by Cege Smith
Ellie rushed forward and opened the door, stepping inside after Jeffrey passed by her. Moments later, David was lying on the bed moaning, but not awake. She looked questioningly at Jeffrey.
“I’ve done my part for the moment,” he said. “I think it’s a safe assumption that he will sleep for a while. You still need to eat. It won’t do if you fall ill yourself because you were looking after him and I’m sure he wouldn’t want that.”
Ellie went to the side of the bed and sat down, stroking David’s hair. His long eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, but his eyes didn’t open. At Jeffrey’s words about food, her stomach protested and it was starting to feel like her insides were gnawing their way to the outside. “I don’t want to leave him,” she said.
Jeffrey sighed. “Very well. I will be back shortly.” The man was gone with barely a whisper.
Ellie glanced back at the door to make sure that the old butler was truly gone. Then she leaned down and whispered, “David?”
She could see that beneath his eyelids, his eyes were shifting back and forth. He was deep in the throes of a dream. She wondered if it was a good one, but then he started to thrash about and yelled, “That’s not me! That’s not me!”
Ellie looked around and saw a pitcher sitting on a table next to the bathroom. She grabbed it and went into the bathroom. As she filled it with chilled water she saw a bright yellow washcloth hanging on the towel bar. She tossed it over her arm and took both back into the bedroom. She went to the edge of the bed and dipped the washcloth in the pitcher. She carefully set the cloth on David’s brow. Immediately, he seemed to settle and the thrashing stopped.
Although he didn’t look dirty, the cloth came away grimy and filthy. Ellie looked at his clothes. He was wearing the blue button-down shirt and khakis that she remembered last seeing him in, but they had a decidedly worn look about them. The cuffs and hems were ragged. Ellie wondered again where he had been.
She quickly dipped the cloth in the water again and set to work gently washing every inch of exposed skin. She worked slowly and methodically, and had to return to the bathroom twice because the water had turned black. It was as though David’s skin had soaked up a year’s worth of smoke and tar. Once she had cleaned his face, ears, neck, hands, and feet she returned to the top of the bed.
Ellie bit the corner of her lip and debated her next move. David seemed to be resting comfortably, now in a deep sleep. Slowly she reached out and undid the top button of his shirt. Then the next one, and then the next one. She watched in fascination as his bare chest rose and fell with each breath. His skin was a golden tan and the hair on his chest matched the dark blond locks on his head. It was like his broad shoulders and flat stomach had been chiseled by a master sculptor.
Chastising herself for being a big sissy, Ellie cleared her throat and continued on with her cleansing routine. Each touch brought a sigh to David’s lips, and she was starting to wonder if he was actually asleep when his hand shot up and caught her wrist. She looked up and found herself drowning in his dark blue eyes.
“When I told that creep that I wanted to see you again, this wasn’t exactly what I pictured. It’s better,” David said. His voice was gravelly, but it didn’t matter.
Ellie laughed. She pulled herself onto the bed next to him and touched his cheek. “David, I was so worried about you.”
“You and me both,” he said, reaching up to push a stray piece of hair behind her ear. He curled his finger toward her as if he wanted to tell her a secret, and as she bent down closer to him he sat up meeting her lips. Ellie’s world stopped. It was a kiss that spoke of loss and anguish, but hope. She realized in that moment how much she had missed him.
The clearing of a throat brought Ellie back to reality. She looked over her shoulder and saw Jeffrey standing there with a tray and several covered plates. She sat up and slid off the bed, feeling blood rush to her cheeks. Ellie had never been caught making out with a boy when she was a teenager, not that there had been that many, but she imagined this was what it felt like as she noted Jeffrey’s strong expression of disapproval.
“I can see that Mr. Mitchell is feeling better,” he said sourly.
Ellie saw David’s confused face as he recognized Jeffrey. “I know, I was surprised to see him too,” she said. “He works for Mikel.” She frowned as she started connecting some of the dotted lines. “He did work for Lillian, though, so you probably knew him from before. He’s supposed to be helping me.”
