When Darkness Calls

by C. R. Jane

  Well, I might if it prevented me from being thrown down a volcano and burned alive. I’d have to mull that one over.

  I looked speculatively at the boy. Out of the few people I had met so far, he seemed the most approachable and the most likely to give me some answers. Maybe I could find out information from him.

  “What’s your name?” I asked. He glanced at me, blushing shyly. “Hermes,” he responded. It was all I could do to stifle my laugh. I guess they were keeping to the Greek theme.

  “So how long have you lived here?” I asked with a smile that I hoped looked innocent. Hermes looks nervous all of a sudden. His gaze darted around the room like a caged animal.

  “For as long as I can remember,” he finally answered. I nodded, although his answer was vague.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  Now he looked even more nervous.

  “Thirteen,” he answered, but the way he said it made it seem like he was lying. Why would he lie about his age?

  “Does your mother live here as well?” I asked. Now he got really nervous and started backing out of the room. I was suddenly desperate for him not to leave. “Please don’t go.”

  He was out of the door before I could say another word. “Stupid girl,” I muttered to myself with a sigh. It was obviously going to be impossible to get information out of people here if I couldn’t even get it out of a young boy.

  The delicious smell wafting from the tray finally caught my attention. I walked over to where Hermes had left the food on the bed. I examined it closely, wondering if it was poisoned. But then that didn’t seem like a good way to sacrifice someone, by poisoning them. I decided that I was so hungry, I would just take the risk.

  Hermes had said he brought breakfast, but it was eight p.m. and the food on the tray seemed to be more like a dinner. There was a lemon rice that had just the right amount of flavor and some chicken kebabs covered with a spicy seasoning. Everything was delicious. After I finished devouring the entire tray, I realized that despite my multiple naps, I was still exhausted. I lay down on my bed, not bothering to look for any clothes to change into. I immediately fell into a thankfully dreamless sleep this time.

  I had that feeling when I woke up, like I’d been sleeping far longer than I was supposed to. It took me a second to realize that I still was not home, that I was, in fact, still in the strange castle that I’d been brought to by a group of crazy cult members with Greek names.

  Looking around the room for a clock, I finally found one, and I gasped in surprise at the time. It had only been around nine p.m. when I went to sleep last night, and the clock was now saying that it was approaching five p.m. I suddenly wondered if my food last night had been drugged with some kind of sleeping pill. I felt disgusting being in my clothes for so long, so I wandered over to the luxurious bathroom that I’d been shown. It took me a minute to figure out all the knobs and buttons in the shower. For a castle that relied on candles to light its rooms, it was super up on technology in other ways. You could program exactly what temperature you wanted the water to be with a touch of a button. Incredible.

  I took a longer shower than I’d intended and then stepped out, wrapping a towel around me that evidently had been heating on the towel rod. Because of course a place like this would have a heated towel rod.

  Even the floor was warm under my feet, despite the fact that it looked like it was marble. Maybe the medieval look outside my room was just the aesthetic that whoever was in charge here liked, but he was still a fan of modern technology.

  I wandered over to the closet, still amazed at the fact that all of these clothes were supposed to be mine. My closet back home hadn’t even been one-tenth this size and most of my clothes were from the thrift store or what I could scrounge up from the sales rack at Target I stalked. Staring at the clothes, I became even more confused. What did a sacrifice need a ballgown for? Or La Perla lingerie. That was definitely something I’d only read about in romance novels. Real people didn’t pay thousands of dollars for bras.

  A tremble worked its way down my spine. The lingerie definitely fell in the sex trade column of my guesses for what I was doing here. That was bad.

  The thought spurred me to want to get dressed as fast as possible. I didn’t know what was expected of me for the rest of the day, so I finally picked out a long black skirt with a clingy dark purple top that looked pretty. Looking around the closet, I didn’t see anything that was ugly and could maybe hide my body. Or a single pair of pants. I would need to ask one of the staff members about that whenever I saw someone. I at least needed to get my yoga pants washed.

