by Blythe Baker
My heart pounded as the music in the other room suddenly stopped.
I moved away from the door, hearing scraping from inside the bedroom. There was a low, soft growl, followed by a maniacal giggle.
The doorway was thrown open, and the woman launched herself out at me.
She slammed against me, and the both of us toppled backward, striking the ground at the top of the staircase.
There was a blur of stringy blonde hair, snarling, and snapping teeth in my face.
I was shoving against her with all my weight, but she was strong. Incredibly strong. She giggled in my face, and her fingernails dug into the flesh of my arm.
Just as soon as she’d landed on top of me, she was yanked off by some unseen person.
I sputtered and gasped for breath, staring around and grabbing at myself, wondering if she’d broken my skin anywhere. There was no new pain, and no stinging from bleeding of any sort.
I looked up and saw the girl was being dragged back into her room by a tall, muscular woman with her mousey brown hair pulled back into a tight bun behind her head.
The girl was struggling, her head darting back around toward me, but the woman shoving her away was able to overpower her.
The door to the bedroom slammed shut, yet I could still hear the girl fighting, crying out in frustration.
A moment later, the music began again, and the struggling stopped.
I sighed in relief. The music box seemed to pacify her, for whatever reason…
Gripping the banister of the staircase, I pulled myself back to my feet, but my knees were so shaky that they could barely hold my weight.
I need to get out of here…I thought. I need to get Athena, and we need to –
The door to the bedroom opened again and the muscular woman stepped out. Her face was round, and her small, blue eyes were narrowed.
I realized she was wearing what appeared to be a maid’s outfit, with dark skirt, a pristine apron, and a pair of white gloves. The fabric of her sleeves was taut against her muscular arms, and her calf muscles were as firm as stones, just visible in the shadows under her skirt.
She folded her arms across her chest. “You must be the one Lord Cain rescued.”
Lord Cain?
“I am, yes…” I said, still hanging onto the railing.
The dark look in her eyes was making me uneasy.
“You have no business with Lady Rebecca,” the woman said, her eyes narrowing to slits.
“N – no, I don’t,” I said. “I got lost, I was looking for Cain – ” I swallowed hard. “Thank you for helping me.”
The woman straightened somewhat, rolling her shoulders. “I did it more for Lady Rebecca than for you…I don’t need Lord Cain to be burdened with his sister killing anyone.”
A chill ran down my spine.
The woman’s gaze was sharp, yet devoid of any emotion.
“You’re a vampire too, then?” I asked.
Her hard face split into a small smirk. “No, actually. I’m human, like you.”
“Oh…” I said. I glanced over her shoulder at the closed door to Rebecca’s room. “But you’re so strong.”
“I have to be, keeping Lady Rebecca in check,” she said. “No matter how wild she gets, I am one of the few she is fond of and would never hurt.”
“That music box…” I said. “It keeps her calm?”
The woman shrugged. “It seems to. Which is why Cain was so relieved that I managed to get it back.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard that right. “Um…you got it back?” I asked, taking a hesitant step backward.
“Of course,” the woman said nonchalantly. “I found it when I was cleaning Ruth Cunningham’s house. Cain had been looking for that box for years. He’d tried everything to calm his sister, but that box was really the best thing. So when I saw it, and heard its song, I knew that I needed it.”
“What were you doing cleaning Ruth’s house?” I asked.
The woman looked at me like it was a stupid question. “I collect information about other people in Faerywood Falls for the Blackburns.” She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the whole world.
“You…spy on them?” I asked.
The woman nodded. “What does it matter to you?”
“Well…that’s wrong,” I said.
“My loyalties lie with the Blackburns,” the woman said. “Particularly with Rebecca. I’ve been caring for her for decades.”
I blinked at her. “So you…Ruth Cunningham, she – ”
“What?” the woman asked frankly. “She had stolen the box that my master and mistress needed. I just took what was rightfully theirs.”
“But Ruth – ” I said.
“She challenged me,” the woman said as casually as if she were discussing a meager disagreement between friends. “I gave her the chance to let me take it, but she reacted violently, trying to sing a spell. So I took her hostile actions as an act of war against the Blackburns, and I ended her.”
My knees almost gave out again as I stared up at this woman who talked about killing Ruth Cunningham so easily.
“I gave her the chance to just let me have the box,” the woman said with a shrug. “She made her own choice.”
The box was valuable enough to kill for? That seemed insane…
“But you…you should have stayed in your room tonight…” the woman said, rolling up her sleeves, taking a step toward me. “I’ve heard you were a curious one, but it would have ended a lot better for you if you had just slept the night away, and gone home tomorrow morning, not being the wiser to any of this…”
“What – what do you mean?” I asked, my foot catching on the lip of the step as I nervously edged backward.
“I think that is obvious,” the woman said with a blank stare. “I’m going to have to kill you, too.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
“You saw the box,” she said. “You will go and tell someone, and shame the name of Blackburn. I won’t have it. I won’t have the name of my poor, distressed Lady besmirched like that.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said, shaking my head. “You can keep the box, I don’t care – ”
“It won’t help to plead for your life,” the woman said. “I take no chances in protecting Lady Rebecca.”
