Chapter 9
The Strange
It was six in the morning when Alex Frost received a call on Aunt Melanie’s landline. The sound of the three-tone dial echoed in her ears, brought her back to life. Alex, clearing her eyes of fatigue, picked up the phone on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” she spoke.
“This is Sacred Rivers hospital calling to inform you that a Melanie Joyce is under our care.”
“What?” Alex, acting surprised. “I’ve been expecting her home all night. Where is she?”
“We’ve had her under our care since last night. Paramedics brought her in. She didn’t have ID with her, so we haven’t been able to contact anyone. But she’s only just woken up, and she said that she wanted us to call this number.”
Given the amount of injuries she’d suffered last night, it was startling to believe that Aunt Melanie could have been conscious again so soon.
“Thank you. I’m on my way there right now.”
Sacred Rivers wasn’t particularly hard to find. For Alex, it was a fifteen minute walk. The most challenging part was accepting what she saw when she got there. The hospital, despite its name, didn’t appear very sacred (unless graffiti was the marker for all things sacred), and there was no river anywhere nearby. More than a bit misleading, especially to those who hadn’t been to the place before. At first Alex had to wonder if she was going the wrong way. Around the path she took, there was not so much as a lake or body of water nearby. In an environment that she was still fairly fresh to, the possibility of mistaking her geography was very likely. But when she saw the sign outside the hospital, she knew she was in the right place.
Walking through the automatic glass doors, Alex approached an old woman with grey hair and a clean white uniform sitting behind the front desk. She asked where she could find Melanie Joyce. The woman, discontent, told that at the moment, only family members could see her. Alex informed her that the woman was her aunt. She scowled in return, a definite sign of skepticism, or hostility. But she let her in regardless, either because in the end she believed her, or she didn’t care either way.
“Room 207,” she spat. “Upstairs.”
The elevator at the end of the hall took her up to the second floor. As she approached the first corridor on her left, she found the door labeled 207, and a small window peering in. Aunt Melanie was laying still on her back atop a bed with wheels and sage colored bed covers. She was clad in a hospital gown made to fit someone three times her size. The short-sleeves were long and fat, almost reaching her wrists, and the garment was decorated with sickly light blue polka dots.
Alex wanted to ask her aunt where she had been all night. The answer, of course, she knew. But the reason for her aunt being where she was, or why the bald (now dead) man had attacked her that night in the alley were still left unanswered.
Once inside though, Alex’s quest for truth came to a screeching halt. Aunt Melanie was fast asleep.
The injuries on her body had healed remarkably well. The few that hadn’t were sewn together with stitches. She appeared much cleaner now than she did last night. Her bleeding had stopped, and bandages hid the uglier parts of her wounds.
Still, a remarkable purple bruise resided on her left cheek, one that looked like the result of a fist. She leaned in closer, examining the damage carefully. She’d been punched. Repeatedly. Undoubtedly enough times to leave a mark on the assailant’s knuckles.
“Hey Alex,” entered a shrivel of a voice. Soon, she realized her aunt’s waking eyes, and her heartwarming smile.
“How are you doing?”
A violent cough escaped her mouth. Alex asked if she should call a nurse. Aunt Melanie shook her head.
“I’m fine,” Aunt Melanie stretched her arms, and they could both hear her joints crack. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Alex insisted almost too defensively. Then, to change the subject from her to Aunt Melanie, she asked, “Aunt Melanie, what happened?”
Aunt Melanie kept her face steady, with a level of patience as silent as a brick. It was almost like she was waiting for her to say something else. Something to change the topic. When Alex didn’t, the elated beam on her face subsided, and she frowned. She observed the scratches on her skin, traced her index finger over them to caress the ridges on her body.
“Do you remember what happened?” Alex asked, though what she really wanted to say was Do you remember seeing me kill someone last night?
Aunt Melanie shook her head.
“Pleasant Grove is not a very nice place, Alex. I was out late in a place I shouldn’t have been, and happened to have the misfortune of running into someone bad.” She paused. Then, “I guess I deserved it,” she whispered, still touching her flesh wound.
“What are you talking about?”
“The night that you came into my life, I promised myself that I would get better. I would become, a better person. I’d pick myself up.” Then, on a seemingly entirely unrelated note, “Do you know why your mother and I stopped talking?”
“No.”
