When she reached the trail, darkness was seeping into the thick tree line, so she flipped on her headlamp. She was barely a half-mile into the forest when she heard a loud ripping sound that stopped her in her tracks.
The noise was coming from ahead. Rue tried to turn her bike around as quietly as she could. Something about the sound made her uneasy, and the violent-sounding nature of it reverberated through the trees and left only a lingering echo and a lump in her stomach. Time to cut this bike ride short and head home.
Rue began to pedal away as quickly as she could, but she could hear rapidly-approaching footsteps behind her. They grew louder, heavier, pounding the dirt trail so hard that she knew there was no way they wouldn’t leave imprints inches-deep into the soil. Rue refused to turn around. The terrifying images of what it could have been filled her mind and danced through her imagination.
When she finally reached the miniscule hole of waning sunlight at the beginning of the trail that led back to campus, she cocked her head slightly to the right and managed to catch a glimpse of a crouching, darkened figure leaping back into the denseness of the trees. Then the forest turned completely black around the dim light of her headlamp.
Rue kept riding, pumping her legs so hard that they began to ache. She refused to stop until she reached the dorm. She didn’t even pause to lock her bike up; she just threw it down on the lawn in front of the building and ran up the steps, fumbling with her keys, and burst through the door.
“What’s up with you?” Eliza asked, her eyebrow raised as she stood over a bouquet of fresh gardenias, cutting the stems and delicately placing each flower in a crystal vase.
“I... thought... you... had...” Rue couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
“Work?” Eliza finished. “Uh, so, they let me out early?”
Now it was Rue’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really? Are you asking me?”
Eliza sighed. “No. I got fired.”
“What? Why?”
“Apparently, that jerk manager doesn’t like being told she’s a jerk.”
Rue laughed. “Leave it to you, Eliza. Now what are you going to do about tuition?”
“I’ll find another job. There are plenty of other stores at the mall that need me.”
“Like a hole in the head,” Rue teased.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out,” Eliza said. “And anyway, I still have savings that I can dip into if I really need to. But hey—speaking of jobs, I forgot to tell you when you came in since you were all busy hyperventilating—the dude called. About that position in Middletown. He was super weird, but I think you’ll probably get the job. Especially after he talked to me.” She winked.
“He called on the dorm phone?”
“Yep.”
“What did he say?”
“To call him back. He totally sounded interested in you. Here’s the number.” She gestured to a Post-it note on the kitchen table. Rue rushed over and pulled her phone out of her pocket while Eliza fetched her a glass of water.
The phone rang five times before it sounded like someone picked up. Rue could hear breathing on the other end of the line, but nobody said anything.
“Um, hello?” she said.
“Is this Rue?” the voice answered, husky and deep.
“Yes, this is she.”
“Hello, Rue. I’m Dr. Forlorn. But, uh, you can call me ‘Victor,’ if you prefer.”
“I’ll call you ‘Doctor,’” Rue replied hurriedly. “Sounds more professional.”
“I like you already, little lady. And I read your résumé with interest. What an intriguing girl you must be. Everything a doctor could want, may I add. For his assistant.”
“May I ask what kind of medicine you practice, Dr. Forlorn?”
The line was quiet, as if the doctor had paused and was thinking carefully about his words. “Well, Rue, I guess you could say I practice some fairly progressive medicine.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s best if you come and see for yourself. Something gets lost in the translation when I try to explain it, and it unnecessarily scares good people away. But I have a feeling you’re different, Rue Chambers. I really think you’d be a good fit for this job. I’ll pay you handsomely, of course—in addition to providing you room and board. Did you read my whole ad?”
“Yes, I did, Doctor.”
“Very good. Now, shall we arrange a meet-and-greet at my laboratory—er, office? Sorry,” he said with a chuckle. “I always call it my laboratory. Old-fashioned, I suppose.”
Rue feigned a polite laugh. “I’ll call it whatever you want, Doctor.”