She saw David squirm. “I’m just starting to remember all of that. What exactly is he helping you with?” David asked. “Is he doing a good job?” His eyes had not left Jeffrey, and Ellie felt like there was something she was missing.
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing yet. That part is still fuzzy for me. I think we were just getting around to talking about that when you got here. But Mikel said I’m supposed to be learning what I need to know from him, so I guess that’s what I’ll do.”
“You’ve been talking to Mikel? What did he say about me?” David said sharply.
“Nothing, David, nothing.” Ellie didn’t want to alarm him by telling him about Mikel’s threats. She put her hand on his arm to calm him.
David looked around the room and then back at Ellie. “So we’re back here. In the mansion.”
Now it was Ellie’s turn to be confused. “Back here? I am pretty sure that I’ve always been here, David. Considering you came out of the basement, I’m assuming you’ve been here too. Mikel was hiding you from me.”
David started to say something when Jeffrey interrupted. Ellie had forgotten he was there. “Ellie, you are starting to look a bit peaked. I think it’s time that you sat down and had something to eat.”
Ellie was feeling weak, and she was starting to recognize the signs now. She guessed the nausea wasn’t far behind. “You’re right, I probably should eat something.”
Jeffrey nodded. “Excellent. I have your dinner downstairs in the kitchen. Mr. Mitchell needs rest and I’ve brought him dinner as well.”
“I’d really like to eat here with David,” Ellie said. Her words sounded like they were jumbled together.
David sat up in the bed in alarm, but then Jeffrey was beside her.
“Is she all right?” David demanded. “I thought you were taking care of her.”
“I’m fine, David,” Ellie said, trying to wave Jeffrey away.
“She’s fine,” Jeffrey echoed, putting his arm under hers. “She just needs to eat. You need to rest.”
David sank back into the bed pillows, and Ellie saw that he was much weaker than he had let on.
“I’ll be right back, David,” she assured him. Her body was demanding food and she felt like she couldn’t even wait for Jeffrey to go down to the kitchen and bring something back up now. “I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I eat. I promise.”
She smiled wanly at him and then gave Jeffrey a nudge to get him moving. She needed food. Fast. Jeffrey helped her down the stairs and now she felt like she was practically running.
As they entered the kitchen, she saw a place setting on the kitchen island, and a chair was even pulled out waiting for her to sit in it. Ellie slid into the seat and pulled the cover off the plate. Then she was up and stumbling backwards; she would have fallen if Jeffrey had not been there to catch her. In the process, she upended her chair and it went flying.
“What the hell is this?” On her plate, there was nothing but chunks of lightly seared red meat that was still oozing juices. And although her nose had caught a whiff of it and her mouth was watering, her mind could see that the meat was unrecognizable. “I’m not eating that,” she said, pushing the plate away.
Jeffrey set her chair back down and shoved the plate back closer to her. “Normally I would be much softer in my approach on this topic, Ellie, but you let yourself get distracted caring for that man, which is exactly what I was worried about. I told you before, you need to eat. You are no good to anyone weak and disoriented.”
Her mind wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t catch the way that Jeffrey said “that man” when he was talking about David. It was becoming more obvious that David wasn’t particularly a welcome part of her bargain, but it was a useful one for Mikel. At the moment, though, she had more pressing things on her mind.
“I agree that I need to eat, but I want to eat something normal,” she said through gritted teeth. Her body was aching for food and it was taking all of her will not to grab the closest piece of meat and shove it into her mouth. She gripped the edges of the countertop to stop herself.
“Offal is perfectly normal,” Jeffrey countered.
“I don’t eat red meat,” Ellie said, taking several deep breaths. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t be eating organs, I can assure you.”
“You didn’t eat red meat,” Jeffrey said. “I told you. Your body is transitioning. Therefore, what you need now and what you needed before are different. You need to trust me. I’ve taken care of your kind for years, Ellie. I won’t steer you wrong. I know what your body wants as surely as your body does, as surely as you do now looking at that plate. It’s useless to fight it.”
