Ch. 2 I Discover the Convenience of Takeout

“What’s in the closet?” I asked.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Mabel replied. “Suffice it to say that it is old, angry, and far less dead than it should be. That being said, you will not be sleeping in the attic room. It isn’t safe in there yet. I meant to deal with that, but you returned sooner than expected.”

“So I noticed,” I said drily. “What exactly did I walk in on, or is that something else I don’t want to know?”

Mabel turned around and didn’t respond. I pulled the PB&J out of my pack and chowed down. Going by the looks of the kitchen, dinner would be waiting a while.

“I am not ready to have this conversation yet,” I heard her mutter to herself.

“What conversation?” I inquired. After all, what use would there have been in pretending I hadn’t heard? There were just the two of us, and I would be spending all summer here. Not to mention that I was dying to know.

“Well, you’ve certainly inherited the hearing. Pity you also got stuck with the curiosity.”

I bristled. I have always prided myself on my need to interact with the world around me, to pull the back off and see how everything worked. It was why I found writing so relaxing, as a way to make something completely different out of the pieces I had gathered. Mabel noticed my annoyance.

“Look, we can talk later,” she said, forestalling any comments with a wave of her hand. “I need to shower and change, and we need to get the kitchen clean before the linoleum starts dissolving.”

She handed me a bottle of Lysol and a bucket from under the sink. I sighed and watched her head up the stairs. This was shaping up to be a long summer, if Mabel spent all of it avoiding telling me what was going on. I set to scrubbing the blue-green goop off every surface. It hissed and spat when the water came into contact, boiling away to nothingness and leaving a foul smell barely masked by the lemony-fresh scent of Lysol. By the time I had moved to the last stain - the vaguely humanoid puddle outlined on aging cream linolem squares - Mabel returned. She had changed into fairly standard jeans and a green t-shirt. Good to see that she had normal-person mode as well as cat lady and whatever she had been doing in the leather outfit.

“Ah, that’s much better,” she said. “Sorry to make you supply the elbow grease, but it’s better to not let that stuff stay on your skin for too long. You fine with takeout?”

I must admit that I didn’t respond immediately.

“If you’re not, I can whip something up pretty quick. I just thought that it might be easier since you’ve had a long day. I always find travel exhausting.”

“No, takeout sounds great,” I managed at last. “I just didn’t think-”

“That we had restaurants here?” Mabel supplied. “Can’t really blame you. I didn’t either, until I found Hardison’s. Hope you like pad thai and pork fried rice - the orders are huge. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She went into the hall and picked up the phone. Apparently the place was on speed dial, and Mabel must have been a regular customer. They probably didn’t see a whole lot of new faces, but still. She just said “The usual” and hung up before rejoining me in the sparkling kitchen. We sat in silence until the doorbell rang. Mabel answered it and returned with two steaming paper bags which she set on the counter. I started pulling out drawers, looking for silverware.

“So when are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked without turning around.

Mabel sighed.

“The forks are in the drawer to your left,” she said. “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot. I wasn’t expecting to spend the summer looking after you, and you caught me off guard when you walked in the door. When your mother was your age, she would be gone until there was no light left in the day.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Times were different then, needless to say.”

“I am perfectly capable of looking after myself,” I shot back, showing my defiance by snapping apart the disposable chopsticks with undue force. “Contrary to what my parents may have told you, I am not mentally defective. They have been so wrapped up in themselves that I practically raised myself from eleven onwards.”

“No one is saying you’re stupid,” Mabel said quickly. “There are some things that are not safe for any of us, particularly those who are ignorant of their dangers. What has Olivia told you about me?”

“Nothing,” I said. Her name sounded foreign, as though by calling her by another title than mother made the distance between us somehow more concrete than it had been before. “She never talks about you. The one time I asked, she said that you were a disgrace to the family and that I had so much more potential. That was before the, ah, incident.”

The entire time I had been talking, Mabel’s face had been getting darker and darker. At the mention of the incident I evidently triggered some sort of defensive-aunt reflex.

“What incident?” she demanded.

