Chapter 7 Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice
It was a large, two-story farmhouse, white with green shutters.
The wraparound porch looked like it belonged to someone’s grandma—mine, to be exact. A wooden sign hung from two metal rings, spelling out Hearth Haven Inn, ensuring I didn’t confuse it for the only place I’d ever felt valued as a child.
A woman old enough to be my grandmother, with hair braided to her waist and a denim dress that reached her ankles, stood on the porch with the screen door propped open as she waved.
“Come on in, dear!” the woman called out loud enough for me to hear from the end of the stone path that met the paved road. “I’ve just put some tea on.”
I turned to look behind me to see who she was talking to, but no one else was around.
I hadn’t seen another soul since I’d left the station.
The lights in the Bike Depot were on as I passed, but the window screens were too dark to see if anyone was moving about inside.
When I looked back toward the inn, the woman smiled and nodded.
Yes, me.
When this was all over, I’d get a cardiologist to explain why my heart kept doing flips and dips like a flamenco dancer.
But that’s probably just what happens when you make harebrained decisions like following a strange note from terrorists.
My mouth stretched slightly, but no one would call it a smile. I took one deep breath and then nodded back.
My eyes watched the stones as I stepped on each one, careful not to break my dead mother’s back.
I only looked up when I reached the bottom step.
Up close, wear and tear were evident on the cracked, worn paint.
I followed the four steps up to the porch and met the woman’s warm gaze with another weird not-smile.
I was so out of my element with a stranger actually smiling at me that I contemplated running from the friendly fire.
“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” the sweet-as-pie terrorist-grandma said and smiled at me. She pushed the screen door open further and fanned me toward her with her wrinkled hand. “No need to be nervous, Eliana. We only want to protect you.”
When someone said there was no need to be nervous, it usually had the opposite effect. And it did then as well. All I could manage was a sharp inhale through my nose as I followed her inside.
Don’t eat the house. That’s how she fattens you up first. Then she’ll shove you in the oven and have you with cranberry sauce.
The warning had barely made its way through my head when the smell of apples and cinnamon went straight for the jugular, because ‘straight for the nostril cavity’ didn't pack as much punch despite that being where the scents assaulted first.
The screen door croaked before slamming shut behind me. I jumped, but no one was around to see it. The woman had wandered off to the left through a dining room and into what looked like a kitchen from my limited view.
I toed off my sneakers and lined them up with the others in the foyer.
At least they’re tidy terrorists.
Slow, steady breaths.
I started to imagine I had a bow in hand. I’d just aim and release.
But I didn’t have a bow.
I didn’t have any weapons or any way to protect myself.
From there, my thoughts spiraled because how was I this unprepared for dealing with dangerous people when my entire adolescence had been forged in the fires of vengeance?
When I get back, I’m registering for martial arts classes.
Using my sock-clad toes, I arranged my shoes as neatly as the rest. I almost snorted at the large pair of black and gray runners next to where I’d placed my own.
I’d bet money those belong to someone as big as the giant NOT-Thaddeus-Tsai.
And then my shoulders quaked with a shiver because my shoes looked like a toy next to whoever’s those were.
It might have also had something to do with the idea of that man being in this house.
The broadcast had said he and Veda were terrorists, but it didn’t say if they were with The Way or not.
With billions of people living in The Tower, there had to be more than just a single group of unhappy rebels.
Their showing up at Nian’s the same day I got that letter could be a coincidence.
It could.
“Have a seat in the living room, dear,” the woman called from what was most likely a kitchen. “I’m finishing up with brewing some tea. Then I’ll bring you a mug. Make yourself comfortable.”
Tidy and hospitable.
I assumed the living room was the open space to my right, with a floral-print sofa set arranged around a coffee table that looked as if someone had cut down a single, colossal tree and used a cross-section of it to make some old lady furniture.
My socks slipped against the polished hardwood, but I resisted the urge to go sliding through a stranger’s house, especially since I needed to appear like a badass to make sure they knew they couldn’t just suck me into their little world of conspiracy theories and make-believe.
