by Ira Robinson
It did not matter, though. She was just happy to be able to grid herself of this place.
The guard opened a door they passed and stepped into another hallway, much shorter. There were decorations here, as well, but unlike the ones in the lower levels, these were more sedate. Each looked rather expensive and old, however. Sam resisted a subtle urge to reach out her hand and flick one off a pedestal, giving ease to the vindictiveness and frustration being there made her feel.
The only other door in the hall was straight ahead and the guard opened it after turning the lock. Beyond, she could see waning daylight and the pavement of the parking lot.
She hesitated when she stepped through, breathing deeply the natural world surrounding her. The air was chillier than she expected, but it braced her as she inhaled.
"Wait here," the man said, only moving again when she nodded acknowledgment of his command.
He went inside again, disappearing from her view as he rounded the corner of the hallway once more. She turned and peered at the tree-line ahead, watching as the mist surrounding the place swirled softly, almost imperceptibly, in the waning light of the sun.
Bird song came to her, both from the forest and from the rooftop of the building she had spent an unfortunate amount of time in. They chattered over and over, but whether it was from the disruption of her appearance or their own devices, she did not know. None took flight, though, keeping themselves still.
The warmth of the earlier day emanated from the ground below her, and, now that she was outside and immersed in it, the subtle hint of the pavement wafted into her nostrils, as well, adding a sour tone to the otherwise pleasant scent of a place little touched by people.
A few moments after he disappeared, the guard returned, closing the building behind him. He passed over the backpack she had been wearing when she was captured.
She raised her brows for only a moment before he walked toward the parking lot without a word. She slung a strap across her shoulder and followed.
He opened the passenger side of one of the white sedans waiting. She stepped inside and he slammed it shut behind her, nearly closing her ankle within.
"What the hell," she shouted, her anger once more riled. "Why did you do that?"
He closed his own door and inserted the key in the ignition. "Oh, sorry," he said, acting blithely, but she knew better.
"Just take me to my car," she muttered as the engine turned on. "It's near the entrance."
She seethed, but wanted to get all of this over with. She put her backpack between her legs, slamming it down in exasperation.
Was that a smile on his face? Was he happy to have ruffled her feathers?
The sedan roused into motion, swinging toward the single path that led into the place. The building grew smaller in the side mirror, and she was thankful to finally leave it behind.
He steered the car rapidly through the woods, the few curves no problem to him. He had obviously driven through it many times, because even the fog did little to hinder his surety. They said nothing as they went. Sam was through talking to these people, and he made it conspicuous throughout her experiences with him that he felt resentful of having to babysit her. They came through the thickest part of the forest and the mist once more thinned out, fading away completely by the time they reached the orchard.
She finally lifted her voice when they got to the turn-off onto the thin highway. "Over that way," she pointed, hoping no one had messed with it while she had been sequestered.
He turned, going slowly as she led him to the spot her car should be.
The sky above reflected off of her front glass window and she raised her hand for him to stop.
"It's right there," she said, grabbing her backpack from the floorboard.
She popped the door open and sidled away. She said nothing more to the man as she banged it shut.
Sam stepped a pace as it was pushed in reverse and backed from her only a little before swinging the car around to go the way they came. He put it in drive and slammed on the gas, tearing off. When he turned into the entrance once more, it took only a few seconds before he disappeared from her view, the dust kicked up in his wake hovering in the air.
She shook her head and walked to her own, careful to avoid a few roots reaching up from the ground. The last thing she wanted to do was be tripped up.
She pulled her keys from her backpack and unlocked the door. The backpack landed on the passenger seat and she started it up, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to relax.
She was free. She was done with them.
She was on her own...
When she opened her eyes again, she glanced at the clock on the dash. Almost seven o'clock. She had been there for more than a day.
With everything that happened, with as much as had been revealed to her, and the crushing weight of confusion and deceit she felt, it had seemed far longer.
She reclined in the seat, pressing her back hard into it. The deep ache of tension released slowly as she breathed.
When she relaxed again, was somewhat better, at least in body.
She reached into her pocket and fished out the paper the woman palmed her. It was small, a fragment of lined yellow ripped from a pad.
The words "HOME MIDNIGHT" were scrawled on it, hastily done and difficult to read.
Her eyes flicked to the clock again as she swung the car away from the hiding place and onto the road.
Whatever was to come, she had only a few hours to prepare.
