12. Dark and Mysterious
12
Dark and Mysterious
Calliope
S he doesn’t know how many minutes have passed when she finally wrenches her gaze from the lake and observes the empty kitchen. The sun outside is stronger, yet the kitchen feels darker without anyone else in it.
She peeks into a few dusty drawers here and there but finds almost all of them empty. The few that have contents are decidedly mundane: spare bits of twine, a notepad and ballpoint pen missing its cap, a paper clip bent out of shape. She pushes through the kitchen door and stands in the hallway. It provides her with three options: the living room, upstairs, or the front door.
Hun is curled up in her belly like a snake, satiated and sleeping soundly. She teases the point of a canine tooth, surprised to find it still sharp, though noticeably blunter when compared to how it was before her morning drink. Her earlier promise to Hun— Drink first, plan later —is before her, and she has no earthly clue where to begin.
Four short days ago she left her husband of ten years with only a vague notion of her future. She had been so bent on simply escaping her husband’s clutches that she had only planned as far up to the tiny, roadside motel. She tasted freedom for only a few days and now, here she is, trapped again. He is not my husband , she reminds herself. He’s only trying to help her—save her life, as she asked him to.
The manacles rub against her skin, and she observes the front door, reminding herself that there is nothing stopping her from leaving. But where would she go?
She grew up in a small magical community called Broom Hollow, but somehow, she can’t see herself going back there. She tries to recall where exactly she, and the house, are. She left in the night, and hitchhiked, sacrificing a precise location for distance. The road sign by the motel marked the Louisiana border as two hundred thirty miles. Lyon’s Cross is the closest magical city, if she remembers correctly, and the quaint coastal village is full of witches.
She could leave now—she sees the car keys on the small hallway table, right next to the phone. Surely, she could find someone willing enough to unclasp the manacles from around her wrists.
But what if Rory is right and Hun escapes her control? Could she live with herself if she killed someone? The thought of drinking blood directly from a person makes her stomach turn. Heat creeps up the back of her neck, increasing the stuffy, uncomfortable fever that is still pulsing through her body. She flips her hair, already loose from her braid, over her shoulder and away from her neck.
She turns from the front door, for now, and toward the living room. The sparse room is as impersonal as the kitchen, though it still holds a smidgeon of warmth from the previous tenants. Most surprising is the piano, huddled in the shadows of the far corner. She lifts the fallboard, pushing an experimental key.
She’s not sure which key it is, but she’s fairly certain the resulting clanging noise is not the intended result. Maybe she’ll teach herself how to play piano. For a moment, she feels time stretching out in front of her endlessly. She’s spent ten years feeling choked off from that feeling, stifled by her husband and his rules. The possibilities leave her breathless. Her fingers tingle against the ivory keys. Yes, she’ll learn piano. Or, at the very least, she will kill a few hours looking for a book in the library on how to play piano.
Upstairs, the hallway is empty, and, for a moment, she forgets the library. She is drawn to the painting at the end of the hall, rooted by its presence as she cocks her head to the side, wondering what exactly makes it so odd. It’s true that the orientation is more akin to a portrait than a landscape. Is that it? Is it more of a portrait of trees than a landscape?
“I’ll come back to you later,” she says softly to the painting.
The door to the library is ajar, and Calliope pokes her head inside, only to find the room empty. The window at the far end of the room is open, and she makes her way over, leaning out to look for signs of Kane. The whine of cicadas is a gentle hum in the background as the trees that bend around the house sway with the wind. The air almost feels cool on this side, the tree cover casting shadows against the facade of the house.
She leaves the window open, assuming Kane is out for a flight and faces the library, arms akimbo as she considers where an instructional booklet on piano playing would most likely be shelved. She browses the spines closest to her as a gentle breeze trickles in through the window. It dances around her and settles against the newspaper from earlier, playfully lifting a corner so that her black-and-white smile bounces mockingly at her.
In a trice, she has the paper tucked under her arm, and she’s closing the door to her bedroom behind her, all thoughts of the piano forgotten. She traces the words as she reads, as if afraid they will rearrange themselves, becoming falsehoods even as she mumbles the words out loud.
Local man, Maddox Grey, 43, was found deceased July 23, 1993 .
She hates that she shares his last name. Maybe she could change it back to Croft? There is honor in being a Croft witch , her grandma told her as she urged her not to change her name the night before she took her vows.
But Maddox Grey had insisted—and when Maddox Grey wanted something, he always got it. Including her.
His courtship had been persistent and overwhelming. On paper, he had been a perfect match: a well-respected warlock in the community with a sizable amount of wealth. He peppered her with sweet words and lovely promises, gifted her flowers and amulets, and proclaimed his love of her freely.
