by Tess Adair
Eventually, Logan gathered that it all came down to a choice: she could remove her father from the home, or she could agree to have him put on some new medication that might “help him remain calm,” per the doctor’s words.
With more than a little reluctance, she asked if she could see her father before she made her decision. Dr. Burroughs agreed.
And that was how she found herself hovering outside her father’s door, willing herself to enter. It seemed somehow immeasurably harder to do it when she was alone.
Nevertheless, she rapped her fist against the door and pushed it open.
“Charles?” she called into the room.
A grunt greeted her from around the corner, so she made her way inside, shutting the door behind her. She found him huddled in his armchair, wearing the same robe he always did, and wrapped up in a quilt, to boot. If she hadn’t just listened to Dr. Burroughs describe his disruptive behavior firsthand, she might have had a hard time believing he was capable of it.
Passing a cupboard on her way over, she pulled out one of his spare towels and made sure to lay it out on the couch before she sat down. The doctor had had nothing but hard plastic chairs in his office, but her father’s couch was nicely upholstered, and Logan wasn’t keen to pay this place for damages.
“How’s it going, Charles?” she asked, her voice the picture of a nonchalance she could not feel.
The senior Logan looked up at her, scowled, and looked away again.
“Haven’t had my cake today. Supposed to get chocolate cake on Thursdays. One piece.”
“That’s right, no cake for you today. Can you tell me why that is?”
His face tightened at the edges, but he did not speak.
“Why didn’t you get any cake today, Charles?”
Slowly, Charles turned his head back to her, his unfocused eyes eventually finding their way to hers.
“I did a bad thing, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Do you remember what you did?”
“I always remember. I always forget.”
Oh good, it’s a brain jigsaw day.
“What did you do, Charles? Yesterday, in the cafeteria, what did you do? Do you remember?”
“He wasn’t there yesterday.” He shook his head vigorously from side to side. “Nothing bad—the bad thing, it didn’t happen, but…but I thought it would, and I…” His eyes tried to focus on her again, but they seemed to lose their footing. “Some people are so sensitive, don’t you think?”
Logan let out a sigh.
“Yes, some people get a little sensitive when a crazy old man throws a chair at them.” She let out a huff of air, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew she shouldn’t talk that way to her father; even if he still remembered what he’d done to her, she knew it didn’t justify throwing insults at someone as defenseless as he was now. Still, it was hard enough to deal with him in the first place, without the added trouble of trying to figure out his discombobulated brain. Every time he tumbled over the edge like this, it took all her strength not to throw up her hands and walk away.
And yet…that helped her make her decision, didn’t it? In her heart of hearts, she wasn’t willing to bring him home with her. And the doctor had given her only one other option.
She didn’t leave right away. She supposed she could give her father at least the semblance of a real visit, even if he was only halfway there himself. Besides, Mara would be able to tell if she left without spending any time with her father, and that might make her seem a little heartless.
Once she told the doctor to put Charles on the new meds, she had exactly one plan: to find out when Mara got off work at the end of the day.
After all, she was still in the market for a good distraction.
Jude sat in her giant bedroom on the estate, on the edge of her nice, comfy bed, and clutched the cell phone that someone else paid for. On the bed behind her lay an envelope, torn open with abandon, which told her she had passed the GED exam.
Knatt had celebrated with her already that day, taking her into the nearby town for lunch and ice cream. When they got back, he assured her that he would let Logan know as soon as she got back from…wherever it was she’d gone.
In the meantime, Jude sat in her room, clutching her phone and wishing she had someone she could call to share her news. If there were even the slightest chance that her parents would have been proud of her, she might have tried them, but…well, on second thought, maybe there wasn’t even a parallel universe where that would be a good idea.
So that left…Amy.
But did she really want to call Amy? They’d managed a few phone calls here and there, sure. And Amy had kept dangling the possibility that she might eventually come and visit…but her visit never materialized. With every passing week, the chances seemed lower and lower.
And every second she held that phone without calling anyone, she felt smaller and smaller.
After several minutes, she let out a groan of frustration at herself.
I’ve got to tell somebody. I’m just gonna call her.
Doing her best not to think too hard lest she end up stopping herself again, Jude forced her fingers to press the buttons to call. She brought the phone to her ear and closed her eyes, willing away her butterflies.
“Hello?”
“Amy, hi! It’s me.”
“Hi, Jude.”
“Hey, uh, I wanted to call because—well, because I got some good news today.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Uh, you know how I said I had to take the GED?”
“Uh—yeah, I remember you said that.”
“Well, I did it. And I passed!”
For a moment that lasted just long enough to feel painfully awkward, Amy was quiet. When she spoke, her words sounded forced and strange.
“Oh—that’s, uh, that’s great, Jude.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Jude. She could feel herself deflate a little more with every second.
“So, I guess that means you’re probably gonna stay there, right? With, uh, with Logan and her business partner, I mean.”
