The Lost Heir

by Allison Whitmore

  "And you are a drummer, yes, Mr. Micah?"

  Micah grinned, and his grin truly was shy. "Yes. I love the drums. It's primal, ya know?"

  "But it's not his main thing," said Seth. "Not like me with my bass."

  "You do soccer, basketball and capoeira," Micah countered.

  "Yeah, but you're like a computer dork at heart. Like that other stuff is just because I got a lotta energy." He turned his attention back to Theophilus. "My bass is like everything to me."

  Micah looked a little irritated at his brother's one-upping game and pinched his mouth into a line. Wait...

  "You do capoeira?" Isabella asked.

  "Yeah, kinda."

  "He's really good,” said Micah.

  Isabella frowned. For some reason, she didn't like having something in common with him, or maybe she didn't want the competition. He was probably ten times better than she was. He was bigger, but that really didn't have that much to do with it. Capoeira was about being clever, puzzling almost, as you tried to outwit your opponent by keeping him in a constant dance. You had to be a bit of a trickster, like that kid today. He'd just disappeared, and— "I want to know who that Pythian boy is to you, Theophilus. And where did he go?" The words blurted out so quickly that even Isabella seemed surprise to hear them fall out of her mouth. She had been thinking about that odd little boy since she'd met him. Who was he? Where was he now? Why had Theophilus barely even acknowledged him? She wondered all this in spite of wanting it to be nothing at all. If it was something, any chance of a normal holiday break would be out the window.

  "Shall we start with a few scales? One is never too advanced for a proper warm-up."

  "I can dig scales, but, man, it's dusty in here,” Seth complained. “How are we supposed to breathe?"

  "You're avoiding my question. Why?" asked Isabella.

  "No one ever comes in here, according to Mrs. Foxworthy," said Micah.

  "Her name is Bayer. Catherine Bayer. She goes by her maiden name," Isabella explained. "Now, about that kid—"

  Theophilus cleared his throat. "This theater will be shimmering as if twinkled by the light of the North Star once I'm done with it." He glanced around the room as if his vision had already unfolded. Then his countenance turned pensive. "Yes," he said with a nod. "If what lies beneath and within these walls spoke to you, your lives would be forever changed."

  "What? That makes no sense. And what do you mean, 'once you're done'?" The theater had been in decay for the better part of ten years. Her grandmother could have and probably should have sold it off, but she knew how much it meant to the family and her late husband, Beatrice Foxworthy's older brother, Mitchell.

  "Well, that means what it sounds like. Restoration, my dear. With me at the helm."

  "Oh, no," Isabella grumbled. Her grandmother had mentioned asking Theophilus to revitalize the theater, but she’d thought that was a joke.

  "What's your problem?" Seth slapped his hand on his knee. "You get a movie theater. A ragingly awesome movie theater! Free!"

  "Yeah. I like the sound of it," Micah piped in.

  "Yeah. Sooo cool to you, but all I do around here is work."

  "Oh, no,” said Seth. “Miss Hotel Heiress washed a dish? Were you afraid to break a nail?"

  Isabella shoved short, half-painted silver fingernails in Seth's face. "Does it look like I care if I break a nail? And this hotel is my life. I love it, but I'm just a kid. If I want to see a movie, I can just go down to the multiplex on the corner. And they have stadium seating."

  "Okay. Calm down. I get it. I guess."

  Isabella looked up to see Theophilus staring at them, hand in chin, nodding.

  "Would the two of you like some privacy? You sound like an old married couple, and I may not know much about the married part of that phrase, but I'm rather an expert on the other!"

  "What? A couple? Ew! I just met him yesterday, and I already think he's a jerk!"

  Seth furrowed his brow but decided to ignore her as he let his eyes fall to his left, where his younger brother stood. Micah was oblivious to the world around him at that moment and began folding a sheet of loose paper into an airplane. It wasn’t an ordinary paper airplane. The lines were like nothing Isabella had seen before. Micah was fifteen, she recalled from reading their family band’s bio on the program from the first night they performed. He looked a little younger than that, but people often said the same thing about her, too.