“Oh, Rue! You are so grand. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? To go out there?”
“Yes, is that a problem?”
Rue looked down. She had class tomorrow. But she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to miss it this one time. She could work her schedule out with the doctor after she got the job. “No, it’s not. I think I can swing that.”
“Great! Shall we say noon?”
“Sure. That works.”
“Now, Rue, would you mind bringing an old man some lunch?”
“Uh, okay. What would you like?”
“Whatever you like, my dear. I’m not a picky... eater, that is.”
“Sure.”
“You should bring your resplendent-sounding roommate, too. If you’d like.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Goodbye, Rue.”
“Good—” started Rue, but Dr. Forlorn had already hung up.
“I hope you don’t think I’m going with you,” Eliza said as Rue put down her phone. It wasn’t uncommon for her to pick up on Rue’s energy. Rue tended to get a certain scrunched look on her face when she wanted to ask Eliza a favor, and Eliza was tuned in to her friend enough to understand what the face meant. “I’m not cutting class to have lunch with some weirdo. It’s your job interview, Short Stuff.”
“That’s fine,” Rue replied, though her expression remained sour. “I can handle myself.”
♛
The drive out to Middletown was quiet and uneventful—downright boring, in fact. When she reached a transition from asphalt to dirt in the road, she pulled out her phone and called Eliza. As her car tipped and crunched over bumps and rocks, the phone rang loudly on speakerphone.
“You there yet?” Eliza said in lieu of a greeting. “You can’t be there yet.”
“I’m not,” Rue replied. “According to my GPS, I should be there in fifteen minutes.”
“So, what do you want from me, then?” Eliza snickered.
“I’m bored. When’s your next class?” Rue cracked her window open just enough to float her hand in a wave-like pattern in the wind that breezed past her moving car.
“I should be heading over right now, but someone is bugging me.” Static crinkled over the speakers, and Eliza’s voice became faint-sounding and distant.
“Hello? Can you hear me? Eliza? Helloooooo?!” Rue looked down at her phone in her lap and tried to redial Eliza’s number. Her finger had just brushed the screen when she felt something impact the car. The force of it knocked her backward, then tossed her forward into the steering wheel. She somehow managed to slam her foot down on her brakes, and the car screeched to a stop.
When her eyes refocused, she saw something slump over her grill and fall into the road ahead of her. For just an instant, it looked like a man, naked and fleshy-colored with thick black hair. She threw the car in park and turned it off, pressing the sleeve of her hooded, cranberry-red pea coat on her now-bleeding chin, which had been split open.
Rue held pressure on her face as she slowly unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the vehicle, praying that whatever she’d just hit wasn’t a person. She peered around the front hood of her sedan to see a tangled, muddy, heaving mess of fur. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was most definitely an animal of some kind.
She made her way around the front of the car, tiptoeing so as not to distu
rb the creature. She crouched down once she reached the body, still keeping a good three or so feet between herself and the animal. She thought it was breathing, but she couldn’t be sure.
She looked around herself, shuddering. Beside the road there was a small cemetery within a manmade clearing between a circle of thick trees and foliage. She hadn’t noticed it from the car. No more than six or seven faded gravestones stood almost proudly amongst each other, tall and straight, like they were showing off for Rue and all the animals of the woods to see. The dirt in the clearing was freshly-tilled around the headstones, as if turned over by some kind of ravaging forest beast. The strange eeriness of it sent electrifying chills through Rue’s whole body.
“Need any help?” an unfamiliar male voice asked behind her. Surprised, Rue jolted up to her feet and turned to face the stranger. He was a tall man with a mustache wearing a green flannel shirt and cargo pants. Attached to his belt hung an unusually large hatchet, and he held a double-barreled shotgun. “Does this critter here need to be put out of his misery?”
“I... I don’t know,” Rue stammered, keeping her eyes on the shotgun. The man noticed and laughed.
