Cinnamon felt sorry for having snapped at Alexandra,
and was about to say so when simultaneously Tybalt arched his back and spat,
and Ajax jumped off the crypt and snarled.
Cinnamon and Alexandra whipped around to see what
the animals had warned of. They saw only the long branches of a weeping willow
blowing lightly in the breeze, and the faint outline of the old abandoned
caretaker's cabin beyond it. Cinnamon's eyebrows furrowed as she looked over
the old cabin. It was half-hidden in the waving arms of the massive willow
tree, with broken, vacant windows and a few loose shutters that swung loosely
on their hinges. She had walked past it one day as she was gathering wood, but
had never gone inside.
"What do you suppose is in there?"
Cinnamon asked no one in particular, leaning down to pick up Tybalt, who's fur
was still standing on end.
"Nothing," came Alexandra's reply, as
hesitant and ill-concealing as Cinnamon's statements about the crypt.
"Nothing..." whispered the breeze, blowing
over the plantantion grounds.
"Nothing?" Cinnamon repeated, taking a
halting step towards the cabin and squeezing Tybalt a little closer to her
chest, "I inherited an abandoned mansion, and expected to find nothing
inside, but the rooms were still full of furniture, a feast still rotting on a
banquet table. All this while, there has been no one here, but we all know that
there is more here than nothing. We can all feel it! We all know it!
Nothing.... There's something. And if it's not in the cabin then it's in the crypt,
and I mean to find out just what is going on."
Cinnamon started walking toward the old cabin, a
shovel in one hand and her pistol strapped to her thigh. Alexandra stood
entirely motionless, rooted to her place with a terrified look on her face.
When Cinnamon came to the front steps leading up to the cabin, she paused a
moment. Tybalt struggled and squirmed away from her arms, but stayed near her
left side, Ajax was at her right. Cinnamon had been this scared before, but had
never felt so brave.
"If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."
Cinnamon quoted quietly to herself, alighting the first step up to the porch.
The step groaned under her weight, but held her. She then took the second step
with the same result. She took the third and the fourth quicker, and came to
the door. Ajax sniffed around the entrance, and growled deep in his throat.
"Ajax," Cinnamon said, in an attempt to
steady herself as she pulled her pistol from it's sheath and cocked it,
"You are going to feel very foolish when this all turns out to be in your
imagination."
Goosebumps raised on her arms as she reached for the
doorknob, but the door seemed jammed. She set aside her shovel and laid both
hands on the doorknob. A slight panic pulled at her to turn tail and run, but
with a sudden strong, foolhardy will she pushed the door open and let it swing
until it hit the wall. From within the cabin nothing stirred.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" cried the panic
inside Cinnamon's head as she quickly peered around the corner.
"Is someone there?" Cinnamon called, in a
voice falsely loud, hoping that the faint tremor in her voice was apparent to
only herself, "If someone is there, you have exactly five seconds to come
out. I have a weapon!"
Five seconds came and went quickly. Cinnamon waited
another five. And then another. Then, keeping her gun in front of her and ready
to fire, she forced her terrified feet to walk. The living room was clean. It
was meager, but clean. Even with broken out windows. No doubt, someone had been
there.
There was a suddenly flurry of motion, and Cinnamon
shot her pistol before she had a good look at her attacker. Her bullet missed
it's target, and shattered the remaining panel in an unfortunate window.
Cinnamon screamed and ducked, and outside Alexandra screamed, and a harrassed-looking
owl flew out the front door, 'Hoooooo-oooooo'ing indignantly as it did.
Cinnamon caught her breath, tried to steady her
heartbeat, and shouted, "It's alright, Alexandra! It was just a stupid
owl!"
Ajax looked unimpressed, and went back onto the porch,
where he sat and looked out at Alexandra, his head cocked slightly.
