Clowders

by Vanessa Morgan

  They agreed to meet in the nearby town of Vianden. They rode the cableway together right up to the famous Vianden Castle where Lorenza led him around the courtyard and the different halls. She told him how the French poet Victor Hugo was so delighted with the impressive scenery of Vianden he took up residence here, and she pointed toward the bridge next to which he used to live.

  They ended with a candlelit dinner at Restaurant Du Pont – a converted bridge operator house - where they had an incredible view over the valley and river. They started with Burgundian vineyard snails, something Aidan hadn't eaten since he was in his early twenties, followed by baked trout with almonds and potato croquettes, and an excellent vin maison.

  As he expected, Lorenza turned out to be understanding, which was easy considering she didn't live with him and didn't have to bear the consequences. Also, he didn't have to talk about his problems with her, which was something he appreciated.

  He loved watching how the candlelight shone into her creamy skin and how the ends of her dark hair brushed her breasts each time she moved. Her beauty was so intoxicating it was enough to take his mind off any problems he had. And when he took her in his arms when they came out of the restaurant and twisted his fingers through her hair, it was only out of solace. There was no reason to feel guilty.

  Though he wasn't technically cheating on Jess, he knew it wasn't right to have these romantic, heartfelt moments with another woman. But he had an excuse, right? It was normal to flee from problems instead of facing them. It was normal for unhappy people to do stupid things.

  ***

  Jess waited.

  And waited.

  The minutes ticked by, but Aidan didn't come home. At first, Jess was sick with nerves. What if something had happened to him?

  But by the time the sky bruised, her worry started to fade. She knew where her husband was. Usually, Aidan always found the time to message her several times during the day – recommendations for shows to watch in the evening, pictures of cats that looked like Avalon. Little things. It meant he was thinking about her. Today he had contacted her only once to say he wasn’t coming home, which probably indicated he had better things on his mind. Or someone else.

  Around midnight, Jess stopped waiting for Aidan and went to bed. Before turning off the lights, she grabbed her phone and punched in Aidan's number one last time. No answer. Obviously. She turned off the lights and decided to not think about him anymore either.

  Almost 20 minutes later, she awoke again.

  Twisting her head, she turned into the blackness to her right.

  She wanted to reach for the bedside light but decided against it because that would creak the old bed frame. She didn't want to make a sound, any sound at all.

  Because something was in the room with her.

  A sound, so faint she wasn't sure she'd heard it at all, filled the darkness.

  She couldn't help the foreboding that lodged at the back of her throat.

  And then, suddenly, the painted floorboards creaked beneath the rug as the intruder shifted its weight.

  Indistinct in the darkness, she had to strain to make it out, but she could have sworn she'd seen a dark figure scamper away from the door and toward the window.

  After a few seconds that seemed like endless minutes, the pupils of her eyes expanded to the maximum in the near total darkness of her bedroom, and she saw a speck of light a few paces ahead. She couldn't make out anything else.

  Whatever was in the room with her now was having a go at something that was rustling. In the best possible scenario, it was mice, or rats, playing with a plastic bag.

  Then she remembered that she had left a piece of banana bread in her handbag, which was sitting on the chair between the dressing table and the window. The rustling came from this area, a rummaging as if the paws of an animal were attempting to destroy the aluminum paper in which the banana bread was wrapped.

  Pushing the image of rats to the forefront of her mind, Jess found the courage to roll over and reach for the bedside table. The bed frame made the sound of an old wooden ship.

  The rifling of her bags stopped.

  Claws clicked across the floor toward her bed. Through the darkness, she was sure a shadow was moving closer to her face. She could have sworn she heard someone breathing.

  What if she turned on the light and someone was standing there? Should she fight? Should she get off the bed and run outside?

  It didn't matter. Jess' fear had robbed her of the strength for running, let alone defense.

  She groped for the cable and found the metal stem of the lamp instead. When she located the cable, her desperate fingers twitched their way to the plastic switch.

  Before she had the chance to switch the lamp on and confront the intruder on the end of her bed, she heard the claws clicking away from her and out of the bedroom. When the sound stopped, she was sure that whatever had been in the room with her was gone, and she and Eleonore were safe again. She fell asleep with the lights on.

  ***

  When Aidan finally came back home at half past one, Eleonore was sitting wide awake in the living room.

  “What are you doing up, E?”

  “I heard someone in my room again. I was afraid.”

  “There are no giant cats outside, Eleonore. You're in no danger.”

  “But, daddy,” she hissed. “I had a good look at it, and it wasn't a cat. There was a girl in my room.”

  “How could you be sure it was a girl if it was dark?”

  “There was just enough moonlight,” she said

  Aidan warmed her some milk in the microwave and walked her back to her room. “Tell me, where was this girl?”

  Eleonore pointed at the corner at the right side of the window, clutching the glass of milk in her free hand.

  “Here?” Aidan asked, approaching the window that was open a crack. He swung the curtains wide open to reveal whatever might have been lurking behind it. “There's nothing here, honey,” Aidan told her.