“Physics class freshman year,” I said. “I may or may not have fired a ball bearing through the wall. There was a guy in my class who was claiming that girls couldn’t be good at physics, and the challenge was to build a working trebuchet. Mine turned out to work a little too well. Then a week later in chemistry, I lit the ceiling on fire. That’s what they say, at least. It wasn’t my fault - the bunsen burner flared up all the sudden, and I was doing everything I could to turn it off but it was like I was watching from a million miles away. After that I was labelled as a problem child and my mother officially gave up.”

Mabel clicked her tongue in sympathy.

“What about the voices?” she asked, slurping up a mouthful of noodles.

“What voices?” I asked, taken aback. “I had a spot of trouble with a gas line, I’m not crazy.”

“I’m not saying you’re crazy,” Mabel said. Even if I was, though, I doubted that she would tell me. Most people would just smile and nod along to whatever I said.

“So then why would you ask me about voices?” I asked.

“Because you’re sensitive,” she replied. “Olivia is too, but she would sooner die than admit it. You can’t help it - it runs in our blood. Some of us can see, or hear, or just feel, better than most others. That’s why we have a long history as gatekeepers.”

“What’s a gatekeeper?” I asked innocently, shovelling pad thai directly from the box. Hey, I was starving. It had been a long day, with the sandwich the first thing I had eaten all day. My parents aren’t big believers in breakfast, and thanks to their bickering we had missed the last turn for lunch. I could see as soon as I had asked the question that Mabel realized her mistake. Her face composed itself into a stony mask of unconcern.

“Oh, nothing,” she dismissed the topic with a wave of her fork. “It’s just that the Weatherfields have always been on this land, and always will be.”

Evidently the topic was off-limits. I sighed in frustration. Fine, if that was all she was going to say about murdering whatever that thing had been in the kitchen. I would just have to inviegle it out of her later.

“So are the storms a normal thing around here?” I asked.

“What storms?” Mabel asked. “It hasn’t rained for two weeks, and it sure didn’t start today.”

“That’s why I ran back here,” I said. “There was a raindrop and I felt the pressure change. It chased me all the way home from the quarry.”

Mabel muttered something unrepeatable under her breath, and by unrepeatable I mean something with entirely too many consonants to be English. It was probably a swear based on the heartfelt emphasis behind it, but I don’t really care when people cuss to express their feelings. It was her expression that scared me, the way the mask was replaced in an instant by the mama-bear something-just-looked-at-my-cub look. She had already killed today, and I wasn’t sure I entirely trusted the consequences of that look. For a second I caught myself almost wishing that my parents had decided to drag me along like usual. Then I decided against it. Forget that - for once, I was going to be in charge of my life.

“Mabel?” I asked hesitantly. “You aren’t mad at me for going to the quarry, are you?”

She must have realized the intensity of her expression, and let the tension drain from her features.

“No, I’m not angry with you. I’m frustrated with myself for not telling you earlier that the quarry was off-limits, and with your mother for dumping you on me with less than a week’s notice because she decided she needed time to take care of her own problems.”

My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t need to be told that I was unwanted; I already knew. Hearing it out loud only stung more. It wasn’t my fault that the adults always assumed that I was nothing but a bothersome kid to be taken care of. I’d had enough of that at home, and I certainly didn’t need more here. I grabbed my backpack and sprinted from the house, ignoring Mabel’s exortations. If she had wanted me to stay that badly, she could have had the basic decency not to remind me of my wretchedness in the eyes of the entire family. At this point, I had gotten used to my mother bewailing that I would turn out like “that other one”, the black sheep of the family, Mabel. I hadn’t been prepared for Mabel to confirm that I was about as useful as a teacup in bailing out the Titanic.

I ran blindly, ignoring the crickets’ chirping and Mabel’s calls from the comfort of the porch. It was dark, but not so dark that I needed a light, so my dark clothes would be all but invisible until the moon rose. That was fine with me. I had camped out before, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t again. By the time I realized where my feet were taking me, I was already most of the way to the quarry. I waded back through the briars to the alcove I had found earlier. Mabel claimed that it was dangerous, but I wasn’t planning on going near enough the edge to fall in. I may be hypersensitive, but I’m not stupid. I curled up on the rock and realized that I was still holding the box of pad thai. I couldn’t help smiling at that. I must have made quite the image, a dishevelled city girl taking refuge in an abandoned quarry with her sad little box of takeout. My stomach rumbled, and I set about finishing the food. After all, I might as well.

