Monarchs

by Rainey, Stephen

  "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

  "Well, not that it's entirely my business…but I'd strongly recommend you don't encourage him. Otherwise, you're liable to get in over your head."

  "I can see that too."

  "Bear in mind, I didn't say the first word to you about this."

  "Not a word." Courtney smiled and laid her head on her crossed forearms, closing her eyes as divine warmth poured down on her from above. Jan was probably right; last night, her perceptions had been skewed, her eyes deceived by shapes in the evening mist. However, none of that changed the fact that someone, almost certainly those two in the pickup truck, had come calling for purposes that couldn't have been benign. Jan wanted her to trust that David could put a stop to any further such incidents, and she wanted to believe. She almost did believe.

  Only almost. Too many wrongs in too short a time had crushed her faith in others, even those who cared about her. Though she didn't like to think about it, in reality, David probably cared more about her body than about her. Such was the way of men.

  "Hey."

  It was an unfamiliar voice. Male. Courtney and Jan lifted their heads at the same time to see a young man with dark, unkempt hair and too many tattoos standing before them, his murky chocolate eyes fixed on something at sea.

  "Hello back," Jan said.

  He smiled, somewhat nervously, and tugged at the scruffy growth on his chin. "Hey, um, my friend and me, we just wondered if you'd liked to come hang with us. We got our towels and stuff over there." He pointed down the beach a short distance, where another character, slightly more heavyset but otherwise nearly identical, offered them a perfunctory wave. Both looked to be in their early twenties; Courtney guessed that the heavyset fellow had dared his friend to approach the pair of slightly more mature women.

  Courtney and Jan exchanged amused looks. Then Jan smiled coyly and said, "What's your name, hon?"

  "Tim. Tim Hoffman."

  "Well, Tim, that's nice of you. But my friend here tends to be a corrupting influence on young men. I'm not sure you want to be exposed to that kind of negative energy."

  Courtney's jaw dropped, uncertain whether to laugh or cringe. The lines rolled too glibly from Jan's tongue.

  Tim Hoffman's eyes focused briefly on Jan's, then returned to staring vacantly. "Huh?"

  "She'd be bad for you." She gave Courtney a stern look. "Very bad. Come to think of it, she's bad for me, too."

  "We wouldn't really have a problem with that," Tim said with a little snicker.

  "Oh, you'd have a problem. Several, even."

  Half to play along with Jan and half to do anything but encourage the young man, Courtney glared sullenly into the distance, avoiding eye contact with either him or his friend. She did not intend to speak, if she could help it.

  "So what's y'all's names?" the fellow asked.

  "I'm Sunny and she's Dreama."

  "Sunny and Dreama? That's not for real."

  "It is too. She's my much older sister."

  "Really?"

  "Really." Jan nudged Courtney. "Aren't you, dah-ling?"

  She nodded desultorily, wishing Jan would just brush off the young man and not play games with him. At the same time, she had to bite her lip to keep from bursting into laughter.

  "So you wanna come hang out with us? We're cool."

  "I'm sure you are. But we're not going to be here too much longer, so I think Deena and I will just keep each other company. Thanks for asking, though."

  "I thought her name was Dreama."

  "Yeah, that's what I said."

  "It sounded like…ah, never mind."

  "All right."

  "So, like, you're sure you don't wanna? We got some beer and stuff…"

  "No. But thanks just the same, Tom."

  "It's Tim."

  "I said Tim. Didn't I?"

  "Nah. You said Tom."

  "No way." She looked back at Courtney. "Tippy, what did I just call him?"

  Rolling her eyes, she sighed and then said between gritted teeth, "Fred. You called him Fred."

  Jan snorted. "Oh. Damn."

  For a long, uncomfortable moment, Tim stood wearing his most puzzled expression, but finally, with an embarrassed laugh, he started shambling back toward his companion. "Whatever. You two aren't right. But that's cool. Y'all are cool."

