“It was not.” Nathaniel positioned the plates in a perfect row. They were measured apart by the same distinct increment. He folded the nine cobalt cloth napkins into floppy fleurs-de-lis.
Annette watched with awe as his confident fingers flew and the napkin fabric whirled. “Then who?”
Nathaniel looked from his work to suggest the kitchen.
“The kitchen’s the client?” Annette asked dryly.
“This whole church! No client is too great or too small. Buildings aren’t meant to stand vacant. Sometimes by residing in a place and utilizing it the way it used to be is considered a type of inspiration.”
“I can understand how a person would benefit from a catalyst but a building?” Annette asked, not fully grasping Nathaniel’s point.
Nathaniel was more interested in the sound of the dinging oven timer. With both hands covered in navy blue mitts, he opened the oven door and extracted the tray of baked Ciabatta garlic bread.
“Mr. Cauliflower?” Annette asked from behind him.
Nathaniel was too distracted by examining the toasted pieces of bread on the tray for imperfections. He pursed his lips, stacking the bread onto a separate plate.
Annette said from behind him: “Monsieur Cauliflower . . .”
The truth was that Nathaniel was too embarrassed for rendering his heart on his sleeve. To cope from such an imprudent exchange Nathaniel impulsively, and attentively, focused on the compulsive desire for order in his parade of foods.
“Nathaniel will you please turn around and look at me!” Annette demanded.
Nathaniel stopped stacking the garlic bread and looked at the white tiled kitchen wall before him. He slowly turned to Annette. They stood for several seconds looking at one another neither sure of what to say. This moment did not last long as the door to the kitchen opened and Fiona stepped through.
“Well,” their Head Muse took in a whiff of the meal’s aroma. “Something smells nice. Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting . . .” she started to the door.
“Not interrupting,” Nathaniel said, taking the plate of bread in his hands. “In fact, Mrs. Slocum and I were finishing the Puttanesca and garlic bread. We were on our way to fetch you and the rest of –” his words were cut short as Fiona was followed by the group who entered the kitchen after catching the wafting smell of the noodles and sauce. “. . . The rest of the muses,” Nathaniel finished saying as they stared hungrily at the spaghetti-filled bowls. “Muses, the meal was cooked by none other than Annette Slocum as an apology for her brutal interrogations. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Slocum?” To which he handed her the plate of bread.
Her eyes went wide as she took the plate. She sheepishly nodded. “Yes, that’s correct,” Annette told them earnestly. She looked at Nathaniel. “I’m sorry.”
Each muse procured a bowl of Puttanesca and a glass of wine. They approached Annette’s bread plate held in offering. Fiona winked as she took her piece. Harriet looked suspicious as she took hers. One by one the muses took a slice of Annette’s bread and, thusly, accepted her apology along with it. Edgar Allan Poe was next to last and graciously accepted the snack. When Lucas approached the plate she looked at him and frowned. “Forgive me?”
“Hey,” Lucas shrugged “what can I say? A friendship isn’t a friendship until it’s been christened by a fight, you know?” He smiled.
Annette smiled.
He took a piece of bread and smiled even more at Annette showing his attractive dimpled cheeks.
“We’re missing someone,” Annette told Nathaniel as the muses dispersed with their plates. Counting heads she was one short. “Where’s Icarus?”
The kitchen’s side double doors leading into the fellowship hall opened dramatically with the same panache as a cowboy passing through the swinging doors of an Old West saloon. Icarus stood in the center, entering on cue. His clothing had been tousled. His tanned skin was pelted with sweat and signs of physical assault. His expression was one of distinctive apocalyptic somberness.
“What happened?” Nathaniel offered him a stool to sit.
Icarus explained how he was abducted by Jonas.
He told Nathaniel that he had failed as a muse. That all that he had ever wanted to do was fly through the sky as sprightly lighthearted as a bird with the wind in his face. But now he had been as beached as he had ever felt. Regardless, he was determined to rebuild what had been damaged. He started with reciting Jonas’ demands.