Aunt Melanie looked out the window. The sunlight momentarily phased her attention. “I got tired of living there, if you can believe it. The pompous elites and their picture perfect lives. People who live inside their own bubble, then think they’re so perfect for it. One thing I never understood about your mother was how at home she felt there. She liked it in Suburnia. Me on the other hand, I wanted to live a life that I thought was real, honest. So what did I do? I left Suburnia, came here to survive on my own, instead of living on family spoils. The road less travelled and all that. See the real world, explore it for what it is. And explore I did. You know, the real world is crueler than any Suburnian millionaire can ever understand. Five years of hope and wonder,” she droned. “And this is finally what I’ve become. Just another chronic alcoholic too depressed for ambition.”
Alex took her aunt’s hand, kept it close and warm.
“We’ll get through this.”
“I’m sorry,” Aunt Melanie apologized. And what she was about to say next made her well up before she even said it. “I have been such a wreck for so long. The man,” she uttered, the man being the bald (now dead) man. “He came to rob me. I gave him my purse, my bag. After that he wanted more. But I just couldn’t give him anything else, because I had nothing left. He hit me, and my only thought at that point was that if I ever got the chance to survive, I would do everything in my power to change. Truth is, I honestly didn’t think I would live. And I have so many things to atone for.”
Alex looked her aunt in the eye. “Chin up. The worst is over. Police found the man who attacked you. They said he died. Probably got mugged by someone else. How’s that for karma?”
Aunt Melanie wasn’t entertained by the idea.
“There’s nothing to stress yourself over anymore. You’re fine. How long are you going to be in the hospital?”
“At least a few days.”
“That’s good. That should give you enough time to relax, maybe stay off drinking.”
“Are you going to be fine in the apartment on your own?”
“I will.”
“Why don’t you stay in the hospital with me? So I can keep an eye on you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Alex encouraged a smile on Aunt Melanie’s lips by emulating the gesture on her own.
“Your parents were lucky to have you,” Aunt Melanie told her.
This, Alex Frost knew perfectly well, was false. But she also understood that Aunt Melanie had meant well, so she allowed her to continue believing it.
In the human world known as Earth, there are two things that people hear more than anything else in their daily lives. A) things they want to hear, and B) things they don’t. Examples of A include someone being told that they are always right (even when they’re not), that there is something better than sliced bread, that they made a sizable fortune in the stock market while doing absolut
ely nothing, and that they are the most handsomest or most beautiful being among all of God’s creatures. Examples of B include being told that the bipolar snow pirate known as Santa Claus does not exist, that Dr. Who won’t be returning next season, and that their pool boy is, as suspected, having an affair with their spouse.
Also in the human world known as Earth are two other things that people hear on a day by day basis. Truths, and lies. Sometimes the things that people want to hear coincide with the truth. This can make it easy for people to tell each other the truth. However, in that same token, the things that people want to hear can on many occasions turn out to be lies. Things that people don’t want to be told are true but are true, are often referred to as sad truths. Things that people want to be told are true but are lies, are known as happy lies. And Alex Frost’s life had been chalk full of both.
Though they weren’t sad for her, they were sad for anyone that knew the reality of her life. Which was that in the past, Alex had never done anything for herself that wasn’t in some major way, done for her parents. Rather than believe or make an honest effort to understand the sad truth about their daughter, they insisted endlessly on the happy lie. The notion that she was a normal girl. Alex had done so much on their account that now that they were gone, she felt herself in limbo. Struggling to find the motivations for everything she did and would do from this point onwards.
Aunt Melanie had assured Alex that she wanted her niece to be whoever she wanted to be. And therein was the problem. Alex didn’t know who she wanted to be. Or for that matter, who she was in the first place.
After visiting her aunt in the hospital, Alex went back to the apartment, perched herself on the edge of the roof just in time to catch the sunset. An aura of gold lay casted on the city, giving the day’s last few moments of shine before taking its leave.
When people speak of natural beauty, the first thing they typically point at is the sunset. The cornerstone of everything good in the world, Alex often heard people say. And to those that were fortunate enough to catch birds flying in the scene chirping together in friendship, it was Heaven on Earth. Yet as Alex saw the sun make its final descent, and the birds soar towards it with sheer optimism and grace, she felt no such sentiments. The irrational innervations were lost upon her. All she saw was a sun going down. Nothing more, nothing less. No hyperboles, no emotions.
