For Centuries More

by Ethan Johnson

  The countess entered the room a few moments later. A dark red aura surrounded her. James felt a pang of anxiety as he observed her countenance.

  “Henry, I neglected to inquire: where is the ingot? Is it with the appraiser?”

  James was taken aback by this. Henry? No, this was all wrong. Mister Steele’s name was Horace. Everyone knew that. He wondered if Henry was a nickname for Horace, but he never heard anyone call Mister Steele by a nickname before.

  The conversation had continued despite his inattentiveness. “Good thinking, Helen!” Mister Steele toddled toward his desk.

  Helen! James only knew her as the countess. Helen was the name she gave the groundskeeper. Mister Steele told James she was keenly interested in his spiritual development and urged him to learn everything she had to teach him. Except, he thought darkly, she didn’t teach him anything except how to feel like a failure. He gasped as he saw her gloved hand clutching a shiny pointed object descend and bury it into Mister Steele’s back. She stabbed him three more times before tossing the weapon aside. James saw it clearly now: a silver letter-opener.

  A ray of sunlight poked through a slit in the blinds. James looked at it and decided to float through the wall to escape the bloody scene. He hovered over a well-manicured lawn. The road along the front edge of the property was wrong. The trees that lined the street were gone. A white farmhouse stood at least a mile away, perhaps further. Eddington Manor was surrounded by a thick forest. He spun around to look at the building and it, too, was wrong. In fact, he observed, the only shared design element was red brick construction.

  A phrase was carved over the front doors: THOSE WHO KNOW DO NOT SPEAK; THOSE WHO SPEAK DO NOT KNOW. Eddington Manor had no such phrase. James recalled the numbers 1894 over the stately entrance, which to his understanding was the year of its construction. This place seemed newer, despite its attempt at giving off an established appearance.

  Come back, James, said a voice.

  He shook his head. Come back to… what? That bloody mess he just watched? To see whatever the countess did with the body? He had seen enough. He’d had enough. Whatever was going on at Eddington Manor didn’t concern him, he determined. He would pack up his things and call his parents in the morning. He’d find a way to pay them back for what they’d lost. In truth, he told himself, he was saving them from wasting any more money on a fraud.

  Come back, James. I’m waiting for you, said the voice. He felt breath on his ear. He frowned at the ersatz manor and shook his head again. No, he affirmed. He wasn’t going to see the countess ever again.

  To his surprise and dismay, the scene before him dissipated. He felt his stomach lurch as he snapped back into waking consciousness. Fine, he thought in that moment. I’ll start packing right away.

  He sat upright in bed and reached over for his glasses but came up empty. He found himself nose-to-nose with an unfamiliar face. He recoiled and raised his hand defensively. “Who the heck are you?”

  The blurry shape handed him his glasses. James’s jaw dropped as his visitor came into clearer focus. Agnes was in his room, sitting beside his bed. “Someone you love very much.”

  James put his hands to his head. He lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes, blinking in disbelief. He let them drop in place and reached out for her hands. They were cold to the touch, but solid. Her thin fingers curled around his slightly thicker ones. “Agnes, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. About everything.”

  Agnes smiled and tipped her head. “That’s a lot to be sorry for. Why do you carry such a burden?”

  Tears trickled down James’s cheek. “I… I don’t know what’s going on or what I’m doing. I’m failing at anything and everything. I even made you angry. You told me to go away and never come back.”

  “I’m sorry, James. I wasn’t myself at the time.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I’m much better now. I’m here to give you what you need.”

  James squeezed her hands and considered the sensation of his tingling cheek where she had kissed him. Agnes! In my room, he thought. Was she going to… No. He caught himself before he allowed himself to explore that line of inquiry. “And what is that?”

  She smiled and kissed his other cheek. “Guidance.”