“Well…well, yeah. I was gonna do that either way, though.”
“Oh, right. Well, good for you, Jude. I’m happy for you.”
Jude wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but somehow she felt more alone now than she had before she’d called.
“Thanks,” she said, though her voice had lost so much power, she wasn’t sure she’d actually said it out loud.
“Listen,” said Amy, her voice low and careful, “it’s good you called. I kinda needed to talk to you.”
“You did?” The tiny, fluttering thing inside Jude’s chest sprang to life, daring to hope, despite itself.
“Yeah,” said Amy. “Uh, well, I know I promised you that I’d find a way to come visit you, and I really, really wanted to, you know? And I tried to make it work as best I could, but…well, the thing is, everything just…everything kinda got complicated, you know? I mean, my parents were kinda cash-strapped all summer, and I didn’t get as much financial aid as we thought, and…well, at this point, it looks like I probably won’t be able to make it out there, after all.”
Jude felt the fluttering thing start to sputter out, but she did her best to breathe a little life into it.
“Well, that’s okay,” she said, hope and bargaining warring for her tone. “Maybe, uh, maybe I could come back to town to see you instead? I mean, I doubt my parents are looking for me, or anything like that—”
On the other end of the line, Amy made a kind of clicking noise.
“Uh, the thing is—well, I’m actually…I’m actually not in Wolf Creek anymore.”
“What?”
“My first semester already started. My…my parents dropped me off last week.”
The flutter died on the spot. Jude blinked repeatedly, pinpricks playing at her eyes.
“Did, uh, did I miss a text, or—”
“No,” said Amy, her voice quieter than ever. “I didn’t tell
you. I just thought…well, I thought you had enough on your plate, with everything you’re doing…up there.”
Slowly, Jude breathed in and out. The silence between them felt oppressive, but she had no words to pierce it. She felt like her soul had turned into a stone and dropped into her shoe.
After an eon, she forced her voice to work again.
“I gotta go,” she said, barely aware of her own words. “I think I hear Knatt calling. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Jude, wait—”
But Jude had already moved the phone away, already had her finger over the end button. She pressed it without another moment’s hesitation, and then she dropped the phone on the floor, where it landed with a clatter.
For several minutes, she sat in silence.
She didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She felt rejected and alone, and at least a little bit ashamed. What was so wrong with her, that everyone in her life eventually turned their backs on her?
And yet…there was a tiny part of her that felt…relieved. It was so tiny, she could barely admit it was there, but…there it was. If Amy didn’t want her around anymore…well, it made things simpler, didn’t it?
And that thought…that was the worst part.
Eventually in her restlessness, Jude did the one thing that had always helped her feel a little bit better: she went for a run. Washington state had taken a sharp left turn into fall within the first few days of September, and though a part of her was sad to see the warm weather disappear so quickly, it did make her runs a little easier.
Of course, a few minutes into her run, it became clear that the intermittent rains had left the ground slick and mushy. Nevertheless, it seemed like the best option she had to exorcise her demons. So, she ran. She ran until her legs threatened to collapse under her weight. She ran until her mind could no longer hold court against itself.
When she finally came back inside, Knatt was in the middle of pulling a pan of homemade French fries out of the oven. With the last vestiges of adrenaline and energy slowly ebbing out of her muscles, she thought she’d never smelled anything so welcoming in her life.
Just like that, the loneliness she’d felt so heavily before seemed suddenly silly. What did it matter if she held little to no ties to her old life? What had that old life ever offered her, anyway?
Making sure to leave her now-muddy shoes by the door, Jude washed her hands in the little mudroom sink before making her way into the kitchen proper.
“Oh, good,” said Knatt as she entered, a rare, if muted, smile on his face. “I worried you wouldn’t return in time, but it seems we’ve lined ourselves up nicely, haven’t we?”
“It seems we have,” said Jude, feeling a goofy grin take over her face. “Did you make those for me?”
“Of course,” said Knatt, pulling a large plate down from the cupboard. “It’s not every day one graduates from school, you know.”
The goofy grin won over as she helped Knatt set the table for the two of them. She couldn’t remember her mother ever greeting her after a run with homecooked food. Usually it was an admonishment about…well, whatever Jude hadn’t done well enough that day. She didn’t even want to think about what her mother would say if she knew Jude hadn’t finished her classes and had taken the GED instead.
And yet…here was Knatt, making her fries and smiling like…like he was proud of her.
As she settled into her chair across from him, it occurred to her that in all this time, she’d asked him relatively few personal questions. She cleared her throat.
“Hey, Knatt,” she said tentatively, “uh, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you…do you, uh, ever miss England?”
Knatt settled back into his chair, his expression contemplative.
“I do go back on occasion,” he said. “On holiday, sometimes. But I haven’t lived there in a very long time, not since…well, before Miss Logan, anyway. My brother lives in Manchester, but we were never very close. Different interests, that sort of thing.”
