by Krista Wolf
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Melody said, just a little too quickly.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing.”
“It’s just that…” She sighed in frustration. “I thought I was being sent here alone. I work well alone,” she added, although that part was a bit of a stretch. “No offense.”
“None taken,” shrugged Eric. “And hey, I didn’t know you were here either,” he admitted. “Not until I saw you out in the field. Maybe they wanted us to help each other?”
She shook her head reflexively. “I really don’t need any help.”
“I dunno,” he said, scratching his chin. “Looks like you definitely might’ve needed some help back there…”
Melody followed his gaze back to the road. Off in the distance, the dog was gone. Probably limped off, although she couldn’t see how. Thinking the animal might be okay made her feel somewhat better at least.
“Look,” said Eric. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no,” she relented, resting a hand on his arm. She couldn’t help but notice it was a firm arm. “This has nothing to do with you. I promise. It’s just that… well…”
“You thought you were riding solo.”
She sighed and smiled. “Yeah, that.” She bit her lip. “I guess I’m just being an asshole.”
“Nah. I get it.” Eric’s voice was soft and understanding. Consoling, but without trying to placate her. “They’re always springing shit like this, aren’t they?”
Melody laughed out loud. “Yes. Yes they are.”
“So let’s make the best of it,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Get this stupid thing and get out of here?”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
“Good.”
Melody took a deep breath and let it out slowly as they stepped onto the porch. She was feeling better already. The big antebellum mansion was imposing, to say the least. Locating what they were after might take a while, and two heads were always better than one.
The Order must really want this thing, she thought to herself. Badly.
Enormous columns streaked upward on either side of them, stretching twenty-five feet in the air. Stepping past them, Eric knocked three times against the thick, painted door. The sound barely registered. When no one answered he knocked again, harder this time.
He turned to her and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, and can I say one more thing?”
“Shoot.”
Eric winked. “You look cute when you bite your lip.”
Five
“You can read people,” a woman once told her. “Hear their thoughts, their emotions, even share in their hopes and dreams. You have the gift of insight — one of the rarest gifts that can ever be given. But it must be cultivated. Tempered with caution, and moderation.”
Melody had been fourteen at the time. Fourteen and secreted inside the strange dark tent at the heart of the fairgrounds, surrounded by a thousand people enjoying the Renaissance Festival. The “gypsy” woman confided that she wasn’t a gypsy at all. She was a tarot card reader who, self-admittedly, didn’t have any of the gifts her grandmother once possessed. By the end of the reading, she’d even given Melody her money back. She did it almost fearfully. With reverence and respect.
“Be very careful how you use your insight,” the woman had warned. “Employed correctly your gift can bring you great things… but also enormous sorrow.”
She’d left the Oracle’s tent more confused than ever. Up until that day, Melody always assumed she had good intuition. That everyone could read people the way she did, only maybe she was better than most. She couldn’t see the future any more than she could shit gold. Couldn’t conjure up the winning lottery numbers, or tell when a plane crash was about to happen, or anything even remotely that useful. All she got was bits and pieces of the present. Flashes of memory, of emotion and instinct, from the person she focused on at the time.
Her friends had laughed at her story. They cared little about her experience in the tent, and wanted to talk only about their own. It was all silly stuff, too. Boys. School. Love…
It wasn’t until she returned to the Oracle the next day, on her own, that Melody realized what she truly had. At first the woman wasn’t too happy to see her. She could feel it — no, even see it in her mind’s eye. The Oracle feared what she could do, and the more it seemed to scare her the more it frightened Melody as well. By the end of their second encounter however, the woman had softened. She was consoling toward Melody, which she needed, but also guided her in new directions.
“Take this,” she’d said, opening a darkened drawer. She pressed something cold into Melody’s hand — a thin token, carved from jade. On one side it was intricately etched with a symbol. On the other, an address had been scratched crudely with the head of a pin.
“Contact them,” the woman had told her. “Show them this was given to you, and they might help you.”
Melody had no idea who ‘they’ were. But the address on the back of the token — somewhere in upstate New York — had changed her life forever. She began receiving letters at first, hand-written missives inquiring about what she could do. She described all of it, every last detail, listing encounters and examples and how she generally felt before, during, and after using her ‘gift’.
A week later two people had come — a man and a woman. They approached her cautiously and in secret, but with a warmth and openness that quickly eased her fears. They could show her how to use her gift, they told her. Teach her how to call upon it, to turn it off and on. She was not to inform her parents. Not to inform anyone. If she did, there would be no more visits. No more knowledge.
Melody kept her promise.
Shortly after her eighteenth birthday a car arrived for her. It took her to the airport, where she was flown to New York on a private jet. It was her first time in an airplane — her first time ever being so far from home. Her grandmother had been wary of her choosing outside study rather than going straight to college. Her parents would’ve objected outright, but an accident had taken them from her when she was only ten.