But the thing about warlocks is that they are not born with magic in their blood. They rely on outside sources to enable them in their Craft. Maddox’s preferred tool was a wand—but wands and amulets and other instruments of a warlock’s trade must be recharged. The magic burns up otherwise, leaving the user with a cold chunk of wood, stone, or iron.
She was besotted, drunk with affection, and so, when the first gentle request for a little help came, she thought, yes, of course, this is what wives do for their husbands.
The spell he used to harvest her magic is not for the faint of heart. She told herself the pain was worth it. And it would only be one time anyway. Just until business picked up. But one time turned into three, four, five…. When she left, the wand was still fully charged, and she was still magicless.
A knock on the door pulls her attention from the article and her memories.
“Calliope, I, uh—” begins Rory, voice muffled through the door. “I have to head to work.” An awkward pause. “If anything comes up, the number for the Go-Go is next to the phone downstairs.” She can see his shadow through the bottom of the door, and it leans to the right as he shifts his weight from foot to foot nervously. “Cal—”
She opens the door to see him frowning, hands shoved in the pockets of his faded jeans. There’s a hole in the right knee. “It would be best if you stayed inside while I’m gone,” he finishes, eyes searching her face for something.
She looks up at him, fiddling with the cuff on her left wrist. The dangling bits of chains clink against each other. “Sure. Fine.”
His eyes narrow and a muscle in his jaw clenches. He looks like he wants to say something, but a second later, his mouth relaxes, and he merely gives her a curt nod. “I’ll be back at sunrise,” he says before turning away.
She shuts the door and returns to the newspaper article, listening for the vague noises of a car starting in the background, followed by the crunch of gravel as he drives away. She reads through the whole article twice, finding it exceedingly vague. The author continually skirts around the finer details, such as his cause of death, how he was found and by whom. Because she disappeared just before his body was found, she supposes it makes sense that she’s wanted for “questioning.”
He won’t actually be dead , she thinks. He always said he had contingencies in place for this kind of thing, but she does wonder what led him to fake his own death. Maybe a business deal had gone sour, and he had to go into hiding? A cold dread washes over her as she considers, maybe, that his death is related to her. And if he has gone off in search of her, did she cover her tracks well enough? Can he find her here, in the middle of nowhere? Would Rory protect her if Maddox Grey came for her? Could Rory even protect her?
The shrill cry of the phone interrupts her thoughts, making her jump until her brain catches up with her ears. Curious, she pokes her head outside her room and sees a small table in the hallway, upon which a pink telephone sits. That most definitely wasn’t there earlier , she thinks, instinctively picking up the cradle. “Hello?”
“Oh, hello,” says the feminine voice on the other end. “This is Martha Clayton. I’m calling for Rory?”
“He’s out at the moment. May I take a message?” She looks around for a scrap of paper and a pencil, her curiosity piqued. Up until now, she assumed Rory lived a life of solitude with Kane as his only friend.
“Oh, yes,” Martha is saying, her voice crackling with static, “thank you. Could you let him know that his order is ready for pick-up?”
She makes the connection a second later. Martha Clayton, as in Clayton Farm. This must be who he gets his blood from. “Sure.” Pad of paper and pencil found in the small drawer of the table, she wedges the phone between her ear and shoulder and writes down Martha called - order ready.
“Thank you,” says Martha. “And to whom am I speaking? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I’m Calliope,” she replies. “I’m Rory’s…” The manacle digs into her wrist. Prisoner? Blood-thirsty Roommate? Youngling Vampire? “Friend. I’m just visiting for a week or so.”
Martha sounds delighted by this news. “How lovely! You know, me and Bill worry about him, up at that lake house all by himself. You two will have to come over for dinner while you’re in town. We’d love to meet one of Rory’s friends.”
“Sure. Yes, we’d—we’d love that. I’ll let Rory know you called. Thank you.” She hangs up before Martha can respond and cringes at the phone, silent and innocent in its cradle.
She’s not quite sure what she’s done but she has a feeling it wasn’t the right thing to do. Rory is still pretty much a stranger to her, but she’s fairly certain that he would not fancy dinner with the Claytons. Then again, it’s not like she truly made any promises of such. It’s just a thing people say, like “Oh, let’s catch up sometime,” or “I’d love to grab dinner, let me know when you’re free.” Furthermore, she reminds herself that she won’t be here much longer. There’s nothing keeping her here in this dark, musty house.
The hallway lights flicker in protest. She touches the wallpaper briefly, tracing the slightly raised petals of a rose. “Sorry. I meant mysterious. Such a dark and mysterious house.”