Chapter Nine
Hyacinth
“I would like to go outside, please.” Hyacinth stood in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at Dahlia and Melody who stopped what they were doing immediately to blink up at her.
“Okay?” Melody furrowed her brow, stopping her pastry art.
Hyacinth wasn’t sure exactly what they were making but while Dahlia’s looked like food, Melody’s looked like a person.
It took a moment, but Hyacinth realized there was a sheet tray of each of the members of the household on it.
At least everyone I’ve met. There was an obvious Lord Rosemont with his bird face mask.
Then Dahlia with rolling pin and perpetual scowl.
Hyacinth could pick out Agatha and Smith easy too, they were the only ones with dancing tentacles.
Though I think the ones on Agatha are meant to be her hair.
It was the others that confused her. Who is the giant blob?
Then she realized Melody said ‘okay’ and she perked up.
“I can just…go?” Hyacinth jabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the front door.
“If you want to?” Melody glanced at Dahlia for confirmation.
The wild, brunette-haired werewolf chomped down onto her lower lip with her fangs.
It made the plump skin bunch up around the tiny triangles.
Hyacinth decided she liked Melody’s cute little fangs the most, on top of the fact she always wore red.
Dahlia dusted her flour-encrusted hands off on her apron before tucking loose, platinum blond strands behind her ear.
While she practically only ever wore black or silvery blue, she was currently in a maroon sundress.
Much in the same style as the ruby one Melody wore or the purple one covering Hyacinth’s body.
The house was toasty from baking in the sun and so everyone in it wore less layers.
That’s what Agatha said, I can’t tell it’s hot.
Even the cat, undead and made of flower petals, sat in the shadows of the pantry panting.
Hyacinth didn’t realize her body was uncomfortable till she’d asked Agatha earlier why her armpits were slick and her legs got sticky as she walked.
A conversation that happened in a millisecond because Agatha was zipping left and right, asking her a hundred questions about breakfast. Hyacinth was starting to think Austin was maybe the fragile one and it wasn’t her they were fretting over.
But she told the banshee the truth. Austin excused himself to the lab.
Then, once she was bathed, Agatha threw her in the dress.
And Hyacinth spent the rest of the morning exploring the house.
Lord Rosemont said she could go anywhere.
So anywhere she went. Poking her head in rooms, exploring the library, usually trailed by the cat or one of the gangly, bug-eyed creatures that shrieked when she turned around too fast. Ghouls, those are ghouls.
Dahlia sighed, “Well, I’d like for you not to go alone. Kevin?”
“Yeah-huh!” The backdoor into the kitchen burst open as a flaming beast of a dog and a zombie wearing cargo shorts lumbered inside.
He heaved in a large lump of a canvas bag that was stamped with red ink Hyacinth couldn’t read.
The zombie had a mop of dirty hair on top of his head.
He shook it out, dirt, dust, and weevils scurrying away from him.
Dahlia huffed, “Kevin! The weevils? They’re going to get into the flour!” She even threw her hands out in exasperation.
“Sorry, my lady. I promise, the chickens usually do a good job of picking me clean. But the weather’s been so wonky lately, none of the hens wanna cluck at my brains or worms.” Kevin spun on his boot covered heel to face Hyacinth. She grimaced, raising an awkward hand up beside her.
“Hi, I’m Hyacinth,” she blurted out, unsure if introducing herself was helpful or unnecessary. It seemed everyone in the house already knew her.
“Radical,” Kevin nodded before he motioned at himself with one dirt-covered hand. “Kevin.”
“You’ve got weevils?” She pointed at the tear in his cheek, where she could see sinew and stringy flesh holding onto his jawbone for dear life.
“They’re a summer infestation, usually in the barn, but the weather’s been so weird lately, they came back out of hiding.” Kevin shrugged before setting the sack up against the kitchen counter. “Then there’s this.”
“That’s not potatoes, is it?” Melody whined as she scooped up the flaming dog into her arms and kissed the top of his head.
“No spuds in this dud. This, right here, is 100% body parts.” Kevin undid the knot at the top of the sack to show an inside filled with dehydrated body parts.
Hyacinth scurried a little closer as Dahlia reeled back.
A foot wobbled at the top over the chunk of a leg along with a thumb, part of an ear, all dried with flakey skin.
“Why are you collecting body parts?” Hyacinth blurted out, inspecting the zombie from close up.
His heart shaped face and big eyes were sweet, but then his skin was a mixture of green and brown and ashy white where parts of him began to rot.
The back part of his skull was open, where a piece of his hair fell away to show off a wiggling brain.
Kevin reached back to scratch at it with dirty fingernails.
“That’s the thing, I’m not. And Lord Rosemont doesn’t leave parts lying about.
