by Raven Snow
Our guests. Lady hadn’t missed the way she had said that. It renewed some of those warm feelings of belonging inside of her. She closed the distance between herself and Ms. Poole and took the plate. There was a gray rag on the counter. She used that to dry. “Isn’t it our business, though?” Lady tried including herself in the ‘business’ side of things like Ms. Poole had. The words didn’t fit quite right in her mouth so she abandoned them and tried a new approach. “I mean, shouldn’t you know who’s doing what under your roof?”
“What do you mean?” Ms. Poole side-eyed Lady without turning her head. She handed her another dish.
“I mean…” Lady trailed off with a sigh, trying to decide how to put things. “Say someone was running a motel and someone was… Doing drugs or dealing drugs or—Something with drugs. You’d want to know, right? You’d want to know so that you could tell the cops and they could take care of things. You wouldn’t want to be liable.”
“You think I should call the police on Doyle?” Ms. Poole handed over another plate.
“No.” Lady put her dry plate down a little too hard and took the next one. Ms. Poole was being difficult on purpose, and it was making her lose her temper. “You know what I mean.”
Ms. Poole didn’t reprimand Lady for the way the plate banged against the counter. “Doyle is a guest,” she reiterated. “I don’t do background checks on my guests. Even if I did, there are some things in Dark Lake that… you just have to look the other way about.”
Lady sat her plate down. It wasn’t even dry. “What do you mean?”
“I think you… have an idea of what I mean.” Ms. Poole inclined her head toward the dripping plate leaving a ring of water on her clean wooden counter-top. “You’ll understand in time.”
“I don’t like being kept in the dark.” Lady fought to keep her voice level. “I wish people would just tell me things. It would make everything so much easier.”
“Would it?” Ms. Poole really did turn to face Lady then. “I’m not trying to keep you in the dark.” Her eyes met with Lady’s. She had always thought they were a dull gray, but they actually appeared to be a very pale blue. They were deep, earnest when focused. “I’m trying to expose you to everything gradually. If I did it all at once, it would be too much.”
Lady thought back to when she had first arrived in Dark Lake. There had been a lot to take in. She hadn’t believed half of it. “I wish you would tell me about Doyle.”
“It’s not my place.” Ms. Poole turned back to the sink and focused on the dishes.
Lady helped. She dried dishes and scrubbed cooking pots. She did all that in silence, no longer demanding answers from Ms. Poole. When it was all finished, she even resisted the urge to head upstairs and knock on Otsuya’s door. Not that she liked any of it. She didn’t like it at all.
Chapter Eleven
Lady was in bed when her cell phone rang. It was only nine, so she wasn’t actually sleeping. She had merely been stretched out on her stomach, flipping through the pages of the book she still had checked out of Crispin’s library. It was the book on Dark Lake’s history. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find. She was thumbing through the pages about the Antonie mansion back when it had still been a boarding school.
The phone rang on the nightstand. Lady sat up, jostling Lion from her back as she answered her cell. “Hello?” she didn’t recognize the number, but she had a problem letting a phone ring. She couldn’t stand the not knowing who it was.
“This is Dom,” said a deep, familiar voice on the other end of the line.
Lady sat up straight in bed, snapping to attention with a mix of concern and confusion. “What’s, uh… What’s up?”
“I got your number from Crispin,” Dom explained, his delivery of the explanation stilted like he had to get it out of the way first, like that might have been a concern she had.
“Okay.” Lady fell silent waiting for more. “What’s up?” she prompted again. It didn’t sound like Dom was used to talking on phones.
“I’m sneaking into the Antonie mansion tonight. I wanted to know if you wanted to come along.”
Dom definitely wasn’t used to talking on phones. He had dumped all that on her like you’d ask someone if they wanted to go on a platonic outing to the movies. “Uh.” Lady scrambled for a response. “Did something happen?”
“Something happened last night, didn’t it?” Dom asked, like it was the most normal question in the world. “So something might happen tonight. It’s worth checking out, isn’t it?”