Chapter 28
The drive home should have taken less than fifteen minutes, but when her car pulled in, it was not long before the time she saw on the note.
But she needed to relax, to think about things before going back to those familiar walls. After what she had been through, it did not seem like home for her. Disconnection from her past, darkness in her future, all combined to make her feel there was no place she was safe as before.
So, instead of making her way to the comfortable home she occupied for the last few years, she put the car on the road and just drove, letting her hands unconsciously move with the curves of the pavement below, following whatever path the randomness took her.
She eventually put the car in park in front of the small house she visited in the days leading to the betrayal she endured. The farmhouse was darkened, but the shadow of it hovered in the nearly dissipated light of the falling sun.
Would the marks of the failed spell still be there? Were they waiting for her, passing the minutes until they could taunt her doomed attempt to rid herself of a darkness she did not understand?
The urge to see, to let it all happen, became overwhelming as the engine idled around her, until she reached into her bag and pulled out the small flashlight. She left the car running while she snapped on the light and stepped from it. The hum of it cycling was comforting in a primal way. In this forsaken and empty space, hearing the sound of something active made her feel better.
And, if she needed to make a fast escape, she could just put it in gear and go.
The glare of the headlights faded somewhat as she rounded the corner of the house, using the flashlight to keep herself from being tripped up. Patches of grass were pulled from the ground, but it was infrequent, and all of them led toward the place Sam remembered Odessa laying. Maybe they were torn from the sod by whoever came with Bart to take her away.
The crush of guilt weighed her down as she saw the spot Odessa had been, an area of ground where the grass was matted more than the rest. No trace of the rope remained, the luminosity flooding the circle, or what was left of it.
Tiny clods of dirt were still at the center, but the remainder had either been blown away or moved when the morass of creatures came at her.
The circle had been broken. She failed and poor Odessa paid the price. All Sam brought to her was pain and oblivion, and for what? For a chance to be free of the thing that turned out to be family?
Sam shook her head as tears began to flow, the tightness in
her overwhelming her until it pushed her down to her knees. The lamp fell from her hand and clattered against the ground. It blinked twice as the frame struck the earth, but did not go out.
Sam's palm went to her chest, pushing inward with great pressure as she wept not just for Odessa and the misery Sam brought to her, but her own anguish, as well. Her heart called out to the emptiness she was surrounded by, the deceptions and betrayals of everything she held dear stripping away any sense of dignity and self she had.
She felt orphaned, abandoned by those she trusted and thought loved her. Her brother, whom she always relied on to be a steady rock for her, proved his true colors. Her mother, a woman she wanted so much to mimic, was nothing like who Sam believed she really was.
And her father, a man she did not know and heard only great things about, even he turned out to be a monster.
All in the name of the Black Rose.
How could she trust any of them? How could she bring herself to be protected by them, when their stock in trade was to lie and mis-direct?
A long time passed with Sam on her knees in that small patch of empty field, welts from her eyes drifting down from her cheeks into the greedy ground below. A pop accompanied her lifting from the dirt and the sadness made it difficult to find the strength to move.
The sun faded entirely away, leaving the stars above to glimmer; the moon played between them, sharing its own modest light.
Her bleary eyes roved the darkness, taking in the nothingness enfolding her. There was no menace to this dark, only the scent of plants gone to seed drifting in each time she sniffled.
She stepped to the patch of ground where Odessa died. She bent and touched the dirt between the matted blades of grass, but nothing of her was there. No hint that something horrific happened at this spot and a kind woman lost her life, murdered by a thing that might have been her father.
Did she expect anything different? Some heat left over from the soul of Odessa passing between this world and the next? Some sign the tragedy here could serve some purpose other than misery?
All so senseless. All so meaningless.
Would they let her come to her funeral? For that matter, would there even be a funeral? They were so secretive about things that happened that they may have already done something to that physical remnant of her.
A sound behind her caused her to whirl around, her hand gripping the flashlight tighter in her fist. Her eyes flared wide when she spotted a small movement near the siding, before realizing it was familiar.
A soft, questioning meow came from Percy as he blinked against the bright light, before turning his head away and walking toward the front of the house.
Sam's breath huffed out as she recovered from the jolt. When she glanced back at the ground again, to the spot Odessa died, her mind clicked into gear and her heart reached out to the small animal.
He had no one to take care of him. Sam was upset at herself for not thinking of Percy before and, had he not made himself known, she may have neglected him altogether.
