Page 418 of Flirting with Darkness

Sunday is egg day. Even though I feel like I’ve eaten a week’s worth of eggs in the last few days, I shovel them in and engage my mother in pleasantries.

“Oh, your father sent word he’d be returning early,” she says and immediately has my full attention.

“Early? How early?” I ask.

“Mmm, the messenger said he’d be returning this afternoon.”

The teacup rattles in its saucer and I’m certain my mother catches sight of my pulse thudding through the vein in my neck. “This afternoon?”

“Yes, dear. Are you quite alright?”

I set my fork down and dab at my mouth. “No, Mother. I don’t think I am.”

8

Father sits before me in his favorite chair. Everything about him is the same as ever. Downturned eyes that give him a kind appearance. The portly middle from too many biscuits and ale. And the Keeper signet on his smallest digit, the one that will pass to me after his death.

Or, would have.

But I can’t keep my eyes off his twitching mustache. Like everything else, it’s the same as it’s always been, only now it reminds me of the awful twitching nostrils of the skeletal thing taking in my scent.

My hands grow clammy at the memory, gaze shifting to the brightly colored, imported rug under my feet.

And that’s why it had to be real.

All physical evidence is gone, but I don’t care. I know what happened to me. The memory is too strong, too vivid. Its hold on me is too great for it not to have happened.

I know what I went through the last few days.

And nothing can change that.

Even Father’s disbelief.

“So, you released it because it convinced you it wasn’t a demon, then it spirited you away to another realm where you had a harrowing adventure, but you have no proof of that. Did I get that right?”

He settles back in his chair, dappled light from the ivy-covered window touching the side of his face. Father has always been kind to me. Always understanding of my need to do right, by him, by our village, and the world at large. Perhaps that was the only thing keeping him from getting angry when I told him the news.

He knows me. Knows I wouldn’t act in any way that wasn’t righteous.

I study his face while he’s deep in thought. The wrinkled skin around his eyes, the loosening jowls of his jaw. The relaxed way he sits and packs his briar pipe with dark, sweet-scented tobacco.

“You’re awfully calm about the situation, Father.”

“Well, I’m just working out what we should do from here. What accommodations I need to make.”

Accommodations? “What does that… I’m not sure I follow, Father.”

He sets his pouch of tobacco on the small table next to his chair and lights his pipe. “Well, Liesl,” he begins, blowing out puffs of sweet smoke. “You know that whenever I return home, I always stop in the cellar first to double check the chains and lock. I was there not an hour ago and the chest, which you said was on the ground in pieces, remains perfectly sealed. The lock is precisely how I left it. So, it seems to me you’ve had some sort of vivid hallucination or break with reality.”

My eyes go wide, arms crossing in defense. Before I can rebut, Father continues.

“I should think it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put so much on you. A woman can’t possibly handle the burden of the Keeper duty.”

His words hit hard and sure, cutting me clean in two. “Father…that’s not… This has nothing to do with being a woman.”

A rather placating, disingenuous smile graces his mouth. It’s an expression I’ve never seen on him. “Please, Liesl. You don’t have to say anything more. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. I’ll have Diedrich find the best asylum money can buy.”

Asylum?

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