Lady looked out her of dark bedroom window. The cover of night was beckoning to her. “Come on,” it seemed to be saying. ”It’s been waaay too long since we did something illegal.” Lady reminded herself that she wasn’t a high school kid anymore. She couldn’t go around breaking the law and causing mischief and still potentially get away with it because she was a minor. I’m too old for this, was what Lady thought. “Okay. Where do you want to meet up?” was what she actually said.
***
They decided it wouldn’t be good to pick Lady up right outside of the inn. Lady figured there was a decent chance Ms. Poole would hear a car idling on the side of the road if Dom came there to pick her up. She would walk down to the corner to meet him instead. “You have to stay here,” she told Lion.
Lion flicked his tail, looking none too happy about the matter. He left her room and she heard him on the stairs. In all likelihood, he was heading up to Otsuya’s room. That stirred the curiosity in Lady. She hadn’t gone up there when Ms. Poole had been awake, but the inn was still now.
Otsuya had been having those mood swings of hers. Who knew how she was feeling now? Maybe she had swung back. Lady felt she owed it to her to go check, at any rate.
Dom was supposed to be waiting for Lady around midnight. She had already picked out a black t-shirt and leggings and was wearing them when she crept up the stairs. There was one step that creaked, and she made sure to skip that one on her ascent.
The hallway was dark. Lady couldn’t see any lights on beneath the cracks in the doors. Not even Otsuya’s light was on, and Lady had always known her to be someone who went to bed late. Her door was closed as well. Also odd. She usually left it open for Lion. He sat outside of it now, hunched low, ears back. Lady went to him. “What’s going on, boy?” she asked in a whisper. She wished she was in one of those old black and white shows where he would lead her to the answers she sought. Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t that simple. Even if Lion did know what was going on—and Lady was beginning to suspect that he did—there wasn’t a way he could communicate with her easily. Maybe she would learn that eventually. There wasn’t time for it now. “Sorry. I have to go.”
Lion kept his ears down, but didn’t wind around her ankles in an attempt to stop her. He stayed near Otsuya’s door as she knocked lightly on it. She didn’t expect anyone to answer and no one did. Lady went back downstairs and into the night.
***
The nights in Dark Lake were a lot cooler than the days, apparently. At least, that was the case this particular night. Lady rubbed her arms as she walked down the sidewalk, wishing she’d had the foresight to bring a hoodie or the like. She could have tied the sleeves around her waist if she didn’t need it. The hood might have come in handy as well. It would help keep her hidden, make her more difficult to identify on cameras.
It was Crispin’s car idling on the curb a block away. Lady wondered if Dom even owned a car. Probably not.
There was someone in the passenger seat, so Lady opened the door to the back. “Good evening,” she announced, immediately thankful to find that the heater was on.
“Evening,” echoed a voice Lady hadn’t expected. It was Crispin.
“What are you doing here?” Lady blurted the question, gaping at Crispin.
Crispin looked back at her, his eyes wide behind the lenses of his glasses. “This is my car!” he ventured, not sounding like he was sure of what she meant by the question.
“Sorr
y,” Lady said quickly. She hadn’t meant to sound rude. “I just didn’t expect to see you here. I thought it would just be Dom.”
It was Dom’s turn to lean around the seat and look into the back. He was the individual occupying the passenger side seat. “Well, sorry to disappoint. You have the two of us to deal with tonight.”
“That’s not—Forget it. What’s the plan?” Lady hadn’t been told much over the phone, but she assumed there was a plan. Then again, maybe she was expecting too much from Dom.
Crispin pulled away from the curb and onto the dark and empty road. Dom stayed twisted around in his seat, addressing Lady. “You remember how I had Shannon show me around, right? She showed me where her cameras were.”
Lady nodded. “So you know how we can sneak in without being caught on surveillance or anything.”
“Right. There aren’t any motion detectors. I didn’t think there would be but asked anyway. It’s like I thought. There are too many animals.”
