Page 57 of Heartsong
Carrie straightened immediately, and Gavin stood to join her. Both looked in her direction with an intensity that unnerved her down to the marrow. Their eyes were…wrong…liquid gold and mercury…
Anna’s ears popped. Carrie’s eyes were hazel again, and Gavin’s a startling but human icy blue.
“Oh, Anna, apologies! We didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” Carrie smiled warmly, waving her inside the office.
It took her a second, but Anna forced her feet forward and a small smile on her face, even though she wanted to do anything other than enter that office. She’d heard of her coworkers catching their bosses canoodling before—the couple was still into each other after years of marriage and wasn’t that cute and why couldn’t she have caught them doingthatrather than whatever…thiswas?
“It’s fine, I just got here. I’ll knock louder next time.” Her voice sounded normal to her, even as she was screaming on the inside.So strange! So weird! He’s looking at me funny—get out of this office!
“Is something wrong?” Gavin asked.
“No. At least, I don’t think so. You,” she nodded at Carrie, “just wanted me to let you know if Andrew Glendower came back. You know, the nosy professor from the other week?”
The smile slipped from Carrie’s face. “Ah. I see.” She and Gavin exchanged looks.
“Is he banned or something?”
“No, not at all,” Carrie rushed to assure her. She made her way around the desk to usher Anna out of the office and back down the hall.
Carrie confided, “We’re just cautious after what’s happened, is all.”
“Should we be keeping track of the regulars?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Anna. You’ve already done so much for us.” Carrie gave her another one of those sweet smiles and then headed off into the main gallery.
Her words were probably meant to mollify and calm Anna, but they did the exact opposite. She hurried in the other direction, passing the front desk even when Suzie called out to her. Anna didn’t stop until she was safely ensconced inside one of the employee bathroom stalls.
Her breaths came shakily and erratic, and Anna held her hands up to see how violently they trembled. Shoving them under her arms, she went through a few breathing exercises she knew until her pulse had come down from throbbing.
Okay, okay, so Gavin and Carrie are strange, too.
There was no denying it anymore.
But if they were strange, and the museum was strange, and the statues were strange…
They had to know. About the statues being living beings. Somehow, they had to knowsomething. But why? Why open a museum and display them? Why keep them in a collection like this?
With all the other rare artifacts and codices, there was definitely a pattern. Everything was absolutely deliberate.
But why?
She didn’t know. And that terrified her, too.
Her walk home was one of the fastest she ever did, her calves burning from the pace she set. She ignored them—she just wanted to gethome.
Where it’s safe.
The fog had never truly burned off that day, only lifted off the ground, and it gathered again along the pavement as the air cooled. The sun, mostly hidden behind the fog and tall buildings, completely disappeared as she turned onto her block.
She shouldn’t have been hustling so hard through such thick fog; she could barely see anything over twenty feet in front of her. Even so…she could’ve sworn the same van circled the block three times. White vans were ubiquitous in the city, but after the second time, she glanced at the license plate. She was sure it was the same one the third time.
Looking for parking wasn’t exactly rare or suspicious, but in the thick fog, after the day she’d had, Anna was practically running by the time she made it to her building.
She hadn’t caught her breath by the time she opened her front door—and walked into an empty, silent apartment.
Her body didn’t cope well with another shock, and pain throbbed at both temples as she hurried through the apartment, calling out his name.
“Frey? Frey!”
