by Lily Webb
“And vegetarian, which makes it slightly healthier,” Emile said with a smirk. A Quebecois vegetarian vampire? That answered my question about whether the day could get any stranger. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to your meal. Please enjoy,” he said and vanished again.
While Jadis and I ate like we might never see food again, Blair reached for an empty glass on the table and clinked her wand against it several times to get everyone’s attention. Both the blonde witch and the bearded man looked up with an annoyed expression on their faces.
“Good evening, everyone. I’m sorry to disturb your dinner, but I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the newest members of the Kindred Spirits staff,” Blair said. She rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “This is Selena, my niece, and her friend, Jadis.” No one said anything, so Blair gestured at the blonde witch. “Girls, this is Delia Rune, Starfall Valley’s most accomplished scholar of paranormal studies. She’s staying with us while she works on a new book.”
Delia waved her empty spoon at us but didn’t seem interested in making conversation, so Blair moved on to the only other guest remaining, the bearded man. “And this is Aron Greatforge, the original dwarven architect of our magnificent inn.”
I looked at Jadis to make sure I hadn’t heard incorrectly. Aron was a dwarf? If he’d built the inn that seemed hundreds of years old, how old did that make him? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Jadis just smiled and shrugged.
Aron nodded at us. “Welcome,” he said, and continued eating.
“Aron has a permanent place in the inn as thanks for his service. If anything goes wrong or needs repairing, go to him. He can fix anything, right, Aron?” Blair asked, but Aron didn’t answer, so she shrugged. “Well, that’s pretty much everyone, aside from Lox and Keez, but trust me, the less you see of those two, the better. They don’t mean any harm; they’re just troublemakers. Oh, and the woman whose dinner they ruined? That’s Tara Dupree, one of the richest witches in all of Starfall Valley. She’s been staying with us while recovering from an ongoing series of plastic surgeries. She’s trying to stay out of the public eye in the meantime, so you probably won’t see much of her either.”
Blair tapped a finger against her chin while she thought. “Oh! Last, there’s Feal, our housekeeper, but you’ll probably never see her anyway unless you cross paths with her on the staircase. She’s rather shy.”
“Why would we run into her on the staircase?” Jadis asked; a good question.
“She lives in the floor under the staircase on the left side. If you look closely, you’ll see the door.”
“I’m sorry, what? How big is she? How could she fit under there?”
“Feal is a brownie, love. Her kind are small, shy creatures, though they love to help keep the place tidy in exchange for a place to live. Which reminds me, if you’d ever like her to clean up your room, leave out a bowl of milk or honey as an offering of gratitude overnight and it’ll be spotless in the morning.”
“Good to know,” I laughed. What kind of strange place had I ended up in? Still, as odd and difficult to believe as it all was, I couldn’t help feeling excited about my new life. I felt like I’d traveled through a portal into a parallel paranormal universe, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for when I’d snap awake and realize it’d all been a fantastical dream.
Just then, Aunt Kiki breezed into the kitchen in a huff with a look of concern on her face. Blair noticed immediately and ran to her side. “What is it?”
“Feal’s missing. I can’t find her anywhere.”
Chapter Five
Blair stared at Kiki, dumbfounded. “What? Are you sure?”
“I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find her. I went to the girls’ room to make sure it was ready for them, and the bowl of milk I left for Feal looks untouched, and so is the room. It’s still an absolute mess from our last guest’s reaction to the full moon.”
“Leave it to the werewolves to destroy the place… And you’re sure Feal’s not under the stairs?”
“I don’t think so. I knocked, but you know how she is. Still, she normally answers even if she doesn’t want to talk. I’m worried. Could we have offended her somehow? Maybe the mess the werewolf left upset her?”
“No, I doubt it. Feal’s been with us far too long to let something like that bother her. Besides, she’s seen much worse around here over the years. You might be right to be worried,” Blair said, her expression falling. She turned to Jadis and me. “I’m so sorry for the trouble, girls.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “We’ll survive.”
“Thank you for understanding. Hm… Kiki, should we search the inn for her? Could she be working on some project or another while we’re all out of our rooms?”
Kiki shrugged. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“Let us help,” I said. I didn’t know what aid Jadis and I could offer, but it couldn’t hurt to have more eyes and ears prowling the inn for the little housekeeper.
Blair thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Good thinking. Let’s see, there are six of us here, so why don’t each of us take one floor?”
“Excuse me? I didn’t sign up for this,” Delia said, speaking for the first time. “I’m a guest, not free labor.”
Kiki shot her a stern look. “Well, Ms. Rune, if you’d ever like your room cleaned again, I suggest you help us find our housekeeper.”
Delia rolled her eyes but pushed back from the table and tucked her tome under one arm. “Fine.”
“Thank you. You can have the third floor. If you wouldn’t mind, you can knock on Tara’s door and ask her to help you,” Blair said, then turned to Aron. “Aron, since you’re up on the sixth floor anyway, why don’t you check there?”
“Will do,” the dwarf said and dropped from his chair to the floor. He swung his hammer up over one shoulder and his beard over the other, then waddled out of the kitchen toward the stairs.
