Chapter 15 #2
“Where are my manners? I’m Mrs. Owens! Well, I mean, my sister was Mrs. Owens, I’m a Bernaden now, but my husband is gone and my sister is long since passed, god rest her soul,” she says, making a cross and giving me a sunny smile, “I help the kids run this place. It’s easier to think of me as Mrs. Owens when explaining the whole history to newcomers.
This is Owens’ House, you know how it is,” she tells me like I have any clue why this woman is claiming her dead sister’s name.
“And my nieces and nephews, well they’ve moved out of town, and left me as the caretaker, you see.
I run this place with my daughter, Jane. ”
I nod because I’m supposed to. “I see. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mrs.” I don’t miss the way she leans forward, waiting to hear what I call her.
Part of me thinks of calling her Bernaden just to watch her squirm but I don’t have the time for it today.
“Owens,” I finish and she all but claps her hands when hearing it.
“The pleasure is all mine, Julian. I spoke to your assistant Aubrey, which oh my gosh, what a delight she is. Such a sweet girl, sharp as a tack too, never let that assistant get away. Good help is hard to find these days.”
I nod again. It’s easier than speaking.
“Aubrey let me know you were all settled in. I hope everything in the house was to your liking?”
“It is. Thank you, I do appreciate whoever did the shopping.” Even if I didn’t need food to survive, it was easy to see whoever had shopped had gone all out to make sure only the best was in the house.
I hadn’t expected to find cheese from France or fresh baked bread, there was even a box of chocolate wrapped with a thick red velveteen bow that reminded me of Christmas.
I had hardly needed to supplement the food at all with my own shopping to make my stay believable.
“Oh my daughter Jane arranged that. She’s quite the connoisseur, she will be pleased you’re enjoying it!”
“Give Jane my thanks,” I say and glance over at Maris’ house.
I wonder if she’s watching me. If she is, I have no doubt she’ll know this woman.
I wonder what Maris thinks of her and her daughter Jane.
I scan the windows and sure enough I see movement in the kitchen window. There and gone in the blink of an eye.
She doesn’t want me to know she’s watching. The thought brings a smile to my face. Sweet Maris, she’s got a lot to learn when it comes to hunting and spying. I’m sure Aubrey would call it stalking if she knew what I was up to but that’s human sensibilities for you.
“Why, I bet she would bring a few extras for you while you’re a guest in our home.”
That snaps my ass back to reality real quick.
I shake my head. “That’s not necessary. I wouldn’t want to trouble your daughter. You’ve already been such gracious hosts. I couldn’t impose.”
She waves her hands at me, jewels sparkle and bony knuckles clench.
“It’s no trouble at all, dear!” She trills and takes an uneven step towards me.
“Why, I was coming here to invite you for dinner so it’s really no trouble at all, none.
I said to myself, Jennifer, you simply cannot allow that young dashing doctor to suffer in solitude at the old family home.
There’s so few in town that are your age you see and hardly any at all that are unattached. ”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“That’s because you’re newly arrived. You’ll see there’s not many eligible bachelorettes suitable to catch your eye but never worry, Jane is the perfect lady.”
My eye twitches when she says perfect lady.
If this desperate woman notices, she doesn’t let on, and I know why.
It’s because she doesn’t want to see it.
Humans are simple, they’ll lie to themselves even when the truth is right in front of them.
She desperately wants me to accept her dinner invitation to fall in love with her daughter.
I could let how I feel show on my face, could spell it out for her with a deranged song and dance and she’d make an excuse for me. Delusional to the core humans are.
“She sounds…pleasant.” I glance back at the house again. Maris is no doubt starting to talk herself out of letting me back in the house. The longer I’m away from her the smaller my window to worm my way into her life gets.
I clear my throat. “Mrs. Owens, it was great meeting you. I wish I could stand here all day and talk but unfortunately I’ve got to get a move on. I’m expected somewhere. Thank you for coming by.”
I don’t say where I’m going and I don’t plan on it.
Mrs. Owens looks past me to Maris’ house and her lip curls. I notice that. I’m not a human ready to make excuses. Surprise, surprise, she doesn’t like Maris.
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really.” I take a step away, ready to turn my back on her and walk away.
It’s not like she can do anything to me.
I’m paid up for six months. She’d be an idiot to try something just because I don’t want to stand around letting her talk at me.
Even if she did try something, Aubrey would be all too happy to bring in the lawyers.
For better or worse, I’m exactly where I want to be for the next six months, more than enough time to have Maris.
“Have a good afternoon, Mrs. Owens. Thank you again for coming by.”
“Her parents are dead.” She crosses her arms and huffs. I’m hardly a step away when she speaks. “She’s a murderer you know. She killed poor Mike Sheep and everyone knows it.”
Her parents are dead.
She didn’t run them off. They died. I knew she was alone.
I stop in my tracks but I don’t turn around to look back at her. Instead, I look up at the house in front of me, I scan the windows for a sign of Maris while I speak.
“That wasn’t in the listing description.”
I hear her practically choke on her own spit. “I-I-, well, I mean-”
“If it were a safety concern, I’d hope you would make that known to renters.”
“Well-it’s not that easy.”
“Not that easy or not true?”
“It’s true. She killed that man.”
“You mean the one that broke into her house? That man?” I ask, remembering Maris’ choked sobs in the confessional booth. “That sounds like self-defense to me. I’ll be going now, Mrs. Owens.”
“You don’t understand. You didn’t see what she did to him. How she killed him.”
That’s interesting. Maris said she killed him and that she enjoyed it, but she didn’t tell me how. If the fuck I buried last night is anything to go by I’m going to guess it wasn’t with finesse.
“Have you ever seen someone die?” I ask.
There’s a change in the air when I ask that, the cool fall air turns to ice and it’s me that’s doing it.
All vampires come with some magic, the older you are the more you feed, the easier it is to manipulate.
While I’m only a couple hundred years old, I’ve fed on enough human blood to be stronger than I should be.
Another perk of being a doctor. I’ve been given a fast pass to power and a meal ticket all in one.
I hear Mrs. Owen’s breath. It’s ragged and taking effort, more effort than she’s used to. Good. If I’m lucky, I’ll choke her out without even touching her and she’ll have a heart attack. Nosy fucking bitch.
“Have you?” I prompt and I’m not her friendly renter anymore. My voice is sharp, deeper, something she’d hear whispered to her in a nightmare.
“N-no,” she manages to get the one word out in a shaky whisper.
“I have. Death is hard, Mrs. Owens. It’s not like they show you in the movies.
It’s not peaceful, it’s never peaceful. We leave this world the way we entered it.
In agony. Every death,” I look back at her to see she’s white-faced and gripping her stupid handbag so tightly that her hands are shaking, “is terrible and violent. That’s what death is no matter what side of it you’re on. ”
“But s-she, but she-”
“She survived. She didn’t die.” I look away from her and towards the house again.
Maris is there peeking at me from a window on the second floor, I see it when the curtain twitches ever so slightly.
What is she doing up there? “You’ll never know what it takes to survive, sometimes that’s more agony than dying and I think she’s paid plenty for it, don’t you?
A woman like her all on her own with the entire town against her?
How much more can you get out of her before the debit is paid? ”
I don’t wait for her answer.
I head off towards Maris’ house, hop the fence and knock on the back door.
I’m set on letting Maris come to me after she saw me talking to the old hag that called her a murderer.
I only have to wait a minute or two before I see Maris’ shadow in the kitchen doorway.
She must have been on her way already before I knocked.
I smile at Maris through the glass of the door and hear Mrs. Owens’ car start and pull away while Maris opens the door to me.
“You came back?”
“I did.”