by Raven Snow
“Sorry.” Andrea shrugged. “I like my job. I want to keep it. Besides, I was more concerned about whether or not you were okay.”
Lady took a deep breath, trying to get her emotions in check. She felt angry and raw, breathless and terribly, terribly uncertain. She changed the subject. “How long have you been here?”
“I helped bring you here, and then I came back early this morning. I stuck around in case you woke up.” Andrea put on a strained smile and looked down at her phone. “I should probably get going. I’ll drop by again if you want. Or you can come out and see me at work. I have to be there in about an hour. The boss is putting us through some mandatory training drills or whatever. Really he’s just mad at Destiny jumping in like she did, I think.”
“I’m sorry,” Lady said instinctively. It felt like something she needed to say. If she hadn’t nearly drowned, no one would have made a fuss about the whole thing.
Andrea shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. The training is all on the clock, and I need the money if I ever want to get out of this stupid town.”
Lady couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Well, good luck with that.” She traded cell numbers with Andrea and then said her goodbyes to her. She seemed nice. Lady wasn’t someone who made friends easily. She had anger issues, the school counselor had said. She had a superiority complex, said the counselor, the first one foisted her off on. She had low self-esteem, said yet another counselor. Lady had broken a snow globe against the wall and tipped over a filing cabinet. There were no more counselors after that, just alternative school.
It wasn’t that Lady didn’t want friends. It was just that people came and went or they weren’t sincere in extending their friendship. They talked about her behind her back. If anything, sometimes Lady thought she was too trusting. She was too quick to smile and open up to people and trust them completely. Of course, that only led to humiliation after humiliation. These days, she tried to make a point to distrust people. It made her lonely, but it was better than the alternative.
Lady changed out of her nightgown as soon as Andrea left. She pulled on her last clean pair of clothes. It was a knit cardigan and some black dress pants. They had been packed in case Lady had to go somewhere fancy. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking. Faced with wearing a cardigan when it was too hot for one made her groan as she pulled it on. She wished she had just packed another casual set of clothes and been done with it.
A pair of Mary Janes had been packed with the outfit. She didn’t regret bringing those. They were some of her favorite shoes, even if her foster mother had always hated them. Maybe that was why Lady liked them so much. “You’re too old for Mary Janes,” Leanne would say with a sigh. She had been a beauty queen in her youth, before two kids and a lifetime of smoking made her quit. She blamed the twins for “ruining” her body and Lady for necessitating a pack or more of smokes a day. That wasn’t to say she didn’t still have strong opinions about fashion.
Lady walked out of her room and followed the soft sound of voices. She hoped Al had left already. She didn’t know how to feel about the woman anymore. Not that it was entirely her fault for not rushing her off to a hospital. Plenty of folks had had the opportunity to.
Lady didn’t get her wish. Al was through a doorway attached to the dining room. She was sitting in an armchair across from Ms. Poole. Apparently, there was a sitting room with a fireplace, not that a fire had been lit in it.
Ms. Poole was the first to look up. She had knitting needles in her hands and what looked to be the beginnings of a sleeve on her lap. She looked Lady up and down. “You look nice,” she said. Her tone wasn’t friendly, but it was the closest thing to tacit approval Lady had ever heard from the woman. “The clothes are wrinkled. I would have let you use my iron… I do like the shoes, though.”
A smile tugged at Lady’s mouth. She could feel it. Despite the judgmental comments about her wrinkled clothes, she was weirdly touched that Ms. Poole liked her shoes. “Thanks.”
Lion wound around Lady’s ankles. Noisily, he purred. “Otsuya has been taking care of that little hellion.” Ms. Poole nodded to the cat. “You should thank her. I’m sure she spent a small fortune.”
A small fortune? Hadn’t Lady only been out of commission for the day? Oh, well. Lady didn’t mind thanking Otsuya, especially if it made Ms. Poole happy. “Where is she?”
“In her room.” Ms. Pool pointed up. “Room four. I’m sure you can find it.”
