by Amade, Melle
My body feels weightless, like jelly. Who knows? Maybe we’ll go to the Sanctuary after this.
“How long is a wake?” I ask.
“Forever.” Zan pulls her faux fur-lined coat tighter around her neck.
“Hold tight, Chihuahua,” says Roman. “Tonight you can hibernate like it’s the dead of winter.”
“I don’t hibernate,” says Zan.
I smile, enclosed in the bubble of our friendship. Nothing can touch me here.
The car passes through the thick, stone walls surrounding Van Arend Manor. I glance up through the window and almost jump out of my skin. A huge eagle swoops down on me in attack mode. It’s bronze, but piercingly real. I shrink back out of sight.
This house was always off limits. Always. Aiden never invited people up here and, until everyone disappeared for the summer, I never wondered about it. I just figured it was his dad keeping everyone away. I push away the creeping sense of unease. I don’t want to think about my friends hanging out here without me. I don’t see how that’s going to make me feel any better.
The cypress trees that line the driveway bend, whipped by the storm. The turrets and towers of the manor stand erect and dark against the fierce sky.
“Holy crap,” I murmur.
“Impressive, huh?” says Roman.
“Only slightly,” I say. “Old money,” I add under my breath.
The beater halts and our doors are immediately opened by valets.
“Don’t put a single scratch in it,” smiles Roman, as he tosses the keys to the valet and drops his glasses over his eyes. Since when did his mockery of coolness actually, well, become kinda cool? I tuck my chin down and follow Zan into the cavernous entrance of the manor.
I stop dead in my tracks.
The hall is majestic, like the entrance of a church. The crisp white walls are a perfect square, each showing off an ornate gilded door. I’ve never seen so much gold in my life! Carved archways soar upward and draw the eye up to the dome where a mural is painted, but I can’t make it out. The gray light trickling through the four small circular windows in the dome is too dim. Columns protrude at pristine intervals around the entry hall and perched on top of each is a single gold eagle looking down on everyone.
I smooth my crazy windblown hair as the doorman takes my coat. Guess that’s what they do in manors. My simple 60’s black woolen smock is not completely out of place. Of course, Zan’s black dress has that Baroque gold filigree all over it and it hugs her skinny-ass body, but, well, that’s Zan. As much as I’d like to, I’ll never live up to her style. I smile and hook my arm through hers.
“Just like old times,” I say.
She squeezes my hand and gently removes it from her arm. “Things have changed, Shae,” Zan says quietly.
“What do you mean?” I ask. We’re flowing with the crowd towards the next room, but I grip Zan’s arm again and try to hold her back.
“It’s ok.” She moves forward.
“C’mon,” Roman tugs me towards the double doorway where a gold shield hangs above the doors. An eagle flies forward in front of two royal blue diagonal lines. Above is a metal banner, probably solid gold, with the words “Rein Weze Vogelzang.”
“He has a family crest?” I mutter.
“Rain is the birdsong,” Roman says.
“You can read that?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It’s Flemish. I just know.”
“And that?” I ask. Staring at me is a larger than life Egyptian statue. It’s all ebony and gold, with a muscular body and a raven’s head. It holds a solid black shield with a silver sword on it. “Is that supposed to be a falcon head?” I ask.
“Ravensgaard.”
The wall behind the statue is covered with a large tile work. On the large center tile, a knight kneels before a lord on a throne. Tiles surround it with various shields, a few of them missing. It looks familiar, but I don’t have time to stop. Roman drags me forward and into the most magnificent room I’ve ever seen in my life. It must be a ballroom.
Seriously?
A ballroom?
The walls stretch on forever; covered in swathes of blood red fabric and gold-framed paintings hang on every bit of wall space from eye level up. A million-diamond chandelier drops from somewhere in the gilded heavens.
“Aiden lives here?”
“You know he does,” Roman mutters.
“But, but I never - I mean, everyone thinks the main house is abandoned,” I whisper. “It’s always dark. I thought he and his dad lived in a small guest house on the property or something.”