As I was finishing my dinner I saw the fireflies. First a few spiralled up out of the briars, then more followed. They glowed continually, sometimes flashing brighter or dimmer for a moment. That was funny. They must have a different species out here or something. The fireflies swirled around aimlessly before dispersing like a crowd who hears the speaker has cancelled and goes home in disappointment. I could’ve sworn that I heard music on the breeze, but the songs are hardly new. I’ve been hearing the music for years now, music where none should be. It’s kind of like having an iPod in my head, except sometimes I could create my own music. If it was voices I would have been worried, because everyone knows voices are the first sign of madness. I don’t think anyone’s ever been put in a straightjacket for hearing violas, though. I never told anyone though because I wouldn’t put it past my mother to try. This time, though, there were distinctively more chimes than normal. That happens sometimes, like when Professor Fenstermacher is droning away in home ec. I swear that man was old from the day he was born, and hearing oboe solos over his lectures really doesn’t help. Or, one day when I was incredibly bored, a subversive jazz trombone. I pushed the music to the back of my mind. Something else was going on with Mabel, I was sure of it. Nobody dresses in that much black unless they’re in band, on TV, or going through a serious goth phase, and I’m pretty sure none of the above applied to Mabel. I started humming as I thought, an unconscious way of freeing myself of the music.

So if something funny was going on with Mabel, I was pretty sure it involved the paranormal. Spies were out - what intelligence could reasonably be gathered from The Middle of Nowhere, Iowa in a house with what can only be generously described as a sketchy-at-best WiFi connection? Aliens were a maybe, assuming that the person she had killed in the kitchen wasn’t human. Thing? Person? Creature? Whatever it was, evidently it had been a threat. Oh, and its blood was strong enough to dissolve linoleum. That left a pretty wide array of options - the denizens of just about every fantasy ever written, except probably hobbits. I know that they were fell warriors when things came down to the wire and all, but I can’t really imagine hobbits invading Iowa for any reason, not unless there was one hell of a patisserie around here that I had somehow overlooked. Then I remembered what Mabel had said, about the Weatherfields having always been gatekeepers. Pardon, Gatekeepers. For some reason people who risk their lives fighting monsters, demons, and other mystical beasties get surprisingly touchy about grammar as it applies to capitalization.

So if Mabel was the current Gatekeeper, that meant that there had to be a gate around here somewhere. Or, more likely, a Gate. See what I mean about the capitalization? One is a friendly everyday object, the section of white picket fence that swivels aside to welcome you home after a long day. The other is probably how They get here. And if Mabel was trying to protect me from whatever - or whoever (I don’t want to be that person that calls sentient beings a thing just because they may or may not be trying to enslave the human race) the They were, that meant that she would logically need to keep me away from the Gate. The two places she had forbidden me to go after dark were the closet in the attic and the quarry. Remember how I said earlier that I wasn’t stupid? I was seriously reconsidering right about then.

As if to console me that I really was mortally stupid, the water started glowing. Nothing showy, just a faint luminescence to let you know that this water was special somehow. By now I was quite certain that coming here hadn’t exactly been a stroke of genius. I would have left immediately if not for the shadowy figure striding towards me. It wasn’t Mabel, that much was certain. For one thing, brambles don’t move out of the way for most people. The bushes practically uprooted themselves in an attempt to get away from the figure. For another, Mabel was by no means short but she certainly wasn’t six foot four or so. The clincher for me was the way with a single contemptuous wave the few remaining lights were snuffed. I hadn't realized how comforting the presence of the tiny lights was until they were gone; then I felt the full dread and chill that had been seeping into the quiet summer night. I also had the horrible suspicion that the lights weren't fireflies.