  CHAPTER 59: MELTDOWN

  Gracie arrived at work the following morning on time, but just by the skin of her teeth. Between Annabella spending the night with her and Jacqueline crashing on her sofa, too spent to drive back to her hotel, chaos reigned at Gracie’s apartment as she rushed to get ready while seeing Annabella off with promises of seeing other after work. She made a beeline for her desk, clutching her phone with the intent of tossing it into her desk drawer so as not to be distracted from the stack of work she had left the day before. She rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks. At the edge of her desk sat a watermelon with a face painted on it.

  Gracie felt flushed as she approached the melon. She looked around for any notes, but the melon was message enough. She plopped down in her desk chair and looked at her inbox. To her surprise and shock, it was empty. She slid her drawer open and deposited her phone. She let off a long sigh and logged into her computer. The clacking of her keys summoned Jaime to her desk. She gave Gracie a long stare and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you’re back. I guess I can send the new girl away.” She picked up the melon and carried it back to her desk without another word.

  Gracie felt her stomach drop out. She wanted to apologize, to explain, to make assurances that she’d never leave early again, ever, for any reason. The words weren’t coming to her, and she doubted Jaime wanted to hear any of them. Cathy sat down at her desk and gave Gracie a hard stare.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  Gracie tried to loosen up and downplay the gravity of the moment. “Yeah, I uh… family emergency yesterday. Everything is fine now. Better than ever, actually.”

  Cathy shot a glance at the edge of Gracie’s desk. “Where’s your backup?”

  “I uh… Jaime took her, uh, it away.”

  “That’s not a good idea. You should train her on the phones. She’s okay with keeping an eye on things but not so great with the customer service.”

  Gracie wasn’t sure how to process this. She considered making a joke to defuse the tension, but Cathy’s facial expression didn’t suggest she was kidding. “Oh, well, I guess I could—” Her cell phone rang in her drawer. She winced and berated herself for not turning the ringer off.

  Cathy scowled. “You gonna get that?”

  “Um, it’s probably nothing. I’ll just let it roll to voice mail.”

  “I meant, turn that damn thing off. We’ve been over this.”

  Gracie nodded and muted the call. Her caller ID showed an unfamiliar number from a 773 area code. She didn’t think it was Annabella, especially after they had agreed to keep phone contact to a minimum during business hours, for Gracie’s sake. She frowned over it and turned off her ringer, unwilling to shut the phone off lest she miss something important. She’d limit her phone time to breaks and lunch, she vowed inwardly.

  “S-sorry. I didn’t realize it was on. Fixed it.”

  Cathy grunted in acknowledgement. “Hey, speaking of fixing things, you better apologize to Jaime for walking out yesterday. She’s pissed.”

  Gracie nodded eagerly. “Okay, I’ll take care of it. Right away.”

  “I’m pissed too.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Cathy rose from her desk and stomped off to the warehouse. Gracie felt ill, but she took a few deep breaths to calm down. This is just like how Warren used to get, she told herself. I can smooth things over and get everything back to normal.

  She checked her work email and scanned through the new messages for anything important. Nothing grabbed her attention. She glanced at her empty inbox and sighed. She stepped away from her desk and walked over to Jaime’s desk. She found her flipping through a catalog and making a list of product codes and quantities. Jaime looked up and gave Gra
cie a hard stare. “Yes?”

  “I, uh… I’m sorry about yesterday. It won’t ever happen again.”

  “Good to know,” Jaime said. She flipped through a few more pages of the catalog.

  “So, uh… any new POs for me to take care of?”

  Jaime bobbed her head in the direction of her file trays. “Nope. You can file those, if you want.”

  Gracie took the stack and carried them off to the file cabinets. She started to place the completed purchase orders in their respective folders when the office phone rang. She pushed the drawer shut and dropped the stack on top of the cabinet. The phone rang a second time. She bent over her desk to grab the phone, when the flashing green light turned to solid red. Jaime’s voice filled the office. “Modern Roofing Supply, this is Jaime, how may I assist you?”

  Gracie stepped around her desk and hovered over the phone. Yeah, they want the calls answered on the first ring, but come on, she thought. I had that one.

  Cathy stopped beside the file cabinet and huffed. “Who left this stuff here?”

  Gracie hurried back to the stack of unfiled purchase orders. “Me. Sorry, I had to grab the phone.”