Maybe this is why he can command a room, I mean, shit, he owns this place.
But, for all its grandeur, melancholy is soaked into the dust particles that float high in the thin light. My fingernails click quietly together. I’ve always thought of Aiden alone up here with his dad, but somehow I’d painted a picture in my head that was cozier than this.
A trio of musicians plays an eerie dirge in the corner. The creaking tones scrape along the air. It gives me the creeps as it crawls into my ears and slinks around the inside of my head. I want to pour it back out, but its somber tones are everywhere, pulling everyone close with its stringy tentacles. It dampens our voices and subdues the room.
A glass crashes and shatters at the feet of the musicians. Bows squawk across strings.
“Play something cheery, damn it!” A bedraggled man with a ten-day shadow lurches up from his throne -
“A throne?” The words gasp from my mouth.
I’ve seen Aiden’s dad at school events, but it takes me a moment to recognize him now. Usually he’s the dignified one in the back of the room, quiet and aloof, applauding with polite precision, not a minute before and most certainly not a moment after. He never stays to talk to anyone, just collects his son and leaves.
Tonight he is not that man.
His black velvet smoking jacket looks like it’s been shoved in the bottom of a packed drawer for the last year. His slacks are so wrinkled, he might have slept in them, and there’s a red stain on his white shirt that billows out from under his jacket. This must be why he wasn’t at the funeral; he’s drunk. He looks out of place and awkward in his own house. He stumbles forward.
I scan the room for Aiden but it’s impossible to single out anyone in this black-clad crowd. Zan, her face woven in a knot of trepidation, swivels her head like a searchlight, too.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a wake?” Aiden’s dad’s voice ricochets through the quiet hall. He spins on Callum’s uncle, the preacher, who is flanked by the scar faced guy I saw outside the chapel. “Don’t you people play cheery Irish music and dance on coffins with a Guinness in each hand?”
“Come on, Dad.” Aiden steps out of the crowd. “It’s time to rest.”
“I don’t want to rest.” Van Arend shakes off Aiden’s hand, grabs a glass from a nearby guest, and raises it towards the somber priest. “Dance with me, Murtagh.”
“I see you’re suffering, brother.” Murtagh raises his hand in blessing over Aiden’s dad. Jon’s silver claw ring flashes on the preacher’s ring finger. “Funerals bring up bad memories for everyone.”
He looks sincere but I can hear the soft ‘clack, clack, clack’ of his ebony cane tapping against the marble floor. Van Arend scowls at him.
“Especially pre-meditated funerals.” Van Arend lurches forward in Murtagh’s face. Clearly there is no love lost between these two.
“Father!” Aiden slips his shoulder under Van Arend’s arm and steers him to a door.
“Play something light,” Murtagh instructs the musicians, “as the Edelman commanded.” The air fills with a lilting yet muted tune that seems to soothe everyone; everyone except for Murtagh. He stands stiff as a sentinel watching Aiden and Zan escort Van Arend from the room.
“Why is Callum’s uncle wearing Jon’s ring?” I ask. “Shouldn’t it be Callum’s?”
Roman frowns down at me. “No, Murtagh gets everything. Look, it’s different h
ere, ok?”
“I know,” I say. “The ring makes him the Ridder, right?”
Roman stops cold, grips my elbow and pulls me into an alcove. He whips his glasses off his eyes, his face is less than a foot from mine, his vision darts the periphery of our space. “What do you know about the Ridder?”
“The night John died,” I murmur. “He told Callum he was the Ridder.”
“Shae, forget whatever you think you saw or heard that night,” he says.
“I saw something!” I say.
“You didn’t see anything,” he insists.
“Callum did turn into a raven.” I scrutinize Roman’s face. He knows something. His mouth opens, but all I hear is laughter.
“Yes, and a bunny rabbit delivers baskets of candy on Easter morning.” Callum’s musky leather scent fills the alcove.
My skin burns as I face Callum. His skin stretches taut across his face and dark shadows disturb his eyes.
