62. An Egregious Epilogue
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
AN EGREGIOUS EPILOGUE
J oe’s cottage was small and stone and adorable. It resided in a courtyard, hidden from the world on all sides—on three by tall stone walls, and on the fourth, by the soaring bluestone of Joe’s church.
The courtyard was paved with sandstone slabs, shaded by an arbour of overgrown grapevines, decorated by quaint wooden seats and tables, and the lot was replete with terracotta pots in which grew healthy and vibrant herbs and flowers.
The exterior of the cottage was painted white and set off by a vine of scarlet roses that had taken over half the house. The door was red to match the blooms, with a little golden lion’s head door knocker. The ceilings inside were low, with wooden beams stretching across the expanse. The two bedrooms were tiny, and Joe and Percy and Moxie could not have been happier.
Joe resumed his position at the church, only now he did it with more purpose, more strength in his heart and body than ever before. He was already well liked in the small village; now he became beloved.
He and Percy slowly and sympathetically redecorated Joe’s cottage, keeping many touches that would have made Percy’s toes curl out of context, but seeing the way they pleased Joe, they took on a fond significance for them both.
Percy successfully discharged his duties as houseboy, while seeing to the sale and distribution of a series of ‘recently discovered’ paintings from Degas’s previously unheard of ‘dark period’. Percy found he rather enjoyed his new, quieter lifestyle. Especially once he’d gained access to the church after hours and discovered that, in fact, the confession booths were already a perfectly reasonable size.
But, despite all of this, the world turned on and on, and Percy was still, and would always be, Percy. His mind and his heart were aflame with the same passions that had made Joe fall in love with him—a fact which Joe understood and accepted when he married him.
Therefore, the following might not have come as a huge surprise to Joe, had he been awake…
The pair occasionally stayed over at Percy’s house, and it was during one of these nights, some months after they’d returned home, that Percy slowly, carefully, shifted his arm from beneath Joe’s beautiful head. He had worn him out, thoroughly and deliberately, and at that time, two o’clock in the morning, Joe was deep in a blissful, ignorant slumber.
Percy slipped from the ash-coloured linen sheets and pulled on pants and a robe. He made his way into the living room, and though, as a rule, he considered it vulgar to smoke in the morning, he hadn’t yet slept, and decided the cigarette he lit was still part of the evening’s usual ruination.
He took a long drag, and stared off into space for a minute or so, going over what he was about to do.
Picking up a notepad and pen from the coffee table, he scrawled a quick message:
If you’ve found this, I’m already dead. Don’t go into the basement. I love you.
He rested his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, then crossed the room to his weapons cabinet. From there, he took out a long, thin, Japanese blade—terrifyingly, supernaturally sharp.
Shoving the cigarette into his mouth, he threw back his thick white rug, which decorated and warmed the wooden floorboards in front of his gigantic stone fireplace. He looped a finger through a silver hook and pulled up the trapdoor. It moved silently on its well-oiled hinges, and he stepped down the ladder, closing and bolting the door behind him.
He hit a switch, and light after flickering light illuminated the long walk through the underground tunnel, to a reinforced steel door at the far end. He took it slowly, still meditating on whether he should or should not be doing what he was doing, but when he got to the door, he slipped his key into the lock. The latch gave a jarring clang as it sprung open, and a soft thunk as he closed and locked the door behind himself.
It was pitch black inside, but Percy knew his way by heart.
Running a hand along the bare-earth wall, he found the fireplace and lit it. Gas. What a marvellous idea that had been. The room was aglow with warming orange in seconds, lighting the weapons that lined the walls, the gigantic candelabras decorated with dried wax, the spell-casting tables littered with books and herbs and spilled potions.
All faded into obscurity as Percy focused on the object of his desire right there on a table in the centre of the vast room.
He took up a crowbar and eased out the nails, one by one, from around the edge of the large, pale, beaten-up pine box. He stood it on its side, and using the very tips of his fingers, tapped its lid down onto the packed-dirt floor with a crash.
Percy took a few steps back, tilted his head to the side, and breathed out a long plume of smoke in contemplation of his treasure.
His very own, very original copy of Death and the Child by Edvard Munch.
Mother and daughter, locked in their eternal, horrifying, suspended animation.
“Ladies,” he said, an elegant index finger tapping the ash from the tip of his cigarette, “time to come out and meet your new master.”
THE END
(Or is it?)