“Like… pets?”
“Like wild animals. There’s the wildlife around the house and then the wildlife that creep in the house.”
“Seriously? I figured rich people didn’t have to deal with stuff like that. I thought they’d just call, like, an exterminator or something.”
“It’s hard when your home is that big,” said Dom, sounding resentful of the wastefulness of his extended family once more. “You close off rooms and things are bound to… take up residence in there after a while. Better someone use them than no one at all, I guess.”
“All, right. So, we have a way to sneak in. Then what?”
“Then we wait and watch,” Dom said simply. “That a problem?”
Lady shook her head. That was about what she had expected, though she still found her thoughts drifting back to Crispin constantly. “So, you approve of this? Seriously?”
“Ah.” Crispin made an indecisive sound and didn’t say anything for several seconds. “Dom has a plan,” he amended at last, which didn’t really answer Lady’s question.
“So, what? Are you just here to babysit Dom?”
“No,” snapped Dom.
“No,” Crispin said in time with him. “Honestly? I want to get into one of those old boarded up rooms. I think there might be something worthwhile back there, some answers we wouldn’t get otherwise.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll see when we get there, won’t we?” asked Dom, turning on the radio before Lady could ask another question. She was getting awfully tired of people shutting her up by just ignoring her.
***
The hike up to the Antonie mansion was killer. Dom wouldn’t let them go through the main gates either. He said they had cameras on them. For the third time that week, Lady was forced to climb a fence. At least she didn’t have to help Crispin over this time around. Dom helped him out.
Crispin was the only one really not dressed for breaking and entering. He was wearing all black, but his shirt was button-up and his shoes were nice. “I didn’t own anything else black,” he hissed when Dom pointed it out.
“I could have loaned you something,” grumbled Dom as he led the way.
The trees surrounding the manor were so close together that Lady couldn’t see her way in the darkness. She kept groping out in front of herself to touch an arm or a shoulder. Finally, she just grabbed Crispin’s arm and held on to it. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” she asked Dom after they had been walking for what felt like, at least, a half hour.
“I know where I’m going,” Dom snapped back. “Who’s the one who actually lived here?”
“And who’s the one who said it had changed so much since they’d last been here that they hardly remembered the place?” Lady shot back.
“I’m certain those weren’t my exact words.”
“They’re close enough!”
***
At long last, they did indeed arrive at the mansion. “See?” said Dom, pointing proudly to the side of the building. “What did I tell you?”
“Great. Now, how do we get in?” Lady assumed they weren’t getting in through the front door. She imagined side doors were also locked. If she had to guess, Lady would say that it seemed like Dom expected to sneak them all in through a window, though she wasn’t at all sure which one.
“Up there.” Dom pointed up. That was what Lady had been afraid he would do… Well, afraid and also a little excited. She couldn’t help it. The troublemaker in her loved a challenge.
“Up where?” asked Lady, squinting at the upper floors.
“See that oak tree there?” Dom pointed to a tree with a thick canopy of branches. “I used to climb out my bedroom window onto that part of the roof there. I figure those branches will still hold my weight now that I’m an adult. And, if it’ll hold me, it’ll almost certainly hold the two of you. Come on.” Dom headed for the tree without waiting for alternate suggestions.
“I didn’t realize there would be this much climbing involved,” Crispin said with a sigh. To Lady’s surprise, he was the first up the tree. He wasn’t much for jumping fences, but the guy could climb. It probably came from all the going up and down ladders at work.
Lady was next. She got into the lowest branches with a leg up from Dom. Crispin offered a hand down and helped her up the rest of the way. She probably could have managed the entire climb herself, but there was no need for more squabbling. There would be plenty of time for that once they were sitting around inside, waiting for something to happen.
Not that Lady was sure she planned to do much waiting. Like Crispin, she was curious to see what awaited them inside the boarded off rooms. What did witches learn from school back when Ms. Poole was just a child? Whatever it was, it was bound to be interesting.