“I haven’t seen you since the bonfire,” he murmurs. Not since we saw his brother alive, my head whispers. His green eyes are an aching swamp I could sink into.
“Oh, Callum,” I whisper. I want to wrap my arms around him and help hold him together, but Roman has a strenuous grip on my elbow.
“You two making out or admiring the artwork?” Callum leans against a pillar and gestures towards a huge painting in an ornate gold frame, which I hadn’t even noticed. It’s a naked man, lying on his back chained to a rock. A giant eagle perches on his groin, with the talons of one claw gashing at his face. My skin burns scarlet.
“It’s Prometheus,” Callum murmurs. “A Titan who disobeyed the gods.”
The eagle’s beak is covered in blood as it rips the man’s liver from a gaping wound in his side. I flash on Jon’s face in the casket, my nails click. Roman’s glasses drop back over his eyes. Callum’s face is twisted in an angular, painful smile that reflects the man’s wound.
“He was tortured for loving humans.” Callum voice is as bitter as his words.
“Maybe not the best painting to look at right now,” I say, but I can’t look away. The wounds pour blood over us. They’re too much like the marks on Jon’s face, how must his face have looked that night? Open lacerations of gushing blood pouring onto the ground as he lay there dying, gasping for breath, knowing he was going to die, knowing there was no way to stop the bleeding and continue on in life. My eyes feel like they’re peeling out of my head, caught in the painting and in a vision of Jon’s death I never saw.
But, Callum did. He’s staring at the painting. His fingers stretch out to touch the canvas, reaching for the blood. I have no idea how he can stand under the weight of this darkness.
I breathe stale air. This is not the time to freak out. “It’s a Ruben, isn’t it?” I try to interrupt his macabre focus. It sounds lame but it’s all that comes out.
His fingers stop, inches from the blood, before they do a small circle that encompasses the room. “Yes,” he whispers. “About half of them are.” I’m under the full force of his pained gaze. I survey the room because I can’t bear the discomfort of not being able to help him. Every single painting features animals; Egyptians hunt hippopotamuses, tigers attack men, and dead fowl in a kitchen wait to be cooked.
“The Van Arends must love animals.” Small talk is all I have in my arsenal. My gaze lingers on a violent dog fight. There’s not a drop of blood on the canvas, but the bared teeth and ripped flesh of the beasts tear at my heart. Maybe they don’t love animals.
A cold laugh escapes Callum. It sounds more like a snarl. “We all love animals,” he says loudly, a little too loudly. A few heads turn. A frown tightens my face, but I erase it as fast as possible. His brother was killed by a wild animal.
“Maybe we should get a drink?” Roman gestures towards the bar. Callum ignores him.
“Do you love animals, Shae?” His voice bellows.
A ripple of silence floods across the conversations as heads swivel in our direction. Murtagh’s eyes narrow. He leans in to scar eye guy and says something.
Roman catches their exchange, too. His jaw clenches. “Not cool, Callum,” he says in a strained whisper.
Callum’s upper lip curls. For a second he looks like my mom when she needs someone to lash out at. I have to snap him out of it. I rest the tips of my fingers against his forearm. “I’m sure they’ll catch the mountain lion, Callum.” I soothe the words over him like butter, but he rips his arm back.
His coarse laughter bounces around the alcove and escapes into the ballroom. I twist and connect eyes with the scar eye guy, who’s lasered in on me. Roman’s hand grips mine as if he’s about to make a run for it and pull me with him.
“We already know where he is.” Callum’s voice is strident as his hand sweeps the ballroom. It’s stopped mid-swing by Aiden’s solid grip.
“Outside,” he says. “All three of you. Now.”
The crowd bristles as we push through the row of glass terrace doors. A flurry of wind bursts into the ballroom, slamming the doors behind us.
“Not here.” Aiden moves us across the worn gray terrace. The wind has blown over two of the trees, their pots lie cracked and broken on the hard stone. Gripping Callum’s elbow, Aiden brings us down a set of stairs. In the distance is the ocean. Storm clouds blow in. Fast. The second we are out of sight of the manor, Callum tears his arm away from Aiden and pins him against the wall.