“Now, you ain’t got nothing to worry about, me with this gun here. Unless you’re a bear or a buck, I don’t give a damn about shooting ya.”
“I didn’t mean to hit it,” Rue explained. “It came out of nowhere.”
“Sure he did,” the man replied, peering at the animal. He stood up. “Wolf,” he announced. “Male, just as I thought.” He craned his neck to look into Rue’s car, where a large picnic basket sat on the front seat, buckled in. “Must’ve smelled whatever is in that basket.”
“Is he dead?”
“Nah, sucker ain’t dead. Yet, anyway. I’ll take him off your hands; you look like you’re headed somewhere important. How’s your car looking?”
Rue halfheartedly glanced around at her vehicle. “It seems fine.”
“Try her out.”
Rue got back in her car and turned over the engine. When it fired up, she put it in reverse and backed up a few feet. She rolled down her window. “Can I just go around you?” The path had just barely enough space for her small sedan to squeeze to the side of the fallen creature.
The man stared at her blankly. “Well, I suppose...”
Rue quickly put the car in drive. “Thanks, uh...sir.”
“Call me ‘Constable,’” the man replied with a smile.
“Thanks, Constable.”
Rue couldn’t drive around the man and wolf’s body fast enough. When she could no longer see them in her rear-view mirror, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then she gasped when she realized how much it was going to cost her to fix the huge dent in the hood of her car. “I’d better get that job,” she muttered as she made a slight right and turned another corner to the road that led up to the doctor’s house.
It was more than just a house—it was a mansion, a massive Queen Anne Victorian with intricate detailing, elaborate buttresses, and a hideous violet paint job. Rue drove to the front of the house and parked in the roundabout that circled a huge, dilapidated fountain adorned with a statue of three cherubs, their mouths shaped in perfect Os. She assumed that had the fountain been in any kind of working condition, water would likely be spouting from the melancholy-looking cherubs’ mouths. Instead, a shallow, stale, brown-green pool of mossy water breathed stagnancy over the once-glimmering marble bowl beneath the cherubs. Whatever magnificence it might have once held, it was now nothing more than a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Rue walked to the front door and pounded the brass knocker three rapid times. Several moments later, the large wooden door creaked open, revealing a spindly old man clutching a gold-encrusted, polished cherry-wood cane. He had a long, pointed nose; small, dark eyes; and hair as white as snow. His entire face resembled the skin on an elephant’s trunk, though it was even more wrinkled and much paler. He smiled at the sight of her, making his features soften. He almost reminded Rue of her grandfather.
“You must be Rue. So nice to meet you!” the old man exclaimed. He looked at her chin, grimacing slightly. “Are you hurt?”
“Hello, Doctor,” Rue replied. “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” She daubed at her face to make sure the bleeding had stopped. “No big deal.” His eyes followed her as she bent down to pick up the large picnic basket she’d brought along with her. “I brought some leftover lamb chops I cooked with my roommate in our slow cooker yesterday. We’re kind of Crock-Pot nerds; it beats the cafeteria food by a mile. And I’ve also got some mashed potatoes, gravy, and a salad. Hope that’s okay.”
“Oh, Rue! That sounds heavenly. Please, do come in!” He moved aside and motioned with his cane.
Rue stepped into the house and looked around. Like the fountain outside, it was a pale shadow of what must have formerly been a grand space. The stairwell that wrapped around the front hallway was still standing—barely—but the banister did not appear to be trustworthy. The dark Victorian wallpaper was peeling off the walls, and the baseboards and crown molding were splintered. Sometime in this house’s past Rue knew it must have been breathtakingly beautiful, but currently it was anything but.
“Please excuse the state of my home,” Dr. Forlorn said apologetically, as if he were reading her mind. “I’m afraid I can’t do too much nowadays. Hence why I need to get myself a little help around here!” He chuckled.
“The house is lovely,” was all Rue said as she followed the old man into a dining room. She tried not to let the state of it bother her. Caring for a house of this size would be difficult for even an able-bodied person. The doctor must have gone without a caregiver for a long time.