  "Thanks, hon. Enjoy yourselves." She gave him a parting wave before turning back to Courtney. "Let 'em down easy, I always say. You know, I — hey, what's wrong?"

  As she had pulled her gaze away from Tim Hoffman and set it on the houses beyond the nearest dunes, Courtney noticed a flash of red — a vehicle moving on the road on the other side of the houses. It was just a flash, but in that moment, a distant pair of eyes met hers, and she recognized them, and saw a glint of recognition. Then they were gone.

  No. She was mistaken. She had to be mistaken. It was an hour's drive back to Fearing, and nobody could have followed them here. Her mind had transformed a quick glimpse of someone inside a truck into something more ominous. That was all.

  "What is it?"

  She shook her head absently, listening to her pulse thudding in her ears. Since arriving at the Blackburns, her perceptions had all gone topsy-turvy. "Nothing."

  "That's not a nothing look."

  "Red truck went by. Bad association, I guess."

  "This has really messed up your mind, hasn't it? It's so not like you."

  "Yeah, I know. I guess I'm just still on edge. I'm sorry."

  "You're here to relax. Get off it, will you?"

  She smiled weakly. "All right, all right. I'm off it."

  Jan rolled her eyes in exaggerated irritation and, with a deep sigh, laid her head back onto her crossed arms. "You're still a mess. I can see that my work is cut out for me."

  "Your back's getting cooked."

  "Good," she mumbled. "Better than being rare."

  "Your brain is cooked, too."

  "Not until later tonight," Jan said with a little laugh

  Courtney also laughed, but she noticed that, now and again, Jan's eyes flickered toward the road, and her tanned knuckles paled as her fingers occasionally clenched and unclenched on the towel. Her laughter had sounded a tad nervous as well.

  Jan was brushing things off perhaps too adroitly, she thought. And after the way her friend had handled Tim Hoffman, Courtney couldn't help but wonder whether she might have recently taken up acting.

  On the drive home, they barely spoke to each other. Courtney couldn't stop glancing back, ever anxious to glimpse a red vehicle following some distance behind. When she actually did catch sight of one, her heart clambered up to her throat — though the truck turned out to be a much newer, brightly painted Dodge Ram. However, she could not fail to notice that Jan also kept one eye on the rearview mirror, and her silence seemed more a sign of nervousness than of merely being tired, as she claimed when Courtney asked if everything was all right.

  When they arrived back at the Blackburn house in the late afternoon, Jan immediately retired upstairs and Courtney went to her suite to shower away the clinging sand and freshen up for the evening. Jan hadn't indicated whether they had any special plans for dinner, but Courtney hoped they could just stay home and relax, the day in the sun having sapped much of her energy. A chilly wind had begun blowing again, possibly threatening a new storm, and she didn't care for the prospect of going out in bad weather.

  She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and then went out to the great room, half-expecting to find Jan waiting for her, with a drink already poured. The room was empty, however. The whole house seemed abnormally quiet, as no sounds of life drifted down from the upper floors. Evidently, David had gone out somewhere, and of Martha, naturally, there was no sign. Curiosity now impelled Courtney to climb the stairs and check out the second floor. She had only been up here once, when Jan had first shown her around the house, and she didn't remember whether Jan's door was the first one on the left or on the right. Softly, she called Jan's name. Wh
en she received no answer, she went to the door on the left and knocked.

  "Jan?"

  Only silence replied, so she took hold of the knob and gave the door a tentative push. It opened with soft groan, and she realized immediately that she had discovered David's room. It was large, easily the size of her entire suite, its décor the definition of masculine. The walls were painted pale gray, trimmed with white. The bed was full-size, with a heavy, dark wood headboard and footboard, the mattress covered by a black, satin-finished comforter, the pillows wrapped in shimmery silver pillowcases. A black leather recliner faced a huge, widescreen, high-definition television, and there was a desk in the far corner with a large computer monitor atop it. Bookshelves occupied one wall, and she felt a moment's compulsion to steal inside and take a closer look at his preferred reading material, but she forbore. All in all, a very tasteful room, remarkably neat for a young man's living quarters.

