Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
MONDAY.
If I’m going to be a ruler, I need to get all of my affairs in order. And I left a very kind and understanding man hanging without a word.
At just before five in the morning, I slip out of my bedroom and walk down the hall, past the bedroom Ian is sleeping in. He never returned to me last night. My heart aches as I walk past the door and down the stairs.
I don’t want to wonder if things will ever be the same between us again. But deep down, in the space deep in every person that whispers unfailing truth, I know. Everything has changed.
I take the keys to the Porsche, and on the driver’s seat, I find another puzzle piece.
I’m getting tired of this. Of this spy always watching me. Of him breaking into my home. He’s good. I have Ian and Rath, and neither one of them have heard a thing.
This is getting old.
I head into town. The streets are quiet with only a few lights on and dawn still an hour from breaking. I pull into the small, familiar parking lot and climb out.
It smells like heaven inside. I’m flooded with memories. From just a week ago. From months ago. Years of my life have been spent in bakeries, my hands caked in flour and dough.
That will never be the same, either.
“We don’ open for another hour, but you welcome to come back then,” a voice calls from the back.
I weave between the tables and step into the back.
“Hi, Fred,” I say tentatively.
He turns to face me. Sweat coats his brow, despite the winter temperatures. A streak of flour is spread over his right cheek. He has a rolling pin in his hands.
“Well, look who decided to show back up.”
His voice is certainly annoyed. But it doesn’t carry the bite he’s entitled to.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning against the counter. “Things have been a little crazy lately.”
“Well, I’ve certainly been hearing some crazy stories, and your name’s been mentioned,” he says as he goes back to work.
“May I ask what stories have been told?” Everything in me tenses and my palms break out into a cold sweat.
“Just stories about the dead and doomed love.” He coats his hands in flour before moving on to the next step.
I reach out and place a hand on his shoulder. He looks back at me, and I hope he sees the desperation on my face. “Please, Fred. I need to know.”
He holds my gaze a moment longer, and his eyes soften.
He goes back to working. “Things been bad around town as of late, you know that.” I nod.
“Rumors been flying around that despite the animosity between Mr. Ian Ward and Jasmine Voltera, he’d gone and fallen in love with their new little project. ”
My heart starts climbing up my throat to take up residence.
Fred glances over his shoulder at me, and there’s a new darkness in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. “Yeah, that’s right, child. I know all about the vampires and the House and exactly what your daddy was. What you’ll become one day.”
I swallow once. It’s the first time someone has actually acknowledged everything, outside of the House, Rath, or Ian. “You know all of that, and you still hired me?”
Fred looks back at what he’s doing. “My people were once enslaved and treated like nothing. My family has been in this town for over two hundred years. I know stories. The Conraths, both of ‘em, owned most of ma’ family. They treated us with respect and kindness. Two centuries have passed. Freedom. Change. But trust me, child. I know what it’s like to have people look at you and judge you for something that is beyond your control.
For something that you should never be ashamed of. ”
I don’t have words. It takes me a while to absorb everything he’s just said. Our families have history. Oppression. The dark past no one up north wants to ever talk about.
“Thank you,” is all I am able to offer.
He grunts and gives a little nod. “So, as I was sayin’, I heard he went an’ fell in love with you, and I understand what kind of danger that put the both of you in. Next, I hear that Ian Ward hasn’t shown up for work and that his gran’mama is in mourning. People start talkin’.”
There was no obituary for Ian. There were literally only three people at his funeral, besides the pastor. What did that man say? And, how much?
This is a small town. Word flies.
“Then I hear somethin’ about the dead walkin,’” Fred continues. He looks back over his shoulder at me. “But no one believes that one, cause everyone knew George and Cora Ward, and that neither of them was a Born vampire.”
“We don’t know what is happening,” I say with a shake of my head. “The only person who might have some answers is Lula. Ian won’t go see her and I’m too terrified.”
“You is a smart girl, after all,” he says with a chuckle. “But never mind all of that. You came here to talk to me.”
I take a deep breath, preparing myself to say what I have to say. “As much as I love working here, as much as I needed the normalcy the shop gave me, things have changed. I thought I could pretend that my father’s name had no grasp on me, but I was wrong. I can’t ignore it.”