“He’s into something other than casting?”
“Quite so. He’s a banker.”
“Huh. Yeah, that’s pretty different. So, why’d you leave in the first place?”
“Oh, there were a million partial reasons,” he said, the slightest hint of sadness in his voice. He picked up one particularly well-seasoned fry and took his time eating it before he answered. “I suppose, in the end, I simply wanted to see what else was out there, beyond my own limited ken.”
“You never thought about going back?”
“Once or twice, perhaps. But then I partnered with Charles, and then Henrietta came into our lives, and that was that.”
“Henrietta? Who’s—wait, that’s not…is that Logan’s first name?”
“Indeed, it is.”
Jude did her best not to giggle, focusing instead on nodding her head respectfully while she grabbed a warm fry and popped it into her mouth. Eventually, the shock of discovering Logan’s first name receded, and the rest of Knatt’s phrasing floated through her mind.
And then Henrietta came into our lives. And if she was half demon, then…
Jude gave herself a small shake. If she wanted to know, all she needed to do was ask.
“So, Logan’s mother is a demon, right?”
Knatt nodded curtly.
“Yes,” he said, “but, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly when Charles discovered that fact. The only time I ever saw her, she looked perfectly human.”
“Oh, I see.”
Jude nodded again, and this time picked up a solid handful of fries to stuff into her mouth. She suddenly realized that she had essentially asked if Charles Logan had once had sex with a demon, and she felt immediately and intensely awkward about it.
For several minutes, they ate their fries in relative silence. Outside, the sky began to darken as the sun slipped toward the horizon. Knatt pressed a few buttons on his phone, and the room filled with gentle classical music. Jude recognized it, but she couldn’t have named it for the life of her.
Eventually, Knatt cleared his throat.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Logan today, have you?” he asked. Jude shook her head. “I thought not. She did have an errand to run earlier today, although…ah, I’ve just remembered something.”
With that, he stood up and walked right out of the room. Jude blinked stupidly after him and picked up another fry. They had finally started to lose their heartening warmth.
After a moment, he came back.
“You know how to work the traveling room, correct?” He seated himself across from her once more.
“Well, I have kind of the basic idea—”
“Here.” He slipped a long skeleton key out of his pocket, which was tied with a thick blue ribbon, and handed it to her. “This particular key is bound to the room. It can only take you back and forth from one place, but you can use it on any of the doors in the room, and it will get you there. If there is ever any sort of emergency here at the estate, you can use it to escape.”
With a sense of awe and uncertainty, Jude accepted the key. It looked ordinary and unassuming; if she hadn’t heard what Knatt had just told her, she would never have looked at it twice.
“Where will it take me?” she asked, though she suspected she knew the answer.
“To Miss Logan’s apartment, of course.”
Of course. Jude nodded, unsurprised. “It’s that—it’s that door in the hallway, right?”
“Yes.” He also took another fry. “Miss Logan will likely be at home tonight. If you should feel like paying her a visit, perhaps to test out the new magical artifact I just gave you to make sure it works, I don’t imagine she’d take it amiss.”
As she considered the key in her hand, Jude remembered the view out of Logan’s high-rise window—the cityscape all around, and the glimpse of the Sound far below. Of course, she got the feeling that Knatt’s real motivation had nothing to do with testing magical objects, or even enabling Jude’s desire to go exp
lore the city.
“Uh, so, you’re—you’re actually asking me to go and check on Logan, right?”
“I would never ask such a thing,” Knatt answered blandly. “Not in so many words, at least.”
So, after Jude had eaten all the fries she could stand, she helped put away the dishes, then slowly made her way to the other, slightly less familiar wing of the vast house. As she got closer to the traveling room, a familiar sense of anxiety began to creep its way up her spine. What if she messed up somehow, and ended up sending herself halfway around the globe? What if she opened the door into a warzone or something?
Far worse than that—what if she did end up in Logan’s apartment…and Logan didn’t want her there?
But Knatt told me to go, she thought. I can’t back out now. She opened the last door in the hall and stepped inside.
The room around her was just as large, imposing, and vaguely mystical as it had been the first time Logan had brought her. The marble walls and high ceiling echoed with her every step. Archaic written casts covered every surface, and the curling figures seemed to shiver and shift in the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath.
If she gets mad, I can just blame it on Knatt. That’s brave, right?
With one hard swallow, she stepped toward the next nearest door and stuck the skeleton key inside its lock. Then she pulled it open and stepped through.
Just like before, she found herself in an all-white apartment hallway that bore no resemblance to the room she’d just left. She slipped the key back into her zippered pocket, assuming she’d need it to get back later.
As the traveling room door closed behind her, she felt a soft, cool breeze stirring the baby hairs around her face. Despite the fact that the sun had nearly finished setting, all the lights appeared to be out, leaving her in semi-darkness. She stepped forward, closer to the source of the breeze.