“My kind?” Ellie spat. The urge was going to overwhelm her. She could feel it. She was barely hanging on, and she hated that she knew Jeffrey knew it.
Jeffrey shook his head and sighed. Then he picked up the plate and brought it within inches of her mouth. And Ellie felt something inside of her give way. Nothing existed now. Nothing but the meat. But she heard his voice on the periphery of her consciousness.
“Riphers, Ellie. Riphers.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The haze that colored her vision and her mind seemed to last indefinitely, but soon enough Ellie was holding an empty plate and her tongue was inching toward it as if she was planning to lick it clean. As Ellie realized what she was doing, her fingers went limp and the plate fell out of her hands and shattered on the floor.
“What’s happening to me?” she moaned as she looked down at the mess on the floor at her feet. Her body was practically humming from her recent gorging, and she felt weirdly alive in a way that she hadn’t since waking up into this walking nightmare. Her body seemed bent on betraying her.
A fair amount of liquid remained on the plate when she dropped it and the juices formed a splattered mess on the gray speckled tile. She started to make apologies when she saw the little rivers of red juice finding their way into the grooves of the floor and then disappear. Her eyes widened as it became apparent that the liquid was being sucked into the crevices between the tiles. Moments later there was nothing left of her clumsiness but the shards of glass around her feet, which Jeffrey scuttled into a broom pan that had appeared out of nowhere.
“What the hell was that?” Her second question in less than two minutes also went unanswered as Jeffrey made his way to the trashcan and deposited the remnants of the plate inside it. Then he started washing out the pan that Ellie assumed he had used to sear the meat for her meal.
“Again, I think it’s best for you to focus on those things that are most relevant to your current situation,” Jeffrey said.
“So I’m just supposed to ignore the fact the something else around here appears to be as hungry as I am?” Ellie asked, purposely trying to goad him.
“You’ll find that you need to eat more frequently, Ellie. At least at first.” Jeffrey continued on as if he had never heard her. “Right now, the side effects of not doing so are relatively harmless; a bit of nausea and fatigue. You will find, though, that as your gifts are amplified over time, those side effects will become much more nasty. I will make sure you know where to find everything in the event that I am away, but otherwise you should plan to meet me here every two hours for the immediate future,” Jeffrey finished. He didn’t even look in her direction.
“What’s a Ripher? And I’m also hoping you can explain a bit more about where here is,” Ellie said. She found herself again in a situation where she had more questions than answers. “I’m figuring out that all this talk of transitions has to do with the fact that I’m somehow changing, but I don’t understand why.”
Jeffrey set the pan on the drying rack and pointed at her place setting. “I’m sure you are thirsty. Drink that while I make some more tea. Then we’ll talk.”
Ellie picked up the ceramic cup and almost did a dry heave at the thick, red liquid inside. Could it be blood? She wasn’t about to find out, even though the smell was heady. She carefully set the cup back down. “I’m fine. I can wait for the tea. While I’m waiting, I think I’ll go check on David. I don’t want him worrying about me.” She started to push herself off the stool. She had no desire to spend any more time with Jeffrey than she had to, especially if he wasn’t planning to give her any information.
“SIT,” Jeffrey’s voice boomed across the room. He scowled at her. “So many questions. So eager to go running off without understanding a single thing about where you are and what is going on around you. Perhaps it would behoove you to sit still and listen for a bit, don’t you think?”
It was the first time that Jeffrey had been openly angry with her and it took Ellie by surprise. Automatically she sat back down. Although she wanted to say something else, she didn’t.
Once he confirmed that Ellie was staying put, Jeffrey nodded and moved around the kitchen getting a tea kettle from the pantry and making tea. Ellie used the silence to collect her thoughts. She wanted to ask intelligent questions. What did she know that she hadn’t known before?