I sat stock-still and concentrated on not making a noise. And when I say not making a noise, I mean even the noise of existing. I can hear where people are, most of the time at least, and because I can hear it I can make sure that I don't make the noise of existing and just blend into the background. The trick is to put in enough effort to be silent but not so much that you make the noise of trying to be quiet. It was some of what made me so good at hide-and-seek, back when there were people willing to play with me. Before Henry's family took him back to Mexico and Gertrude got sick and Helen decided that she was too good for us and took Jim with her. Anyways, I digress. I have excellent survival instincts, which translate to difficulty adjusting to being around new people. They made me entirely certain, however, that if this being saw me that he would kill me, and there wasn't much I could do about it. So I played the part of defenseless prey and hunkered down as best I could.

The figure stalked to a swale choked with nettles, where the brambles were the densest. I've read enough fairy tales to know that with age comes power, and I'm not sure there would be a cake large enough to fit all the candles it would take to express the figure's age. I also knew that fairy tales have been watered down and sugarcoated in recent years. They used to be tales of warning, how to stay safe against whatever was out there. Even before Disney, though, parents have been deciding that they don't want to read bedtime stories to their children if necklaces of eyeballs are involved. Spoilsports. Anyways, I wasn't about to alert the thing to my presence. I was planning on waiting until morning to hoof it back to Mabel's so I could force her to tell me what was going on. The figure started chanting, obscene syllables that made my brain feel like it was squelching out through my ears. By obscene I don't mean everyday cussing, because swearing is practically a sport in some of the neighborhoods I frequented. These words were only slightly younger than the figure, back from when words had power. I covered my ears and did my best to block out the noise, but to no avail. It was like having fingernails on a chalkboard inside my skull. I must have shifted or whimpered, because the figure whisked around and was at my side in an instant.

"Who might this be?" he purred in a voice like molten lead pouring over bones. "I was unaware that I had the privilege of a guest tonight. Come closer to the water, where I can see you better."

He grasped me by the elbow in a grip of steel and dragged me to the edge of the pit, empty takeout box tumbling to the ground. The water grew brighter with every pace until I could see every detail of his face, smooth pale skin pulled over sharp cheekbones. If I was watching him as a villain on TV I wouldn't have noticed anything amiss, apart from the fact that his canines were distinctly longer then they were supposed to be. He noticed my stare and bared his teeth, the bluish light from below glinting sickeningly off their points. Vampire, was my best guess. Not the best start to a summer vacation, considering I had only been here for a few hours.

"What's your name then?" he asked with a menacing shake. "Don't be shy. I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot."

I knew better than to give him my real name. Names have power, with the fine print changing based on who you ask. Nevertheless, it's kind of hard to think objectively when someone you're pretty sure is a vampire is holding you by the elbow and not quite pushing you into a glowing pit.

"Rhia," I said, unable to suppress the strains of West Side Story from an inconvenient cameo appearance.

"An interesting name," my captor said politely. "You may address me as Lord Farvald. Now, what brings a lovely thing such as yourself to a dangerous quarry so late at night? Come on, spit it out."

"I have no survival instincts and I wanted to know what it would feel like to die horribly," I quipped. Oh, did I forget to mention? When I'm stressed I tend to say whatever comes into my head. It's a habit I really need to lose.

"Really," Forvald drawled. "What if I told you your wish could be granted? Well, except the dying part. Sometimes the ritual is rather finnicky and, well, suffice it to say it isn't very pleasant for the sacrifice."

"I'm nobody's sacrifice!" I retorted hotly.

"I beg to differ," Forvald returned with stilted formality. "I have a silver dagger and date with a god of chaos that say otherwise. This will most likely hurt terribly."

I wriggled like a fish on dry land, trying my level best to escape his grip, but to no avail. If I were in a fairy tale, Mabel would show up right about now and give Forvald a drubbing that he would never forget. Or possibly find a parrot that he kept his heart in and slowly tear it limb from limb, if we're going with the classics. Unfortunately, it seemed like I had perhaps been too thorough in escaping my aunt. With his spare hand, Forvald pulled a small chart out of the breast pocket of his suit and consulted it.

