by Trinity Crow
Cassie's face wore a puzzled look. She tipped her head to the side, studying the house as if there was something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Something that made her nestle against her brother and match her frown to his.
But it was Nikki's face that made my spirits droop. She stood there, staring at the house with a look that could only be described as dread and she shivered though the late afternoon air was still uncomfortable warm.
"Nikki?" I winced at the pleading note in my voice. I needed someone to be on my side. I needed someone to believe I could make this work. Nikki put her arm around me, summoning a supportive smile.
"Well, it's a challenge," Nikki said staunchly. "But we're young and healthy. Of course, we can make this work."
Her words rippled through me, the uncanny echo of my thoughts unnerving me slightly. As I turned and looked again at my house, the negativity of the others faded away. I would not allow their reactions to affect my own. I wrapped hope for the future around me like the bright colors that had once been forbidden. I only knew I had come home. . .and here, I would stay.
***
The front door of Rickrack House had been padlocked with a stout chain running through massive eye bolts which had been screwed into the door jamb.
I frowned. “Would you look at that?” I said, in quiet outrage.
The others exchanged concerned glances.
“What?” I said.
“Well, yeah. . .it's pretty freaky that this place needs those big ass locks,” Cassie said, eyes wide.
“Never mind that! Look at the big holes they made in this lovely wood,” I said indignantly, trailing my fingers lovingly across the door frame.
“Err, some wood putty and paint should fix that,” Cassie said, making a face.
“It's the idea of it,” I said as I fumbled with the keys, a whole ring of them. “It was so rude, so careless.”
I turned to them for agreement and saw rolling eyes. They shifted in alarm at my frown and then they all nodded and smiled blankly.
“Just awful," Cassie said with fake agreement. Adam elbowed her. I shook my head at them and released the locks, pulling the door handle. Adam opened his mouth to insist he go first. This time, Cassie elbowed him and shook her head reprovingly. They trooped behind me into the house, all of us piling into an amazed huddle as the flashlights pierced the gloom.
"Whoa!” Cassie breathed. “It's like a time capsule.”
“Or a movie set,” Nikki added in awe as she played her beam over divan chairs, stuffed hassocks, oil lamps trimmed in beads and vases of crumbling dried flowers.
Before us, a living room spread out, the staircase rising on the left with a hall going past it. My light played along the wood bannister which was carved with ferns, feathers and spirals. A small statue graced the end of the newel post.
Cassie drifted closer and shone her beam on the wooden figure of a woman in robes, there was a crown of flowers on her head and one hand was stretched out, holding a half-peeled fruit.
“Persephone,” she said with delight in her voice. “See? She's holding out the pomegranate.”
I nodded, not that Cassie could see me in the gloom. Who was Persephone?
Adam scanned the room, his beam whisking over the wealth of furniture and stopping at the bricked-up windows.
“Looks like graffiti,” he said, a note of censure in his voice.
I frowned at his back. Why was he so negative?
Nikki followed behind him. Her beam chased his across the markings, more spirals, crosses and ugly symbols I did not recognize. Her face, caught by the odd light, looked almost frightened, I thought, and then shook myself. I was letting Adam get to me.
We opened the door on the left and found a more formal parlour. The girls oohed and aahed over the furnishing while Adam found more graffiti on the cinder blocked windows. He set himself to hunting diligently for signs of termite or wood rot.
“No dust! Can you believe it?” Cassie remarked, half-joking, half-enviously. “I wish they had bricked-up my place.”
I laughed. The light, happy sound surprising me. “We'll still need to clean, but it is pretty amazing.”
''What's through here?” Cassie wondered as she pushed through a door on the back wall. “Dining room,” she reported over her shoulder.
“Stop rushing ahead,” Adam grumbled, abandoning his termite hunt to chase after her.
Cassie nodded, her face in shadow. “You're right,” she said, her voice deceptively agreeable. “Sorry, Abby. It's your house. I should let you go first.”