  "Ah, young master," Theophilus said in response to Micah’s handy work, "a bit of a mechanical mind, I see. Fantastic. We'll make use of that. Yes, sir." He clapped his hands then rubbed them together as if kneading a tiny ball of cookie dough. "Now, I shall play something for you. Pay close attention to the melody."

  "What happened to the scales?" asked Seth.

  "And I still want to know about the boy," Isabella insisted.

  "What do you mean you'll make good use of me?" Micah asked.

  Theophilus ignored all of them as his fingers floated over the keys, releasing a melody that was as familiar as the air Isabella breathed. It had been a favorite of her mother's. A tune she'd never learned but had always promised to.

  Her eyelids fell as if someone had tugged them shut with little strings…

  Boom. She was back in that moment. She remembered the smoke clinging to her lungs as she gasped for air. The pungent odor of the charred wood still as strong as it had been that day. Hues of orange and yellow danced along the walls as they were slowly devoured by destruction.

  "I've got you," the man with the black hair and black eyes had said as he entered the house to be her savior. She remembered being wrapped up in his arms as he spoke to her that night. "I've got you. You're a light in this darkness. You're safe…"

  "Hey!"

  Snap. Her eyes opened. Seth's nose hovered half an inch in front of hers. What was going on? Groggily, she noticed he had way too many freckles and obviously a lot of garlic in his after-school snacks. Then she remembered her dream and the blackout and forced him away from her.

  "Whoa."

  "Sorry. I must have dozed off or something." The visions were back. Perfect. This year, it was differ. This time she could smell the fire, feel it around her. That hadn’t happened to her before. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

  "You're all right, I take it?" asked Theophilus. Isabella nodded once. "Splendid. I know you missed it, dear, so I'll reluctantly repeat myself. Just please don't make me do it again. I'm getting to the point in life where a man struggles to remember his own thoughts!"

  The boys chuckled.

  "By the way, did you know these two are in Logan Blues?"

  "Yes, my grandmother reminded us of that just a minute ago, remember?" Isabella said, rubbing her eyes.

  "She's always one to help keep the memory fresh. And I've just recalled—Logan Blues have decided to stay on permanently."

  "What? Since when?” asked Isabella. “We don't have any rooms left that we can contract out for that long!"

  "Good thing you don't have to worry your pretty little mind about it then. We're renting ours from Uncle Robert,” said Seth.

  Isabella's jaw dropped. Could this day get any weirder? There was only one Robert that she knew from the hotel: the Foxworthys’ long-time family friend, Robert Heel. He never used the suite he kept there, but he also never rented it out. At least, not that she could recall, and Robert wasn't one to keep secrets. "Robert Heel is your uncle?" she asked, unable to figure out how a fact like that slipped by her so easily.

  "Great-uncle," said Seth. "I guess."

  "You mean you don't know?" Isabella asked.

  "He's my father's uncle, okay?"

  "Sorry I asked. It's just that I know Uncle Robert really well and—"

  "So, you're jealous he's got a real family and not just some stuck-up orphan heiress to pretend he cares about?"

  Isabella looked down when he said that, tears pricking the back of her eyes.

  "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean that," said
Seth.

  Isabella wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Don't worry about it," she said quietly.

  "Children, it's important we look at the world from not just our perspective. Now, as I was saying," Theophilus went on, "Hugo Varelli was a great composer, but he had a very dark side. Like other great men, he thrived on his muses, and one of his muses was my mother. His wife. He tortured her until she could no longer bear his rage. You see, she was an empath, so she not only felt her own fear but was consumed in every bit of her soul with Hugo's rage."

  "What's an empath?" asked Micah.

  "Someone who feels other people's emotions," said Isabella, "but that's a load of—"

  "Is it?" Theophilus raised his eyebrows. It was as if he could see inside her and knew all of her secrets. She scratched her nose, watching as Theophilus stood up with a whip of his cape and then paced, hands clasped behind his back. "So, you ask, why did she stay with him at all?"

  The teenagers shrugged.