  I walked over to the door, sighing because I assumed it would be locked even as I reached for the door handle. To my surprise, the door easily swung open, and I found myself looking down the dark hallway. I tentatively walked down the hall, listening for any sound. I wondered when someone was going to explain what the hell was actually going on. If this was some kind of sacrifice, I’d like a minute to wrap my head around my impending doom. It seemed kind of cruel for them to string me along in this beautiful place without telling me when I was on the docket. I’d at least like to prepare myself for it. Or prepare myself to escape from it…

  I finally got to the long set of stairs that led to the front entryway, and I walked down the stairs slowly, my footsteps echoing around the dome like ceiling. I noticed for the first time that there was a mural painted on the ceiling. Not sure how I’d missed that yesterday, it took up the entire space. Maybe the shock had rendered me momentarily blind? I halted on the stairs as I studied the painting. My heart squeezed at the image. It was strange. But the sorrow in the painting was tangible, like I could reach out and touch it. The painting was split into two halves, one light, one dark. There was a man painted in the shadows, everything about him juxtaposed from the girl bathing in the sunshine on the other side of the mural. She was beautiful. I could feel his longing for her. Dressed in a gown of yellow and gold, pink rosebuds were woven throughout her silky locks. I fingered my brunette hair almost self-consciously. Mine looked like mud compared to the beauty above me.

  I’d studied art in school, even been to a few art museums, but nothing I’d seen in there had ever given me the emotional reaction I was experiencing right now. I tried to put a word to what I was feeling. Sadness, yes. You could taste the man’s pain as he reached out for the girl he adored who seemed to want nothing to do with him. But the other emotion I was feeling...it almost felt like jealousy. Which in fact was probably my craziest thought of this whole experience. Who got jealous of a painting?

  I snorted angrily and reluctantly dragged my gaze away from the perfection above me. I was officially going crazy. Or maybe I was already there.

  I was still shaking my head as I got to the bottom step. I looked around, wondering how it was possible that I still hadn’t seen a soul. If this was a cult, where were all the members? Maybe they’d already gone back to their rooms or something? Cults were known for their strict rules.

  As if my thoughts had brought him into existence, Cerberus was there at the foot of the stairs just then, making me jump at his abrupt appearance. Someone needed to put a bell on the guy, or maybe a foghorn. That would keep him from creeping up on people.

  Cerberus gave me one of his small, strange bows.

  “Do you need anything, my lady?” he asked solicitously.

  “I apparently slept the day away. I must’ve been more tired than I thought.”

  He nodded as if it was normal to sleep for almost twenty-four hours straight, and I wondered again if they had given me a sleeping pill or something.

  “The cook will have dinner ready in about an hour’s time,” he said. “In the meantime, would you like a tour of the house?”

  Cerberus had been nothing but kind to me thus far, and I was curious to see the rest of the castle...and hopefully its inhabitants, so I agreed.

  We began to walk, Cerberus giving me random facts about the place as we went along. My eyes widened
with every room we came across. There was room after room filled with the sort of luxury that I’d actually believed only existed in books. I mean who actually had two ballrooms in their home? Did people even throw balls anymore?

  There was a theatre room complete with a screen that covered the entire twelve-foot wall. Another room held a library that looked straight out of Beauty and the Beast. There was an indoor pool, and Cerberus explained there was a large outdoor pool as well that stayed heated all fall and winter.

  After an hour of going through rooms, it seemed we had only seen a small portion of the castle. It was that enormous.

  Only when we had been touring for a while did I finally get the nerve to ask some questions. “Cerberus, where is everyone else?” I asked. He looked at me in confusion.

  “Everyone else?” he responded in a puzzled voice.

  I nodded and leaned in close to whisper to him. “Where are all the other cult members?”