But what could she do? Let him roam wild now that his mistress was gone? He could probably get by with that, but for how long? He was used to being accommodated, and going from being the companion of a doting old woman to a broken feral thing did not seem right in any way. He did not deserve that.
She could call the vet clinic to see about getting him a shelter of some kind, but that, too, seemed wrong. What if he were placed in a home with people who did not really care for him? What would happen to him, then?
Sam stepped to the house and bent down again, making tchuck tchuck sounds with her teeth and tongue, trying to get his attention.
At first, he was hesitant, his fur raised slightly as he turned his side to her defensively. She held out her fingers, hoping for him to come to sniff.
He finally did, giving a soft mrooww as he did. She smiled as he recognized her fully and pushed his forehead into her palm for a thorough petting.
She slid her hand across the top of his head, peeling away a spider web sticking between his ears. He had not been out long but had quite a bit of dirt on himself. Whether that was from play or a lack of instincts on how to take care of himself, she did not know.
She smirked as he purred, the vibration filtering through his skin into her own.
She came back to her feet again, her heart already reaching out to him in sympathy. He needed a place. She had one for him.
Percy edged himself closer to her, then wrapped himself between her legs, letting his tail coil around it in a curlicue. He rubbed his ears and cheeks against her pants there, too.
Would he let her pick him up?
She bent again, putting her hands beneath his belly and lifted him gently. He did not protest as she brought him the rest of the way up and used her arms to help prop him in place. His nose drifted closer to her own, sniffing.
She took a tentative step or two and, when he still made no moves to jump away from her, Sam grew more confident he would approve her taking him with her.
"Want to come live with me, Percy?" she asked him, staring into his eyes. His only response was the deepening of his purr.
She used one of her hands to settle the flashlight beneath her armpit and trekked to her car. Percy gave no indication he wanted to be let go of.
Did he know Odessa was gone? That she would never be coming back? She had heard some animals were sensitive to things humans were not aware of, and Sam had often thought they were not given the credit for intelligence they deserved.
Maybe he was tuned in, at least on some level, that something transpired in this place, and wanted to be away from it just as she did.
Sam managed to get the passenger door open with one of her hands but, though Percy stiffened at the noise and watched her carefully, he still did not try to escape her hold.
"Stay there," she said as she closed the door behind him, leaving him on the floorboard of the front seat.
He remained sniffing it, as she opened her own side and plopped into her own.
She kept an eye on him as she put the car into reverse. He splayed his legs as they started to move, but settled down there while she turned it around and headed back to the main road.
She thought about trying to stop at the store on the way home to pick him up some food, but she worried if she did that, the cat could become upset being stuck in the car and, since she did not have something to keep him contained, he might try to bolt away when she opened the door there.
That would do no good; he would be in unfamiliar territory with the potential for traffic.
So Sam went straight through their small town, making her way to her home on the other side. She had milk, and probably a can of tuna in the cabinet somewhere. He could get by until she could go to the store and do better for him later.
When she pulled into the driveway and put the car in park, there was less than an hour before the strange woman would meet her and she wanted the chance to think.
But the figure waiting on her porch made her realize that would not happen.
The street lamp across from her house was bright enough for her to see Bart easily and, as she turned the car off, he was already moving away from her front door toward her car. He looked little different from when she saw him at the Society headquarters.
She glanced momentarily to Percy, who was coming up from the floor to sniff her bag on the seat. She wanted to get him inside and acclimated to stay, not deal with whatever bull story Bart would try to snow her with this time.
After pulling the handle on the door to crack it open slightly, she put Percy into her arms again and opened it the rest of the way. She kept her house key in her fingers as she stepped out of the car fully.
"What's that?" he asked as she passed him.
She did not want to speak with him. The anger over what he had done to her flared, shattering what little calm she had been able to cobble together.
Just walk away, she thought. Get into the house and close the door.
>
But he stepped in front of her, blocking her pathway up the stairs. Percy stiffened again in her arms, and backed into her further, pressing his warm body into her chest.
"Go home, Bart," she said evenly. She pushed past him and climbed the stoop. "Leave me be."
"I wanted to make sure you made it safe." He swung himself around to face her again.
"Yeah, you care so much about what happens to me, don't you? You should have saved yourself the trouble and stayed with your friends."
"You're pissed," he said, stepping toward her. "I guess I would be too. I am, really. But, I swear I didn't know all the things they told us, Sam."
