Chapter Thirty-Seven
Austin
Austin awoke to the sweet smell of roasted steaks the day after waking up on the slab.
He would have thought he was still dreaming except for the blunt force with which both his other companions launched off him.
Hyacinth bound out of bed, flying with Snuffles hot on her heels.
Austin was too groggy for jogging but shuffled after the pair.
He slept in patches, constantly waking to check for Sabine.
The one time he didn’t catch her lurking out of reach, he found his flower banging her head against the mirror.
Of course, he wasn’t even sure that was real.
It has to be, right? She said I love you.
His heart lurched quickly as he spared a glance back to the bathroom.
Right where she told him to fuck her against the counter and he was reminded that, prior to the tentacles and his comfortable cock, that the last time he was regenerated, he had two of them.
I forgot that my body regenerates the parts as a whole!
His waist was different from his torso and the bottom half came with two.
At the time that seemed excessive, so he’d taken one off.
But now maybe I’ll keep them? We’ll see. His stomach growled. First, breakfast. Austin scurried faster after his disappearing flower and their scampering bunny.
Down the stairs, around the bend, and into the kitchen. Melody was in the kitchen, and Austin almost felt disappointed. He glanced back, up toward the stairs when Havershum spoke. “They still slumber.”
“Oh,” Austin murmured.
“Who still slumbers?” Hyacinth asked, plucking Snuffles off the floor.
“Lord and Lady Rosemont,” Havershum answered, floating around the table till he was at the end, staring down Snuffles. “You…young pest. You…”
Austin and Hyacinth held their breaths while the wrath’s eyes glowed red. Snuffles reared up, his antlers bursting from his head. He grew longer with his cheeks hollowed out and his body fur in mats. Snuffles opened a mouth full of writhing tentacles at Havershum.
“I see,” Havershum hissed, deep in his chest. “I shall honor your bravery with a truce. A tentative, very thin truce. You may hunt to your heart’s content, but you do not do it inside the house.
I cannot stop you while we are all stuck inside, but once we’ve righted this wrong, and the gates can reopen, you shall hunt for your dinner outside! Got it?”
Snuffles thumped his backfoot against the chair.
“Then we are in agreement. Shake on it.” Havershum put a boney hand out to the rabbit. Snuffles softly wrapped the tentacles in his mouth around their wraith’s hand and they shook.
Havershum disappeared into the walls, Snuffles settling down as his fur grew back and his form returned to an orb of inky fluff once more.
Melody stood beside Austin, shaking her head.
“Listen, that’s got to be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
And Kevin talked to a fucked-up squirrel puppet for me. ”
“Snuffles is kind of like a werewolf, if you think about it,” Austin laughed with a shrug.
Melody narrowed her eyes on him, clacking her tongs at him. “Don’t you dare, cause if you say that, then Kevin’s going to want to make him a part of the pack.”
“He’s a good hunter,” Austin wheezed motioning at Snuffles.
“You’re on thin ice, mister!” Melody snapped the tongs at him again before whirling on her heel. “Don’t even think of trying to use your undead mind tricks against me.”
“Undead mind tricks?” Austin scoffed, following her to the stove. She planted a plate into his hands where she ripped the steaks off the make-shift grill.
“That’s something you can do, right?” Melody furrowed her brow up at him. Austin shook his head. Melody scoffed, “Really? Then what kind of magic can you do?”
“I don’t,” Austin grimaced.
“So, what, you’re just like…”
“A hunk, sadly, yes,” Austin sighed, nodding his head. Melody smacked him upside the arm with her tongs as he snickered, returning to the table.
“What’d you do?” Hyacinth asked, gaze darting between Melody stirring some sort of rice side dish and Austin. He set the tray of steaks out on the table. Snuffles bound up only to be dragged off, his tentacles and claws digging into the table. “Table manners, Snuffles. We’ve talked about this.”
“Ehh! That bunny better not touch my hard burnt steaks! I did not nearly light my eyebrows on fire for the abomination from the underbrush to eat my breakfast of champions. Austin, feed the creature one of the raw pork chops in the fridge.”
Austin chuckled softly, whispering to Snuffles, “Sorry, little guy. Hang in there, I’ll throw in some celery for being a good sport.”
While Hyacinth held the rabbit in her lap.
Austin unwrapped one of the aforementioned pork chops and left it bleeding all over an extra plate.
He ripped off a few celery stalks and brought them over to the table.
Melody dished out plates with a mini mountain of spiced rice and a fried egg draped on top of it, their steaks and grilled onions to go with.
The sight of it made his stomach groan in need.
Austin dropped down into his seat, putting Snuffles plate further from the rest of the food.
Their carnivorous bunny bound up onto the table, immediately tearing into his pork chop.
“This smells amazing,” he moaned appreciatively.