  His eyes took on a merry twinkle at my question, and he burst into a boisterous laughter that seemed very out of character for him. He wiped his eyes trying to respond to me. “You want to know where the other cult members are?” he repeated in a voice that was still filled with laughter. I nodded, suddenly feeling very foolish.

  “This is not a cult, my lady,” he said.

  “But then who lives here that still practices sacrifices?” I asked in a voice that shook with anger.

  He sobered up immediately. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. There are no sacrifices happening here,” he answered as if I had offended him. Now I was even more confused and upset.

  “My mother told me that the whole reason I was here was to be a part of some sort of crazy sacrifice that our family has been forced to participate in for generations,” I explained, frustrated tears starting to fill my eyes. At the sight of my tears, Cerberus started to panic.

  “Now, now, my lady, don’t cry. There will be no sacrifices happening here. You are our most desired guest. You’ll find out everything in due time. I swear on my soul, no one here will hurt you. That’s the last thing that any of us want to do. In fact, we hope that you are happier here than you ever have been before,” he added in a meaningful tone. Tears continued to stream down my face. It was like all the fear I’d experienced since I’d first stepped foot into the limo had decided to come out at once. I couldn’t get control of myself.

  “Let’s get over to the dining hall. Master will be appearing soon, and he can explain more,” Cerberus said, gently gesturing down the hallway to where the dining hall sat that he had shown me earlier. We walked slowly. I knew that he was trying to give me time to recover before I met this mysterious Master. I would have appreciated his thoughtfulness if I had any interest in meeting the person in charge. Right now I just wanted to lick my wounds by myself. At least I knew I looked like crap right now. If Cerberus was lying to me about the whole sacrifice thing, I would look very unpalatable. Those stories I’d heard in school always talked about them picking the most beautiful among their people to throw in the volcano. No one was going to pick me out of a group with my swollen, blood-shot eyes, and snot-ridden nose.

  Right before I got to the doorway, I stopped abruptly in the entryway. “I don’t think I feel very hungry,” I said, turning to face him. “I think I’ll just go back up to my room.”

  Cerberus was shaking his head before I had even finished my sentence. “You must meet the master,” he said. “I assure you that you will feel much better after doing so.”

  I wiped the tears off my face with the back of my hand. Something told me I wasn’t going to be able to change his mind about this.

  Nodding my head reluctantly, I followed him into the dining room. The room had a table that could seat at least fifty people. I didn’t know they even made tables that big. But there it was. Despite how ridiculously large it was, the table was only set for two. Was I dining with the master by myself? The thought made me extremely nervous.

  Cerberus pulled out my chair so I could sit down, taking my cloth napkin from the table to lay it on my lap once I had sat down, just as if we were in some sort of fancy steakhouse. The table setting was fancier here than I had seen even in a restaurant, and I had thought the place I went to with Dallin had been nice.

  I felt a stroke of pain at the thought of Dallin. Was he thinking of me? Was he worried about me at all? I wondered if there was a way I could get information to him that I was all right. Maybe eventually I’d be released from here, and he would still be out there waiting for me. I shook my head at the thought. I wasn’t going to fool myself that the connection Dallin had felt with me was enough to make him wait for me. I didn’t think the guy usually went a couple days without a date. The thought that he couldn’t wait for me weirdly made me feel better. Maybe it was the idea that I wasn’t losing out on true love because true love would wait, right?

  My thoughts were interrupted when someone cleared their throat. It was like whoever it was was announcing himself before he walked into the room so as not to startle me. I looked over at the doorway, and I promptly lost my breath. All thoughts of Dallin went out the window as I gazed at who had just walked into the room.

  Standing before me was a creation that had to have been blessed by the gods…if you believed in that sort of thing. He looked too perfect to be real. Shiny black hair was slicked back from a face that looked like it had been carved by the angels. Piercing blue eyes, as blue as a starry night sky, stared back at me, seemingly just as interested in observing me as I was interested in observing him.