“Selena, you can take the first floor. Jadis, take the second. I’ll cover the fourth, and Kiki can have the fifth. Sound good?” Everyone nodded. “Great, then let’s get moving. If you find Feal or anything noteworthy, just give a shout. Noise carries throughout the inn, so we’ll be able to hear you.”
“Got it,” I said, and we all left the kitchen for the staircase. True to Blair’s word, I noticed a small cutout of a door with a tiny golden knob under the first stair; if Blair hadn’t already told me about it, I might’ve mistaken it for a storage area. There didn’t seem to be any signs of intrusion or foul play on or around the door, though, so I kept going up the staircase after Jadis.
On the first-floor landing, she and the others wound around to continue climbing the stairs, while I wandered down the hallway, passing room after room. Though nothing seemed out of place about the doors at first, as I kept walking, I noticed the golden numbers staked into the doors didn’t seem to follow the usual sequential order. Instead, the rooms ran from 112 to 168 and, finally, 136. How many rooms were there in this castle?
Several rooms down, the landing turned left, so I followed it and froze when I heard a round of devilish, squealing laughter coming from somewhere up ahead. “Who’s there? Lox? Keez? Is that you?” I called and crept a few steps forward, hoping I was wrong — the little imps creeped me out, so the last thing I wanted was to be alone with them.
The laughing halted at the sound of my voice, which convinced me I was right, so I dashed down the hall before the two troublemakers could get too far away. I rounded another corner and arrived at a dead end where Lox and Keez stood on the floor hopping excitedly around something.
“What are you doing?” I called to them, which pulled a squeal from both of them. Panicked, they reached for something on the ground and tried to take off, but it must’ve been too heavy for them to lift because they didn’t flutter more than a few inches up before they flopped back down.
Against my better judgment, I charged toward them. “Hey! Leave it alone!” I shouted and shooed them away fro
m the item they’d been trying to heist. Scared, they took to the air in a hurry and tried to fly in opposite directions, only to have their backs slam together thanks to their tied tails. Seeing stars, they crashed back to the ground with a thump.
While the crash disoriented them, I kneeled and found a tiny, sparkling, chromatic key small enough to fit the lock on a diary wedged between two of the floor’s stones. Using my fingernails, I pried it out of the gap and made to pick it up, but as soon as my fingers brushed against its cool surface, a rushing sound washed over me, and my vision blurred.
I screamed as my mind alighted with a vision of a door to a room just like the others I’d passed on the first floor, which someone had left cracked. Bright light poured from the opening, and the shadow of a figure wearing what seemed to be a pointed hat, and when I looked up, the number stuck to the door was “666.”
I blinked, and as suddenly as the vision had come on, it ended. I was back kneeling on the floor with the key in my hand, though Lox and Keez had vanished. What on Earth…?
“Selena!” Blair shouted, though I couldn’t tell from where her voice came. A moment later, she popped into existence beside me, worry coloring her face. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine, it’s just… I dunno, I found Lox and Keez monkeying around with this key and when I touched it, I… I saw something,” I said, realizing as I spoke how crazy it made me sound.
Blair’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean, you saw something?”
“I had like a vision or something. I can’t explain it. I touched the key and as soon as I did, in my mind’s eye I saw a door to a room numbered 666. It was open, and a shadow of someone or something holding a broom — or at least I think it was a broom — spilled out of it.”
A popping sound made me jump. Aunt Kiki appeared next to Blair, looking flustered. “I heard you shouting. Is everything okay?”
Blair looked at Kiki with wonder in her eyes. “Selena had a vision.”
Kiki smiled, giddy. “What? Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. Tell her what you saw, Selena,” Blair said, so I recounted the vision to Kiki, and with every word I spoke, her eyes widened further until I told her the room’s number. Her face contorted in confusion.
“But there’s no such thing as a room 666 in the inn,” she said.
“There’s not?” I asked.
“No, love. If there were, trust me, Kiki and I would know. We’ve owned and run this inn for nearly as long as you’ve been alive,” Blair said. “Granted, the building has a mind of its own and likes to move rooms around constantly to keep us on our toes, but I’ve never seen a room 666.”
Well, that explained the weird room numbering order. “Then why did I see it?”
“I have no idea,” Blair said, “but it’s clear that something about that key stirred your magic. I wonder if it’s one of the hundreds Lox and Keez have stolen from us over the years?”
“Wait, I can use magic?”
“Well, we didn’t know for sure you could, but we had an inkling. This just confirms we were on to something. Why do you think we brought you here?”
I couldn’t speak. Of all the weird things I’d seen since getting in Blair’s car earlier that morning, this vision business took the cake.
“But wait a second, how could it be a room key? It’s way too small,” I said, trying to stay focused on the facts so I didn’t spin away with my thoughts.
Blair stuck her hand out, palm up. “Here, let me see,” she said, so I plopped it in her hand and waited to see if she’d have the same reaction to touching it as I did, but nothing happened. Instead, she turned it over and over in her palm with a finger. “Hm, you’re right. It’s not like any of the other keys we use for the rooms. I wonder where it came from, then?”
“Could Lox and Keez have stolen it from a guest?” Kiki asked.