“Thanks.” Lady nodded and headed for the stairs. Lion ran ahead of her, leading the way. He waited for Lady on the landing before zooming down the hall. Room four was indeed easy enough to find. The door was even cracked open. Lion went in.
“Well, hey there Lion, Sweetie,” cooed a voice, almost certainly Otsuya’s.
Lady wasn’t going to barge in like Lion had. She knocked lightly. “Hey, it’s Lady. Do you mind if I come in?”
“Lady!” Otsuya sounded delighted. “Of course you can come in! Come in! Come in!”
The door swung open beneath Lady’s palm. Immediately, she saw what Ms. Poole had been referring to. The floor was absolutely cluttered with cat toys. There was a scratching post, toys that dangled, little toy mice that squeaked when Lion pawed at them. There was even a cat tree and a bag of food in the corner next to two bowls. “Do you, uh, do you have a cat?” Lady didn’t think Otsuya had a cat, but it felt more weird to ask if she had bought all this for Lion.
“Oh, no. I wish. “ Otsuya was sitting on the floor. She had on a pair of blue drawstring shorts and an over-sized t-shirt. She made a kissing sound at Lion and waggled her fingers at him. He stopped playing to trot up to Otsuya and receive petting. “I just thought I’d dote on this little guy while he was here. I’m glad you’re awake, though! Don’t get me wrong.”
It hadn’t crossed Lady’s mind that Otsuya had been betting on her staying unconscious for more than a day. She suddenly found herself a little scared of the girl. “I don’t really plan on staying much longer.”
The smile fell from Otsuya’s face. She sighed and threw a toy mouse for Lion. He sprinted and pounced on it. “Well… I hate that. I hope you change your mind. But you can, like, have this stuff when you leave. Like… okay, maybe not the big stuff. I guess the cat tree will have to stay. It’s probably weird to pack a litter box. I can get you another bag for the small stuff, though! I bought him a few foods to try. He really likes the turkey flavored one. Plus, it’s vet approved, so that probably means it’s good for him, right?”
“You know, Ms. Poole seems to like cats. Why don’t you keep this stuff and adopt your own?”
“Oh.” Otsuya was frowning. “I’m not sure I could. I… travel sometimes, and that would leave Ms. Poole to take care of him. She wouldn’t appreciate that.”
“Oh.” Lady saw that she had really upset Otsuya. She regretted just about everything she said since entering the room. “Well, seriously, thanks for taking such good care of Lion. At this rate, he’s not going to want to leave with me.”
That put a smile back on Otsuya’s face. “That cat adores you. You’re his person.” Otsuya tucked her knees into her chest and leaned back against the bookshelf. “So how are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess. Everything is kind of a blur. I can’t believe I was out for a whole day.” Lady’s attention had been drawn to the bookshelf when Otsuya had leaned against it. It was huge, as wide as the wall was long and as high as the ceiling. It was packed with books. The other three walls were packed with pictures, cutouts from books and magazines and newspapers. It was the sort of room you saw in spy thrillers, a conspiracy theorist’s room. It was hard to believe Ms. Poole put up with the state of it. “Do you, uh, live here?”
“No, no, no.” Otsuya waved a hand dismissively. “I do stay here a lot, though. This room is reserved for me. But back to you! What happened? You have to tell me what you can remember.” She gave the carpet a pat. “Sit, sit.”
Lady hesitated but sat on the floor across from Otsu
ya. She brought her legs in and crossed them. “I don’t really know what to say. It was… It really was a blur. I mean, I did Ms. Poole’s errands. I was getting a receipt at the marina and a storm rolled in. A woman working there heard a scream. I thought I heard it too, and then I thought I saw some guy’s arms over the waves. The other chick swam out there and then I swam out there. It was really stupid. I almost drowned.”
There was no judgement in Otsuya’s eyes. They were wide and interested as she listened to Lady. “What then? Did you see the guy again after you got out there?”
Lady ran her fingers through her hair sheepishly. “I, uh, I don’t know. I thought I did, but it probably wasn’t anything.”
“What did you see?” Otsuya was still positively intrigued.
