Page 21 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

Rory is looking at her curiously, his gray eyes like diamonds in the afternoon sun. His mouth turns up into a smirk, briefly, before falling into a neutral white line. His hand is palm down on the table and his fingers jump slightly, as if itching to reach out and touch her again, to see if her fever is gone. “Feel better?” he asks instead.

A waft of summer air plays with a loose tendril of hair that’s escaped her braid, and she tucks it behind her ear before answering. “A little?” Her gaze bounces between Rory and Kane. “Maybe it takes a minute to kick in?”

Kane squawks in agreement. “Perhaps.”

Kane says something else, but she stops listening. There is a sudden high-pitched noise echoing around her. She grits her teeth, realizing the noise is coming from outside—from that small ripple in the middle of the lake. She just catches the movement as she squints out the window. And then, a moment later, it fades, and she shakes her head. “What’s in the lake?” she asks quietly, almost a whisper.

Rory’s frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

“I heard…” She looks out at the lake again, the surface smooth and undisturbed.

Kane hops down from the sill and onto the table. He takes a few eager steps toward her, head bobbing back and forth. “What did you hear?”

She shakes her head again. “I don’t know.” Rory and Kane share a look. “You know what’s out there.” She intends it to be a question, but it comes out as a statement.

Kane clicks his beak. “No, we don’t. But we know something is out there. Something cursed.”

“And that’s all we know,” interrupts Rory, sliding his chair back. “And unless it shows itself, we’re leaving it alone. Understood?”

She doesn’t answer, letting her gaze wander back to the view beyond the kitchen patio.

“I need to hear you say it,” insists Rory. She doesn’t turn, but she’s sure his arms are folded across his broad chest, frown lines carved deep into the stubble around his mouth.

“I understand,” she says, tonelessly.

He leaves his empty jar in the sink, and a minute later the sound of a door closing upstairs resounds through the house.

12

Dark and Mysterious

Calliope

She doesn’t know how many minutes have passed when she finally wrenches her gaze from the lake and observes the empty kitchen. The sun outside is stronger, yet the kitchen feels darker without anyone else in it.

She peeks into a few dusty drawers here and there but finds almost all of them empty. The few that have contents are decidedly mundane: spare bits of twine, a notepad and ballpoint pen missing its cap, a paper clip bent out of shape. She pushes through the kitchen door and stands in the hallway. It provides her with three options: the living room, upstairs, or the front door.

Hun is curled up in her belly like a snake, satiated and sleeping soundly. She teases the point of a caninetooth, surprised to find it still sharp, though noticeably blunter when compared to how it was before her morning drink. Her earlier promise to Hun—Drink first, plan later—is before her, and she has no earthly clue where to begin.

Four short days ago she left her husband of ten years with only a vague notion of her future. She had been so bent on simply escaping her husband’s clutches that she had only planned as far up to the tiny, roadside motel. She tasted freedom for only a few days and now, here she is, trapped again.He is not my husband, she reminds herself. He’s only trying to help her—save her life, as she asked him to.

The manacles rub against her skin, and she observes the front door, reminding herself that there is nothing stopping her from leaving. But where would she go?

She grew up in a small magical community called Broom Hollow, but somehow, she can’t see herself going back there. She tries to recall where exactly she, and the house, are. She left in the night, and hitchhiked, sacrificing a precise location for distance. The road sign by the motel marked the Louisiana border as two hundred thirty miles. Lyon’s Cross is the closest magical city, if she remembers correctly, and the quaint coastal village is full of witches.

She could leave now—she sees the car keys on the small hallway table, right next to the phone. Surely, she could find someone willing enough to unclasp themanacles from around her wrists.

But what if Rory is right and Hun escapes her control? Could she live with herself if she killed someone? The thought of drinking blood directly from a person makes her stomach turn. Heat creeps up the back of her neck, increasing the stuffy, uncomfortable fever that is still pulsing through her body. She flips her hair, already loose from her braid, over her shoulder and away from her neck.

She turns from the front door, for now, and toward the living room. The sparse room is as impersonal as the kitchen, though it still holds a smidgeon of warmth from the previous tenants. Most surprising is the piano, huddled in the shadows of the far corner. She lifts the fallboard, pushing an experimental key.

She’s not sure which key it is, but she’s fairly certain the resulting clanging noise is not the intended result. Maybe she’ll teach herself how to play piano. For a moment, she feels time stretching out in front of her endlessly. She’s spent ten years feeling choked off from that feeling, stifled by her husband and his rules. The possibilities leave her breathless. Her fingers tingle against the ivory keys. Yes, she’ll learn piano. Or, at the very least, she will kill a few hours looking for a book in the library on how to play piano.

Upstairs, the hallway is empty, and, for a moment, she forgets the library. She is drawn to the painting at the end of the hall, rooted by its presence as she cocks her head to the side, wondering what exactly makes itso odd. It’s true that the orientation is more akin to a portrait than a landscape. Is that it? Is it more of a portrait of trees than a landscape?

“I’ll come back to you later,” she says softly to the painting.

The door to the library is ajar, and Calliope pokes her head inside, only to find the room empty. The window at the far end of the room is open, and she makes her way over, leaning out to look for signs of Kane. The whine of cicadas is a gentle hum in the background as the trees that bend around the house sway with the wind. The air almost feels cool on this side, the tree cover casting shadows against the facade of the house.

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