Blair shrugged. “Anything is possible with those two. I swear, they have their own secret system of tunnels in this place. Speaking of, where did they run off to? You said you saw them here, right, Selena?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I did, but they must’ve escaped while I was having my, um, vision or whatever it was. When I snapped out of it, they’d vanished.”
Blair offered the key back to me, but I hesitated to take it. I didn’t want to have another vision. “Why don’t you hold on to this for now? If it triggered your magic like this, it could be useful.”
Though I would’ve rather flushed the key down a toilet, I cautiously took it from Blair’s hand. Thankfully, nothing happened.
“Feel anything?” Blair asked.
“No, other than dread,” I said, and Blair and Kiki laughed. They helped me stand, and Blair patted me on the back while I slipped the key into my pocket.
“Well, I think that’s probably more than enough excitement for one night. Let’s get you and Jadis settled in your room. Kiki and the rest of us can keep looking,” Blair said, and without giving me the chance to object, she ushered me back down the hall toward the stairs. Just like she’d said, all the room numbers I’d passed had changed. How did anyone ever know where their room was in this place?
We climbed to the second floor to get Jadis, then moved on to the sixth floor in silence, my mind still racing. How and why had I seen a room that apparently didn’t exist? I hadn’t yet met Feal, but based on what Blair had told me about her, the shadow I’d seen in the vision sure sounded like it could’ve been hers. Who else in the inn would’ve been carrying a broom? And what did it mean if it really was her I’d seen? Was she in trouble?
Though Jadis kept shooting me concerned looks, I didn’t want to open up to her about what’d happened until we were alone. Blair and Kiki led us to our cluttered but mostly clean room, complete with matching full-sized beds and an enormous wardrobe we could share. Amazingly, someone or something had already unpacked all of our things and put away all our clothes. After showing us around the room and the en suite bathroom and handing us each a nondescript iron room key, and no doubt sensing we wanted time alone to decompress, my aunts wished us a good night’s rest and left us to ourselves.
As soon as the door closed, Jadis pounced on my bed beside me. “Okay, spill it. What happened down there? I heard you scream.”
I pulled the key out of my pocket and held it out to her. “I found those imps trying to run off with this. I chased them away, but when I touched it, I had this vision.”
Jadis’ eyebrows rocketed up her forehead. “Like a psychic vision, you mean?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, something like that, I guess. I saw a room, number 666, and a shadow coming from inside I think might’ve been Feal’s, but Blair swears there’s no such room in the inn.”
“How weird.”
“You’re telling me,” I said and tossed the key on the nightstand between our beds. It clattered and bounced until it collided with the old landline phone in the center of the stand. As far as I was concerned, I’d be happy never to touch the key again. “I want to believe them, but I dunno, Jadis… Something isn’t sitting right with me about this. I think Feal might be in trouble.”
“You don’t think they’re lying to you about the room not existing, do you?”
“No, not really. Of all the things they’ve shown me today, why would they lie about that?”
“Then do you really think there’s a room 666?”
I flopped back on my bed, exhausted. “No clue. But Blair wanted me to keep the key because she said it triggered my magic, whatever that means, so they must not think I’m crazy. Actually, they said they brought me here because they thought I might be able to use magic.”
“Now that’s a plot twist if I’ve ever heard one,” Jadis laughed. “You, The Supreme Skeptic of All Things Supernatural, has the gift of magic. It almost doesn’t seem fair.”
I lifted my head enough to glare at her. “Well, I’d gladly trade with you,” I said, but it didn’t seem to register. Her face lit up as something occurred to her.
; “Hey, wait a minute! I’ve got an idea. Aron, the dwarf. Blair said he built this place, right?” Jadis asked, and I sat up fully to look her in the eye.
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, if anyone would know all the rooms that exist here, wouldn’t it be him?”
“Oh my God, you’re right! That’s genius!” I said and flung myself at her. We laughed and hugged. “I’m so glad you’re here with me. I think I might’ve gone crazy by now if you weren’t. I mean, can you believe this? We’re living in a haunted castle and now I’m getting psychic visions.”
“Honestly, if I weren’t seeing it all with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it either — and I believe in all kinds of spooky stuff. So, does this mean we’re gonna try to get to the bottom of all this?”
I nodded, but then another thought struck me. “I think so. The only problem with our plan is that Aron didn’t seem like a dwarf of many words. Besides, we’re new here, so why would he tell us, even if he knew there was a room 666?”
“Well, all we can do is try, right? Worst-case scenario, he tells us to buzz off and mind our own business.”
“Fair enough.”
“Good. Anyway, I dunno about you, but I’m wiped out. I’d really like to take a shower and call it a night.”
“That makes two of us,” I agreed, though I didn’t honestly see myself getting a lick of sleep.
“Cool, then I guess I’ll go first, if that’s okay with you?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” I said, and she nodded and headed for the bathroom. The door closed behind her, and though I wanted to fall back on the bed again and go right to sleep, I couldn’t stop staring at the key on the nightstand.
Regardless of whether there really was a room 666 in the inn, based on the vision I’d had, somehow, I knew that the key was literally the key to everything — and that I might be the only one who could figure it out.