All of us laughed at Adam's telling silence. Neither the option of Cassie or myself going first sat well with him. He huffed out a loud breath at our laughter and after a quick scan of the dining room, pushed past us to open the next door. “Kitchen,” he said. “Ancient kitchen. Sorry, Abby, no appliances.”
Adam didn't sound sorry though. He sounded pleased to find something else wrong. My opinion of him was slowly sinking.
I shrugged as I peeked in around him. “I didn't own any yesterday either,” I said matter-of-factly, “but look at what I do have.” I stepped into the kitchen and swung the flashlight in a circle.
“Oh, a wood stove!” Nikki said with appreciation. She had been rather quiet until now. “That's awesome! I always wanted to cook on one of those!”
“Not until we get that chimney pipe checked out,” Adam said repressively. He played the light along the metal pipe sections leading to a hole in the upper wall. “That's a major fire hazard. It should be taken out altogether. A wood house this old? This place is a haystack waiting to go up in flames.”
My heart sank as I leaned against the long table in the center of the room. What was wrong with him? Why was he so determined to point out everything wrong?
Nikki wrapped an arm around me. “Hey,” she said. “It's going to be fine. One thing at a time. You made it this far.”
Adam, maybe sensing he had gone too far, offered to run around and unlock the padlock on the backdoor to let some more light into the room. Before he went, he pulled open the last door to check it out. Cassie sighed at his stubbornness.
“It's okay. It just leads back to the front room,” he told us. We stood in silence as his footsteps crossed the wooden floor and went out the door.
“Please let me apologize for my brother,” Cassie said. “And if you never want to see him again, I hope we can still be friends.”
I found a weak smile. “I like your brother, Cassie, but he's kind of raining on me.”
“Look,” Cassie said to distract me. “A door! Quick, open it before he runs in and beats you to it!”
The three of them laughed and then as if to prove I was as responsible as Adam, I used extreme caution to carefully open the door and play my light into the interior.
“Oh, a pantry,” I said. The beam of light showed wooden shelves still lined with Mason jars and cloth wrapped bundles.
“Simmer down! You won't be eating any of that, young lady!” Nikki said, imitating Adam's voice. “Old food like that is just a case of diarrhea waiting to happen.”
The three of us collapsed in a fit of giggles.
“Ha, ha,” Adam said sourly as he pushed open the back door letting in the late afternoon sun. His face changed to grim satisfaction. “That really would be a problem. . .because this place has no plumbing. “
He grinned in triumph that he had found something so wrong with the house. Adam jerked his thumb behind him at a small building half-fallen down and covered in vines. “Your outhouse,” he told me with glee.
I sucked in my breath, unable to take the malicious satisfaction in his voice. I half-turned, pretending to check the contents of an open cupboard while furiously blinking back tears.
“One nice thing,” Cassie hissed, taking a step towards Adam, a scowl marring her pretty features. “Can you not find one nice thing to say about Abby's house?”
Adam looked at her stupidly, his mouth half open. “I. . . I. .. ”
“Then shut the hell up,” Cassie said pointedly, leaning towards him aggressively.
“Hey!” he protested.
“I get that you're concerned for her,” Nikki said diplomatically. “Really, I get that. But this morning she was homeless, running out of money and getting desperate.” Her voice said she knew exactly how that felt. . .and Adam didn't.
“Okay, so this place needs work, but it's no longer this panic beating at your brain. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go? Now it's…what am I going to do first? Now, there are possibilities. There's not just hope, but a measure of peace. It's easier to breathe. If you can try to see it that way, you'll understand why, to Abby and me, there's beauty here.”
I felt myself choking up and from the look on Nikki's face, she felt the same. I felt more than heard Adam move up beside me.
“I'm an ass,” he said softly.
I nodded my head, worried I'd cry if I opened my mouth. Nikki had spoken my feelings so perfectly. It felt like my private heart had been laid out before them. But of course, they were Nikki's feelings, too. It was how she had known, and for Nikki, dependent on others, there was still that fear and panic.