  "Well, he was passionate, you see. Very much so. So much so that my mother, Constance Dodge—kind, sweet, mediocre in talent—thrived on it. She said he gave her life. She could feel something that her cold English childhood had never provided. Yes! Passion, my children. That is what we must bring to our piano."

  "Wait," said Seth. "That's it?"

  "What happened to her?" Isabella asked.

  "Another day. Another day. Let's get started."

  Weird. But Theophilus knew things. He had been in and out of the hotel for years. Just as long as her Uncle Robert had, but as a somewhat less permanent fixture. He would go and come like the hot dry winds that blew in from the south, carrying a lot of lively action with him.

  And what happened to that Pythian kid? He was there. Then he was gone. With Theophilus ignoring every probe sent his way about the boy, she knew she had to do something on her own to find out more about him. For now, she planned to drop the whole thing and focus on something far more important, but tomorrow, she was going to find out who Pythian was and why he had come to the hotel then disappeared without warning.

  After saying hello to everyone in the kitchen at Betty's down in the basement and talking to the staff for a little over an hour, Isabella headed up to her room, sans chowder. Betty had gone for the holiday, of course. The sous chef made her a burger instead, which suited her fine. Up in her hotel-suite apartment, she ate peacefully in her kitchen, knowing her grandmother would still be downstairs working until at least midnight. She poured herself a glass of egg nog and went to her room, glad she still had her tradition to keep her warm.

  She fell under her covers after putting on her DVD of Night at Holiday Hall starring Beatrice Foxworthy in her only feature role. Her father and mother had watched it with her every year around Christmas time, and she was not one to break tradition.

  As the credits filled the screen and the opening score enchanted her bedroom, she lay there content, knowing that this moment was more important than anything else going on in the hotel. Unfortunately for Isabella, the events of the day had worn her out, and she fell asleep before Beatrice could sing her first song.

  Chapter Four

  Purple Hearts

  Isabella sat in the lobby lounge of the hotel with her journal she’d named Musetta, for some reason. They were all named that, and she’d written in one since she was about nine-years-old. It helped her deal with things sometimes. Things like the fact that she woke up that morning with her skin hot and tingling. It wasn’t normal, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the dream she’d had.

  In the dream, Isabella been in the middle of a forest clearing with Pythian holding her hand. All of a sudden, enormous green flames burst from the ground and went as high as the trees. Pythian ripped his hand away from her, jumped through the flames and disappeared, then she woke up, skin hot. She wrote this down, then looked around the lobby—the real world.

  Despite the memory of the dream, Isabella was thankful that no one seemed to be invading her senses at the moment. Several customers sat at their tables, eating their meals quietly. Isabella’s thoughts shifted to the droves of people that would fill the hotel as the holidays continued to near. People whom she didn’t know and didn’t miss. There were people that she did miss, though. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be showing up with the masses. That was, until New Year’s Eve. Lana promised she’d be back in time for their show.

  She spooned split-pea-and-bacon soup into her mouth as she began scribbling again.

  So, I had a crazy dream, and a crazy day, and things are crazy here, which leads me to one important truth: I hate Lana. Why? Because she’s out of town. As USUAL. I need her. She knows the last two weeks of December suck up and down and all around, and this year, I may not be having as many freak outs—yet, but a lot of weirdness is going on around me, and I need her to help me figure it all out. Or at least, to make me feel better. You know that best friends have this crazy way of making you laugh even when you want to cry. But she isn’t here!

  “WEIRDO!”

  Pythian?

  Isabella slapped her journal shut and clumsily knocked over her entire bowl of green soup.

  “I’ll get it, sweetie,” said her favorite waitress, a pale, dark-haired woman named Elyse, as she rushed off to get a mop and whatever else she needed to clean the mess.

  Isabella looked up to see what the commotion was all about. However, a colorful figure stood in front of the table, blocking her view.

  “FREAK!”

  The voice ate up the ridges of her spine. She heard Rolf anxiously chastising whomever it was to, “Stop running, please!” Then, “Young man, please leave the young lady alone.”

  Poor Rolf. Sometimes she wondered if he liked being the concierge.