  “Sounds like Jaime got it.”

  “Yeah, well, I—” Cathy walked away before Gracie could finish her sentence. Gracie pulled the drawer open and filed three more POs before the phone rang again. Jaime was still on the other call, so Gracie hurried back to her desk just in time to grab the phone before ringing a second time. “Modern Roofing Sys—I mean, Supply, this is Gracie, how may I assist you?”

  “They let you answer the phone with a nickname? How unusual.”

  “Fortune? I mean, Jacqueline? Why are you calling here?”

  “You weren’t answering my calls. I had to get the company name from Mother, and my assistant found the number for me. That’s not important. Where is Agnes?”

  “I uh, thought she was in bed, why?”

  “Well, she isn’t. I went in to check on her, and her bed didn’t look slept in. I didn’t hear her go out. Did you drop her off somewhere?”

  Gracie’s eyes darted around as she struggled to come up with a cover story. The office phone rang, and she panicked. “One sec, I have to get this.” She put the call on hold and switched over to the other line. “Modern Roofing Supply, this is Ag—I mean, Gracie, how can I help you?”

  “Jaime Michaels, please,” said a male voice.

  “One moment, I’ll see if she’s available.” She placed the call on hold and stepped around her desk to check if Jaime was off the phone. “Call for you on line 2,” she said.

  “Who is it?”

  “I uh, he didn’t say.”

  “Is it Dave? I don’t ever want to talk to him again.”

  “I uh, I don’t think so. I can ask.”

  Jaime huffed. “Oh, now you can ask? Don’t bother, I’ll handle it. Like I do everything else.” She picked up the receiver and punched a button. “Hello, this is Jaime.”

  Gracie hurried back to her desk and reached for her phone. She punched a button next to a flashing red indicator and said, “I dropped her off at the urgent care this morning.”

  A male voice came on the line. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  Crap! Gracie looked at the solid red light on line 2. This wasn’t her day, it was official. “I’m sorry, I pressed the wrong call button. Jaime is not available at the moment; can I transfer you to her voice mail?”

  “Which urgent care? Is she okay?”

  “No, I’m sorry, that was a misunderstanding. I thought this was someone else.”

  “We’re not divorced yet. I have the right to know if my wife has a medical emergency.”

  “I’m serious, sir. If you must know, I was talking about my sister.” Line 2 went dark. “Jaime just got off the phone. One moment, please.” She dialed Jaime’s extension and pressed the TRANSFER button. She slid her desk drawer open to peek at her phone. Jacqueline had called three times, and the unknown number once. A new voicemail alert appeared at the top of her screen.

  “I told you to stop calling me, you asswipe!” Jaime slammed the phone down and stormed over to Gracie’s desk. “So, that was Dave. You know, the guy I said I never wanted to speak to, ever, for anything?”

  “S-sorry, I didn’t realize.”

  “I just got off the phone with your sister. What did I say about personal calls on the work phone?”

  “I didn’t… it’s not my fault.”

  Jaime rolled her eyes and shot a look at Cathy, who in turn shook her head and pointed to the door. “Out. We don’t need you here.”

  Gracie sank in her seat. “I… I’m fired? But I—”

  “Beat it, fruitcake,” Jaime said, and walked back to her desk. Gracie heard a paper bag rustling and Jaime returned with the watermelon. “We’ve already got a replacement lined up.”

  Tears welled up in Gracie’s eyes as she pocketed her cell phone and shuffled out of the office in disgrace. Getting fired from the roller rink was one thing. This was way, way worse. She was convinced she could thrive in an office and start making good money and getting benefits. Now, she was a screw-up that nobody was going to recommend to scoop up dog crap, she thought darkly. She sank down into the driver’s side of her car and swiped her thumb across her cell phone. She tapped the voice mail reminder and entered her passcode. An annoyed female voice came on the line.

  “Gracie? You missed practice again last night. If you’re not serious about derby, could you at least tell us, so we can get someone else?”