“I'll stop being an ass,” he said.
“You'll try,” I said and then sniffled. “We'll see how it goes.”
Adam laughed and gave me a quick hug, and even the brief contact set butterflies swirling in my stomach.
“Why is it funny if she says that?” Cassie demanded. “If I had said that, we'd be fighting.”
“Let it go,” Nikki told her, laughing. “Maybe Abby can keep him out of your hair.”
“You know we're right here?” Adam said dryly. “And we can hear you?”
“I know you two are standing around doing nothing,” Cassie replied sassily. “We better bust butt if we are going to make a secure place for these two to sack out tonight.” As she turned, her light caught something on the back wall of the pantry. “Cool, another door!” She dashed forward to open it.
“Cassie, wait!” Nikki cried.
But Cassie was already through. Her foot hit the floor and the rotted wood gave way beneath her, revealing a deep black hole below.
Chapter 7
Nikki lunged forward and grabbed Cassie around the waist. “Help!” she cried as the taller girl's weight dragged her forward.
Adam was there instantly and wrapped his arms around both of them, spinning around and depositing them on solid ground. As she spun, Cassie lost her grip on her flashlight and it fell into the hole. There was a long silence and then a splash.
“What the hell?” Adam said in a low voice. He grabbed his own light off the table and shone it in the room.
“It's a cistern,” I said as the light revealed the cement hole set flush in the floor. “The cover must have rotted.”
Adam's face said he was biting back a sharp reply. I flushed as I moved aside, checking the floor carefully as I stepped.
“Aren't those suppose to be outside?” Cassie said plaintively, still panting from her scare. “You know, to fill with rain?”
Adam knelt down cautiously and shone his light into the underground tank. “It has a pipe leading in. I guess the water feeds into it and then you have easy access from the kitchen. Look.” He shone the light around the bottom of the cistern's rim. “They even have an overflow pipe, so your kitchen doesn't flood.” He stood up, brushing his knees. “I'd have called it clever if it hadn’t just tried to kill my sister.”
The slate lined room had me looking around in delight. “I am sorry, Cassie,” I called back to her, my voice curiously hollow. “But thank you for finding this. It's a cool room. Built to keep food cool without refrigeration.”
“That can't be safe…” Adam trailed off at my frown. “For an ass like me to use,” he finished awkwardly. “But I'm sure Abby however will know all about safe food temperatures.”
I shook my head. “Can we check out the upstairs now? We need to figure out where Nikki and I are sleeping tonight.”
I looked at Adam to see if he had anything else to say but he merely closed the door to the cool room and motioned me ahead of him with a sweep of the light.
The upstairs was a bit depressing, I admitted. Though the missing roof was visble inly in the attics, it had also caused some plaster to fall from the ceilings below. There were also a few ominous water stains. Another unsettling thing was the arrangement of the rooms. There was a single room standing on its own at the top of the stairs and then the others were all connected by doors. To exit them, you had to backtrack through a half circle to leave through the first one.
“A drunk guy designed your house,” Cassie said cheerfully, slinging an arm around my shoulders as we trooped downstairs.. “No worries. Let's pull another couch in that front parlor and you guys can sleep there tonight. You'll never find your way around up there in the dark.”
“But. . .but. . .” Adam bit his lip, clearly trying.
“Spit it out before you choke,” Cassie said with a sigh
“But. . .where are you going to use the bathroom?” Adam asked, tossing up his hands.
“We'll use a bucket,” Nikki said sensibly
“Do you have a bucket?” Adam replied, matching her sensible tone.
“We'll buy them a damn bucket,” Cassie snarled. “Now for God's sake, remember, you are trying NOT to be an ass.”
“I am trying,” Adam said sulkily. He turned to me but I had lost my smile. “I'd love to buy you a bucket.” He waggled his eyebrows and I sidled away from him with an alarmed look.