“If you wanted me dead, then why didn’t you just let Rebecca kill me?” I asked.
“I already told you that. I didn’t want to burden Cain with his sister killing a human,” she said with a glare. “If your body was found torn to shreds by my Lady, it would expose the truth about the Blackburns to the rest of Faerywood Falls. It is my duty, as well as the duty of everyone that works for the Blackburns, to protect their secret.”
“What, that they’re vampires?” I asked.
“Exactly,” the woman said. “There are many like you and I that are not Gifted in this town, and they would never understand.”
“Wait, you’re not Gifted?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not. The Blackburns are wise to hire simple humans to work for them. We are the only ones who can revel in their greatness.”
“O…kay?” I said.
The woman glanced over her shoulder at the door. “No…your death will be an accident. A simple accident that could have happened to anyone in your frail condition.”
She stepped over to the door to Rebecca’s room, and slowly unlatched it, pulling it open.
The music drifted out of the room, washing like a wave over the landing where we stood.
I clamped my hands over my ears, knowing what this music would do to me.
“You’ll succumb to the music,” the woman said. “And I’ll just…roll you off the landing here. You could have easily tripped going up these stairs, especially with a head injury. Your death will look like an accident. Unfortunate, of course, but at least Cain will not be able to take the blame. He was the hero, after all, who saved you from your submerged car…it wouldn’t be his fault that you decided to go wandering around an un
familiar house late in the night…”
My mind was becoming foggy, like mist snaking toward me in an open field before dawn. I grabbed onto the banister, my head swelling with pain again.
The song was so sad, so entrancing that all I wanted to do was listen to it.
No! I scolded myself. If you fall asleep, you’re dead!
I moved away from the railing, my hands brushing against the rough stone wall circling around the room. “No…” I said. “Not…again.”
The woman sighed. “Just give up, and make this easy. You’re doing your part in keeping the Blackburns’ secret.”
I let out a groan of frustration. Why did I keep finding myself in situations like this?
I saw the woman put her fingers in her ears. “Oh, the music won’t bother me…” she said. “Special ear plugs. Plus, I’m partially deaf. With my hearing aids turned off, I’m protected.”
I gaped at her. How could she look at me, a living, breathing person, and so casually talk about me dying?
I didn’t have long. I had to stop it. I had to close the door, wake myself up –
I threw myself up the stairs, adrenaline surging. It cleared my mind somewhat, giving me the focus to grab onto the handle of the door, and shove it closed.
Except that was what I wanted to do. Instead, the door was stuck. I pushed and pushed with all my strength, and it wasn’t until I glanced upward that I saw the housekeeper’s fingers wedged inside the door, preventing me from closing it.
I glared up at her hands, trying to push the door closed. How was she…so strong?
My foot slipped, and my strength gave out.
The door went flying open, and I fell down onto the floor, my shoulder striking the hard stones.
The housekeeper’s pulling at the door caused her to stagger backward when it flew open. She slammed into the railing, her arms flailing out on either side of herself.
For a second, it looked like she was going to be able to right herself, but being as muscular as she was, especially with as much strength as she had in her upper body, she tipped over.
She frantically grabbed at the railing as she went over, but it was no use…
She collapsed over the side, and fell the long, long distance down to the bottom of the tower.
I winced as her body struck the floor, with a sickening, snapping thud.
I reached up and grabbed the door, slamming it closed, and sagged against it.
As I sat there in the silence, panting, my mind cleared. I rubbed a shaky hand over my forehead, which was slick with cold sweat.
I hadn’t heard the housekeeper cry out after she’d hit the bottom. In all likeliness, she was dead.
A chill ran down my spine at how quickly the tables had turned. I never intended for her to meet a horrible end like she had, but in reality, she’d come after me, looking for me to die in the same way.
And she hadn’t blinked an eye at it. She’d said it was to protect the Blackburns, but to be so calm about it all…
I took my time gathering my strength. The wound on my head hurt again, throbbing something fierce as I pulled myself up to my feet. I knew I was going to have to walk by her body to go find Cain…
I just hoped he’d be able to understand what had happened. I hoped he’d believe me.
Bile rose in the back of my throat as I headed back down the stairs.
When were these horrible things going to stop?
14
“I see,” Cain said, bowing his head. His gaze was distant, and I didn’t think he’d looked at me since I started talking.
We were sitting in one of the three drawing rooms in the castle. It was just after three in the morning, and I’d spent the last few minutes curled up in a velvet armchair telling Cain everything that had happened since Ruth walked into the shop and stole the music box.
I was picking at some of my chipped nail polish, shivers occasionally chasing themselves down my spine. The fireplace was empty in this room, and the stone walls and large windows leeched out any heat in the room.
Cain was pacing back and forth in front of the long row of bookshelves between the two bay windows, and had been since I started talking.