"Would you say that you're closer to a hundred and ten pounds, or one-twenty?" he asked. "I'm trying to ascertain whether I need the additional five trapped souls, and the ritual is quite specific."

"Try one forty-five," I said.

Forvald paused. "Really? If you are lying I shall be most put out. I did not account for this in my calculations."

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to ask a lady her weight?" I snarled back. "And muscle is dense, you idiot. Of course I'm heavier than I look, I actually do things."

"There is no call for such animosity," Forvald said primly. "I was merely trying to ensure that your miserable existence would be ended in the most convenient way possible. You are not being very cooperative."

"Gee, I wonder why that might be," I said. Forvald was not amused.

"Very well, if that's the way you want to play it," he said. "I was trying to be a gentleman about it, but if you resist than you offer me no choice. Prepare to meet your untimely demise."

He bared his fangs and hissed, eyes widening in an attempt to scare me. I cleverly avoided falling prey to this tactic by being already terrified out of my mind. I reacted reflexively to protect myself in the best way I could think of and bared my teeth in response. Useful, I know. Forvald's eyes widened even further as he felt the chopstick slide between the third and fourth rib. The great thing about survival instincts is that even when they don't tell you what's going on, they keep you alive just a little bit longer until you can think well enough to not die. Unfortunately for me, Forvald didn't collapse and turn into a pile of ashes. A dark stain spreading steadily over his shirt, he chucked me casually into the quarry. I instinctively straightened my legs and arms into a pencil dive. When my parents told me that swim lessons might save my life, for some reason I doubt this was quite what they were envisioning. I hit the water with an almighty splash and came up sputtering. Forvald had fallen at the edge and lay looking contemptuously down on me.

"According to the rules of your world, I could do you no harm until you had done harm to me. Now that we have the preliminaries over with, I will watch you die."

"If I haven't killed anyone, shouldn't that give me exemption from anyone killing me?" I asked, treading water. The murky water in the quarry was surprisingly cold. In my extremely limited experience, I estimated that I had a couple of hours before my strength was exhausted by cold and exertion. Then I would flail for at most a few minutes before just kind of sinking, if what I had read about drowning was accurate.

"I have no intention of killing you," Forvald said. I didn't believe him, if the human sacrifice pocket chart had been anything to go by. "All I have to do is paralyze your limbs and the water will do the rest. Technically all I will have done is restrain you. So long, Rhia. If that actually is your name, which I severely doubt. Fear not, your remains will be sacrificed to only the most powerful of dark gods." Small comfort there.

My brain being ever the honed, focused tool of ingenious escape, informed me that now would be a good time to revisit some of my favorites from band, starting with The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Unable to help myself I started singing as the strength drained from my limbs and I felt their weight increase. Forvald pulled a face as though the noise caused him pain, so I sang louder. Hey, I didn't have a piccolo with me, and as the world's most awkward alto I can't really compare. Either something about it being a hymn - aren't vampires not so great with religious affiliations? - or the fact that my voice kept cracking was more than he was willing to put up with. The water started feeling warmer, never a good sign when it feels icy after you first get in. The glow seemed to be getting brighter, too, or else I was just getting loopy on fear and adrenaline and the realization that I was probably going to die before I could relive all my favorites. I started March from 1941 by John Williams, my favorite among favorites. Ecstatic trumpet fanfares amid jubilant clarinet, all with a driving rhythm. At this rate I wasn't going to make it to Sunshine Over Leith or Pirates of the Caribbean or Holst's Second Suite in F. If Farvald had been down here with me, I would have paddled over to him and throttled him with the last of my strength for killing me without music. Seriously, what kind of vampire condemns a band geek to death without so much as a little Two Steps From Hell going in the background?

As I felt the swish of cold water circulating over my limbs stop, I finally finished March and started The Hounds of Spring. So help me, if I died now I was going to spend eternity making Forvald's ghost miserable. Then the water closed over my head, leaving nothing but one hopefully dying whatever-he-was on the edge of the pit to show that I had ever existed. The light was so bright it was practically blinding now, and as darkness faded over the edges of my vision I felt gentle hands under my arms and knees, buoying me up.