I’m wearing my black shorts, paired with a black hoodie that covers my bright blue hair, and quiet leather boots.
I’m like the night: dark and silent. Oh and hot. Temperature-wise.
Another thing to know about our town is that it’s always hot. It’s always muggy and humid. Summer is our perpetual weather, even in winter. Weirdly, The Pleiades is the hottest spot of all.
I’m sweating with all the black stuff that I have on. But it could also be the nervousness. It’s not every night that I punch in the code and enter like this.
But desperate times, desperate measures.
Not to mention, I can’t shake off the feeling that I’m being watched.
Stopping at the service entrance with my hand poised at the keypad, I look around for probably the tenth time since I headed out for my mission. But there’s no one there. The night’s dark and the lush grounds are quiet and lonesome.
Maybe paranoia comes with doing kinda shady stuff.
Sighing and turning back around, I hit the keys and enter the code. When the automatic door clicks open, I enter the small lobby-like thingy that has the stairs going down to the basement. To the servant’s wing.
Slowly, I climb down, avoiding the stairs that creak lest I wake up the night staff who are probably sleeping in the on-call rooms.
I reach the landing that gives way to a wide hallway, which is illuminated by tiny nightlights. Rooms flank it on either side. On-call rooms for the sleeping staff, the staff room where we have meetings and breaks, the head housekeeper’s office.
I walk slowly and without making a sound until I reach the other side of the hallway. There’s another staircase that takes us to the first floor. Again, I avoid the creaking ones as I climb up.
My destination is tower three, located all the way in the east.
It takes me about seven minutes to journey through all the rooms and passages on the first floor: the ballroom, the rose room, the yellow sitting room, the private dining room and whatnot.
Then I come upon the sprawling stairs that will take me to tower three, where the guest wing is. As I climb up yet again, I thrust my hands in my pockets to see if I still have my weapon.
Yup, it’s there.
I feel the edges of the pouch and smile in the darkness.
Now that I’m so close to my destination, I can’t wait. I literally can’t wait.
My feet are faster and my breaths are coming out in pants. I’m swimming in adrenaline. I feel alive. Like I have more than one life in me. More than one heart and two sets of lungs.
Calm down, Cleo.
I can’t slip up now and have someone bust me. Not when I’m so close to my goal.
Finally, finally, after all the traveling and walking and climbing, I reach it. The exact guest room I was looking for.
“Okay.” I puff out a breath and glance from side to side. “You’re so dead, you fucker.”
I fish the keys that will get me into the room out from my pocket.
The tiny silver-colored key.
Okay, so yeah, this might be a little against the law. Like, maybe ten percent against it.
The keys in my pocket don’t belong to me. I swiped them from Mrs. Stewart, the head housekeeper’s, office right after my shift ended.
But hey, I plan to give them back tomorrow so this is more like borrowing. I’ll have to, actually; she’s weird about keys. But that’s beside the point.
The point is that I’m not a thief; I’m a borrower.
Biting my lip, I insert the key in the lock and it turns easily. The click that comes as I open the door is loud. Or maybe it sounds that way to me and I swallow, freezing in my spot.
God, please. I’m so close.
I need to do this. This needs to happen. This is my only chance.
Glancing up and down the darkened hallway once again, I count the seconds but nothing stirs. The mansion is still asleep and quiet, much like the night outside. There isn’t any indication of movements from the inside either. Meaning he’s asleep too. Totally oblivious of what’s going to happen to him.
Opening the door only far enough so I can fit through, I creep inside. The room is cool, courtesy of the AC. The night lamp is on and it throws the sleeping body on the bed into light.
Mr. Grayson.
A fifty-year-old guest who flew out to see the famous apple orchards of The Pleiades and take the grand tour of towers six and seven. They are more like a museum and are open for public display.
Yeah, The Pleiades is kind of a big deal for our town.
Half of it is preserved, and privileged people from all over the world come to see the beautiful architecture of it. Throw in a world-famous golf course or two and they’re happy as a peach. I hear that the tour alone costs more than what I make in a year working on the cleaning staff.
The other half of this mansion is where the Princes live, the oldest family of this town. In fact, they are the founders of this town with a line.
They built The Pleiades a long time ago and have lived here for centuries.
A guy once lived here too.
A guy with jet black hair and jet black eyes. A guy I haven’t seen in three years, ever since he abruptly went away.
A guy I don’t like to think about.
Anyway, enough history lesson. It’s showtime.
I’ve been in this guest room a hundred times before so I know where everything is. Namely, the closet that holds my prize.
Softly, I tiptoe toward it, keeping my eyes on the sleeping man. He hasn’t stirred yet. Probably drunk off his ass.
I open the closet door and there it is: his freshly-pressed suit for tomorrow.
I wish I could fist-pump right now but that might be too risky. So I fish out my weapon, the itch powder, and open the lapels of his suit jacket. Glancing at Mr. Grayson one last time, I sprinkle the powder all over the fabric, especially on his pants.
He’s so not going to know what hit him.