“I don’t have a microwave,” the man explained. “But you can heat up your food in the oven. I’ll eat mine cold.” He sat down at the head of a long, hand-carved, twelve-person table and set his cane aside.
“Oh, I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t mind having it cold, too.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. My mother always said food is better the day after it’s cooked, even more so if it’s cold.”
“Your mother is a smart woman.”
Rue hesitated. “Was. She passed away two years ago, when I was sixteen. She needed a heart transplant and wasn’t able to get one in time.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Rue. She raised a fine young lady. I’m sure she’s very proud of you... Wherever she is.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The rest of the meal was eaten in relative silence.
♛
After lunch, the doctor gave Rue a tour of the mansion as he summarized her duties. He explained that he often needed someone to push him in a wheelchair through the house, but he’d had enough sense to install an elevator in the back servants’ quarters several years ago.
“It’s that damn polio,” he said. “Near killed me when I was a boy. Now it just messes with my locomotion.”
“Oh... Well, I’m glad you survived polio,” Rue replied politely with a smile. “A lot of people didn’t.”
“Trust me, I know,” he said. “That’s why I became a doctor. I want to fix problems with people’s bodies. Make them as good as new. Or better, you see?”
“Yeah.”
“Too bad your mother didn’t know me. I bet I could have gotten her that heart she needed.”
Rue cringed and suddenly felt uncomfortable. She regretted telling the doctor about her mother. She had to remind herself that he was in the early stages of dementia—he probably didn’t realize how tactless he was being. “That would’ve been nice,” was all she could manage. Her eyes darted around the endless slew of hallways; empty, dusty bedrooms; and spiral staircases situated in the strangest of places around the house. It was much larger than she would have expected. She briefly wondered whether or not she could handle living there, but then she remembered the nursing program and its ten percent acceptance rate. She could make it work. She had to make it work. She’d only need to be here a few day
s a week—the rest of the time she would be at the dorm with Eliza. And maybe the doctor would only need her for a semester or two...
The tour ended in Doctor Forlorn’s office—or, as he called it, his “laboratory.” To Rue, it just seemed like another musty old room, except this one had an ancient-looking desk and built-in bookcases filled with droves of leatherbound books that ran up not one, but two of the room’s walls.
“This is a nice office,” said Rue.
“Thank you, my dear,” the doctor replied. “Now, what do you think? Are you interested in working for me?”
“Yes,” Rue said without hesitation. It didn’t matter how strange Doctor Forlorn and his house were. She needed this experience. “I’ll have to work it around my class schedule, but—”
“Excuse me, Doctor?”
Rue whipped around to see someone lingering near the office doorway, engulfed within a shadow that passed down the side of the door. The only physical trait of the figure apparent to Rue were his eyes, which were a striking green and seemed to glow through the darkness of the hallway behind him.
“Ah, yes! Lockheart. Do come in,” the doctor said. “Rue, this is my assistant, Edgar Lockheart. Fine one, he is!”
Rue furrowed her brow. “Your assistant? Isn’t that what I’m here for?”
“Not that sort of assistant, my dear. Your positions require different duties. You understand, Rue, I’m sure?”
Rue wasn’t sure she did.
“Don’t worry,” Lockheart said, coming into the room. He was older than Rue, but not much—probably in his mid-twenties. He was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. “I won’t encroach on your job, Rue.” His eyes twinkled and he held out his hand. “I think we’ll get along just fine. Who knows? We may learn a lot from each other. You’re pre-nursing, right? We’ll have a lot in common. I’m also a student of medicine.” He clasped his hand over Rue’s and squeezed. Lockheart’s hand was the prickly kind of calloused, and the back of it was covered with a patch of thick dark hair. “It’s good to meet you,” he said with a smile, his eyes not deviating from Rue’s in the slightest.
Magic at Midnight Page 12
