Chapter 47 Salome
Salome
The intensity of the storm never wavers, continuing to increase in fury as the evening wears on.
Lights flicker ominously in the dining room during dinner, and I spend most of the meal holding my breath and hoping the power holds.
The old bones of the mansion creak from the roaring of the wind, and the walls hum as though they’re alive.
Every noise makes my muscles tense, filling me with dread.
By the time Larkin and I tiptoe down the long hallway to bed, I’m wound so fiercely, I’m ready to snap.
Larkin’s fingers smooth over my back, making me jump, and her hand snaps back in surprise. “What’s wrong?” she asks, the question full of genuine concern. Any trace of her previous passive aggressive tone has vanished.
“This house feels different at night, that’s all,” I confess, wrapping my arms tightly around my chest. A chill works its way into my bones, and I try to conceal my shivering, but the chattering of my teeth gives me away.
Larkin watches me, waiting for more confessions to slip through my lips, but I remain silent the rest of the way to our room.
Once we’re safely behind the bedroom door, I collapse onto the giant bed and a pile of too-fancy throw pillows. Larkin cackles, taking a seat beside me and rubbing my back. “I’m surprised a cloud of dust didn’t fly up when you did that. This room looks like it hasn’t been touched in a decade.”
She’s right, though; the entire house looks like we’ve been the first guests in ages. Usually, people like Rutherford have live-in staff, or at least a housekeeper. The mansion isn’t cluttered or dirty, but it’s obviously been untouched for a while.
“Too much social interaction?” Larkin questions after I don’t respond.
“That and this house,” I mumble into the duvet, the golden embroidery scratching my face as I talk. “Maybe you were right. Something is off.” Another chill trickles down my spine, and I feel the overwhelming urge to curl my feet up so they’re not dangling off the bed.
Lark throws herself onto the bed, barking with laughter. “I’d tell you ‘I told you so,’ but there’s definitely something off about this place—and it’s not only the people we came with.”
I turn my head towards her, narrowing my eyes and frowning.
Why does she always have to bring it back to them?
My friends haven’t done anything to warrant her wrath, yet she’s quick to include them in every negative comment she can manage.
This trip sent her sailing over the edge the moment I mentioned they didn’t expect us to help pay.
I was so mad after the initial argument, I haven’t told her the truth: the owner, Rutherford Venom, gave us an insane deal on renting this place.
In the end, I wasn’t sure which option would make Larkin more mad, so I let her continue to think my friends were paying our share instead.
The longer we’re here, though, the more I feel like the ‘insane deal’ should have been a red fucking flag.
Larkin rolls towards me, giving me a lopsided smirk.
Her scent of blackberries and a saltiness that reminds me of the ocean washes over me, and the tightness in my gut relaxes slightly.
The intoxicating effect reminds me of how much I love this smell over the sick of alcohol I was used to.
In a way, our sobriety journey is what led us to this moment.
I used it as a new beginning, a chance to hang out with new people, get away from our old crowd and familiar haunts.
Larkin didn’t see it that way, thinking it was an attempt to change our personalities as well as our habits.
She’s not wrong. I don’t want to be the same girl I was when we first met, and I don’t understand why she’s clinging to her.
We were two scared girls coming out in a town that didn’t welcome us, coming out to families who resented us.
I was relieved to finally be part of a friend group that accepts us for who we are, but Larkin is harder to convince.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” she whispers in my ear before nuzzling into my neck. I roll my hips into hers, moving my hands up her back before balling her shirt into my fists. “Tell me,” she beckons, slipping a hand past the waistband of my jeans.
“Us,” I moan, aching for more friction than she can give with my pants still on.
Like she can read my mind, Larkin undoes the button with one hand and pulls my pants down without shifting her gaze.
She roams over my body, and I thread my fingers through her dark, shaggy hair, using my grip to stop her as she reaches the apex of my thighs.
Her brown eyes go molten, her grin widening as she lowers herself to me.
“Is this what you want?” she asks, the vibration of her voice rumbling against my skin. Her tongue traces my slit over my mesh underwear, making me shiver as I bite back a moan. She laps at me again and grabs the flimsy fabric between her teeth. “You’re fucking soaked, Salome.”
“Lar...” I start to croon, but the words die on my lips when I open my eyes.
The woman in the portrait on the wall behind Larkin appears to be staring right at us.
A scream builds in my throat, and I choke on it as I scramble backwards on the bed.
Larkin falls face first into the duvet, mumbling curses.
I reach for her, but she’s already crawling to my side.
“What the fuck happened?” she asks, eyes filled with concern. She wraps her arms around me, biting her lip hesitantly. “Was it me?”
I shake my head, chest heaving as I try to catch my breath, and point to the portrait with a quivering hand.
The woman is no longer staring in our direction.
For a moment, I think I’ve lost my mind—until Larkin speaks.
“It followed you, didn’t it? I saw one in the library do the same thing earlier. ”
My lip trembles, and I nod, shocked by her affirmation.
I look at the painting again, focusing on the details this time.
The woman is young, close to our age, probably early twenties.
Her dark blonde hair is pin straight, falling to her waist, and her eyes are so blue, they look inhuman.
She’s wearing a long, white nightgown, but it’s dirty, like she’s fallen into a pile of ash.
A railroad station fills the background, but it looks long abandoned.
The windows are broken and cobwebs litter the empty spaces.
It’s as though every line of the painting is slightly blurred, the same way a photograph looks when it’s taken right as someone moves.
Everything about the portrait is odd, unsettling, even though there’s nothing outright upsetting about it—other than the eyes following me, of course.
“So strange,” I wonder out loud, mostly to myself, but Larkin nods enthusiastically.
“Let’s just go to bed,” she groans, running her hands through her hair. “This storm has us all on edge, especially since we’re stuck in this creepy ass house. Things will look different in the daylight.” Her words hang between us like a question, or maybe a prayer.
“You’re right. It’s probably stress.” I squeeze her hand, attempting to reassure us both.
After our nightly ritual, I leap into bed before Larkin can turn off the lights, something I haven’t had the urge to do since childhood.
She confidently strolls across the room after flipping the switch with a calmness I can only envy.
She lies down next to me, fitting her lanky body to curves of mine, two puzzle pieces.
We curl into each other, our breathing the only sound in the room.
My muscles gradually unwind, and I melt into her.
When my eyelids grow heavy enough, I let them drift shut.
Just before my mind fades into the escape of sleep, I hear the faint whistle of a steam train in the distance.