“He wants detective Redmond,” Icarus’ words were focused in Annette’s direction. “He’s aware that you’re the reincarnation of Evangeline. He knows about the destiny on the broken record. The one you didn’t want. The one that caused you to neglect your inspiration at the mailbox. And it’s due to that destiny that he’s requested you join his collection.”
“His collection?” Annette asked.
“He said that you might be inclined not to submit. In which case he told me to tell you that he currently has someone dear to you that he’s stolen from another timeline. A man who you once loved and who’s also one of your favorite clients.”
“Adam!” Annette shot a look to Nathaniel. “He has Adam!”
“He mentioned that if you don’t come to his residence at 252 Sisyphus Hill and join his collection he’s going to kill this person and then start eradicating the victims he’s abducted. He said to tell you that he’s serious in this threat.” Icarus turned to Nathaniel. “And he also mentioned that if Mrs. Slocum has any lingering doubts about what he’s capable of, she’s to review how many times he’s murdered you, Mr. Cauliflower.”
“We have no choice,” Nathaniel told Annette.
Fiona closed her eyes and bowed her head. This was the moment that Fiona had referred to in the beginning – what it might have meant by bringing Annette back to the department as one of the Nine Greatest Muses. This was the moment that Nathaniel had tried to protect her from as the recent retirement party had neared.
“There’s one more thing he wanted me to mention,” Icarus said with the clearing of his throat. “He asked me, on behalf of him, to thank you for your assistance in playing his apprentice, Mr. Cauliflower. But your association is no longer required.”
Annette’s eyes widened.
Nathaniel retreated a step.
Another roll of thunder shook the walls of the church.
Nathaniel whispered to Icarus, “That’s a lie!” He turned to Annette who drew the pistol from her thigh holster with both hands and aimed it at Nathaniel. Nathaniel’s own hands shot up in surrender. “It’s a lie. A downright lie, Mademoiselle Evangeline! I’m telling you!”
All Annette could say was “Sanctuary. Chat.”
With the pistol aimed at his back, Nathaniel started for the kitchen stairs.
“Icarus, you know I’m not working with Jonas,” Nathaniel told him. “You know I’m not capable of that kind of behavior! Why are you lying? Who are you trying to protect?”
Icarus quickly shifted his eyes to Lucas then back to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel nodded.
Annette looked at Fiona, motioning with her head for the Head Muse to follow.
Fiona obliged and calmly asked the others to finish their meals while everything got sorted.
As the three of them walked up the several flights of stairs and through the hallways of the church toward the dilapidated sanctuary, Nathaniel tried to explain: “He’s lying to you, Evangeline.”
“Detective Redmond, Mr. Cauliflower, please.”
“Fiona can attest that I’ve been there for the department. Everything that I’ve done as the caretaker has been for the betterment of the workplace . . . and humanity!”
“You’re a storyteller,” Annette said coldly. “A good storyteller but a deceitful wordsmith just the same.”
“You know I’m not lying. You felt it. You know in your heart that you are Evangeline!”
“I’m not Evangeline, Mr. Cauliflower. This story of yours has most likely been a manipulation from the beginning. You thoug
ht Roberta was Evangeline but she wasn’t. You wanted me to be Evangeline but I’m not.”
“But there was a look in your eye.”
“I got that look in my eye whenever I read any romance smut. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“And you borrowed Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales every fall.”
“Again, you’re basing that on what you want so badly to believe. It isn’t real. It was an impressively constructed cover, Mr. Cauliflower. Sadly, it’s the ones that we least suspect, the ones who have been the most influential, the ones with imaginatively crafted stories, who are the culprit.”
They approached the closed sanctuary door.
Nathaniel turned to Annette. “I’m not the culprit, Evangeline. You have to listen to me!”
“Detective Redmond, Mr. Cauliflower. Detective Redmond! I’ve listened to you weave your way through your stories only to realize that everything has been just a big imaginative tale.”
“That’s not true.”
“That’s why you didn’t want to help me turn my pegs, isn’t it? You were afraid of me uncovering your secret? That’s why you tried to rush me to my wedding and take the case into your own hands. It makes sense. You wanted the inspirations to yourself and I was getting in the way. I was getting too close, wasn’t I?”