  Gracie tossed the phone aside and cried. She didn’t want to know how much worse her life could get. At least she had Annabella… for now. How long would she stay interested in an unemployed loser with no job prospects?

  CHAPTER 60: IN DUCES TECUM

  Inanna crawled into bed much later than she would have preferred. She didn’t require sleep, but her mortal guise was useless if she couldn’t reasonably pass as human. Marc was a useful idiot, to her, but even he would notice if she didn’t keep up the appearance of maintaining a normal schedule. She had forced him to doze off with a simple command, giving her ample cover as to why she was up late, but her ruse required her to be in bed when he awoke.

  Marc snored beside her. He rolled onto his left side and flopped his arm across her waist. She frowned and picked it up like a soiled diaper, then dropped it beside her. She used her body to keep him compliant enough as it was. She wasn’t going to give him any more physical contact than necessary to achieve her ends.

  She smiled at the drawn curtains across the room from their bed. Marc had no idea what lay beyond them, or his fate as a golden adornment. Her index finger glowed orange as she relished the thought of his impending doom. A stream of black shapes passed through the ceiling and rushed into her head, causing Inanna to gasp for air until the invasion ended. To her dismay, her finger stopped glowing and returned to normal. She muttered a command to no avail. She said it louder and squealed with frustration when nothing happened. “I shall not be disobeyed,” she said aloud. “I have flattened mountains. Inanna is mighty, and quick to anger.”

  Marc stirred beside her. “Yes, my queen. Please, don’t punish me.”

  His voice was high and pathetic. The sight of him repulsed her. Soon, this weakling would be of no use to her, she thought, but not soon enough. A servant came to the door and knocked softly. “Mister Marc, do I disturb you?”

  Inanna sat upright, baring her breasts as the covers fell away. “It is Inanna you rouse.”

  The servant nodded and swallowed hard. “Begging your forgiveness, Tobias has called for Mister Marc. I meant no intrusion.”

  “My Marc is yet asleep. He will come to Tobias when he is ready.”

  The servant nodded and began to turn away when Marc rubbed his eyes and sat up. “What’s going on?”

  “It is nothing. Sleep. You are weary from your labors.”

  The servant turned around. “Forgive the interruption, but Tobias wishes to speak with you at once.�
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  Inanna scowled at the servant. She would pay dearly for her insolence, she decided. Before she could rebuke the servant verbally, Marc swung his legs over the side of the bed and scratched his head. “No, yeah, it’s no problem. He probably wants to know how the west wall is coming along. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Inanna reached for him in vain as he stood up. “Marc, come back to bedroom. Why leave poor Inanna naked and alone without her sun and moon?”

  Marc looked at the servant and covered himself with his hands. “Oops, sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t decent. Sorry to give you more than you wanted to see first thing in the morning.”

  Inanna threw the covers aside. “Inanna is unashamed of her nakedness. Let all see her splendor and tremble.”

  “Yeah, well, Marc is choosy about who he strips down for, and doesn’t think it’s cool to flash the help. Again, I’m really sorry. Five minutes, okay?”

  The servant nodded and hastily left the room. Inanna fumed as Marc relieved himself in the adjacent bathroom and set about dressing himself. “It will only take a few minutes to tell him about the wall. We can have breakfast in bed after that.”

  “Inanna is not hungry.”

  “Okay, well, we can chill out in bed and eat later.”

  “Inanna is not tired.”

  “Alright, well, maybe we can think of something else to do in bed together. You know, if you’re up for it.” He leaned over and waited for a kiss. Inanna pushed him away and pouted.

  A short time later, Inanna padded into the throne room, wearing her favorite green dress, adorned with a chunky gold necklace, and nothing else. Marc stood before Tobias on the step below the dais upon which he sat on his golden throne. “We just capped off the last row of the west wall, your majesty. Now the roof work may begin,” Marc said earnestly.

  Tobias frowned at this. “I have received a differing report. Perhaps it is merely a falsehood, and at that, I may sleep well knowing the truth of the matter. I trust you, Marc. You have always been honest with me, no matter the cost.”