“Too much?” he asked Cassie.
She snorted and then clapped her hands. “Let's head out, people. Daylight's wasting and we have supplies to buy!”
“I'd like to, um, stay by myself,” I spoke up quickly before I lost my nerve. I twisted the ends of my shawl in my hands, anxiously waiting for an outburst.
Nikki froze and then slowly picked her duffel bag off the floor, her face crumpling with panic.
“No, Nikki, I don't mean you,” I said swiftly, taking a step towards the distraught girl. “I meant it. . .that you can stay with me.”
“You mean me,” Adam said, hurt darkening his blue eyes.
I wrung my hands. “You have been so nice to me. I wouldn't even have this house without you. I. . . I can't thank you enough.”
“But you've had enough,” Adam said shortly. “It's fine. I understand.”
“Enough of you, maybe,” Cassie told her brother, rolling her eyes. “Probably because you're being a big baby.”
“You don't understand.” I talked over Cassie, desperate to make him listen. “I like you, Adam, but you don't like my house.” I stopped, gulping for breath. “And I love my house, Adam. For the first time in my life, I'm safe. I don't have to take orders, I'm not in danger. . .not from people,” I went on catching his pointed look at the splintered steps. “I love it here already, Adam, but you don't. And I. . . Please, please, understand I don't want to spend the first night in my new house fighting against someone who doesn't like it. Especially,” I gulped again, “especially someone I like as much as you.”
Adam's face softened and he stepped towards me, then with a quick look at his sister's smirk, he took me by the arm and pulled me to the side.
"Okay, I get that. Cassie is always telling me I'm too over protective, but I'm not leaving you out here alone," he said fiercely. "For God's sake, Abby, you could fall through the floor and bleed to death."
I met his frustrated look with a stubborn one of my own.
"You don't even have a phone," he said, running his hand through his hair. "Be sensible."
Cassie stepped up and tugged at his arm. "Adam, stop. You're not her dad or even her brother. You can't boss her around like you do me."
He growled something wordless and jerked away. Cassie pressed her phone into my hand and gave me a smile. "We're going to town to get some supplies while you stay here and bond with your house.” Cassie held up a hand. “You at least need some
food and water, okay? And we'll be back in one hour and you can tell us what you have decided."
She leaned in and hugged me. "Use some common sense, okay? No point in winning a whole house of your own just to die before you even move in."
I managed to smile back and then looked towards Adam, but he had stalked angrily away.
"He changed when our parents died in a car accident," Cassie said softly, her face going frighteningly blank. "It's made him a little overprotective."
I surprised myself by stepping forward and hugging Cassie back. It was terrible that they had just lost their parents and so sweet that they looked after each other. Of course, Adam was protective and of course, Cassie was having mood swings.
"It doesn't matter," I whispered. "Thank you for everything."
Oh, don't thank me yet," the other girl said with a grin. "We're an annoying bunch, us Camplings, and we stick like glue. You may come to regret ever throwing in with us."
"You're angels, that's what you are," I said softly.
Cassie grinned and then ran to the car. "Make good decisions," she yelled as she slid in the seat. "Remember, one hour, Abby Jo!"
I groaned at the nickname and then smiled in resignation. I waved hopefully and was encouraged when Adam gave a small grudging wave back, his eyes still dark and brooding.
I watched as the car drove down the rutted drive, conscious of the house looming just behind me. . .waiting. When the silver Acura was no longer in sight, I turned and faced the house, tucking my shawl around me. There was no denying it pulled at me. . .it called me. Now, I stopped resisting and let it. Up the walk I drifted and over the stairs onto the porch, then I reached for the doorknob and let that call bring me home.
Chapter 8
I walked through the house and as I did, a deep sense of belonging seem to settle inside of me. I wondered who had lived here before and if they had loved this house as much as I already did. The darken interior did not seem gloomy, but rather a refuge where I might shut out the outside world and the dangerous people who threatened me.