  I shivered as I stared at him, beyond overwhelmed by his beauty. Maybe I was dreaming because men like him, they didn’t really exist. He was so perfect it was hard to comprehend. I was really wishing I’d been able to wash my face or put on makeup or something right about now. Not that it would have made a difference. He wasn’t even in the same galaxy as me with those kind of looks.

  He seemed lost as he stared at me, like I was destroying preconceived notions he’d had about me.

  Finally, he opened his beautiful mouth.

  And promptly broke my fantasy.

  “Persephone?” he breathed. I was immediately confused and strangely disappointed at the fact that he thought I was another woman.

  “Elena,” I answered hesitantly, pulling on my skirt nervously. The light in his eyes dimmed, and a look of absolute devastation crossed his face before he turned and stormed out of the room.

  “Oh dear,” came a worried voice. My gaze darted towards the newcomer, hoping she could explain whatever the hell I’d just experienced. A woman dressed in a black dress with a high, stiff neckline and a pristine white apron came rushing into the room wringing her hands. “That could have gone better,” she muttered before straightening her expression and turning my way. “Are you ready for dinner, my lady?” she asked with a face that was attempting to be hopeful.

  “Who was that?” I asked, unable to keep my gaze from going back to the empty doorway where the Adonis had disappeared through. That strange sense of disappointment at the stranger’s actions still licked at my insides, furthering the confusion and overwhelming weight of this whole experience.

  I knew I looked bad right now, but I didn’t think I looked bad enough for him to run away. I mean that was just rude.

  “That was the master, my lady,” the woman answered. “He’s just having an off night. I’m sure he will be right as rain in the morning,” she stated cheerfully as she turned to go back through the doors that led to what I presumed was the kitchen. Cerberus hadn’t shown me that room unfortunately. It would have been nice to feel like I was able to go to the kitchen whenever I wanted a snack or a meal away from anyone else.

  “Why did he call me Persephone?” I called after her, needing to know the answer for some reason. The name was playing on a loop in my head as I wondered at the significance of it. I knew the story of Persephone and Hades, of course. I would think most people did. The story was making me second guess the meal I’d eaten
last night actually. These people obviously thought it would be fun to cosplay Greek myths, and I remembered well what had happened to Persephone after she’d tasted those pomegranate seeds. The lemon rice and chicken I’d had last night were a lot more than that.

  The woman froze in her tracks. Her shoulders slumped as I watched, and she gave a large sigh that somehow told me this woman was tired. Right down to her soul.

  She looked back at me sadly. “It’s probably because you bear a striking resemblance to Master’s long-lost love,” she said warily, watching my reaction carefully.

  “Her name was Persephone?” I asked quizzically, thinking that was an usual name for anyone to name their child in the last century. Or maybe that was the name the girl had been given once she’d gotten to this place.

  The woman just nodded in answer to my question, biting her lip as if she was itching to say more but was having to hold herself back.

  Also, the man who had just been in the room looked like he was barely pushing thirty. How long ago did he lose this Persephone?

  And what had happened to her?

  The image of the mural crawled through my thoughts and I frowned as I found myself touching the ends of my hair again. I had a sneaking suspicion now that the mural had something to do with a myth. But there would be no confusing that rendering to me.

  This place was really, really weird.

  I opened my mouth to ask another question, but the cook had left the room. I knew she would probably be bringing out food in just a moment, but I had no appetite since my strange encounter with my otherworldly handsome host. Feeling oddly tired, despite all the sleep I had gotten the night before, I got up and left the dining hall, returning to my room.

  As I walked up the mountainous stairs, a sound that resembled a man wailing in agony sounded in my ears. I had never heard such a devastated sound in my life. Somehow, I knew it belonged to the man from earlier and that I was the cause of such pain. My heart did that weird clenching thing again that it had done earlier when I’d stared up at the painting that I was now sure was a tribute to his lost love. I wanted to find the man, wrap my arms around him, tell him everything would be alright. Even if that was a lie.