She rambled on these questions without allowing him to respond.
“Tell me, Mr. Cauliflower, if you didn’t want me interfering with yours and Jonas’ plan, why did you have Fiona hand me an invitation? Why did you give me my memories of being Annette Slocum when you wanted me out of the picture?”
“Management chose the invitation recipients, Mrs. Slocum. Not me. I had to give you your memories if we were to get out from under this mess.”
“In,” Annette ordered.
Within seconds Nathaniel was sitting in the pew with the carved initials. The yellowed afternoon sunlight shined through one of the stained glass windows coloring the vase of asphodels. His attention wasn’t on the asphodels though. Nor was it on Jonas’ carved initials. His eyes settled on the splintered violin and bow that they had been handed at the motel. Annette tossed it into his lap and barked to Nathaniel, “Fix it.”
Nathaniel sighed. “It’s not a library book.”
Annette aimed the pistol toward Nathaniel making a clear motion of removing the safety. “Repair the violin, Mr. Cauliflower.”
“Mrs. Slocum honestly,” Fiona started. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes, it’s necessary. If he repaired my library books in my youth he can repair the violin. He needed motivation when he was a kid in his root cellar. I’m giving him a second round.”
“Then be a muse to him, Mrs. Slocum,” Fiona preached, “not a gun toting detective.”
Annette had no intention of placating him as a muse. “Repair it, Mr. Cauliflower.”
With Annette’s pistol aimed at his head and the other muses peering through the opened sanctuary door, Nathaniel touched the violin and bow. He handled it with the same care that he had Annette’s library books.
The thunder rumbled several times, growing in sound and intensity. The inspiration was approaching its end but Nathaniel didn’t mind. He worked as his fingers brushed over the wood and strings. The talent that had been given to him by the Dandelion Sisters was slow but, as he focused his energy, the violin reconstructed itself piece by piece. Nathaniel had waited for this moment – to show Annette what he could do. And he wished, as he did so, that it was under better circumstances.
The repaired violin and bow were handed to her. Even though she tried to suppress her awe at seeing his handiwork, Annette still admired the phenomenon.
“There’s no guarantee that it’s tuned properly or that it’ll play,” Nathaniel told her.
“The colored pegs in your pocket, if you will.” Annette held open her right palm.
Nathaniel dug through his pocket. He felt the glow-in-the-dark star and closed his eyes. He stroked its shape and recalled Annette’s first inspirations. He wished he could go back in time to those innocent moments and work harder to avoid this incident. Nathaniel opened his eyes and took out the colored pegs he had carried with him. He poured them from his hand to hers.
Annette held the red-colored peg associated with Phillip. “I’ve been to 252 Sisyphus Hill,” she told him. “I followed a lead to the residence but I didn’t find Jonas. I found Roberta and her two boys. Per Roberta, Jonas had been dead for at least four years which puzzled me at the time.” She brought the single red peg in front of Nathaniel’s eyes. “Is this how you’ve been traveling to him, Mr. Cauliflower? If I turn this peg clockwise will it take me to that house and to the timeline where he, and the other victims, reside?”
Nathaniel frowned but didn’t respond.
“Tell me, Mr. Cauliflower. Will it send me –”
“Yes!” Nathaniel shouted. “Yes, detective, it will.”
Annette ordered Nathaniel to stand which he did. She then asked for the Lite-Brite board Fiona had taken with them from Purgatory, which sat at the other end of the pew.
Fiona handed Annette the spare Lite-Brite board.
Annette took the Lite-Brite and placing it on the altar beside the potted asphodels.
Nathaniel watched as Annette inserted the red-colored peg into the Lite-Brite board rotating it clockwise. With the pistol in one hand, the colored pegs clinched in the other and the violin tucked under her left arm, Annette stood like a solitary warrior poised for battle. And then she was gone at the helm of Phillip’s unfolding clockwise ruminations.
“Why are you sitting there?” Fiona told him. “You have to go after her!”
