in school, lots of credits, good grades, it also required that I periodically took the time to just relax and balance the universe.
It was close to midnight when the cab dropped me off at the driveway. I enjoyed the familiar walk up the long curve, watching the house come into view through the trees. The house is an old Victorian, fully restored by my father as his retirement hobby. It's a big sprawling place, with four bedrooms on the first floor and six on the second. It is set on a full two acre lot and it's set toward the back of the lot. There is a detached garage, a gardners cottage, a tennis court and a pool and hot tub scattered over the grounds. I knew I would have the place to myself for a couple of weeks at least and I was truly looking forward to it.
I came in through the front door, reset the alarm system, and immediately headed for one of my favorite rooms in the house, the large turreted tower room on the north side of the house. There room was generally used as a day room, but, to me, it was one of the best places to sleep in the house. The room was a large octagon with vaulted ceilings and a narrow wrought iron staircase to the widows walk that circled the top of the turret. It was furnished with a pair of large couches, several chairs, two incidental tables, and an entertainment system. The five narrow walls facing outward contained ceiling to floor windows, with stained glass borders.
Being the part of the house farthest from the street, it overlooked the lake about a quarter of a mile away and allowed you to see the distant lights of the town that skirted the edges of the lake, glittering along the shores. There were half a dozen houses between our house and the lake, but they were all single stories, so they did nothing to restrict the view from the tower. One of the things I liked about the tower room in the summer was, when you opened all the windows, you might as well be sleeping outside and on this sultry night, that was exactly what I had in mind.