“Good, cause I only know steak and eggs the diner way. Well, plus this is better, trust me, this is better,” Melody snorted, breaking her egg.
The gooey center coated her pile of rice and made a dipping sauce for her steak.
The three ate in relative silence, the sound of rain pounding against the outside of the house playing as background music.
The sky was a dark gray still, splitting only to let bolts of lightning through.
Austin studied the kitchen with confusion.
“Wait, where is Kevin?” The gardener usually took up refuge in the house when a storm was that bad.
After locking up all the animals in the barn, he usually didn’t have room to sleep out there.
Not between the horses, cows, goats, chickens, and pigs, there wasn’t room for the massive hellhound and zombie.
“He…uh…went with Smith to the city.”
“With Smith?” Austin blurted out in bewilderment. Austin jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “To King’s Fall? They let him in?”
“Well, Smith and I figured, out of the lot of us, Kevin’s the one better built to deal with…rampaging flora?” Melody winced as she spotted Hyacinth’s curious stare. “No offense.”
“I’m not sure what about that statement was supposed to offend me?” Hyacinth spoke between gulps of food.
Melody chewed on her words for a long moment before whispering, “The tree—”
“Sabine’s tree is rampaging through the city?” Hyacinth roared, flying to her feet..
“No! No…okay, not so much rampaging as misbehaving.” Melody put her fork down. Raking her fingers through her hair, the artist of the house was never good with words. Austin liked that about Melody. She was just as awful about explaining things as him.
“Melody,” Austin broke through the tension in the room. “What’s happening with the tree?”
Hyacinth sat down stiffly, her plate already clean. She didn’t even stop Snuffles from licking up the drippings of their steak as the rabbit rejoined the group. Austin fed the rabbit the fat scraps that he happily ripped apart and nibbled.
“Smith says the tree is probably acting out just as Sabine is acting out. The storm, the locusts, the random plant monsters that pop up? All of that is Sabine interacting with the environment around us. He thought maybe the tree might be the key, but no one can get near it. Lord Blightwood tried to approach it, and a swarm of mutated wasps sprang out. A councilman was sent to the healing bay and is still in critical care. His druid, the one who helped heal me? Serias tried to approach it and the tree rejected her. Started spraying blood everywhere.”
“Oh that’s not good,” Hyacinth muttered as she scooped up Snuffles into her arms.
Austin studied her for a long time, her gaze far away.
Lost to him and the world of the living, he couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.
Or feeling. He threw an arm around her shoulders, and she sank into his torso, even while she stared through the table.
While he worried about her, the warmth that blossomed in his chest by the little gesture was enough to balance things.
I love you. He reminded himself. They’d said it last night. She loved him. Even if she was made to make him happy, she wasn’t made to say those words. She felt them all on her own. Hyacinth fell in love with him all on her own. I love you.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“I need to see the tree,” she confessed, stopping time itself as she peaked up at him. “This? All of this, the haunting, the storms, the tree…none of it is going to stop until I get rid of her soul. Permanently.”
“And how exactly are we planning to do that?” Melody interjected, waggling a warning at the tentacles slithering out of the mouth of Snuffles. She narrowed her eyes into slits. Snuffles’ tentacles retreated into his mouth. Melody popped the rest of her steak into her mouth quickly.
“Lord Rosemont would know,” Austin sighed, shaking his head. “I’ve never had to exorcise a soul from a body. By the time we reanimate anything, the soul has always moved on.”
“Every time?” Hyacinth and Melody asked at the same time.
“Souls don’t stick around, even those attached to their skin.
When we reanimate, what awakes in a body is always a new soul.
Or else we would have awoken Sabine, not Hyacinth.
They’re completely different people.” He peeked at Hyacinth who sat back in her chair, slowly stroking Snuffles in silent contemplation.
“But people still get possessed and stuff,” Melody licked her fingers clean before stacking the plates.
“Oh, yeah! All the time, but that’s usually because of summoning, or using haunted tomes, deals with devils, things like that. But I don’t think Hyacinth’s possessed.” Austin stroked the side of her arm affectionately. My flower. “I think Sabine is stuck like a parasite.”
Melody grimaced then exhaled heavily. “Alright, well, there’s got to be someone else we can ask cause Dahlia and Sebastian are down for the count after saving you two from yourselves.”
Hyacinth and Austin both shrank in their seats a little, sharing an ‘oops’ purse of their lips.
We’ve got to do this fast, before things get worse.
This time, however, they weren’t going to waltz into a trap.
Austin couldn’t let that happen again. No, they were going to think it through.
They were going to be careful and know everything.
I’m going to pull a Smith! I’m going to know all there is to know about this stuff.
“Austin? Austin! Auuuuuustin! Help me! The goat is inside the library!”
“Stewy!” Austin gasped, launching up onto his feet. He whirled around Hyacinth, racing toward the sound if Greggory’s wail. “What is he doing in the house!”