  “I did see someone,” Eleonore whispered, unsatisfied with her dad's diagnosis.

  Aidan closed the door and tucked Eleonore back in bed.

  “There's nobody there now,” he told her. “Go to sleep. You're safe.”

  When he left Eleonore's room, Aidan's cell phone made a beeping noise. It was a text message from Lorenza: “It felt good holding you again.”

  A smile appeared on his lips.

  CHAPTER 18

  Aidan made sure to leave the house before Jess and Eleonore got up. Even coffee had to wait until he was out the door because the noise from the espresso machine was likely to wake them. He left a handwritten message on the kitchen table: “Lots going on right now. Will tell you when I get back. Love you.”

  Considering he didn't have a job anymore, he had no idea how he would spend his days. He felt sorry for Jess, having to take Eleonore to and from school again, but he needed time to think about how he would give her the bad news. He had to admit that losing his position at the clinic could potentially be a blessing in disguise. Maybe there were better places in Europe than Clervaux. Although he would never truly admit it to himself, a creepy disquietude had overtaken him.

  Knowing about the local superstition, he'd become much more aware of the quirks of this place. Over the past few days, he had noticed the children weren't allowed to play outside alone because of some undefined danger, one that no one wanted to talk about when he asked about it. It was as if the people here believed the divider between our world and the supernatural realm was gossamer thin. Here, the cats were the guardians of the underworld. Evil purred seductively to anyone who dared to listen.

  Though an ominous early-morning fog surrounded the small town, Clervaux still appeared serene among the lush landscape. Yet the streets also seemed a lot scarier than they ever had before. All the windows were tightly closed, and the only sounds were the hum of exhaust fans and the muted growl of a power mower near the castle.

  As Aidan walked to the bus s
tation, he noticed tiny, brown nuggets in front of the doors and windows of each house. He popped the question to a senior man in his eighties who was in the process of covering his doorstep with it.

  “It's black pepper,” the old man replied. “You'd better do the same. For protection.”

  “Why would pepper in front of my home protect me?”

  “Pepper's a cat repellant. It'll keep them out.”

  “I thought you all adored cats?”

  “We do. But something has changed. Don't you feel it?” The senior man looked at Aidan, almost bewildered at the thought he hadn't noticed anything. “She's back. She wants revenge.”

  Aidan had always been so wrapped up in work that he never understood what everyone was talking about, but now that it had been brought to his awareness several times, he was unable to deny it.

  He had seen nothing.

  He had heard nothing.

  And yet, though the feeling was vague, he had the eerie sense that something was out there. Whatever it was, it remained in the shadows, just out of sight, but he could tell it stayed parallel to his path. He could feel it. Something was watching him.

  It was probably only the cats. From within the gutters and on the windowsills, they sat almost entirely motionless, only their heads moving to keep pace with his every move. Yet every time a twig snapped, he would swing around in the direction of the noise.

  In order to avoid bumping into Jess during the day, Aidan took the bus to a nearby town, where he would go to a café to look at job ads on his iPad. As long as he could improve his situation within days, everything would turn out fine. In that case, he and his family would stay in Luxembourg, or even somewhere else in Europe, and the change would only be minimal - nothing that couldn't be overcome.

  The bus took a left turn onto the motorway. As soon as Clervaux disappeared from Aidan's view, so did the cats. He had become so used to their presence that it was strange not seeing a single one outside his town.

  But there was something else that was even more unsettling. For some reason, after he had left Clervaux, he felt safer. Now that the cats were gone, the paranoia had dissipated as well. He no longer had the feeling that something was observing him.

  ***

  Jess didn't immediately notice that Aidan had forgotten his phone at home. During the first part of the day, she took Eleonore to school, ran some errands and ate lunch. It was only afterward, when she cleaned the apartment, that she saw his cell phone on the bedside table. It was tempting to check his phone for evidence of what she suspected, but she resisted the urge and continued dusting the room instead.

  You're better than that, she told herself. You're not the jealous type.

  But before she finished cleaning, she stood once more near Aidan's bedside table and picked up the phone.

  If she didn't find anything, she'd feel guilty for not having trusted her husband. But what if she did indeed find something?

  She needed to know.

  With trembling fingers, she checked his calls. Aidan had made a phone call to Lorenza yesterday during the day. He hadn't had the time to text his wife, but he sure had the time to call a virtual stranger.

  Then she opened his text messages. “It felt good holding you again,” Lorenza had written. The text was from last night when Aidan had come home late. Lorenza mentioned the word “again,” so it hadn't been the first time they'd been close. Then she saw the message Lorenza had sent him earlier that day: “Sorry to hear you lost your job. I'll do my best to change your mind and give you happy thoughts.”

  Not only was Aidan having an affair, he had also lost his job, which meant they were unable to get back to America if her parents got sick. What hurt the most, though, was that apparently, she was the last one to know about it.

  How could everything have been falling apart so quickly? They'd had problems in the past but they always came out stronger as a couple. Now Lorenza had come between them, and their relationship was instant history.