However, with the absence of the sun came the cold reminder that from this point on, the life of Alex Frost was going to forever be contrary to what it should have been. And in the coming days ahead, Aunt Melanie, no matter how well-intentioned, wouldn’t be able to give her what she needed most. As far as she knew, there was only one person who could give her the direction and the guidance she needed, who could help her understand her unexplainable craving for blood.
With that, Alex packed her backpack with school materials and as many pairs of clothes as she could fit in the leftover space. She went to see the one man that she was sure could give her a new life.
For the readers among us not entirely familiar with the English language, I would like to bestow upon you a helpful tip. When people say that something is ironic, they don’t mean to say that something tastes like iron, or that it has an iron-like texture. Confusing, I know. The English language has so many unexplainable oddities that I’m actually in the middle of creating a language of my own. In fact, as I write this, I am also teaching my new language to an illiterate South African tribe. But that is neither here nor there.
Instead, when people say that something is ironic, they mean to imply that it is in many ways, coincidental, accidental, or poetically contrary to what a person originally wanted or intended. Like when a person has a fear of letters, and finds himself working in the post office. Or when a politician claims to have a love for families, and doesn’t have a secret other family of his own. Or in this case, when a girl enters the doorsteps of the man who took away her old life, asking for a new one in return.
It was late at night outside. Crickets were out, and if there were birds circling over the Combermere abode like there always were during the day, it was too dark to notice them.
Alex knocked on the door. Before long, the door swung open with a violent push. Lord Combermere had his hand on the knob, and he quickly took notice of the sixteen year old girl who was little more than half his height.
“How did you get here?” he asked, cold and distant.
“I took a train,” said Alex, the backpack which had strained her shoulders lay beside her on the ground. “Then a bus. From there, I walked.”
“I understand that you live with your aunt now.”
“How did you know that?”
“What would she think of your being here?”
“My aunt is in the hospital.”
“What for?” he asked, suddenly curious.
“A man tried to kill her. But she’s safe now. The doctors want her there for the rest of the night, possibly two more nights depending on her condition.”
And then, because Lord Combermere didn’t invite her in, she said, “I was wondering if it was possible for me to speak with you about a few things.”
Lord Combermere maintained his position within the door’s opening, but relented after a few seconds of self-deliberation.
“Follow me.”
Alex picked up her backpack, once again slung the strap over her shoulder. She shut the front door behind her. Lord Combermere led her to a dining room where he had apparently been having dinner alone, as evidenced by a plain white ceramic plate of pasta, and a warm glass of water beside it. Lord Combermere dropped to his seat, curled the pasta on his silver fork before bringing it to his mouth.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“No.”
“So tell me. Have you done what I told you to do?”
“Yes. I already have someone in mind.”
“Already?” Lord Combermere questioned. “You must truly be excited about killing.”
Alex looked down, felt the surface of the man’s tablecloth, black and with a silky texture.
“It’s the only way I can feel,” she told.
“I understand what you’re going through. At your age, I too was taken in with the same degree of confusion, the unanswerable questions of what you are now going through. The key is to realize what you are before you let others do it for you. Otherwise you risk losing yourself forever. If I hadn’t spent so much of my time with insignificant people, I would have learned more about my condition sooner.”
“Is that why you changed?”
Lord Combermere paused. “Changed?”
“You used to be a lawyer. And a great one at that, or so they say. Once upon a time people would claim that there was no case you couldn’t win even if you tried. They all admired you for what you could do. And then, you changed.”
“I didn’t change,” Lord Combermere retorted. “I stopped lying to myself.”
“Now everyone is afraid of you.”
Lord Combermere took another bite of his pasta. “I could care less. People don’t hold my interest.”
“Why?”
Abruptly, a noise carried inside the room. Or at least she thought so, since Lord Combermere had just as quickly cupped his hand behind his left ear.
“What do you hear?” Lord Combermere whispered to the girl, careful not to let his voice drown out the noise.
“I don’t hear anything,” she confessed.
“That is correct. Absolutely nothing. Just peace, and silence.” He leaned back on his chair. “One day, when you tire of the ravings of ordinary human beings, these things will mean a lot to you. Are you sure I can’t interest you in some dinner?”
“No thank you. I already ate. I was actually wondering if I could stay with you for a few days. At least until my aunt gets better.”
“I insist that you do. Come now. You must be tired from your trip. My home has four guest quarters in every floor. Feel free to choose whichever suits you most.
And in the future, know that you are more than welcome to spend the night whenever you want.”
“Thank you,” said Alex.
“Please. No need for such formalities here. But first, before you sleep, I think I should give you something. Do you like to read?”
