Charlaine Harris - An Apple for the Creature

“Looks like it,” Happy said, her words ripe with distaste.

“Is that where we’re going?” Agatha asked, looking to Happy for the answer as they continued their procession through the snow.

The wind and precipitation had picked up as soon as they’d started walking, dusting the sidewalk with a thin layer of wet powder that made the trek almost unbearable for Callie. Finally, Happy and Agatha had taken pity on her, each girl taking an arm and helping her navigate the quickly accumulating sludge.

“I think this is it,” Happy replied, pausing long enough to pull a piece of lined notebook paper from the back pocket of her jeans. “We’re going to 4316 East Elm Street, so, yeah, it looks like the right number.”

“You’re kidding me. You’re taking an acting class there?” Callie said in between shivers as she pointed up at the Victorian monstrosity that loomed above them.

“Oh, I know it looks scary, but it won’t be once we get inside. I promise,” Agatha said, eyes sparkling with excitement. “Count Orlov only offers this master class once every three years and he chooses a new, haunted setting each time. Believe me, it’s so exclusive, it’s . . .”

Apparently, Agatha couldn’t think of a word that was more exclusive than exclusive and let the sentence trail off. Callie looked over at Happy, who shrugged.

“So maybe this is a dumb question, but why didn’t you guys just drive here?”

“Orlov’s rule,” Agatha said, rolling her eyes. “Everyone has to park back at the Waldbaum’s grocery store parking lot, so they can then come humbly on foot to seek the count’s instruction.”

“That’s why you were walking?”

“Isn’t it a lovely gesture? All that humbleness in one place.” Happy grimaced.

“Happy, don’t be mean,” Agatha said, her blue eyes flashing. “Count Orlov is a very humble person! Besides, I don’t pay you to make jokes at my expense.”

“I’m Agatha’s personal assistant,” Happy said, answering Callie’s unspoken question.

“My untouchable personal assistant—”

“Untouchable?” Callie asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” Agatha said, looking bored. “Everyone knows an untouchable is someone who absorbs psychic power. They’re like a negative psychic. Everyone who’s anyone has one.”

Callie didn’t like being called stupid. It was a word she found highly distasteful—and it made her want to dig in her heels right there on the sidewalk and not move another inch.

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Callie said, feeling frustrated by the conversation. “And it’s not stupidity. It’s a lack of local knowledge. Your world is way kookier than mine.”

“Which leads us back to our bargain—” Agatha chirped, but Callie shook her head.

“No divulging of information until I’m between four walls and a roof,” Callie said, slipping in the snow. “Which actually brings me to another question: What’s this Orlov dude gonna say when an uninvited guest shows up with you guys?”

It appeared Agatha hadn’t thought of this eventuality, but luckily, Happy was on top of things. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and pressed On, the screen lighting up even before her finger had released the button.

“I was thinking I could call you a taxi once we got there—”

“No! You’ll get us kicked out of the master class!” Agatha shrieked, reaching for the cell phone, but only managing to knock the electronic device out of Happy’s hand, where it bounced once on the sidewalk and fell into the street.

“Agatha was asked not to bring any electronic recording devices with her,” Happy offered in explanation, stepping off the curb and out onto the snow-covered asphalt, the knees of her jeans getting wet as she bent down to collect the tiny black cell phone from the snowy gutter.

She pressed the On button again, but this time the screen—which had a new jagged crack across it—stayed black.

“You broke it,” Happy said, giving Agatha a nasty look, but the blond girl was made of Teflon, and Happy’s distress slid right off her.

“Good, now we won’t get in any trouble.”

Happy tried the On button one more time, without any luck, then she slid the unresponsive phone back into her pocket, a sour cast to her face.

“Well, I guess you’re stuck with us for a little while longer,” Happy said as she and Agatha left the safety of the sidewalk and began the long climb up the icy set of rickety wooden steps leading to the Victorian mansion.

Callie—shivering, wet, and miserable to the core—took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before setting her foot on the first step and following the girls skyward. The steep, winding stairway would eventually deposit them on the Victorian’s large wraparound porch, but the climb to the summit was treacherous. With each successive step, Callie felt her legs shake harder, the heels she wore making it necessary for her to use the stair’s splintered handrail to keep herself upright, every handhold eliciting a small yelp of pain as the wood broke off and inserted itself into the skin of her palms.

“This sucks!” Callie yelled up at the girls, who were far ahead of her, having managed the wayward stairs with the ease of two little mountain goats.

Callie realized if she wanted to reach the porch sometime in that century, she was going to have to accept the possibility of frostbite and take her shoes off. Reaching down, she released one foot from its calfskin prison, then the other, stuffing both shoes under her left arm so she could continue the climb in splinter-free bliss, her ability to balance intact again.

Why am I even doing this? Callie asked herself. Why don’t I just open up a wormhole and get the hell outta here?

The answer was very simple. No matter how many times she closed her eyes and willed a wormhole into being, she just couldn’t seem to make anything happen. For some reason her Death abilities were limited here in this strange new world she’d unwittingly come to inhabit. She wasn’t capable of creating even a spark of magic—and she didn’t know if it was because she’d bumped her head on the ground when she’d been unceremoniously deposited in this alternate version of Queens or if her new environment was the culprit. Either way, she was kinda screwed, as far as making a quick getaway was concerned.

“Hurry up!” Agatha called down to her.

Callie wanted to say something snarky in return, but she was too out of breath from the climb to do anything but clamber up the last few remaining stairs and heave her tired self onto the porch.

“I hate . . . this house . . . already,” Callie wheezed, as, barefoot, she leaned her forehead against the wooden railing.

“Are you okay?” Happy asked, touching Callie’s shoulder.

“Just. Out. Of. Breath.”

Callie continued to lean against the railing while somewhere in her unconscious awareness, she heard Agatha knock on the front door, heard it open, and then, to her utter relief, found the three of them being shepherded into the light of the house’s front foyer.

“Thank God,” Callie breathed, as warmth enfolded her like a blanket.

The room was small and cramped; red velvet Victorian print wallpaper covered the otherwise bare walls while a red shag runner bisected the polished dark-wood floor, splitting the space in two. There was only one other exit, a dark-wood door cut into the wall directly opposite the front entrance.

A tall woman in a camel pantsuit, her long blond hair piled haphazardly on top of her head, stood in front of this other door, a hand placed delicately on either hip. To her right sat two fawn-colored spindle chairs wedged between a drop-leaf side table with a dying potted plant on its top and an antique coatrack, but she didn’t offer anyone a seat. In fact, she didn’t look too happy to see them at all.