Lady crouched on the outcrop of roof, waiting for Dom to emerge upward from the shadows. He did so with a catlike grace and efficiency. He was preceded by a crowbar that Lady hadn’t noticed him take from the car. If the rooms were indeed all boarded up it made sense to have one. Lady just hoped it didn’t make too much noise.
“This way.” Dom picked his crowbar back up once he was on the roof. He managed to remain mostly silent as he walked, moving like he knew just where he was going. Soon they were standing before a window crisscrossed with bleached wooden boards. Dom started prying away.
It wasn’t as noisy as Lady had been afraid it would be. At the very least, the sounds didn’t make her jump and she didn’t hear anyone opening windows elsewhere in the house. That was what mattered.
“Can you open the windows from outside?” asked Lady as Dom set aside the final board barring their way.
“Would I have brought the two of you here if I thought I couldn’t?” asked Dom.
“I don’t know,” Lady said, honestly. “Maybe.”
Dom sighed and pushed the curled end of the crowbar beneath the lip of the window. He pried it upward. “These old ones don’t have locks on them, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think,” Lady repeated, not finding a whole lot of comfort in the notion that Dom didn’t actually know whether or not they could even get inside. Fortunately, that state of not knowing didn’t last long.
The window came open with a pop, and Dom nearly fell inside. He had to snap out a hand to catch himself, making a great lot of noise in the process. Lady cringed at the series of thuds that followed. “There,” whispered Dom once the cacophony stopped its echoing. “I told you I could do it.”
“Sure. You did it.” Lady watched Dom disappear into the house before climbing in the window behind him. “You woke up everyone in the house, but you did it.”
The inside was better lit than Lady had expected it to be. She wasn’t entirely sure where all the light was coming from, though she did feel leaves and other debris crunching beneath her feet. Most likely there were holes here and there that the moonlight was streaming through.
“I brought a lantern,” Crispin announced. “Hang on.”
Lady turned in time for C
rispin to unhook said lantern from his belt. A moment later it came to life, electric and bright. “Good thinking,” said Lady.
It was in shadows, but Lady saw Crispin smile. “I tried to come prepared,” he said. “I have a couple small flashlights too.” He reached into his back pocket and removed what looked to be a few penlights. Lady gratefully accepted one.
Their surroundings were strange, old. Lady wasn’t sure precisely what she had expected. Probably something close to what she was seeing. Maybe she had expected things to be in a deeper state of disrepair, like old abandoned ruins or something. Instead, the closed off parts of the house were still intact. Sure, there was debris from outside and everything was beyond dirty, but it still looked lived in.
They had come into a room with two long rows of beds, one row against both walls. “This must be where the girls slept,” said Lady, shining her penlight at one of the twin-sized cots. The bed was still made even.
“Great deduction there,” said Dom, his voice deadpan. He had moved toward the end of the room. He was opening a door that led down a… hall? When Dom had told Lady that they boarded off rooms, she had imagined a smattering of rooms here and there. She hadn’t pictured an entire wing of the house being shut off. She supposed it made sense. Easier to just close off an entire portion of the house no longer being used.
Lady followed Dom to the door. She glanced over her shoulder before moving into the hallway to see if Crispin was following. He wasn’t. “Go on without me.” Crispin had crouched down near the cots. He was pulling old belongings out from beneath them. Some of those belongings included books. No wonder he was intrigued. There was probably a whole treasure trove of materials going to waste up here.
“Okay. Just remember why we came.”
Crispin nodded distractedly and waved for Lady to go on. She did.
The hallway Dom had moved into was long. He was already opening up doors. Lady could hear the sounds of wood creaking. Most likely he was prying wood up again. With so many rooms, they would be able to keep an eye on the house from multiple angles. If anything disturbed its immediate perimeter, they would be able to see it. Of course, on the flip side, if nothing showed up, they would almost certainly be in a world of grief from the Antonie family. It would be difficult to miss all the windows suddenly being opened up to the world again. The most they could hope for was that they just didn’t look up for a few days.