  Had she brought this upon herself? Was this her punishment for being too sweet? Regret formed a lump in her throat. She could have easily said “no” to Aidan, but she had always felt that she had to make a choice between staying with her husband and her own happiness.

  She wondered how her life would have turned out if she had gone her own way. Would he have stayed with her? And if not, would she have been happier without Aidan?

  Let this be a lesson, she thought. Only listen to yourself from now on.

  She still couldn't imagine a life without him, but she wouldn't let Aidan dictate anymore how she should live. If something made her unhappy or went against her principles, she wouldn't do it anymore. No more concessions.

  Jess stood up, wanted to pour her a glass of wine but thought better of it. If she were going to confront Aidan tonight, she'd better be sober.

  ***

  That evening, Aidan came home with a tense face and dripping wet from the rain. “Hi, ladies,” he said as if nothing had happened. He plumped down on the sofa, reached for the remote control, and flipped on the television.

  “Evening, daddy,” Eleonore said, and she jumped into her father's arms for a hug.

  “It's late. Again,” Jess said. “We barely see each other these days.”

  Aidan didn't look up from the television screen. “I know. I've been busy. I’ve never had a job that gave me so much of a headache.”

  “Is that so?” The coldness in her voice made it sound as if she had no interest in what he was saying. It made him long for Lorenza who appreciated him and always found the right words of consolation.

  “What time did you roll in last night?” she demanded, a hard edge of anger in her voice.

  “Late,” Aidan said. “I finished after ten, then went out for a nightcap with the colleagues.” He realized too late he didn't have any. Who would he hang out with? David? Missing. Simon? Too unfriendly. He hoped Jess would forget about his remark and not ask any questions. She didn't look very interested in what he had to say tonight anyway. He briefly gazed at her from the corner of his eye to look for a reaction, but she had already turned her back on him.

  By the time dinner rolled around, Jess served herself and Eleonore grilled tuna steaks and a salad and left Aidan's plate conspicuously empty. As he entered the kitchen to join them, he was surprised to see she didn't make any for him.

  “What will I be eating?” he said.

  “I don't know. I had no idea you'd be eating with us tonight.”

  “But what should I--” Aidan began, but Jess cut him short.

  “There's bread and cheese if you're hungry.”

  He looked at her, trying to understand what was going through her head. Did Jess realize he was lying? No, that couldn't be. She trusted him.

  Eleonore looked up at her parents. “Don't fight.”

  “We're not fighting, E,” Aidan said, his eyes pleading with his wife to let it go, at least until they were alone. “I was inconsiderate, and your mom has the right to be mad.”

  Dinner was tense. Jess stared at her plate at which she picked with her fork once in a while, without putting much into her mouth. Aidan tried to break the tension with a few jokes, but after a look from Jess, he didn't utter another word. Neither of them enjoyed their meal.

  Eleonore noticed the continuous unease between them, because she sang during the entire meal, probably to lighten up the atmosphere. She didn't know the words, so she invented her own vocabulary as she went along. Typically, Jess would have told Eleonore to concentrate on her food instead of singing, except now she kept her silence.

  The sound of something scurrying across the floor in the living room interrupted Eleonore's annoying song. All three of them stiffened. None of them spoke.

  ***

  After Jess had put Eleonore into bed, Aidan and Jess kept to their separate rooms – Jess took a bath, while Aidan stayed in the living room to watch television. There was a nasty tinge of irrevocability to their behavior, as though they'd reached
the end of something.

  Aidan had already pushed through two episodes of a show when he decided to try for a peace offering. He fished a mug from the cupboard and poured Jess a cup of chamomile tea.

  When he entered the bathroom, Jess tensed. Aidan stepped across the room and offered her the mug. She didn't take it, and he placed it on the bathroom sink before silently pulling a stool up next to her and sitting down. As soon as he did, she pulled into herself and turned her head away from him, creating as much distance as she could.

  “I know it's been a bit tense between us lately,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  “You noticed. Good.” She said it in a way that was mocking him. Her behavior didn't exactly facilitate communication.

  It was hard to know what to say. They couldn't talk about normal things because nothing was normal anymore, and he certainly couldn't mention he lost his job now that she was angry with him. Aidan pressed his lips together, hoping to find a suitable inquiry. From his seat, he looked out the window. In a few minutes, the sun would be blotted out entirely.

  “I will consider moving back to America. Not now. I can't, but...” he hesitated. “I promise, I will consider it. You're far too important for me.” He silently nodded in agreement with himself.

  Jess’ eyes glittered with fresh-sprung tears. “I put food for you on the table yesterday. You didn't even bother to call.”

  “I'm sorry. Sometimes the clinic just doesn't care that I have a life,” he said, and he bent forward to kiss her on the forehead. “Maybe we should have this conversation another time.”

  “Why? Won't you be home tonight?” Her lips curled into a wry smile. Jess looked at him as if she were waiting for him to say something. When that something didn't come, she quietly shook her head in disapprobation. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, she said, “I checked your phone.” Her voice trailed away, and she had to swallow away her emotions. “I know you spent the night with Lorenza yesterday. I know you lost your job.”