She wasn’t dead; at least not yet according to Mikel. She also wasn’t the same as she had been before; the way her body was reacting and its craving for nearly rare meat proved that, even if Jeffrey hadn’t labeled her a “Ripher.” David had been held somewhere else, and from the looks of things, that somewhere hadn’t been nearly as pleasant as the place where she had been; not that she had considered her time spent with the Voice as that pleasant. She wanted to talk to David alone and find out what he knew. She was sure that together, they could come up with a plan to find a way to get out of there, especially if he was starting to remember his past. That knowledge could be the key to everything.
Unfortunately, running through the short list of knowns ensured that the list of unknowns got longer. Ellie was eager to find out more about the mansion and what Mikel had planned for her. The sooner she understood that, the sooner she could find a loophole.
As for Mikel, The Third wasn’t what she remembered or expected at all. She wondered why he had the title of “The Third.” If there was a “First” or “Second” she surely didn’t want to meet them. But it seemed like Mikel wanted her to like him, which she determined must mean that her intuition was completely out of whack. Mikel was old and evil and responsible for the deaths of Jake, Jenny, and their baby son, even if it was only by proxy. Through Lillian and Joseph, it was a guarantee that he was responsible for many more as well. Ellie didn’t trust him for one moment.
Lost in her thoughts, she missed the tea cup being placed in front of her. It was only the clearing of his throat that brought her back into the moment. To her side, Jeffrey pulled up a chair and had his own raised tea cup in his hand. Ellie refused to be the first one to say anything after Jeffrey’s outburst, so she simply took a sip of tea. Her first swallow she almost spit out. The taste was full of metal and rust and it burned going down her throat. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her choke, she gingerly set the cup back down and looked away.
“Ellie, I didn’t mean to speak to you in anger. But as your guide here, it is my job to ensure your safety and also that you are fully participating in your role as the one that Mikel has chosen to be in charge of the Bradford mansion. Your performance reflects on me as well. We are collaborators, partners even. Let me help.”
Again it was being alluded to that Ellie’s role was much larger than she anticipated, and she didn’t understand. “I am tired of half-truths and omissions, Jeffrey. I can’t trust you because you aren’t explai
ning anything to me. It’s like you are teasing me with some big revelations, but you aren’t giving me the backstory to understand why any of it is important.”
Jeffrey sighed and set his cup down. “I know this is all very confusing, Ellie. And what you know of this place,” he gestured around him, “and the Bradfords merely scratches the surface of the truth of what is going on around you. You have become a cog in a much larger machine, far bigger than the Bradfords. You are special, Ellie. You are destined for something far greater than what your mortal life allowed.”
Ellie sat with this for a moment and tried to take it in. It had a hint of something she remembered the Voice saying. “I don’t believe in things like fate or destiny or any of that mumbo jumbo. I’ll give you that I appear to possess some kind of ability that most people do not, but that shouldn’t be a reason to put me on some kind of pedestal. As for here, I’m still not clear on where here is. That may be a good place to start.”
Jeffrey’s face lit up. “Excellent idea! Come, let me show you.” He stood up and left the room. Ellie was forced to tag along and followed him back into the library.
Jeffrey skillfully climbed up one of the ladders leading up to the second story of books and pushed off, skimming titles as he went. About halfway down the wall he gave out a noise of delight and pulled a book off the shelf. He shuffled back down the ladder to the carpeted floor, took Ellie’s elbow, and led her to the couches. He pointed for her to sit down and then handed her the book.
“Let’s start with this,” he said.
Ellie looked down at the book in her hands. On the cover, it said A History of North American Waypoints by Max Turner. Ellie looked back up at Jeffrey. “What’s this?”
Jeffrey waved his hand in the air. “Mr. Turner was the authority on waypoints in his time, which is fascinating when you consider that he had no actual proof of them at all until after he passed over. Still, his research was impeccable. Since you still relate more with your mortal self than your self here, I think you’ll find his perspective insightful. Even pithy.”
