Chapter Ten The Nova
Chapter Ten
The Nova
Where was it? It had to be here.
Files, papers, notebooks, and records—but I couldn’t find my lab book and patent proposal.
“Lucia—”
“Not now.” I swatted my hand in the air to shoo him away.
“I’m not leaving you to raid my desk like a madwoman.” Maxim hovered over me.
“It has to be here. It has to.”
“What are you rambling on about?”
“My papers!” I raised my voice, slapping a stack of paper onto the floor before turning to him. “The last place I saw them was here.”
“Are you insinuating I stole them?” He raised a brow, leaning on the desk. “If I remember correctly, you tend to be the thief here.”
“Borrowing, consensually, is not stealing.”
“What about borrowing coercively?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have time for jokes.”
“Maybe you should be focusing on the arrangements—”
“Don’t.”
“I only mean to keep you focused—”
“I am focused.”
“On more important tasks, I meant,” he said. “It’s a matter that is time dependent.”
“All tasks are—”
“Lucia!” he snapped. “This is not something you can ignore, if you want him to be laid to rest in any respectable manner.”
I swallowed hard. My throat was both somehow swollen and also dry, my voice now croaking when I spoke. Like any sort of talking was an immense labor pressed upon me, required of me.
Maxim knelt down, lowering his head even farther to catch a glimpse of my eyes.
“I know this is not what you want. No one wants this. But preparations must be made.” He took a deep sigh and started to collect some of the papers on the floor.
“As always, I’m here for you. Lean on me if you must. Even if I am your baby brother, you don’t have to be the one with the heaviest shoulders. Not alone. Never alone.”
I could afford to give him only a sideways glance before a silent deal was struck with a nod of my head, then an acceptant smile from him.
“He doesn’t want this.” I pressed my fingers under my eyes to relieve the pressure.
“I know.”
“He was secular. I don’t know why no one will listen to me when I tell them his wishes.”
“I know.”
“He wanted to be tossed into the ocean, added to the ecosystem, buried in a deep forest—he thought funerals were a waste, as do I.”
“Both of our families need closure. This is the fastest way to deal with them. Appease them.” He squeezed my shoulder. “We will make it up to him.”
I brushed his hand off and began gathering the papers off the floor from my failed search.
My stubborn heart ached at the thought of disrespecting his wishes to appease tradition. Yet, the idea of it all being over with was all too enticing. Would he forgive me, knowing it was less stressful to give into these silly formalities? Was it selfish of me to hope he would?
Perhaps it was time to hand the reins over completely. While I did not like appeasement, I trusted my brother to do what was right. It was practically in his bones. The kid had always been righteous to a fault.
He was right: I didn’t have to do this alone.
The day was dying slowly like a dense candle. The sky turned red and pink, sometimes hints of iridescence from polluted clouds mingling with the sunlight above.
The backyard was quiet, since I’d forgotten to feed the cats this week.
They hadn’t come today. It wasn’t their fault, after all.
Absinthe and Tonic slunk around the yard, as if to mimic some sort of life.
The greenery in the back had begun to singe, brown crisp forming along the edges of ivy, shriveled blooms of clematis, and too many withered roses to count.
I was afraid to move anymore; something might go wrong.
That monster from before, the beast.
It was a type of horror that you couldn’t look away from.
An image that could stick with you and hold on to any crack in your consciousness.
You’d close your eyes and wonder if it was there: outside, in the shadows, under your bed behind the skirting of the sheets, under the water in the basin of your bath, watching you from behind as you closed your eyes.
My Peculiars must have felt it. The trepidation.
They coiled around my ankles; one climbed up to my lap.
Every time I saw them, I remembered that noise they’d made.
The shrieking. My last streak of luck must have been spent on the fact that they did not hate me right now.
I felt like they should have. I’d been greedy.
My ego was bruised, my ambitions were too large for my own abilities, and I’d let everyone down. I should have listened to my shadows.
How could I have guessed things would turn out so terribly?
Now I had to wonder what would happen when I had no more luck left.
Would I be spent? Would I have a way to come back?
The right way? No luck-harvesting tricks, no enchanted books, no rituals?
Maybe the beast would eat me, which would be the only way to protect those around me. There was only one way to find out.