Biting my lip once again, I try to keep my gleeful laughter under wraps. I’m not out of the woods yet. I need to get back to my cottage undetected or Mrs. Stewart will wake up to the best news ever: Cleopatra Paige was finally caught breaking a rule and it’s time to fire her.
She’s not a huge fan of me or my blue hair or my blue lipstick or my leather boots. Basically, she hates my guts and she won’t hesitate to fire me if I step even one toe out of line. And right now, I’m so far past the line that I can’t even see it.
With my mission completed, I creep back out of Mr. Grayson’s room and shut the door quietly. Then, I’m retracing my steps, climbing down, walking, traveling all the way back to the servant’s wing.
With any luck, I’ll be back in my cottage before the clock strikes midnight and when I come to work tomorrow, Mr. Grayson will be reduced to a monkey who scratches his own balls.
You’re awesome, Cleo. You’re fucking awesome.
I grin.
Just as I’m about to step on the stairs that will take me up to the service entrance, I hear a rustle behind me and my name is whisper-shouted.
“Cleo!”
I gasp and my fingers fumble on the wooden bannister.
“Cleo.”
I scrunch my eyes closed and bow my head. Sighing, I face the caller. It’s Maggie, the head cook.
She has her arms akimbo and her lips pursed as she watches me with accusing eyes. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
She looks me up and down, probably noticing my stealth mode and somehow, her gaze falls on the pockets of my hoodie. “What do you have in there?"
I pat them and realize there’s a bulge where I stuck the itch powder and the key in. “Nothing,” I repeat.
Even I don’t believe myself, and I’m an excellent liar.
“Give it here.”
Time to up my game.
“Maggie, there’s nothing in my pockets, okay? I came in because I thought I left
my phone in the staff room. But I didn’t. So yeah. Nothing in my pockets. Not up to any mischief or anything.”
I spread my palms in mock surrender as I finish my nonchalant speech.
Maggie watches me for a beat. Her stare is making me nervous, or rather more nervous than I already was.
“I watched you grow up, you know. I know when you’re lying, Cleopatra Paige.”
“I’m not –”
“Come on. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
With that, she turns to her right and walks into the hallway that breaks off right before the stairs where I’m standing.
Damn it.
Not exactly what I had in mind when I broke into the mansion tonight. Whipping off my hood so my long, wavy hair can breathe, I follow her.
The kitchen at The Pleiades can probably fit the cottage that I live in three times over. It’s a large circular room with industrial lights and steel countertops. It’s more or less like the kitchen of a very posh restaurant, complete with a walk-in freezer and high-end grills and whatnot.
Maggie gestures at me to take a seat in a nook with a little dining table by the window, overlooking the night.
She’s in her robe, meaning she was on call tonight, and I know that she’s a light sleeper. Just my luck.
I watch her as she scurries back and forth, collecting dishes and forks, and getting the blueberry pie out of the little fridge off to the side.
Maggie is super cute. Short and plump with a mop of curly honey blonde hair, peppered with gray.
She cuts us each a piece and sets one of the dishes in front of me before taking a seat.
“Eat,” she tells me, her motherly face stern.
I shoot her a small smile. She knows how much I love blueberry pie – actually, I love all sweet things – and she always makes sure to save a few pieces for me.
Sliding the dish close to me, I dig in. “Thanks.”
She grunts and my smile gets bigger.
Maggie points a finger at me. “Don’t. Don’t you smile at me. You’re not off the hook yet.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling and mouth sorry.
She cuts a piece of her own pie. “Now, is this about that guest, Mr. Grayson?”
I gulp the bite I had in my mouth and Maggie raises her eyebrows.
Clearing my throat, I whisper, “Maybe.”
“I told you to stay out of that.”
“Stay out of it?” I ask in disbelief. “Do you even know me? I can’t stay out of it. I won’t stay out of it. He groped Grace. Groped her. He practically groped me.” I gesture to my boobs. “And you don’t grope these without consequences.”
Grace is one of the girls on the cleaning staff. She’s shy and doesn’t like confrontation. So when I caught her crying in the staff room, I forced her to spill her story. Apparently, Mr. Grayson has been harassing her, making lewd comments and patting her butt whenever she walks by.
Motherfucking asshole.
A couple days ago when I felt a brush across my chest while I served him breakfast in bed, I thought I’d imagined it. But Grace’s story had me re-evaluating things.
So I acted. Someone had to.
Maggie studies me shrewdly and I feel my cheeks flushing with warmth.
“And that’s the only reason?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I shift in my seat. “What else could it be?”
Shrugging, she eats a bite of her pie. “I don’t know. Maybe something to do with the fact that you hate this job.”
“I don’t hate this job.”
“Really?”
I slide the pie away. “Yes. I mean, do I like cleaning up vomit when the guests go wild and finding used condoms on the floor? No, I don’t. Do I like dusting off the windows or mopping up the floor until I can see my face on the tiles? Nope. But it’s a job and you know I need it. I need it more than anything else in the world right now.”
Maggie was the one who got this job for me.