Blackstone Manor was an all new place, where she began an all new life. Xiomara was there to greet her when she arrived. The tiny African woman stood at the massive front doors, wearing a bright red robe and muttering a stream of colorful but hilarious curse-words.
Those doors were a lot like the ones Melody stood in front of right now. Only these were a lot less warm, a lot less welcoming than the Blackstone.
There was the heavy click of a latch, and one of the doors swung open. A man appeared before them, taller than anyone Melody had ever seen. He was pale and gaunt, with sunken cheekbones and stark white hair. He wore a somber expression as he gestured them inside, uttering only a single word.
“Greetings.”
Eric led the way, and she followed. As the man closed the door behind them Melody’s breath was taken away by the beauty of the plantation house. The walls were washed in bright, elegant white. Wide paneled floors gave way to a sprawling staircase that dominated the massive foyer. Everywhere she looked Melody saw things of beauty — paintings, portraits, exotic furnishings. Colorful vases. Meticulously-woven rugs.
“You rang?” Eric whispered into her ear with a giggle. Melody’s brown furrowed.
“What?”
“You rang,” he repeated again under his breath. He bumped her and nodded toward the man who’d let them in. “Lurch! From the Addams family!”
“The Addams what?”
Eric looked wholly disappointed. “Forget it,” he sighed. “I guess it was before your time.”
She wasn’t sure how far ‘before her time’ it could’ve been, really. Eric looked like to be in his mid to late twenties, tops. Only a few years older than she was.
The man was staring down at them impassively now, as if expecting something. Melody pulled a small card of parchment from inside her dress and held it out to him.
“Hi
!” she began cheerily. “I’m Melody Larson, here for the cotillion.”
The man stared at her as if she hadn’t said a single word. Just as she began feeling uncomfortable, his eyes shifted to Eric.
“Me too,” was all Eric said.
Their host nodded slowly but didn’t take her invitation. Eric didn’t offer one of his own, either.
“The Lady of the House is expecting you,” the man said impassively. “This way please.”
Melody smoothed out her dress as they followed him up the staircase. The maple banister was well-oiled and polished smooth, the treads on the stairs covered in a plush, red-patterned runner.
“This place is even more beautiful than the Blackstone,” Melody breathed. She said it just low enough so that only Eric could hear it.
He forced back a smile. “Uh huh.”
On the second floor landing they turned and followed their host down a fancily-paneled hall. Candles burned in sconces on either side. There were no light fixtures, only lamps and lanterns. Everything around them was period decor, one-hundred percent true to the late 18th century. Melody found herself wishing she could take pictures.
You won’t have your phone, she remembered Xiomara telling her, so no photos, or videos, or recordings. Everything you say and do must be period, as if you’re role-playing. Lady Neveux is very strict about that. As are the other guests.
It was the ‘other guests’ part Melody was worried about. Finding the egg would be one thing. Recovering it—
Stealing it
—in front of a bunch of other people? That was quite another.
The gaunt man pushed open a door on the left side of the hallway. He turned to face Melody and held up a large iron key.
“Your room, miss.”
She coughed. “My… my room?”
“In case you’d like to freshen up before your meal. Supper will be in the dining hall, in promptly half an hour. The Lady does not like to be kept waiting.”
She took the key mechanically, all the while avoiding touching the man’s hand. Supper?
Melody watched as Eric was led to a different room, about three doors away. He was given his own key — and the same stern warning about dinner — before the gaunt man disappeared around the next corner.
Why are we having supper?
The whole thing threw her for a loop. Dinner before a ball? She supposed it could make sense. Even so, Xiomara never said anything about—
“Hey.” Eric was there again, leaning against the door jamb. He looked a little concerned about her. “You okay?”
“Yes. I just… I didn’t realize…”
“That Lurch would be so weird?”
He smiled warmly, and Melody felt instantly better. Their eyes met. A moment passed between them. She was suddenly very aware that her dress — and maybe even her hair — were probably still covered in dirt from when she fell.
“Is there a mirror in my room?” she asked.
Eric held open the door for her. “Let’s find out.”
Six
It turned out the room did have a mirror, and a beautiful one at that. Melody pinned her hair back up, in the places where her golden curls had fallen down. Then she began brushing herself off.
“Turn around,” Eric said.
She did. His hands went to her waist. Her ass…
“OH!”
Melody jumped as Eric brushed caked mud from the back of her dress with his outstretched fingers. It fell to the floor in a dusty cloud — little flakes of brown powder — until he finally stopped and declared her clean.
“Now do me.”
He turned around. Eric’s ass, and the backs of his legs, bore the same brown streaks of dirt. She began patting him off awkwardly, trying not to touch him too much in the process.
Oh, don’t be like that, the little voice in her head admonished her.
Melody smirked at herself, feeling stupid.
He just saved your life!
