Chapter 6 Eliza #4
“I’m Batman,” he stated after a few minutes of silence. Everything about him was completely unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was threatening me or telling a joke. The tension in the room had crept to a level I’d never experienced.
“Four out of ten. Michael Keaton’s voice is significantly deeper. Try Affleck or Clooney,” I returned stone-faced, keeping my eyes on the plants, though I caught a flash of movement in my periphery.
“If my butler is Evil Alfred, does that not make me Batman? Even I acknowledge we have a fair bit in common…” Was he teasing me or being serious?
“I most definitely do not call you Batman in my head. Many, many other things, but not Batman.” Ohmygod. He’s going to throw me out of the conservatory right now.
“In truth, the similarities really are uncanny, between Batman and me.”
In an uncharacteristically bold move—he seemed to bring it out in me—I put my cultivator down and turned my full attention to him. “You both have a penchant for capes and tights?”
He stood and brushed the dirt from his tailored black pants. “I was thinking more along the lines of us both being wealthy orphans,” he replied, raising a dark brow.
Wealthy orphans? Had it been anybody else, I probably wouldn’t have hesitated to ask more questions, but I was too afraid to prod—Batman wasn’t rumored to have killed his parents—and frankly, I was having a hard time figuring out what my stomach butterflies were doing.
“You think this will take three months to complete?” he asked with a hint of something in his voice that I couldn’t place.
“As I’m required to do it alone, yes.” I shot him a look, surprised yet again by my own brazenness. “To be honest, three months is quite a tight guess as it is, but I’m incredibly motivated by the corpse flower’s state,” I said, standing up, tired of feeling his presence towering over me.
“A corpse flower?” His dark brows wrinkled together.
Embarrassingly ecstatic to finally be able to talk about it, I practically skipped over to the center bed and methodically stepped in with gentle tiptoes, moving about some of the living and dead chaos that shielded the Titan arum.
“This is a corpse flower. It’s incredibly rare.
Most of them have died off in the last decade.
They used to be found more readily, but now even the most renowned botanical gardens struggle to possess one.
It only blooms every seven to ten years, if you’re lucky, and sometimes it goes completely dormant or goes through a leaf cycle where it produces a single, massive, umbrella-like leaf with no flower.
Even in its blooming cycle, the singular, large bloom only lasts twenty-four hours,” I said excitedly.
I reached in my pocket for my phone to show him a picture of a bloom, but remembered it was impossible with my lack of service and pushed it back in.
Noticing the movement, he said, “I can set you up with service for the time you’re here.
Give your phone carrier and information to…
Evil Alfred and he will sort it out for you.
” Light from the sunset sparkled in his dark eyes.
“Why is it called a corpse flower?” he asked, deep voice rasping against me.
I watched him for a second. “Because when it does bloom, it emits a horrible odor that closely mimics the scent of dead, rotting flesh.”
Jasper’s mouth curved with dark amusement.
“I am going to do everything in my power to time the completion of this conservatory with the bloom, so my colleagues will get the opportunity to see and appreciate it during the grand party that was promised before I leave,” I said, unable to disguise my pride at the thought.
When I glanced over at the silent man, the stiff, sharp lines of judgment and superiority were there. Before I could say anything else, he turned around and walked away.
Shaking my head, I pushed thoughts of Jasper Blackwood and the…
apparition out of my head and continued my work until Sowerby came to escort me to my room.
In his deep, haggard voice, he warned me not to wander about Blackwood Manor and to stay away from areas I didn’t have permission to go into.
When I told him I thought I remembered my way back to my room, he huffed at me coldly and told me Mr. Blackwood didn’t take kindly to those wandering about his home and that it was in my best interest if I had a chaperone.
I decided to take the fact that he didn’t refer to Mr. Blackwood as Mr. Wayne as a good sign and followed him quietly.
The room I was staying in, like all the other things in Blackwood Manor, was opulent and beautiful with a cold, mysterious lacing to it.
Long white curtains flowed down over the huge glass door of the balcony—which was seated over the cliffside, the one I refused to go near.
The moment I was alone inside, I pushed a velvet green fainting couch across the room to block the balcony door, though, really it did little more than create a hazardous barrier on the way to the bathroom for myself.
The view of the sky was impossible to ignore through sheer white curtains, and I found myself constantly pulled to glance warily at it.
A large bathroom was just past the balcony door, the size of it nearly as large as my living room, though it was modest with its bronze faucet, large mirror, and clawfoot tub/shower combination.
I showered, hoping for the steamy relaxation I so desperately needed, but instead remained rigid and jumpy, nearly slipping and falling several times because I kept getting the sense someone was standing outside the shower curtain.
Every time I ripped it back to look, the bathroom was empty except for me, and I had to scramble not to injure myself in the slick tub.
Exhausted from the long day of anxiousness and the physical work, I didn’t have the energy to focus on the eerie feeling of the room or bother to go on the hunt for dinner.
I ate a granola bar from my purse as I curled up in the creaky, four-poster bed.
I was completely unwilling to let myself focus on or give attention to the dark mysteries that haunted this manor.
It was nonsense. Myths the locals had fabricated—understandably with the way the manor felt, but I wouldn’t let them sink into my brain.
I knew if I did for even a moment, that kind of darkness would consume me.
Unfortunately, they were more than willing to give me all of their attention.