He had gone after her many times and it exhausted him. He had spent so much time and energy trying to find her in the past seven lives, and protecting her from Jonas in the afterlife, that he felt following her was futile.
A figure appeared from behind the altar emerging from the choir loft and organ. Partially hidden behind the ray of afternoon sunlight, Fiona and Nathaniel adjusted their eyes to discern the identity of the person. Whoever it was donned a black hoodie with the hood over their head. Nathaniel, recognizing the black hoodie, stepped from the front pew to address the owner.
Thunder shook the sanctuary and the floor beneath his feet. The walls and windows broke apart.
The apprentice stepped into the light inspecting the Lite-Brite board with the red-colored peg in its grid. He too had another Lite-Brite under his arm. The stranger turned to Nathaniel and unzipping the hoodie to reveal a worn and rumpled tuxedo. The hood was peeled away exposing the malefactor’s true identity: Adam Eustace McCloud. He quickly asked about his fiancé’s whereabouts.
Nathaniel and Fiona shared a look of substantial distress.
CHAPTER 22: AN APPRENTICE’S ACCOUNT
Without Annette there with him, Nathaniel experienced his standard accustomed terrain. He had been so inured to the strident racket of her company that the muteness from Annette’s ardent departure appeared almost a reprieve. But the feeling that he presently sensed was unlike what it had been before. Loving Annette and existing with the unexpressed, unreturned feelings was one thing. It was quite another with Annette being out in the world knowing full well of Nathaniel’s emotional plight. It tore within him thinking that she had blatantly rejected him. Even if he had been granted the chance to be with her, Nathaniel didn’t know what he would have done with such an opportunity. Having wasted seven lifetimes chasing after her Nathaniel didn’t even stop to consider how he would suitably hold or care for her.
The church’s group inspiration was rotated clockwise to provide temporary safety from the erupting luminary Purgatorial barn lights.
Annette’s fiancé sat in one of the sanctuary pews. In trilling the account to the muses, he fidgeted with the eroded cube of blue billiard chalk from his hoodie pocket. Adam was a fairly good-looking young man of Russian decent. He had an athletic build. His toned cheeks, which hadn’t been shaved in a week, showed prominent laugh lines. His full
head of hair, which had been stylized with gel and brushed to the side, was indolently askew. His eyes were blue and projected boyish innocence. His mannerisms were subdued and polite as he spoke in a soothing lower-pitched voice while describing, in detail, how he had come to be and how he escaped from being, Jonas’ apprentice.
*
It began on the evening before Annette and Adam’s wedding day during the bachelor party in the downtown billiard hall. There was roughly a half-dozen men in Adam’s entourage. The group was divided into two pool tables in the far right corner underneath glowing neon signs advertising the beers on tap. It was a typical last night of bachelorhood for any groom filled with male camaraderie and a convoy of alcoholic refreshments. The hall was active with striking pool balls, spritely country music over the speakers and a symposium of rowdy crowds. Adam stood amidst all of it grinding the cube of blue chalk against the tip of his cue. He thought to himself how lucky he was to have such great friends and how grateful he was to have earned the love of his adored fiancé who, at this time, would have been busy in the affairs of her own bachelorette party. The church had been decorated top to bottom in yellow tulips and similarly-colored assorted flowers. The reception hall had been booked well in advance and the plane tickets for their honeymoon had been safely tucked inside the pockets of their pre-packed suitcases. His tux had been rented and pressed. The invitations had already been mailed out and presents from their gift registry had trickled in by post. The wedding day had the predisposition to run like clockwork somewhat in part to Adam’s eager assistance in helping Annette-the-orchestrator during the planning.
But it was on the night of the bachelor party, before all of the hard work had come to completion, when the unwelcomed ill-favored thunderstorm arrived to dismantle the entire execution.
Adam leaned over the pool table focusing on his cue stick and the scratch ball in an attempt to knock the last yellow-striped “nine” ball into a corner pocket. As he drew his arm and pool cue back to gain force for the impact, the lights in the billiard hall extinguished. There was a flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder which successfully managed to capture everyone’s attention bringing a short-lived stillness to the room.
Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles Page 32