“Your father is a two-faced, lying son-of-a-bitch.” Callum’s face is inches from Aiden’s. Without taking his eyes off Callum, Aiden gives a short jerk of his head to Roman, who pulls me down the narrow stone walkway until we are at the far end of the lower terrace. My gaze falls on the derelict Topanga Zoo that lies in the crevice of a canyon below, forgotten.
“He didn’t tell them.” Aiden’s voice is super low but it travels to me.
“Liar!” Callum shoves Aiden against the wall.
“Go help him.” I prod Roman.
“He doesn’t need my help.” The downturned lines of Roman’s mouth are unsure.
“Do you think my dad would interrupt his very important days hunting to report your brother to the Order?” Aiden asks.
“I think -” Callum stalls.
“The question you should be asking,” Aiden continues, “is who has the most to gain from Jon’s death?”
“My uncle would never- he works for your father,” Callum says.
“But, it’s obvious he doesn’t like it,” Aiden says.
“Who’s the Order?” I whisper to Roman.
Callum and Aiden both turn and look at me. How did they hear me? I thought I was quiet.
“You can hear them?” Apprehension slides across Roman’s face.
Aiden stands in front of us before I can even answer. “Take Callum back in,” he tells Roman. “And stay with him the whole time.”
Roman gives a brief nod.
“How could you hear that?” Aiden asks.
My shoulders rise. “I assume your ancestors designed your terrace with great acoustics.”
“There is nothing acoustically precise about this terrace,” Aiden dismisses it with a gesture.
“Why don’t you trust me?” I push the question out before I can think. This is our first moment alone in so long. I have to connect.
“Trust you?” His brow furrows.
“You’ve never invited me to your house.” I nod towards the manor to avoid his gaze.
“My dad - you saw -” clouds dim Aiden’s eyes.
“Zan and Roman seem to know their way around.” I counter his excuse with a frown.
“That’s different.” Aiden folds his arms over his chest. “You know our parents’ group. They come here for events. It’s not like I invite them and not you.”
“Why has everything suddenly changed?” I lower my chin and squint my eyes. I choose my words carefully. “You know what I mean. We used to be so close and now it’s like I hardly know you guys. Is it, is it because of the party? When I made a scene? Zan says
it’s not but -”
His smile lights up my heart. “When you toppled the table over?” he asks. I can only nod. I still don’t get why he’s smiling. “That was a great moment,” he says.
“Great?”
“Yes,” he says. “I think about that moment a lot.” The fresh scent of rain laden clouds wafts off him. Not sure which of us is moving forward but we’re being pulled together. His arms unfold and his hands are on my shoulders, holding me firm, both close to him, yet apart.
“Why?” I breathe the word into the air between us.
“Because,” he says, “you thought I was ignoring you and you toppled the table over. No girl gets that upset unless she really likes someone.”
“I – I -” The words get caught in my throat as my skin burns in embarrassment. I try to focus on cleaning a fingernail, but he’s too close and it’s awkward. “You knew,” I mutter.
“I liked it,” he says.
My face is drawn up by his magnetic pull. Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand has reached forward and I’m delicately touching his sharp cheekbone, tracing down the edge of his jawline. His eyes close for an instant as a smile flits across his lips. His finger slips along my neck and he lifts the gold necklace.
“You wore it,” he says. “I’ve waited a year to see you wear it.”
“I knew you left it for me,” I feel like I just won a prize. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I shouldn’t be giving you things,” he says. “But, you’re always in my head.”
My skin flushes hot as his gaze moves slowly over my body and fixates on my lips. I want to lean in to him, offer my lips for the kiss he must be thinking about. But, his grip is firm on my shoulders and he’s not pulling me closer. He’s holding me half an arms-length away. I lean towards him as much as his arms will allow. A loose strand of hair flies across my mouth. My lips tickle. I tilt my head up and his breath warms my face.
“Shae…” he murmurs, his lips pressing gently against mine.