  Arlene's work, no doubt.

  Okay, she thought, Jan's had to be the other door. She crossed the hall and tapped softly, expecting no answer. Without hesitating, she pushed the door open and saw Jan, naked except for her underwear, lying on her stomach atop her gold-quilted, four-post bed. Her face was turned toward the door, her eyes closed, her still-damp hair spilling over the pillow and off the edge of the bed. She looked to be in deep sleep, so Courtney decided not to disturb her. But as she stepped backward, just before drawing the door shut, she noticed a little glimmer on Jan's cheek, and realized that tears were leaking from her eyes and pooling on the pillow beside her face.

  Dreaming of her parents, perhaps, or her fiancé — or both, Courtney thought. She had wondered about the severity of Jan's emotional wounds, her humor having seemed so forced, particularly since yesterday. Two separate accidents, three deaths; all the people who meant the most to Jan, in so short a time.

  More than coincidence?

  Given the distinct atmosphere of hostility that seemed to surround the Blackburns, the idea seemed anything but farfetched.

  She returned to the stairs and started down, thinking a little catnap of her own might do some good, but then something stopped her. As she stood there, she looked up, into the shadows of the ascending staircase, which led to Aunt Martha's floor, and before she realized what she was doing, she had climbed up to the third floor. She found herself facing a short, windowless hallway with three doors — one on each side and one at the end. The only light came from the downstairs windows, and shadows as dark as night swallowed the far end of the hall. The air felt stagnant and reeked of mothballs and Listerine.

  Martha, no doubt, was sequestered behind one of these doors, but not a single creak or whisper betrayed any living presence on this floor. Maybe she was one of those old people who slept all day and rambled around at night, Courtney thought; she certainly knew how to make an abominable racket during the wee hours. For an instant, Courtney entertained the idea of standing outside one of the doors and breaking into one of her infamous barroom impersonations of Lady Gaga, just to see how the old woman enjoyed having her sleep disturbed. Better judgment prevailed, but the idea did appeal to her sense of the perverse. Perhaps more than it should have.

  A thin, barely discernible strip of light split the shadows at the base of the far door, which, to the best of her reckoning, led to a room that faced the rear of the house —Martha's living quarters, most likely. Again, almost of their own volition, her feet carried her down the hall to the door, where she stopped and pressed herself against the wall, ears keen for any sound from the other side. She half-expected to hear the old woman snoring, but after many long seconds, the silence remained unbroken.

  Good sense pleaded with her to march right back downstairs, but impulsive curiosity — which she recognized as an unwelcome and virtually irremediable holdover from her youth — was guiding her hand toward the door handle, and no effort of will could pull it back. Her fingers closed on the cold metal and tentatively twisted it.

  The door swung open to reveal a dim chamber, lit only by the feeble sunbeams that struggled in through dingy diaphanous curtains over a pair of small, leaded glass windows. The most striking thing she noticed was a grandfather clock whose case resembled nothing so much as an intricately carved coffin standing on its end, tucked into the corner nearest the door. She could also see an ancient, rickety-looking Boston rocker, covered with moldy, threadbare cushions, and a huge, dust-filmed dresser backed by a tall mirror. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she craned her neck and peered around the door, half-certain she would find Martha standing there, glaring at her with those watery, unblinking eyes, but to her relief, the room was unoccupied. However, two other things stood out as extraordinary: the bed, which was a huge construct of dark wood paneling and red silk curtains, the mattress supported by a web of thick, knotted ropes; and a collection of empty soft drink cans that Courtney could only regard as staggering. Dozens of them, of all varieties, on the nightstand, on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, on the windowsills, on the bookshelves. She took a few steps into the room and noticed a stale, sour odor, like old urine, which briefly caused her stomach to lurch.

  She knew she had no business in the old woman's room, but she couldn't deny an almost juvenile exhilaration at having crossed a forbidden threshold and found something unique, even if relatively unspectacular. She didn't know what she might have expected to find, but the ungodly number of empty cans around the room was enough to convince her that Martha might be even less stable than she had guessed. Obsessive-compulsive, perhaps — and very likely hyperglycemic.

