Charlaine Harris - An Apple for the Creature

“You’re late . . . and you’ve brought an uninvited guest,” the woman said, her voice a growl.

Agatha, not one to be intimidated by anyone, mirrored the woman’s stance.

“We found this poor girl wandering in the woods. We couldn’t just leave her there, could we?” she replied, incredulous.

The woman backed down immediately.

“Well, I’m sure you couldn’t just leave her out there . . . Miss Averson, is it?”

Agatha nodded, pleased the woman had recognized her.

“I’m Fiona O’Flagnahan, Count Orlov’s associate. And my daughter, Heather, is a huge fan of your television show.”

This pleased Agatha even more.

“It’s so exciting to meet a fan of the show,” she purred, totally ignoring the fact that it was the woman’s daughter, and not the woman, herself, who liked her work.

Angelic features lit from within, she reached out and took the woman’s arm, squeezing it.

“Would you like an autograph? I can do that for you, no problem,” Agatha continued, turning to Happy and snapping her fingers.

“Can we get this woman an autographed photo?”

“I left my bag in the car. Count Orlov’s orders,” Happy said, shrugging helplessly.

Agatha turned back to the woman.

“Give my untouchable assistant your name and address and we’ll get publicity to pop one in the mail pronto.”

The woman smiled, impressed that Agatha possessed an “untouchable” assistant— whatever that meant, Callie thought—and gave Happy her address, spelling out her daughter’s name twice, so Agatha would be sure to write it correctly. When she was finally done, the woman turned her attention back to Callie.

“Why don’t we get your friend to the sitting room where we have the fire going?” the woman said. “That ought to warm her up a bit.”

“I just want to call a taxi,” Callie said, her lips beginning to fade from a garish eggplant to a healthier pale peach now that she was inside.

The woman crooked an eyebrow and shook her head.

“But that’s not possible. There are no electronic devices in this house. Not even a microwave or a computer.” She finished with a flourish of her hand as if she were Vanna White flipping a vowel.

Callie turned to glare at Happy.

“Hey,” she said, “don’t look at me. I’m just the assistant.”

After that pronouncement, it didn’t appear there was anything else left to say on the subject.

“This way,” Fiona intoned, as she opened the door behind her and led them out into a long hallway, which, at first glance, seemed to go on forever, but as they followed Fiona down its path, shortened so Callie could see the end.

“Wow, this place is huge,” Callie said, bare feet padding on the soft, crimson shag runner that had continued with them from the foyer into the hallway.

“It once belonged to the painter Edgar Allan Poe—” Fiona said as she led them deeper into the belly of the house.

“I think you’re mistaken. Edgar Allan Poe wasn’t a painter, he was a poet and writer,” Callie said, interrupting the flow of Fiona’s discourse, so that the older woman turned around to glare at her.

“Um, painter,” Agatha said, dropping a little vocal fry at the end of the word painter .

“I may have hit my head back there, but not hard enough to change the fact that Edgar Allan Poe was a writer.”

Callie looked to Happy, who was quickly becoming her touchstone in a world where she felt totally alien and out of place, but Happy merely shook her head.

Okay, Callie thought, so apparently Edgar Allan Poe is a painter now. Great.

It was beginning to feel like Callie had stumbled into a play that no one had given her a copy of the script to read beforehand—and since she wasn’t too keen on improv, she was having a really hard time keeping up. From now on, she was just gonna keep her mouth shut and work on figuring out a way to call up a wormhole so she could get home.

“Fine, whatever,” Callie said, dropping the subject.

Fiona took this as a cue to resume her monologue.

“As I was saying,” she continued, brushing a strand of blond, strawlike hair off her forehead, “Edgar Allan Poe and his child bride, Virginia, moved into this house in 1846, along with her mother and one servant. . . .”

As Fiona droned on, she led them still farther into the interior of the house. The hallway was clearly the mansion’s main artery from which doors, like capillaries, branched off into hidden rooms and other unseen spaces—and, though it was a two-story dwelling, there didn’t seem to be a stairway anywhere on the premises, which was definitely odd.

There’s way more to this house than meets the eye, Callie mused, but kept the thought to herself.

As they continued onward, it got darker, the flickering of the candlelight sconces that lined the walls—the only light source in the house—making it hard to see what might be lurking in the shadowy corners or even underfoot.

“This place is spooky,” Callie whispered to Happy while, ahead of them, Agatha happily chattered away at Fiona.

“I didn’t want Agatha to accept the count’s invitation,” Happy whispered back, “but she was adamant.”

“Are you sure this guy is on the up-and-up?” Callie asked, pausing midstride to slide her shoes back on. The darkness was giving her the creeps and she did not want to step on something crunchy or slimy in bare feet.

“I did some research—” Happy began, but was cut off when Fiona came to an abrupt stop in front of a locked door—one that looked no different from any of the other ten doors they’d passed on their way to this one.

“Here we are,” Fiona said, pulling a small bronze key from a chain around her neck and inserting it into the door’s lock. “Count Orlov is waiting for you inside.”

This she directed at Agatha, who clapped her hands together, then turned back and gave Happy and Callie a big, sloppy wink.

“Yippee! I’ll see you guys later!”

And then she was pushing past Fiona, her feet dancing with excitement as she crossed the threshold and disappeared into the darkness of the room. Happy, who didn’t look at all like her name at that moment, started to protest, but Agatha was already gone, Fiona slamming the door shut on her retreating back.

“There we go,” Fiona said, slipping the key back into the lock and turning it twice. “Now, let’s get the two of you settled.”

She gestured for Happy and Callie to follow her as she continued down the hall, and though neither of the girls wanted to go with her, neither could figure out a way to refuse the invitation.

As they walked, the darkness inside the house became as pervasive as the cold and wet outside the house, and Callie couldn’t help wishing she was lying back in the snow making snow angels or freezing to quasi-death (she was immortal, so it would be Popsicle City, not Death Town) instead of traipsing through the creepy old Victorian mansion.

“The sitting room is just beyond this door. There’s a fire already in the grate,” Fiona said, her voice sending the silence skittering away into the corners. “All you have to do is go inside.”

They had come to the end of the hallway and only one more door remained to be opened—and a narrow, sickly looking doorway it was. The whole bottom right side of the molding appeared to have been shredded into pieces, like someone, or something, had clawed unsuccessfully at it for days or weeks—or even years—until finally they, or it, had just given up and faded away.

Fiona continued to beckon them forward, her blond updo and camel-colored suit looking oddly sinister in the candlelight—and that was when Callie decided she wasn’t going to go anywhere near the door, regardless of who she offended.