Says it’s wasteful. These were just sitting in this bag, baking in the sun when I found it.
” Kevin hoisted the bag up by the top again to tie the knot.
When Hyacinth took a step back, two gasps filled the air, and she whirled around to face the source of the sound.
Melody and Dahlia both sat, petrified with wide eyes.
Dahlia’s left hand pressed to her stomach, the other to her mouth like she might be sick.
While Melody had both her hands over the drooling, flaming dog’s eyes.
Hyacinth followed their gaze back to the sack and found she could finally read the red ink on it.
King’s Fall Grocery.
“What’s a King’s Fall Grocery?” Hyacinth asked, crouching low to inspect the bag more.
“The grocery store in the city. I know those bags. That’s one of those root sacks, they use for like onions or potatoes.
Doesn't smell like onions or potatoes though, kind of smells like feet. Not dead people feet, like sweaty...oh no, they donate them to the fairgrounds during festival season for sack races…” Melody’s words fell away as she rose to her feet. She rounded the table. “Smith! Smith!”
Electricity sparkled throughout the kitchen as the skinny man with no face formed out of dust particles in the room. A mouth full of shark teeth twisted into a concerned frown as he adjusted the tie in front of his red button down. “Yes, sweet girl?”
“We need to go to the city. Right now, to the fairgrounds.” Melody had the man by the sleeve, already out of the kitchen where her voice faded in a matter of seconds.
Hyacinth followed them before glancing at Dahlia for any sort of explanation.
Her stormy gaze was narrowed on the bag, her lips curled in a disgusted snarl.
“What do I not get?” Hyacinth asked, ripping Dahlia out of her thoughts.
The dead woman waited for an explanation.
She didn’t get one. Focusing on the lady of the house’s face, then back at the bag before returning her attention to the zombie clearly uncomfortable in his dead skin.
Dahlia tapped irritated fingertips against her own sides.
The tension in the room made Hyacinth itchy. “Please, tell me.”
“Two years ago, we learned of two killers in King’s Fall.
One was Elyth, a story I’m sure Melody and Smith will eventually tell you one night over lots of wine and cheese sticks.
The other, however, they couldn’t find. We’ve been investigating it ever since, but it’s hard since we’ve stopped finding bodies…
until now. Their bodies are always chopped up and dehydrated.
” Dahlia pursed her lips together, motioning at the sack.
“That body is likely their latest victim, but they were interrupted. I assume Melody hopes to find evidence as to who interrupted our killer. Kevin, will you take the body parts to the lab for observation. Tell Austin that Melody and Smith ran off after a lead, but they’ll want to know everything they can about the victim. ”
“I’m on it, my lady,” Kevin saluted Dahlia before slinging the sack of body parts over his shoulder.
Hyacinth was stuck there, in the middle of the kitchen, watching him gallop away.
The bag shifted uncomfortably, and she saw fingers press into the side of it.
A hard shiver ran down her back, making her wings flutter involuntarily.
Hands. Why was it always hands? Hyacinth didn’t know who her vessel was before, but she was starting to get the idea they had a strange fascination with only one portion of the anatomy.
“Hey! Look at that,” Dahlia breathed, making Hyacinth straighten and blink at her.
“What?” She spun around to catch whatever it was that surprised the lady of the manor.
“Your wings.” Dahlia stepped forward and Hyacinth stopped to glance over her shoulder at them.
They moved forward and backward, no longer an awkward flutter.
The bones, shaved into the thin frames, iridescent like crystal panes in the sun.
Following them to the floor, she saw the rainbows they created.
Dahlia inspected them from an arm’s length, “They’re healing nicely. ”
“I hope I can fly soon.”
“I might be slightly jealous, I’d love if my powers manifested in flight or teleportation.” Dahlia smiled warmly. With a sigh, she glanced around the kitchen. “Well...so much for my pastry buddy.”
“I can help!” Hyacinth blurted out without a second thought.
“Yeah?” Dahlia quirked a brow up at her.
“If going outside is a bad idea, which is sounds like it due to the killer part, making pastries sounds fun.” Hyacinth shrugged. I don’t know what fun is yet, but making pastries has got to be like knitting.
“That’s a valid point. Pastries it is. How good are you at shaping people out of dough?” Dahlia pulled out two chairs and motioned for Hyacinth to sit beside her.
“I won’t know until we try.” Hyacinth flashed Dahlia a smile that she hoped came off as excited.
Dahlia returned a smile that was far more genuine before she nodded at the sink.
Turning to wash her hands, Hyacinth tried to ignore the funny feeling building in her stomach about getting to do pastries with Dahlia...
like a family would. Because we’re family.