Alex, whose voracious taste for knowledge had yet to reduce or diminish, told Lord Combermere plainly, “Yes.”
“Well then. In that case, I think you’re going to like what I have to show you.”
What he took her to see was up the first flight of stairs of the Combermere estate. At the exact center of the floor was a library, large enough and filled with enough bookshelves to nearly make her emotionless jaw drop.
“Such a large collection. Do you even know what kind of books you have?”
“Dear girl. If I should pride myself in anything, it should be in my collection of literature. Trust me. I keep only the best.”
Alex roamed the aisles of medium oak shelves tall enough to come within centimeters of the ceiling. Occupying the space were a cluster of books and the smell of old pages. Lord Combermere had arranged his books in alphabetical order, starting from A all the way to Z. Lord Combermere had such a wide array of books that it took more than half an entire aisle to go through all the titles that started with A, only to find another that started with B. B was only slightly longer than A. But longer yet were Lord Combermere’s collection of books that started with the letter E, which spanned exactly two whole aisles.
“Before you go to bed tonight,” Lord Combermere told Alex. “I would like to offer you a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Out of my entire collection, you may pick any five books to keep as your own.”
Instinctively, her lips were on the verge of letting out the words Thank you, but she suddenly remembered what he’d said about such formalities. She struggled to come up with an alternate way to show appreciation, still clinging to the idea that Lord Combermere expected it.
“Thank you,” her lips let out in spite of her prior hesitation.
“You really must grow out of that,” Lord Combermere replied.
A soundless puff of air escaped from Alex’s lips. She proceeded to marvel at the man’s library, taking note of some of the rare first edition books he had in stock. An old print of Shakespeare’s collected works, and a few rare copies of both the Bible and the Qur’an. None of these books happened to hold her interest, especially since she’d already read the later editions. There was no point in reading an older, much more aged print of the same book.
She travelled down the rows once, then twice, and just to make sure her eyes caught every title he had in stock, she made one last sweep. When Alex was done, she had in her hands two encyclopedias (one regarding human anatomy, another on surgical procedures), a first edition copy of Charles Darwin’s The Origin Of Species (a book which, she was ashamed to admit, she hadn’t yet read), and two novels, both from Joyce Carol Oats.
She showed them to Lord Combermere as if for approval. He nodded his head, stopped himself when he saw the last two books.
“I never pegged you for someone who reads novels.”
“I find them interesting.”
“Very well. Come. I’ll show you to the largest guest quarter in the house.”
The largest guest quarter in the house was on the sixth floor, five doors away from Lord Combermere’s own bedroom. With space enough for an old piano, a separate study area, and a private bathroom, there was no questioning the room’s magnanimous size. Not even Alex’s parents, who were among the richest of Suburnia’s elite, had a bedroom that came close to contesting what she saw before her. At least not in size. In cleanliness and overall presentation however, the room left much to be desired.
The walls of Lord Combermere’s largest private quarters were dark green, and the curtains by the windows, pitch black. Even with the lights on, the room had the permeance of a closed coffin. Furthermore, a vast collection of dust had welcomed itself onto every visible surface. Thin, white strands of spider webs hung by the corners, trapping dead mosquitoes and flies alike. Strange to Alex was the fact that in spite of the well-crafted silk nets, there were no spiders to be seen.
“You will sleep here,” said Lord Combermere. “I assume you will be going to school in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Then when you return, perhaps you and I will go pay a visit to whomever it is you have in mind to kill.”
Alex agreed, secretly anticipating the experience that lay ahead of her.
“Well then. Don’t let me keep you up. I trust you’re going to need all your energy for the day ahead.”
Lord Combermere proceeded to leave the room. His hands reached for the doorknob when Alex called for his attention.
“Yes, my dear?”
“Thank you, Lord Combermere,” she said again. And rather than bring out another irksome reply, an entirely different mood came out.
Lord Combermere lowered his head. “You’re welcome. And please, call me Henry.”
“Henry,” she tried it out.
“Better.”
Lord Combermere closed the door right before Alex had the time to utter out another commonly-said phrase. Good night, something her parents told her on so many bedtime occasions that she had unknowingly picked it up as a habit of her own.
As Alex hopped onto the king-sized bed in front of her, the mattress aired out hidden particles of fabric that hung in the air before showering back down. Alex removed the comforter, let it drop on the hardwood floor while she slept with her clothes and shoes for warmth.