She finished brushing him off, this time not worrying about being handsy. It took a little bit, but she got him clean. She also got extremely familiar with Eric’s ass, which she decided was very firm, and very nice.
“There. All done.”
He smiled again and sat down on a very thin, very uncomfortable-looking colonial bed. The room she’d been given was decorated nicely, with pretty finishes, but the bedding could sure use some work.
“Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.
Eric pointed to a large porcelain pot, curved upwards and decorated with flowers, at the foot of the bed. “You’re looking at it.”
“Ugh! Really?”
He laughed. “That’s your chamberpot,” he said. “And your sink is right over there.”
He pointed again, and Melody saw a large ceramic basin of cool water next to a threadbare towel. She sniffed it, determined it was clean, then splashed some of the water on her face and hands. When she looked in the mirror again she was almost presentable.
“You want to clean up too?”
Eric rose, and she shifted to one side. He used the basin to wash his face, then his hands, just as she did. He even slicked back the front of his hair.
“Look at that,” he said when he was finished. “We’ve known each other less than an hour and we’re already showering together.”
He laughed as Melody smirked back at him. When he laughed again, she resisted the urge to stick her tongue out.
He really is cute you know…
Just then she noticed a bright red streak forking its way down the length of his forearm. She jumped forward in alarm.
“You cut yourself!”
Eric held up the back of his arm and looked at it in the mirror. “Ah, that’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
“From the dogs?”
“The axe actually,” he said. “I got a little rambunctious with my swing and—”
“Let me see it.”
She took his arm without asking, and he stood still for her. The cut wasn’t long, but it was fairly deep. If they weren’t stuck at some 18th century mansion it would probably require going out for stitches.
“I could butterfly it,” she said. “If I had a needle, and some thread…”
Melody began looking around, but to no avail. The closest thing she found to useful was a faded old pillowcase in one of the drawers. She tore a long strip of cloth from the end of it with a much-too-loud rending sound.
“Ohhh! You’re gonna get in trouble,” he teased.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she quipped. “Now get over here.”
He did, and she began to bandage him. There was barely enough material to cover the wound.
“Hmm. You’re good at this.”
“I grew up with three brothers,” she explained. “They climbed a lot of trees.”
“You’ll have to thank them for me.”
In the end it wasn’t perfect, but it did the trick. Eric rolled his sleeve down and bent his arm a few times, testing her handiwork. He nodded appreciatively.
“Not bad,” he said. “I think I’ll live.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“So are you ready for dinner milady?” he grinned, extending his hand.
“Supper actually,” she said. She reached out and took it. “But yes.”
Seven
It was the strangest dinner Melody had ever been to. And considering her family she’d been to some awfully strange ones.
The Evermoore’s dining room was a long, elegant hall filled with all things gaudy. Garish paintings hung inside gold-leaf frames, beside brightly-polished sconces of brass and bronze. A large fixture hung centered over the giant mahogany table, filled with dozens of lit candles that made the room glow. It was bright enough to see by, but just seemed… off.
How the hell did people live this way, she wondered. Before electricity?
The wallpaper and carpet were busy with patterns and stripes. When you added it all together, the whole place reminded Melody of a funera
l parlor. It gave her an uneasy feeling right off the bat.
She was sitting in an ornately-carved chair, with red velvet cushions and wooden arms that seemed jammed too close to her sides. It would’ve been a tight fit, even without her ball gown. With it, it was downright uncomfortable.
“The Lady of the House will not be joining us tonight,” a middle-aged man informed them from the head of the table. “Unfortunately she is feeling unwell, but sends her best regards.”
The man moved gracefully as he sat down at the head of the table, presumably in the place where Lady Neveux would’ve been. There was an aristocratic air about him. When he picked up his cloth napkin and tucked it into his collar, every one of the other dinner guests simultaneously followed suit. It was almost like one big synchronized movement.
Melody turned to her left and found Eric already doing the same thing. “When in Rome…” he shrugged, tucking in his napkin.
The man they’d started calling ‘Lurch’ was seated at the opposite end of the table. He still looked gaunt, almost clammy to the touch. Across from them was a woman, and what appeared to be her young daughter. Both wore very simple, very plain colonial dresses. They looked nothing like Melody, in her beautiful silken dress, and this confused her. If either of them were going to the cotillion afterward, they needed to change.
She was staring down at her scalloped china place setting when the food was brought out. There was a good amount of it, all presented on silvered serving trays. The man at the head of the table raised a glass of something rich and dark, holding it out to them.
“Please,” he said amiably. “Enjoy.”
The clatter of silverware against plates began. There were eight other guests at the table, including them. On their side was a slender young man and an older woman. On the other, a man in a thick, uncomfortable-looking suit, and what looked to be some kind of general or high-level member of whatever passed for the military at the time. He wore a full dress uniform, with flowing white hair and thick mustaches.
