Page 12 of Starry with a Chance of Nightshade

Silence and light bathed the area as the lightning continued. The last thing he felt was his ring slipping from his finger as everything else seemed to fade away.

ChapterFour

Astria

Grimm Cove,South Carolina, eighteen years later…

“This seems like a really bad idea,” I stressed as I sat at the dining room table of the old Victorian home I shared with my university roommates. The house wasn’t going to win any awards or be featured on any magazine covers, at least not in its current state, but my best friends and I had been able to live in it for next to nothing for the past three years. It had also come fully furnished, which made it all the more appealing.

In some ways, the house reminded me of my childhood home, except this one had somewhat up-to-date electricity. I’m not sure it would have passed a home inspection, but it wasn’t from the advent of the amenity either—like my house had been.

In an ironic twist of fate, the house that I’d been living in for the past three years had a running theme throughout it. One with threads to my past. My gaze slid to the two-foot-high bronze statue of Frankenstein’s monster—or what most people thought he looked like. Big, green, flat head, stupid look on his face. The total Boris Karloff version.

The figurine was one of many different items throughout the house that gave a nod to the classic tale. There were a large number of other things, like a bust of Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and a painting of Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man.

My guess was that someone in the house’s past had been a classic horror movie buff. That, or they were just crap decorators. Anything was possible.

Apparently, the last person to have owned the home had been unable to sell it no matter how much he’d lowered the price. Eventually, he’d passed away, and the home had ended up in the hands of the city. From what we’d been told, there had been countless attempts made to rent it out, but the tenants never lasted more than a few nights.

My roommates and I had managed three years just fine. I wasn’t sure what the issue was or why everyone else had bailed, but the place worked for us. Sure, the house had a certain creepy vibe to it, checking all the boxes for the type of home that neighborhood children make up scary stories about (it had that in common with my childhood house too), but it didn’t trip my radar.

At least, it didn’tuse tomake me uneasy. As of late, the basement was somewhat off-putting. It was so unnerving that I’d actually swapped doing laundry with cleaning bathrooms on our house chore list for the past two weeks.

While I’d not been a big fan of basements since I was little, when something happened that left lasting emotional damage, I’d still go down in them. Like my childhood home, this one also had an embalming room in the basement. Though this house had a legit reason for it being there since the house had once been a fully operational funeral home. As far as I knew, no one was down there creating a horde of monsters like my father had stitched together and brought to life.

Super big win in my book.

Two weeks back, deep unease had settled over me when it came to the basement. I didn’t think anything was going to get me when I was down there and knew the fear was in my head. One of the classes I’d only just taken a final in had dealt with subject matter that left buried memories from the past resurfacing.

The class focused on the story of Frankenstein and his monster. Of course, it was as told by an exceptionally gifted teenage girl, not the source himself—a man who was technically my uncle with a number of “greats” before that title. Mary Shelley had been kind enough to weave the truth into fiction and to keep some of the events a secret. But the story itself held grains of truth. Enough that being forced to spend a semester analyzing it, all while knowing the real story, had certainly messed with my head.

But I knew the topic would arise at some point. It was impossible to escape the story of Victor Frankenstein when your major is Gothic literature. Setting aside the personal trauma that resurfaced at the mention of it all, the class had been an easy A.

That was nice.

And I understood my brain had taken the work of fiction combined with the events of my past and twisted it into some weird new fear of a basement I’d been in at least a hundred times prior.

That didn’t mean I was going down to do laundry anytime soon. Nope. Understanding why I was suddenly afraid and overcoming said fear were two vastly different things. For now, the basement was a no-go for me. The only issue that caused was doing my laundry since the washer and dryer were down there.

Thankfully, I’d managed to find a nice group of fellow freaks to live with who didn’t raise a brow at my newfound aversion to the basement or at me swapping laundry for bathroom cleaning. In fact, Jessica, the roommate who had been tasked with bathroom duty this month, seemed downright thrilled to get out of scrubbing toilets.

I’d found a pile of folded clothes on the end of my bed, on top of my purple comforter, when I’d gotten back from class this afternoon, which Jessica had left for me before she’d headed to work at her part-time job. She’d been working at Grimm Cakes since our freshman year of college. They took their name quite literally, offering dark and spooky cupcakes and cakes. For my last birthday she’d brought home a tray full of skull head cupcakes. They were almost too cute to eat. That didn’t stop us from devouring them though.

While my early years had been free from worry about money, which had changed after my father’s descent into madness, the rest had taught me the value of a dollar. I never turned down free food. Demonic-looking baked goods or not.

My understanding of how far a dollar could and could not stretch left me on a hunt for replacement housemates for fall. My current roommates—nine women, all of whom had different backgrounds and upbringings—had become like family to me. It was going to be hard to see so many of them go, but I understood it was time. Half of them were either graduating and going off to other schools for their master’s degrees or heading out into the world to adult.

I could have elected to head to grad school somewhere else, but the town of Grimm Cove had grown on me over the past four years. But, while the cost to live in the house was nominal, it was still more than a broke college student could afford.

I worked part-time at Chicken on a Pitchfork. It was a small place that specialized in chicken on a stick, which was exactly as described. Of course, Grimm Cove, being Grimm Cove, meant the business had a paranormal flare to it. The sticks used for the chicken skewers were made to look like pitchforks and every type of chicken seasoning you could think of had a corresponding name, also supernatural in origin.

Dave, the owner, liked to show up wearing a devil costume while he walked around and greeted patrons in the outdoor dining area. He’d tried to get me to wear one too, but I drew the line there. He was an interesting mix of beach bum vibes meets a slight Jersey accent.

The job wasn’t glamorous, but it helped me make ends meet while also keeping our household supplied with a lot of leftover chicken. I’d be getting more hours soon, once the semester was over.

Last summer, I’d worked full-time for Dave and also bartended at night at a bar just off campus. Unfortunately, there were no extra perks working there. It wasn’t like I could bring home leftover liquor or anything. That was fine. I wasn’t much of a drinker anyway. I just liked the tips. They’d basically paid for my books for my entire senior year. Considering how expensive college textbooks were, that was saying something.

Asking my aunt for help wasn’t an option. She’d already done so much for me. I couldn’t ask her to do more.

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