And then nothing happened, thundered through me, and I felt the past few hours untick and unspool and then one day I woke up in a bed at my parent’s house, with a little email in my inbox inviting me to Chicago for a job interview at Feedworthy, and no memories of anything.
Chapter 11
Vic’s sedan pulled up. It was Chartreuse. I couldn’t really say much about it, except that it was nice. It seemed to suit his image. He rolled the window down and greeted me. There was a weird, easy feeling between us. It had been there ever since that first night we met—the night Eddie’s girlfriend had tried to kill me.
When Eddie suggested Vic and I go to Tremblay Manor together, I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I mean, sure, yeah, I was bummed out that Eddie was busy. But there was something so comforting to Vic’s presence. Like we’d known each other forever.
The caretaker had given us an extra set of keys. We staked out the whole place. Even dug around in all the paperwork. Finding the information on the story was easy. What was not easy was finding the little folded up square of parchment with familiar handwriting on it.
I read it, and then passed it to Vic, and he read it, and then passed it to me, and then we sat and stared at one another for what felt like an eternity.
“This can’t be real,” we both said, at once, and then laughed.
“Wouldn’t you remember all this?” I asked.
“I’ve got a normal human-sized brain,” he said. “I don’t have room for everything, I don’t think.”
We set up cameras. Ran EVP devices and set up some infrared traps. There was nothing. Despite the Worm Moon on the horizon, there wasn’t a single soul stuck in Tremblay Manor, and as disappointed as I was, no lead was still information enough for an article.
“I like you,” Vic said. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. But I feel like we’ve known each other forever. Like. We were just supposed to be together.”
“I’m with Eddie,” I said, though I could not help but feel flattered.
“I know,” Vic said. “And, yeah, Eddie’s my friend. I know this might make me a jerk, but I can’t just sit on these feelings.”
“Vic,” I said.
“Just one kiss,” Vic said. “Just one. And if there’s nothing there, that’s it. I won’t bring it up again. We can drop it. Chalk it up to the moon tonight.”
I was conflicted. Eddie was… well, he was the first one to stoke a flame in my chest, but this feeling with Vic. This seemed timeless. This seemed destined. This seemed like. I don’t know. Some moon-kissed fantasy.
“One kiss,” I said. “Our secret.”
I leaned up, and he bent down, and our lips met. And then all the times we had and had not been with one another came up and out again, memories that never were bobbing to the surface, and it was like something from a fairytale, like some kind of magic, and then we were panting against one another, clothes being torn and rolling on the ground in a room, the Worm Moon’s weird gloom casting its dripping orange hue all over our forms.
Things that were not there cavorted in the shadows, and I watched Vic’s red eyes piercing into my own, and then suddenly we were there, together, both in an explosion of pleasure, and nobody else but the empty wood in the Mansion was there to hear our cries of bliss.
And afterwards. I wasn’t sure how to feel. So I just felt satisfied.
Chapter 12
Guilt started to hang on me like a Sword of Damocles as weeks passed by. Weekends were mine and Eddie’s, but weeknights were mine and Vic’s. Eddie and I stayed in bed and watched TV and laughed and made love. Vic and I went and saw museums, paid attention to architecture. We watched documentaries. Vic talked about his past. He was older than Eddie, at least by two hundred years or so, and the life he’d lived was fascinating. At least. All the bits he could remember.
And yet there was something so modern about him. He’d been able to evolve, to grow, to transform. I wondered at the potential of people to change. Somewhere in my mind were never-there memories of a Vic that had been callous and cruel and mean-hearted. I wondered who that man was, and I wondered what had been done to him to make him that way.
The more I knew of him, the more I wanted to know of him. But there was still that magnetic attraction to Eddie. Eddie could make me laugh. He could inspire me. He was fearless, a protector. Vic was like an enigma. A puzzle box I could not help but want to tinker with, something fascinating and complex that I yearned to take apart piece by piece.
* * *
“Tamara,” I said.
“Girl,” she said back.
We were sitting at my favorite coffee shop. Tamara had agreed to meet me here on my lunch break at work. I was halfway up to my armpits with my article on Tremblay Manor.
“I need help.”
“You’re damn right, you do,” she said. “Come on, girl. Get your head together. You are cruising for a serious bruising if this doesn’t work out the right way.”