To tempt it once more.
This time I didn’t bother with any pleasantries. No perfume, no baths, no extra incantations.
Showing humility might be a bit too little, too late, but it was worth a gamble.
I had nothing left, it was true. I had nothing to offer but purely myself, exactly as is.
Whether or not the beast would show up again was a mystery, but I remained hopeful.
This thing had a conscience, to some extent.
It could communicate, so it could be reasoned with.
I stood in the middle of the chaos that was my library. I’d been too tired to clean it. The concoctions for my wet plates had already left a deep stain in the floors. The scarred wood was rough under my feet. Besides the books I had gathered by the desk, mountains remained by the walls.
I opened the window, the breeze fluttering between book pages and tattered curtains and making specters of the dust that had collected in my personal catacomb.
Sadness settled in my chest, burrowing deep inside.
I was surrounded by knowledge, my life’s work, a collection that spanned nearly a decade, yet I found myself knowing nothing.
For the first time, I was unsure of myself in ways that I’d never imagined.
Perhaps that was the best mindset to start over with.
I picked up the grimoire. It was limp in my hand. Just any old book. Or perhaps it just refused to cooperate any longer. I had nearly expended every resource, every last drop of luck, of creativity, of will.
Now I just wanted it to be over.
“Absinthe,” I said, my voice wavering, “Tonic.” A vocal strain as I realized this was my last chance. One more try to fix this clog, to make my luck right before it got any worse.
Steady be my heart.
I looked to the wall. The portraits were crooked now. I recognized my smile through the shattered glass, and then Dorian’s.
If I’m consumed and taken into the void tonight, at least I may look forward to seeing you again.
My Peculiars ruled by my feet, their cool bodies slinking over my skin and back to the floor. They could feel it as well as I could, I knew it.
I held the book, staring down for instruction.
There was none.
“Florescentia,” I demanded of my shadows.
They loomed around my ankles, not in refusal, but it seemed they were lost.
I pulled the robe closer around my body, every hair standing erect and waiting. A chill cursing my blood, my heart weighing heavy, nestled between my lungs.
A creaking sound from within the home. Not something by footsteps, but something from within the walls. First the moan of pipes, then it evolved into a steady, more lifelike groan.
Whispers bounced, laced themselves in my hair. A sharp hiss at my ear, then even the wind from the window whined.
My Peculiars vibrated, clinging to me under the robe. Their cool, slick bodies became staticky, alive with electricity.
It was here.
It had never left.
As far as I could tell, my library was empty.
I could not say the same for the darkness right outside the door.
I saw the staircase, the runner clasped to the steps by brass rods, even the accent table, comically small in the corner and only able to hold one single fern.
I made it to the doorway before I felt an energy, sick like smog, suffocating like it too. The acidic air burned in my lungs, as if breathing wasn’t already hard enough.
My skin raised in bumps, the hairs pulling as if they could relieve themselves of their follicles. It was magnetic in the worst way. Like two negatives pressed together, aching to flee from one another.
One second of bravery became two, then three.
One deep breath and one step out into the hallway.
The rug was soft on my bare feet compared to the damaged wood of my library.
Everything seemed normal, still. The darkness from the window made it harder to discern between shadows and possible visitors.
Stop breathing.
I held it. I held it for as long as I could.
I am not afraid of the dark.
But it wasn’t nighttime.
My eye strained to peek back at the library, the last bit of the golden hour slowly retreating across the floor. Then my gaze returned to the blackness in the skinny hallway window.
If not the night, what was the dark?
Not many thoughts were manifesting in any meaningful way when I ran. The stairs wailed with each thud of my foot, a shrieking from my Peculiars behind me, and then a rumbling from all around.
The chandelier bounced and dangled as I passed it for the next floor above.
It was like I was thrown into vertigo, clawing at the walls before I could slip into the bathroom.
The window at the peak of the gable mocked me as if to ask if I had any last prayers, any last stars to call upon before I was swallowed whole.
No more sounds came from the cavernous dark beyond the bathroom doorframe.
There was a predatory type of silence, the kind that could trigger tinnitus in your ears. Every bone inside my body knew that it was unnatural, all-consuming.