  Isabella moved her head left to look around a woman who was blocking her view. ”Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Unfortunately, the woman stepped left instead of right, making it even harder for her to see. The lady was obviously interested in what was going on, too. Another cry arose. Curiosity pumped at Isabella’s temples. Standing up, she lurched forward to get a better view of what was happening and caught a quick glimpse of a girl running out of sight as a shadowy figure loomed behind her. A scream vibrated into her ears as the girl she had seen only briefly cried out. She knew that girl. Her voice was unmistakable. Johnna Johnson had lived with her mother at the hotel for years. She was one of those snobby rich girls who would probably be a better heiress to the hotel than Isabella ever could be, but Isabella would never actually admit that out loud.

  This time Isabella was going to take her grandmother’s advice and let her intuition keep her out of it. Why should she help Johnna Johnson, of all people? Maybe she was in danger. Isabella closed her eyes and took in a deep breath in an attempt to connect with Johnna. She sighed in relief as joviality and frustration beat across the room and into her heart. This was no emergency. Just kids horsing around. But if that was Johnna, Isabella had to know who was chasing her.

  Finally, the woman lost interest and walked away, allowing Isabella to have an unrestricted view. The two figures ran back into sight and she could see that it was a fat boy with a fat camera, the kind that made movies, weaving after the willowy, wiry Johnna. Isabella’s jaw dropped. She’d recognize the kid anywhere. “Xander Antonelli? Crikey.”

  A voice boomed across the lobby. “Stop this at once!”

  That wasn’t Rolf. Isabella’s heart turned cold. It was Xander’s father, Marcellus. Her gaze pinned on the hotel’s very strict, very frightening former manager. Isabella opened and closed her mouth, unable to speak.

  “You look like a dying codfish. Not a cute look.”

  Isabella’s head twisted left. It was the woman who’d been blocking her view, only it was no woman. She was a girl no older than Isabella. Actually, she was a girl who was nearly a whole year younger than Isabella but looked about two or three years older, except for her childish face, which mirrored Xander’s—her twin.
/>   “Hello, Cleo.”

  Clutching her multicolored Louis Vuitton, Cleo sat down across from Isabella. ”And who says ‘crikey’ but old people from England? Or crocodile wrestlers?”

  Isabella’s eyebrows lifted. “Who else besides Peter Pan calls people a codfish?”

  “Whatever, Izzy.”

  “I got the expression from my Uncle Robert, and don’t call me that, Cleo-patra.”

  The girl grimaced and secured her purse on a hook beneath the table. “Still clumsy, I see. Pea soup? Yuck.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s Johnna’s birthday. We thought we’d come and surprise her.”

  “The Antonellis left England for Johnna Johnson’s fifteenth birthday party?”

  “Parents, England. They shipped us off to Italy to school, and now we’re back here. All of us.” This is why Isabella wished Lana were here. These people. They were too much for her to bear. Lana was laid-back and real. Cleo was fake. And Johnna Johnson was the Devil in the skin of a fifteen-year-old fashion victim.

  Both girls looked on as Marcellus Antonelli snatched his son Xander’s collar and then pushed a finger into his face. Patricia Antonelli, looking like a 1960s glamour girl more than someone’s mother, strode in from the front entrance and got between the two of them.

  “Is your mother wearing a mink coat?”

  “Yes,” Cleo said flatly. “You see what I put up with?”

  “Well, you were in Europe. They don’t really care about that over there, right?” Silence hung between them for a long moment. Cleo seemed to be battling between going over to intervene and turning around to ignore them. Out of the kindness of her heart, Isabella decided to distract her. “Please tell me that you did not come back just for Johnna Johnson’s birthday.”

  “Nope. We’re back for good.”

  Isabella tried to smile. It wasn’t working. “Oh,” was all she could say. The Antonelli family brought more tumult to the hotel than any disgruntled customer ever could.

  “My parents have decided to help your grandmother out. Work here again. Really, I can’t figure out why. It isn’t as if they need the money. But they insisted your grandmother needed them,” Cleo said then shook her head. “They don’t ever get all knotty and twisted like that for us.”