Cinnamon sighed and looked around her, and outside
Alexandra continued to scream. Cinnamon shook her head, trying to shake out the
tremors left in it by the adrenaline that still coursed thru her. As she slowly
made her way to the middle of the small room, something on the table caught her
eye. It was a familiar, leatherbound book. Her blood turned to ice. She opened
it; it was the same photo album that Cinnamon had hidden away in the attic,
dumping it into a chest and taunting Alyce as she did. She wished now that she
had burned it, driven a stake through it’s hateful little heart. Dreading, she
turned the page and there was Alyce, smiling her beautiful smile, watching with
her beautiful eyes. Cinnamon lowered her pistol just a few inches, and shifted
the book on her arm just an inch. Alexandra was still screaming outside, and
Cinnamon was about to call for her to calm herself down, when a figure abruptly
appeared from the dark recesses of the hallway, and she was suddenly knocked
off of her feet. Before Cinnamon had a second to scream a terrible pressure
snapped thru her shoulder, accompanied by a warm, wet, stickiness. Cinnamon
screamed, not even seeing her attacker, just seeing the knife they wielded. She
fought back, firing a shot into the midst of whom she supposed to be her
attacker, just as a snarl escaped from Ajax, who reached them in less than a
second, and the attacker was torn off of Cinnamon. The attackers blade caught
Cinnamon's neck and chin as it passed, spilling more blood over Cinnamon and
the floor. Cinnamon rolled over, scrambling to get herself back to her feet.
The wound in her shoulder gushed hot, sticky blood down her chest. Cinnamon
backed away, and grasped her shoulder, bloodying her hand and fingers.
A terrible, wrinkled old face leered at Cinnamon
like a goblin from across the room, held at bay by a snarling black Timberwolf.
"You are not mistress of Eau d'Noir!" the
old woman cried, a wild, crazy look in her eyes, "Alyce is the lady here,
and always will be. You are nothing but trash, usurping little witch!"
With a strength betraying her age, the old woman
threw the knife at Cinnamon. Cinnamon dodged, and instinctively fired again.
"I will
kill you, old woman!" Cinnamon shouted, fear and adrenaline shaking her
voice.
But she wouldn't need to. In that moment, Ajax was
on the old woman. As Cinnamon screamed and tried to pull him back, he pinned
the crone to the floor and ripped her throat out as the old woman gurgled and
thrashed. Cinnamon stood in that same spot, her hands over her mouth and
screaming uncontrollably until her voice was raw. She heard Alexandra on the
lawn screaming. She heard Ajax licking his fur as her sat next to her. She even
heard Tybalt’s faint meows at the door.
“He probably wants to be fed,” Cinnamon thought
vaguely.
She sighed and looked down at herself, strangely
calm, “Blood is so red! I mean, everyone knows that it’s red, but when you see
it, it’s very shocking. Look at how red my blood is. That is so much blood. I
wonder how much blood a person has. I wonder if I’ll bleed to death right
here.”
Cinnamon realized that Alexandra was in front of
her, talking to her, pulling at her hand and crying, but someone was still
screaming. The old crone wasn’t screaming, not anymore. Cinnamon grasped that
it was she, herself, who was screaming, screaming involuntarily, compulsorily,
and she didn’t seem to know how to stop. Alexandra pulled at her, but Cinnamon
stayed rooted in place until the sunset came, her blood first gushing, next
dripping, then congealing, and drying all over her.
Cinnamon didn’t know if it was minutes later, maybe
hours or even days, but she felt strong hands on her shoulders and a voice in
her ears. This wasn’t Alexandra; the voice was too low and the hands too large.
She perceived it was Jeremy, though she didn't see him. He shook her and called
her name, until the fog left her eyes and Jeremy's face materialized before
her.
"Look at how red my blood is." Cinnamon
muttered, losing the strength in her legs; she would have fallen if Jeremy
hadn’t caught her, "It was so fast. She attacked me and Ajax ripped her
apart. The whole thing took half a minute. She attacked me. She’s dead."
