39. Cursed Heirloom #2
Asher knew that wasn’t true, but the toxic masculinity inherent in the cattle ranching industry, and Nonna’s kitchen had left an indelible mark on his self worth.
Lev had left his skeleton key on the table beside his bed. Asher pinched his bottom lip between his fingers. When Asher had made a casual investigatory comment about what would happen if Lev lost the key, Lev had reassured him that he had “droves of skeleton keys ferreted away”.
Taking the key was risky, but what if this was kismet?
The locked door on the third floor still haunted him. He felt the pull like an undercurrent, plucking the petals of his thoughts from a daisy, except instead of he loves me, he loves me not, each petal alternated between breaking into that room and knowing it was wrong.
Asher just wasn’t sure which petal he’d land on. Or when.
He scooped the key into his hand and left through the secret door. His room was even colder than Lev’s, and he growled under his breath, releasing another torrent of fog from his lips.
In the bathroom, Asher popped the top off the applicator of his deodorant, added a thick blob of toothpaste to the bottom, and dropped the key inside, then carefully replaced the applicator.
Ben had forbidden Asher from taking his anti-anxiety meds because they turned his art into boring, commercial drivel—allegedly—and he’d learned the hard way that the sound of the pills sloshing around was a dead giveaway. Hopefully the toothpaste spackle would work.
After brushing his teeth, he spat into the sink with all the cathartic venom of spitting in Ben’s face, something he’d never, ever dared to do.
Asher dressed quickly, side-eyeing the ridiculous heat-insulated leggings Lev had bought for him, as he pulled on gray sweatpants and the new black hoodie Lev had said was a spare for when his lucky one was in the laundry or ‘spontaneously disintegrated into paint flecks and cotton dust’.
The hall was deserted. Asher called Lev’s name again, then crept toward the secret door to the east wing.
It was locked. Had Lev gone there? Asher dropped the tapestry and stared at it until his eyes blurred on the scene of a ship in distress amidst a violent storm. Should he go back for the skeleton key?
Wind slipped through gaps in the window frames and lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Asher swirled around, expecting to find Lev at the other end of the hall.
No one was there.
“Lev?” Asher’s voice shook.
No answer.
The lingering adrenaline from his earlier anxiety attack was setting his nerves on edge. That’s all it was. But foreboding followed him long after his heart rate slowed, a constant presence escorting him through the dark.
Lev wasn’t in Lucian’s studio, or the dining room. He wasn’t in the kitchen either.
The first hint of a headache gathered between Asher’s brows. Sometimes Lev brewed drip coffee with a French press, but he couldn’t make sense of all the stainless steel components drying on the counter.
After five minutes, a handful of escalating curse words, and narrowly avoiding a steam-related burn from Desiderio, Asher conceded defeat and resorted to the tea kettle, plunking it down on the metal stove with a clang.
The lamp above the sink turned the world outside to an unfathomably vast darkness, filling him with the dread of an elevator cable slowly breaking.
For all he knew, someone was watching him with their face pressed against the glass, and he wasn’t sure if plunging the kitchen into darkness to check was worse.
So, feeling very much like a child, he avoided the window at all costs while he waited.
The kettle whistled, startling Asher out of his skin, and the first sip of bitter tea scalded his tongue.
The wind picked up, whistling as it slipped through the gaps, and plucked at the servant bell strings, filling the kitchen with haunting jingling. A metal hinge screeched and banged.
Was it Lev?
Asher flipped off the light switch and peered through the window over the sink. Trees bent and swayed. A light bobbed in the distance in the direction of the cliffs, swaying and growing smaller, farther away, like a lantern held in someone’s hand.
The wind shifted, hurling a fistful of raindrops at the glass like rocks. Asher flinched. His hands shot up to block a barrage of glass shards that never came.
God, he was jumpy. He backed away from the window and turned the light back on. Lev had said his father kept walking the moor at night, that his father had seen people who weren’t there. Maybe Lev…
No. He didn’t dare finish the sentence, even inside his head, as if admitting his suspicions would bring them to fruition.
Alzheimer’s wasn’t a guarantee passed down through families like a cursed heirloom. Maybe Lev was more predisposed than others, but he was fucking forty.
Asher should go out there. What if something was wrong and Lev got hurt? Asher dumped the sludgy tea in the sink and filled it with water.
Wood beams groaned overhead. Wind flung rain at the window again. Asher’s gaze snapped up from the sink. A shadowy figure loomed behind his reflection, heading straight for him at a fast pace.
Asher gasped. The mug slipped from his hands.He spun to face his attacker and braced for impact.