I chewed on my lip, so hard that I tasted blood.
“Who was she?” I asked finally, not able to stand the silence anymore. “She never told me her name.”
Cain stopped his pacing, and turned slowly to me. When he lifted his eyes to mine, I couldn’t tell if he was angry or if he was just saddened. “Her name was Mrs. Price,” he said somewhat heavily. “She loved my sister like Rebecca was her own daughter. She was hired as a maid here when she was very young, and for some reason, she and Rebecca seemed to click. She wasn’t afraid of my sister like the other servants were. So I gave her the chance to work with her. Things went well. And have continued to go well…until tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, bowing my head.
Cain regarded me with a level look. “You don’t need to keep apologizing. I know what happened wasn’t your fault.”
That gave me some relief, but I still felt guilty.
“It’s a shame this all happened because of that box…” he said.
I shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “I…have a confession, Cain,” I said, looking up at him. “When you rescued me, I had been on my way up here to talk to you about the box, because I thought maybe you’d been the one to steal it and…”
“You thought I’d been the one to kill Ruth?” he asked, pointing at himself. “Well, I can see how you would’ve come to that conclusion – ”
“No, it was wrong,” I said. “I knew deep down all along that you weren’t capable of that kind of cruelty.”
Cain stared at me across the room, and I couldn’t quite read his gaze. “How do you know that?” he asked frankly.
I blinked at him. “Because you’ve saved me on more than one occasion, and you’ve been so kind and compassionate.”
Cain sighed and looked away, gazing out the window. The rain had started to let up, even though it still drizzled against the glass. “…you don’t know what I’m capable of,” he said.
His words felt sad, rather than seeming like a warning, or a threat.
“But it was Mrs. Price,” I said. “And that box…it was important enough for her to kill. She made it sound like it was irreplaceable…”
“She wasn’t wrong,” Cain said, resuming his pacing. “That music box…it’s been in our family for a long time. Back many years ago, more years than I could probably count, my mother still lived here in our home. My sister had the box and was soothed by it. She was changed into a vampire as a very sick child. My father…wanted her to be saved, and so she was turned. In order to be with her, he made sure that he let Rebecca turn him, too. ‘Turning’ is what we call becoming a vampire.”
An icy numbness passed through me.
“My mother and I were both attacked by my sister, too. Father let it happen. It was…a gruesome night. I still remember it clearly.”
“How terrible…” I said.
He didn’t meet my gaze. “The transformation may have prevented Rebecca from dying from her illness, but it didn’t heal her mind, which had already been troubled as a human. She has moments of clarity, but especially during the night, she has an insatiable bloodlust…anyway, that box was the only thing that helped her when she was human. We had no idea it had magical properties then, but after she was turned, the music still seemed to help.”
He shook his head, frowning.
It made my heart ache.
“My mother…didn’t like how things ended up. Father and mother started to fight all the time. Mother felt neglected, and angry that he’d so easily allowed our family to become what we are. And then one day, something in my mother changed. I never really figured out what it was, but I think she just couldn’t take it any longer. She…left. She rose in the middle of the day many decades ago, and took things from the house, sentimental and antique things that were i
mportant to my father, and left without a trace.”
“The box was one of those items, wasn’t it?” I asked.
He nodded. “That among a few others. A tea set that I’ve since recovered, a brooch that once belonged to my grandmother, and a magical book of some sort that I really never knew much about. Apparently my father had acquired it at one point, as he was a spell weaver before the turning.”
“Where is your father now?” I asked.
“Dead,” Cain said flatly. “Killed in some fight with a werewolf.”
“I’m sorry…” I said.
“It wasn’t the worst thing,” Cain said in a hollow tone. “He didn’t want to live forever.”
I looked down at my fingers; I’d managed to scrape off the polish of four fingers while he spoke. So the magic book that ended up in Abe’s shop…it had once belonged to Cain’s family.
Cain suddenly walked over to me, and knelt in front of me.
“Marianne, I…I’m terribly sorry you got tangled up in this mess that I made,” he said. “I never questioned Mrs. Price when she returned home with the box. I should have. She told me she’d managed to get it back, and then when Ruth turned up dead, I never thought that Mrs. Price would have done such a thing…”
“It’s okay,” I said. “To be fair, I have a tendency to drag myself into these situations.”
He looked up at me, and I saw something warm in his gaze, something like affection, or care. “I find myself worrying over you, Marianne. Even when you are under the same roof as I am, I can’t seem to keep you safe.”
He reached out and gently laid his hand against my cheek.
His touch was cool, but it filled my heart with warmth, and it started to race as I gazed into his bright green eyes.
“There is something deeply different in you, and I find myself wanting to protect you. Whatever is stirring in Faerywood Falls seems to have it out for you, and I…I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
My cheeks burned, and not just because he was so tenderly holding my face in his hand.
“Cain, I…” my voice caught in my throat. I wanted to tell him that I cared about him too, but suddenly the lights in the room flared into life.