Why should she be embarrassed? Otsuya was weird. She spent a fortune on cat products for a cat she didn’t know, and she was a total urban legend fangirl. If anyone wasn’t going to laugh at her, it was Otsuya. “The lake is really dark, so I probably didn’t see anything. You know how when it’s dark your eyes can play tricks on you? They just start making up stuff for you to see.”
Otsuya sighed, impatient. “And?”
“And I thought I saw the guy who had called for help. I saw his hand anyway. So, I grabbed it. And then he was pulling me down, hard. I tried to let go and pull my hand away, but it got stuck. I used my other hand to try and free myself, but that one got stuck too and…” Lady groaned. “Geez. I don’t know. It was really surreal.”
“Can I see your hands?” Otsuya held out her own hands, palms up. Her expression had grown serious. She definitely didn’t seem to think Lady had lost her mind.
Lady scooted closer and placed her hands on Otsuya’s. They were immediately flipped over so that Otsuya could see her palms and fingertips. They looked normal to Lady. At least, they did at first glance. They were oddly wrinkled, she saw. That was a little strange.
Otsuya reached down to her forearm and tugged at one of the wrinkles. It began to come away, taking other skin with it. Lady’s heart dropped. What the heck was that about?! “May I?” asked Otsuya.
Lady wasn’t sure what Otsuya was asking permission for, but she couldn’t summon the words to really respond. Otsuya seemed to take that as permission enough. She pulled at the wrinkled skin slowly. It was like she was pulling up glue or liquid latex. She couldn’t help but let out a small shriek as she was faced with wet red flesh beneath.
“Hey, it’s okay. Shush.” Otsuya tightened one hand around Lady’s wrist to keep her from jerking away. “You’re all right. Look.”
“You’re pulling my skin off!”
“No, I’m not. Look.” Otsuya pulled more of the skin back.
It didn’t hurt, not in the way Lady would have expected at least. The air stung her skin some but not horribly. Whatever Otsuya was pulling at really was like a sturdy, flesh-colored liquid latex. The wet red stuff was a thin, mushed-up substance. Beneath that, she had some abrasions.
“Let me just… smooth this back down.” Otsuya put the sheet of latex back down until it was flush with the rest of her arm. “No one would let me into the room until they were done with you. I knew they did something, but I wasn’t sure what. You didn’t imagine it. You were definitely stuck to something.”
“What is that?” Lady was too caught up in the state of her arm. Otsuya had released it but Lady kept it outstretched, staring at it warily.
Otsuya shrugged. “It’s like, um, it’s kind of like a poultice, I guess? Al does them with herbs from her garden. She grows skin too.”
“Skin?” Lady repeated. She was sure she hadn’t blinked since holding her arm out to Otsuya.
“It’s not really skin.” Otsuya paused. “Or maybe it is. I don’t know. I think it’s kind of like the faux fur of people. It’ll shed off on its own, don’t worry. Your hands and arm will be fine. Just think of it as a super-effective bandage.”
“Have you ever used one?”
“Sure. But back to you nearly drowning. What did you see down there?”
Lady didn’t like thinking back to what had happened. She especially didn’t like it now that she knew something had really stuck to her, had really tried to drag her down. “I saw a hand. It was really pale. It sort of… glowed.”
Otsuya nodded, hanging on every word. “And what was attached to the hand?”
Lady couldn’t believe that was a question Otsuya could ask with a straight face. Of course, she also couldn’t believe it was a question with an interesting answer. “There was an arm.”
Otsuya nodded. “And?”
“And maybe a body? I’m not sure. I kicked down and I felt something, but then it was like… It was like the body broke apart and there was only an arm left. It wasn’t bleeding or anything. It was like it had only ever been this disembodied arm and it was still dragging me down. That’s… that’s when I passed out.”
“That sounds scary.”
“It was terrifying!”
“I bet.” Otsuya leaned back against the bookcase again. “A glowing arm that you got stuck to. It tried to drown you. Could be a kelpie. Those can shapeshift into people. Just an arm, though? Never heard of that. That’s weird.”