In our town, if you don’t go to college, you most probably go here. You work on the cleaning staff or on the cooking staff or whatever staff you seem fit to work on.
My parents were the select few who had other jobs. My dad used to paint houses and my mom used to tutor kids sometimes.
College was never an option for me; I’m not into books and all. But neither was working at The Pleiades.
I wanted to travel the world like my mom used to say when I was little. I wanted to explore it and see what I liked. See where my passion was. I wanted to find myself.
Pity flashes through Maggie’s eyes and I look away. If I don’t, I might start crying and that’s the last thing I want tonight.
Tonight was about tit for tat. It was about the adventure, the rush of it all. Tonight was about feeling alive.
“You know, you don’t have to do this. This job. You could pack up right now and leave this town. Just like you planned. Just get in your car. The blue car that you love so much.” She smiles. “Take a road trip. Send me postcards. No one’s going to blame you, Cleo.”
Okay, first of all: I can’t just get in my car. I can’t.
I won’t.
My blue car that I used to love so much, the car that I spray-painted myself with my dad, scares me now. I can’t touch it. I won’t touch it. Because every time I do, I can’t sleep for days. I get nightmares. Sometimes I throw up, get dizzy, claustrophobic.
But I can’t tell her that. Because she’ll say the same thing that she’s been saying for the past year.
You need to see someone, Cleo. Talk to someone.
“I can’t,” I whisper, threading my fingers together. “I need this job. I need to get my house back.”
My old house. The house I grew up in.
The bank took it away last year because of my dad’s debts. After a lot of pleading, they gave me a second chance, along with a time limit to come up with the money. I only have about four more months to gather it and I need this job to get me there.
“Your parents wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”
“Well they’re not here, are they?”
I was trying to be snappish. But I guess, I sounded more… forlorn, like the orphan that I am.
Sighing, Maggie sits back. “Fine. I can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do.”
My chest feels heavy but I still manage a trembling smile.
“But,” Maggie says, sternly. “I don’t want you inside the mansion after your shift’s over. Do you understand?”
I straighten my spine. “Yes.”
“No matter what happens. No matter how tempting it is to take revenge. You’re not a vigilante.”
“You mean like Wonder Woman?” I grin.
“It’s not funny.”
I shake my head seriously. “It’s not.”
Maggie nods in approval. “You will not set your foot inside this place if you’re not working. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if someone else had found you loitering around instead of me. So no more nightly excursions.”
“Got it.”
Maggie looks me over. My navy blue lipstick, my blue hair and my black attire.
I’m used to such looks from people. Back on the south side, no one cared. But here, on the other side of town, people look at me with judgement. My blue, wavy, messy hair is the first indication that I’m not sophisticated enough. My navy blue lipstick means I don’t know a thing about fashion.
But coming from Maggie, it kind of hurts. It makes me self-conscious.
“It’s not a secret that you don’t follow the rules and Nora doesn’t like you very much for it.”
Nora is Mrs. Stewart aka Mrs. S and yup, she hates me.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“It is. You can still quit and leave this town but since you don’t want to, let’s not flaunt how much we don’t care about the rules in her face. Let’s not try to get fired.”
�
�I wasn’t trying to –”
“Save it.”
I go quiet and tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear as Maggie continues, “Now, empty your pockets and give me whatever you had in there.”
Looking at her for a few seconds, I decide to just hand her all my goods. I fish out the pack of itch powder and the key and put them on the table.
Shaking her head, Maggie takes them into her possession. “Cleo. Cleo. Cleo.” She sighs. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me, maybe?”
Maggie chuckles. “Finish your pie and go home.”
Twenty minutes later and a lot of turning around to see if I’m still being followed, I’m in my cottage.
Servants’ cottages are located a little farther away from the main house. There are about five or six cottages in total, arranged in a semi-circle with woods at our backs.
I live in the smallest one with my best friend, Tina.
We’ve been BFFs ever since we were kids. A few guys stole her pink bike and I punched them to get it back.
Like me, Tina’s on the cleaning staff. College wasn’t for her either but unlike me, she always planned to come work at The Pleiades.
My room has a twin bed, a small dresser and an even smaller closet. The walls are white in color, which I’m not such a fan of.
When I first moved in, I thought I’d paint it blue with my dad’s paintbrushes; I saved a couple of his brushes among other things from my old house. But then I realized, I didn’t want to make it blue.
This isn’t home.
The north side, The Pleiades, they are not home. They are not my safe place. These are not my people.
My people – the people I can really call mine – are dead.
They’ve been dead for a year and I wonder how long it takes for the grief to go away and an orphan to not feel like one.
I put on my mom’s nightie, made of cotton and lace, and blue. My mom was a huge fan of the color blue. In fact, she had blue hair like me.
I’m just getting under the covers when something flashes in my peripheral vision.
It’s a falling star.
I scramble up on the bed and clutch the bars on the window. When I was little, my mom and I would always make it a point to wish upon a shooting star, if we saw one together. It was just one of the things we did.
My Darling Arrow Page 39