Chapter 11 #2
“It’s all right,” he gruffs, eyes going to my gun and badge. He hesitates by Thomas and Gilbert, and the weirdest sense comes over me and I have to work hard not to burst out laughing. “Those things are creepy.”
“I kind of like them.” I fish the key from my pocket and let us into the house.
“What’s going on with the heater?” He pulls shoe covers from his bag and slips them over his work boots.
“It hasn’t been run in years, and, when I tried it, it made a weird noise and smelled bad.” I lead him to the basement, pulling the string light at the top of the stairs. “I went down to take a look and realized I have no idea what I was looking at and didn’t want to mess with anything.”
“Good idea. Old units can be tricky. Have you considered upgrading to something newer? They’re more energy efficient and would make sense in this big house.”
I hadn’t considered it because I was set on selling this place and sleeping naked on a bed of money after I collected. “If this one can’t be repaired, I guess I have no choice.”
He goes to the old furnace and gets to work. I step back, not really sure what the etiquette is in situations like this. Do I hang around and make small talk? I have no water or coffee to offer him, and I’m starting to feel weird just hanging around.
Other than looking at the furnace, I haven’t really explored the basement.
It’s divided into several rooms, and packed full of shit.
Old furniture, broken dishes, boxes and boxes of tattered books…
I didn’t want any of it and the thought of lugging it all upstairs to dispose of it made my muscles ache.
But I don’t have to do it, not on my own. I have four very strong and very capable men living in the house. I bet they could get this place cleared out in an hour or less. Deciding to make the most of my time, I quickly flip through the boxes, making sure everything I label as junk really is junk.
My aunt used to live here, and although she and I were never close, she was family. My parents were taken from me when I was young. I didn’t get a chance to get to know the rest of my family, and it’s seared an empty hole in my heart that’s gradually grown bigger and bigger every day of my life.
I not only miss my parents, but I also miss the idea of what could have been. Had my mother and aunt been on speaking terms, I could have moved in and grown up here. She could have helped me with school, offered me friendship and guidance.
After my parents died, I was bounced back and forth between my dad’s brothers for a couple of years.
Neither wanted me, and it was obvious I was a burden.
Uncle Chuck, Dad’s older brother, was married for a short while before he cheated on his wife, Katie.
She and I got along well, and she welcomed me into her small apartment after the divorce went through.
I was twelve then and knew it was fucked up to be living with my dead father’s ex-sister-in-law.
Over the next few years, things seemed okay.
Normal, even. She taught at the school I attended, and we rode to school together every morning.
She was quiet, taking the divorce hard. Dad was never fond of his older brother, and to this day it’s hard not to have a seething hatred for the man who refused to raise his flesh-and-blood niece and who cheated on someone as kind-hearted and caring as Katie.
I stayed with her until college and was even in her wedding when she finally remarried. We kept in touch, but then she relocated to Texas and our communications lessened. I haven’t heard from her in years.
Dad’s family…I knew and didn’t like. But Mom’s side was a mystery, one she’d always tell me we’d talk about later. I saw pictures from her childhood and thought she must have lived the most glamorous, exciting life. My grandpa was a pilot, and my mom traveled the world with him.
Her own mother died of cancer when she was young, so it was just her and her dad, taking on the world.
I’d seen a handful of photos of them in all sorts of exotic locations.
I knew my grandfather only through his work.
The plane he’d flown. The trouble he faced while in the air.
The famous people who boarded his plane.
And that was it.
I didn’t know anything else. Aunt Mary, who owned this house, was my grandfather’s younger sister. Why she never came up in conversation was beyond me, though I do remember my mom saying she was “off her rocker” more than once.
I move a heavy box to the floor and peel back the cardboard of the one beneath it.
It’s full of old romance novels, ones that apparently didn’t make the cut for the upstairs library.
Continuing to quickly look inside each box, I find most are full of junk too old and crusty to be garage-sale worthy.