“The past is a difficult thing to run from.”
I nod. “Things are going to happen. Big things are coming. And I’m afraid I’m going to be at the center of it all.”
“Play carefully, daughter of Henry Conrath,” Fred says as he washes his hands. He dries them and finally turns to fully face me. “The eye of the storm is the most dangerous place to be.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
Fred gives a nod, and then we’re done. I say goodbye and step back out from behind the counter.
Just as I’m opening the door, I nearly run right into someone.
“Daphne,” I say in surprise. I reach out to steady the both of us. A warm smile spreads on her face and mine.
“Alivia Ryan,” she says with that thick accent. “I was beginin’ to think you was gone for good.”
I shrug, but she obviously can’t see it. Daphne is blind, as in totally without eyeballs. “Yeah, I had to quit unexpectedly.”
“That is unfortunate,” she says. It’s chilly out here, probably a mere forty degrees, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it. “I’ve missed your company.”
“Me too,” I say. And, I realize it’s true. Our early morning, short chats were pretty much the only normal part of my life here in Silent Bend, Mississippi.
“Is everything alright, my dear?”
My chest tightens and the chill sinks in to my bones. “I don’t know. Not really. I constantly feel like I’m being manipulated into making choices that are changing who I am.”
She contemplates this for a long moment. Her dark hair whips in the wind and I worry her skeletal frame will be blown away. “Change either brings out the best or the worst in us. And sometimes, it shows us who we really are.”
“I guess,” I say, kicking a rock off the sidewalk with the toe of my boot.
“Don’t let people manipulate you, Alivia.” Her voice suddenly grows hard, her tone sharp. “Take charge. People will twist you if you don’t twist them.”
Her last statement is a little shocking to hear, but I don’t get a chance to react to it, because a truck pulls up and the newspaper deliverer hops out. “Morning,” he says sleepily as he hands me the stack of newspapers Fred scatters over the tables in the shop.
I mutter a good morning back and he pulls away.
I’m about to take them inside for Fred when the headline catches my eye.
“The Conrath Fires: A Look Back.”
“You okay, Alivia?” Daphne asks.
“Yeah,” I reply absentmindedly. I slip a paper off the top of the stack. I open the door, help usher her inside, and drop the stack on a table. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
It’s freezing outside, so I make a beeline for the car. Once I’m inside, I start the engine and blast the heat. Finally, I hold the newspaper up.
On October 13, 1875, one of our town’s greatest tragedies took place.
Few facts are known and much speculation has arisen as to what exactly happened that night. The Conrath family name is well known in our community and on that night, Elijah Conrath was killed.
Suspicion and distrust often come hand in hand with the name, and on that night, more than a hundred and fifty years ago, it boiled over.
Elijah Conrath and three of his comrades were dragged from their home and hanged in the well-known Hanging Tree. Henry Conrath was also attacked, but it is unknown if he survived that night or not. What we do know, is that more than thirty deaths took place mysteriously that same night.
While little is known about that night, it is certainly not forgotten. The name Conrath still instills feelings of fear in certain members of Silent Bend. Best of luck to the late Henry Conrath Junior’s daughter, Alivia Ryan, who just months ago moved into her father’s Estate.
Best of luck.
Best of luck?
I toss the newspaper in the passenger seat and peel out of the parking lot. Once again, I’m flying on the roads. I’m angry and impatient when I have to wait for the gates to the Estate to open. I barely get the car into park in the garage before I’m tearing out of it and into the house.
“Best of luck,” I growl as I stalk through the house. I’m so angry that I don’t even notice how the house is still deadly quiet and still, or that it’s still only six AM. “Best of luck.”
I pound on Rath’s door, the one to the room I insisted he stay in, even when he wanted to move back out into the workers house. I don’t wait for him to reply. I let myself in and find myself engulfed in darkness.
“Jasmine has just made her first move,” I growl as I flip the light on.
I jump half a foot back when a knife embeds itself in the wall just a millimeter from my left shoulder and wobbles back and forth.
Maybe it’s just my fear, maybe it’s the early morning, maybe it’s just because Jasmine is on my mind, but I swear when I look back at Rath, I see the briefest flash of red in his eyes.
It’s not there now, but he looks angry, then confused, and then his expression settles back into its calm demeanor.