What was weird was how casually Otsuya was talking the matter over aloud. That wasn’t the mark of a sane person. Studying myth and folklore as a hobby was all well and good. It got a little weird when you started associating them with things happening in the real world. “What’s a kelpie?” Lady asked before she could help herself.
Otsuya goggled at her. “You don’t know what a kelpie is? Seriously?”
“Um… no?”
“Well, there’s always a first time for learning anything.” Otsuya rocked forward and onto her feet. The next thing Lady knew Otsuya was scurrying sideways, pointing at book spines and muttering to herself. “Scotland, Scotland, Scotland. Here! No… no… no, no, no.” She was taking books off the shelf and letting them fall at her feet as soon as she saw the covers. “None of this is what I’m looking for. I’m sure I had it.” She stomped, making Lady jump in surprise. “Crispin,” she muttered angrily.
“Huh?”
“Crispin! He must have stolen it!”
Crispin, Crispin. Where had Lady heard that name? Oh, right! “That’s Ms. Poole’s nephew right?”
Otsuya nodded. “He works at the library. He’s always stealing my books. I try to stay in my room while he’s here, but… God, he’s sneaky!”
Someone knocked on the door. “Quiet down in there.” The voice wasn’t quite shouting, but it certainly was loud.
“Oh, shut it. We’re leaving.” Otsuya snarled the words at the door. Lady hadn’t expected Otsuya to be someone who could lose her temper so quickly and thoroughly.
“Then hurry up and leave. Be back by no later than six.” There were heavy footsteps outside the door, fading as the person on the other side got further away.
“Who was that?” asked Lady, standing. She quickly lowered her eyes to the floor when she saw that Otsuya was changing out of her kick around the house clothes and into something else.
“Doyle,” Otsuya sighed. “Sometimes he can be okay, but mostly he’s a real pain.”
Lady looked up. Otsuya was wearing jeans and a bra while trying to wrestle a blue shirt over her head. There was a silver star on the front. It glittered. “Is he… your dad?”
Otsuya pulled her shirt down, popping her head out of the neck hole before dissolving into laughter. “My dad? God, no. Do we even look anything alike? Well… I guess he could have adopted me. Anyway, no. He definitely isn’t my dad.”
“Then how can he tell you what time to be back home?” Looking at Otsuya, Lady was fairly certain she was well over eighteen.
Otsuya was slipping her socked feet into some tennis shoes. “It’s a long story.” She dropped the subject there and headed for the door. “Come on. We should hurry.”
Chapter Five
Lady wished she had thought to bring a hairbrush along with her.
She kept running her fingers through her blonde mass of hair. Strands kept coming out on her fingers as she raked them through the tangles.
Otsuya didn’t have a car, so walking it was. Otsuya kept promising the library wasn’t far, but you could only promise that so many times before your destination officially became far. “I don’t see why you couldn’t have just pulled up this stuff on the internet,” Lady grumbled.
Otsuya looked back, eyebrows raised like Lady had just said something very stupid. “You can’t trust the internet. Besides, no one at the inn has a computer.”
“I have a phone.” Lady lifted her phone and waggled it as if to prove as much. “It gets internet.”
“Like I said, you can’t trust the internet.”
Lady decided it was better to just humor Otsuya. It wasn’t like she knew what to do with herself for the moment anyway. Currently, she was juggling her options. Should she call the cops and tell them what she had seen down in the lake? Should she have a word with Destiny and her boyfriend? Should she just get the heck out of Dark Lake and never look back? She wanted to avoid getting assigned more work by Ms. Poole at any rate. She would have to come up with a decision before nightfall.
Lion had been left back at the inn. He seemed content to stay in Otsuya’s room. Why wouldn’t he be? It was basically a cat paradise. Lady felt guilty that she couldn’t offer him something like that. “How much further?” Lady asked, trying to push down her guilt.
“Not far.”
“You know, I think you’ve said that five times already. It’s not—”
“There it is.” Otsuya pointed as they turned a corner.
Lady stopped where she stood. “That’s a library?” It looked more like a cathedral with its high spires and huge arching windows of stained glass.
“It used to be a church.” Otsuya spread her arms wide. “Now it’s a church of books. Pretty, isn’t it?”