I’m not the kind of person who stops a project once it’s started.
I wipe dust from my face and grab another box from a new row, expecting it to be heavy like the rest.
But it’s empty.
So is the one next to it. And beneath it.
That’s strange. The boxes were neatly arranged in rows in one of the storage rooms, with the last row being against the exterior basement wall.
I move two more empty boxes and discover they’ve been stacked around a small table, but it’s the wooden box under the table that grabs my attention.
I take a quick look behind me at the repair man, who’s busy taking the old furnace apart, and take the flashlight off my belt. The lighting is dim down here, and I’ve moved farther away from the overhead light.
Cobwebs stretch over the lid of the wooden box. Brushing them aside, I flip open the latch. My heart starts to beat rapidly. The hinges creak and the wood groans, not having been opened in years. Slowly, I open the lid, eyes wide in wonder at what I might find.
It’s another box.
“That was anticlimactic,” I mumble to myself, and shine the light in.
This next box is prettier than the first, which was more utilitarian than decorative.
I reach in and pick up the smaller box. It’s heavy, much heavier than I expected.
And it’s also locked. I think. If that crazy steampunk-looking thing is indeed a lock.
Tucking the box under my arm, I slip back upstairs and into the kitchen and turn on the lights.
“What the heck?” I mutter, examining the lock. There’s no place for a key, and, upon further inspection, it looks more like a puzzle. I spin a dial and a sharp piece of metal shoots out, stabbing my fingertip.
“Son of a bitch!” I pull my finger back, wiping away a drop of blood.
Did the thing malfunction or— “No way.” I lean in, careful not to get too close in case something else pops out at me, and look at the needle.
There’s a tiny hole in the metal, and I watch as a small drop of my blood rolls inside.
I bring my finger to my mouth, sucking away the blood. The lock clicks and something inside moves, sounding like metal sliding across metal. The gears spin, and suddenly the lid pops up.
Knowing better than to reach in barehanded again, I use a spoon from the kitchen to pry the lid off. It falls with a clatter onto the wooden table, and I step in, eyeing what appears to be a leather-bound journal. I poke it with the spoon.
Nothing happens. Still, my throbbing finger tells me not to reach inside.
I get another spoon and awkwardly pull the book out.
It’s the only thing in the box. It’s on the small side, no bigger than an average fiction novel, and the leather is worn and scratched.
Slowly, I unwind the leather tie from around the book and open it.
I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe for the lights to dim and a breeze to blow my hair back dramatically like it does in the movies, but I wasn’t expecting this.
I wrinkle my nose and flip through the pages.
Everything is written in what I think is Latin and there’s no clue as to what I’m reading.
A journal or diary? There are no dates at the top of each page, and hardly anything to separate one entry from another.
I flip through the pages, and a neatly drawn vegvisir catches my eye—an Old Norse symbol believed to help the bearer find their way when traveling.
My knowledge of the occult is impressive, or so I always thought.
I know a good deal of magical symbols, what they mean or represent, and their origins.
The symbols were just symbols before, marked on bodies or the site of crimes to illicit fear, or to appease what I thought were false deities.
And now…now I’m not so sure everything was false.
“Ma’am?”
I jump, almost dropping the book. Dammit. I don’t startle easily. I shouldn’t startle easily. Not in my line of work.
“Yeah?”
“I found what was wrong.” He holds up a part of the furnace that means nothing to me.
“I might have a spare in the truck. If not, I’ll call a guy I work with and see if he has one.
It’s an old part and we might be able to order one.
I just replaced a unit like yours with a newer one before I came here and kept some of the working parts. Lucky, right?”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
I go back to the book the moment he goes outside, madly flipping through the pages. It’s full of other occult symbols I recognize. I don’t let myself get too excited, but I have a feeling this is a book of shadow.
I shift my gaze to the ceiling, imagining Jacques and Hasan up on the roof. If this book is full of magic spells, then maybe, just maybe, I can break the curse after all.