  She listened intently to the dead air to assure herself no one was approaching, then moved to Martha's huge bureau, taking stock of the ancient personal items cluttering its top: an ivory-backed hairbrush, its bristles choked with gray, web-like strands; a closed jewelry box, its tarnished silver top in dire need of polish; and a cluster of perfume bottles, so choked with dust that she couldn't even read the labels. When she raised her eyes, the smudged, slightly warped mirror above the bureau reflected an image of pure foolishness.

  Oh, this is wrong. This is not me. Why am I doing this?

  Her every nerve screamed at her to leave now, while her crime was nothing worse than simple trespassing. The impulse that had brought her here, however, seemed more than loath to release her.

  She went to the nearest window and brushed aside the old, brittle drape to peer through the thick glass. From here, she could see the roof of her wing, which extended away to the left, and the dense woods that encircled the rear of the house. If Martha were to open this window and "sing," her voice would easily carry as far as Courtney's suite.

  So what did the old witch have in her head when she babbled and wailed to the dark night? If some stranger had crept into the backyard and begun jabbering back at her, would even an addled woman not consider it peculiar?

  She could still barely accept that as an explanation for what she had heard.

  "Well, if it's not a blooming busybody."

  The old woman's voice jolted her for a second, but then her shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily before turning to face the chamber's oddball inhabitant. It should not have been such a struggle to bring a contrite look to her face.

  "I'm sorry," Courtney said, bowing her head slightly. "I knocked, but curiosity got the better of me. I apologize."

  The old woman stood framed in the doorway, her narrow eyes studying Courtney as they might an unusual-looking insect. "I should have known a fancy girl like you would have no respect for closed doors. I'd wager that if you found me rummaging around in your room, you'd have yourself a nice little snit, wouldn't you?"

  "I suppose I would."

  "No 'suppose' about it."

  "Anyway, I wasn't rummaging. I was just looking out the window."

  Martha's face split into a grotesque grin, exposing a too-perfect row of pearl-white teeth. Courtney heard a sloshing sound, and the woman held up a bulging hot water bottle, from which long white tube extended and curl
ed around one thin hand. "Don't get wise with me, girl, or I will administer this enema. To you."

  Courtney's stomach quivered. "Um, no, thank you."

  Martha took another step toward her, glaring with her terrible violet eyes, the grin never leaving her face. "You'll learn not to trifle with me. One drop of your name to the Monarch, and, oh, what a sad day it will be for you. I'll do it, you know."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Oh, yes. A sad day it will be. It wouldn't be the first, either. You know that, don't you?"

  Courtney backed up, increasingly unnerved by Martha's stare. "No, I don't know what you mean. Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here."

  "And why did you? To wish me good day, perhaps?"

  She shook her head, unwilling to lie to the woman. "Because I heard you calling out from your window last night. I was curious about why."

  "David told you that I enjoy singing. Did that not satisfy you?"

  "I just thought there might be more to it than that."

  "There is. Much more. But the point remains — your intentions were not honorable, girl. Were they?"

  Tears were actually beginning to well in her eyes. She shook her head again. "No. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry."

  The grin left Martha's face. "Not as sorry as you will be. Now get out."

  Without another word or last look back, Courtney turned and went out the door, heading quickly for the stairs, cursing under her breath at her own stupidity.

  Behind her, the old woman's door slammed shut with the force of an explosion.

  Chapter 6

  With tears blurring her vision and her shame-reddened face lowered to the floor, Courtney nearly collided with Arlene as she rounded the corner of the hall that led to her suite.

  "Whoa there, Ms. Edmiston," the older woman said, whirling out of Courtney's path and throwing out a hand to keep her balance. "Careful! My bones are more brittle than yours."

  "Oh, excuse me," she said, looking up in surprise and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I didn't expect anyone to be back here."