"Don't talk," Jeremy said, helping her
gently to the ground, "You've lost a lot of blood to that knife."
At the mention the knife Cinnamon began to scream
again, seeing again in her mind the blade flash and sink into her shoulder, saw
the old woman's insane eyes, those crazy eyes that glared and taunted even
after the wolf had ripped her to pieces and left her all over the rug.
Jeremy firmly put his hand over her mouth. Cinnamon
felt another hand on her head and realized that Alexandra was there, too.
"Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Stop it. It's all over
now. You are safe. You are going to be fine," Jeremy repeated, looking
strongly into Cinnamon's eyes.
Cinnamon's screams faded away.
Jeremy raised his hand, "No screaming. We need
to get into the house, and quickly."
As Jeremy lifted her from the floor and carried her
across the lawn, Cinnamon realized that her shoulder was bandaged, and wondered
who had done it. She was vaguely aware that she was rambling, but didn't know
what she was saying, or how to stop it.
Alexandra walked ahead of Jeremy as they walked
toward the mansion, carrying a lamp. She opened the front door and let them in,
followed by a very worried Tybalt. Jeremy paused just a moment at the door.
“Come on, get in here,” Alexandra said, and cast a
furtive, fleeting glace back out at the night before firmly locking the door
behind them all, and triple-checking all the locks and shutters.
Ajax was lying on the rug before the fire in the
drawing room. He lifted his head as the party walked by, Cinnamon only
half-seeing him and regarding him in the same way she would in a dream; nothing
was real.
The fire was blazing in the Master Bedroom when they
got to it, and Jeremy set Cinnamon down on top of Old Rassmussen's pillows and
comforters. He checked her bandages with quick, deft fingers.
"You did well, Alexandra," he commented,
leaving the injury on Cinnamon's shoulder and examining the deep cut on her
chin and throat. Alexandra had sewn it shut with her mending needle and a bit
of light pink thread; the closest match to Cinnamon's skin color that she could
manage.
“A few centimeters and it would have caught her
arteries,” Jeremy commented, “Her brachial in her shoulder, and her carotid in
her neck. The old woman knew what she was doing.”
“How do you know so much? Are you a doctor?” asked
Alexandra.
Jeremy chuckled deep in his throat, “No. But I know
about arteries.”
“I’m so glad you came! I wanted to fetch you, but I couldn't leave Cinnamon, not like that, not after what happened…” Alexandra’s
voice shook.
"I got here as soon as I could manage,"
Jeremy replied, "Ajax arrived on my door covered in blood. I grabbed my
shotgun and ran my horse hell bent for leather to get here."
"She wouldn't move! I called her and called
her, even as I stitched up her chin, she just stood there, looking into space
with that vacant expression on her face," Alexandra poked at the fire, and
checked the shutters in the room once again.
"She's in shock." Jeremy said, his voice
ever steady and cool, "But she'll live. She frightens very easily, but
there's something strong inside her, too."
"Who was that old woman?" Alexandra asked,
breathlessly.
"Her name? I don't even remember it. She was
one of the last servants that Old Rassmussen kept on. After he disappeared, it
must have been easier to stay here than to move on. Being left alone on this
plantation that long would drive anyone mad."
Alexandra cast a quick look at Jeremy, but dropped
her eyes before he raised his.
"Is there anything else you should tell us, Mr.
Tarleton?" Alexandra asked, her voice hinting at what she really wanted to
ask.
"Not yet," he said, putting a finger under
her chin and lifting her face to his, "But know this. I can protect you;
you and Miss Cinnamon. But you will have to trust me. And my name is Jeremy, not Mr. Tarleton."
"You didn't protect us today," Alexandra
said, doubtingly.
"Who insisted that Cinnamon take loan of that
wolf that saved her precious skin today?" Jeremy’s voice was almost a
snarl though on his lips was a smile, his finger still under her chin, their
faces so close that they almost touched.