From what I knew of The Way, they had some wild beliefs about gods and demons and things. I held no such fascination with fiction outside of the books I downloaded on the darkmos. I would work with them to kill Azazel, and that’s it.
I’mma bounce, I repeated my new mantra in my head.
Contrary to the woman’s suggestion, I didn’t make myself at home but instead wandered about the sitting area, studying the furniture as if I had an antique kink.
I was admiring a grandfather clock that looked like an owl standing guard between a weathered upright and a plain brown door when my host introduced herself.
“Name’s Winifred.”
I half-turned toward her as she rounded the larger sofa that separated the living room from the foyer.
She set a brass tray carrying a kettle and two mismatched jumbo mugs on the coffee table.
Her eyes matched the color of her silver hair but held the warmth of the Persian rug under the table.
Her voice, filled with age, sounded like a grandmother who had just finished baking cookies for her favorite grandchild.
“I’m the owner of the inn,” Winifred explained as she poured tea into one of the mugs. The smell wafted up along with the steam, and I inhaled long and slow. “I’ve been running this place for nearly fifty years, and nothing makes me as happy as having a friend over for a cup of tea.”
Winifred stopped pouring to look up at me with another smile. Then she began to fill the second mug.
As I opened my mouth to ask what she meant by ‘friend’, she shook her head.
“Oh me, oh my,” she said with a chuckle. “There I go again. I mean, we aren’t friends quite yet, are we? I hope we will be soon. I do so enjoy meeting new faces and hearing their stories. Why don’t you have a seat and relax a bit? Settle in.”
There it was again.
The word ‘relax’.
It only made me more aware of the hair rising on my arms, and I inched forward from the grandfather clock to stand behind the armchair.
Not sitting.
Not gonna drink that tea either.
I don’t go well with cranberry sauce.
“So, this is just an inn?” I interrupted myself mid-Hansel-and-Gretel-rehash. My voice sounded muffled in my ears, and I ran my fingers along the fabric of the back of the armchair. It was softer than I had expected. Not in a luxurious way, but in a well-loved, cushiony sort of comfort.
Winifred hummed and took her place on the middle cushion of the sofa. The scent of the tea whirled between us. She wrapped her long fingers around her mug and nodded. “It’s okay for you to ask your question, Eliana?”
What is the question that I want to ask?
I tried to wet my lips with my dry tongue. Then my mouth went even drier.
“You already know my name.” My voice came out crackling, so I tried to clear it.
Here goes nothing. Or maybe here goes the moment when I join a cult.
“I got a letter telling me to come here, and it was cryptic as hell, and I’m assuming you know about this letter already because you already know my name. And because you’re…here.” Another attempt at clearing my throat as I waved my hand about the room.
The note had mentioned questions I hadn’t asked yet. What questions were those supposed to be?
Without a clue, I stuck with safe and simple.
“Why did the note have the same mark as the—?”
It’s a good thing the door behind me slammed open at that moment because I hadn’t actually been ready to ask that question. I certainly didn’t want an answer to it yet.
Back in grade school, I sometimes imagined that the mark on my chest was a special sign that I would one day be a wizard, like in those books the Ancients loved so much.
Eventually, I figured it was more of a curse to make sure that everyone knew I was different and off-limits.
If for some reason they were too stupid to see I was a mutt with my reddish hair and slanted eyes, at least they knew something was off with a giant sprouting scepter embellished on my chest.
I wasn’t ready for it to be more.
And that slam came as an answered prayer.
With the door nearly swinging off its hinges to crash into the wall behind me, I spun around and backed up at the same time, all thoughts of the mark evaporating on contact.
The back of the armchair cut my balance, and my upper half kept moving in a backward motion while my feet left the floor. I screeched both from the sensation of falling and because the giant terrorist with swirling black eyes was heading right for me.
A solid, icy hand wrapped around my bicep and stopped my downward trajectory. The man from the ice cream parlor stood too close and leered down at me with bottomless pits in his eyes. He was a force too big to fit in the room, and his glare threatened to shred my resolve to live.
This man intended to end my life.