Page 473

Numb3rs

Jay Varton

It was already evening, half past six, and the Victorian streetlights cast their deceptively warm glow on the wet, empty streets, making the neighborhood seem peaceful in the drizzling rain, even though fog was already lurking behind the white Victorian family homes, coming from the woods.

I pulled my sweater tighter around my shivering body and looked around, but no car was parked here, no one was waiting. Something I had expected, and yet something silly inside me had hoped Larissa would show up again. After all, it had made me remove all the bloodstains in the bathroom.

Just as I was about to turn around and go back into the dark house, I spotted the paperback-sized black box on the worn doormat on the porch floor.

It looked too elegant for the old porch. As if it had strayed here.

No one ever sent me mail. I had always been the family member who had gone empty-handed when my parents and brother had received postcards in the summer and letters at Christmas from family friends and acquaintances.

Just like this morning, when I had looked at the calendar and stared at the 27th of February, I pushed the thought that today was my birthday out of my mind. It was irrelevant, a wasted thought, because none of those who knew would send me a package. They hadn't done so all these years.

Again, I looked around, but apart from the puffed-up ravens on the lanterns and the neighboring houses lit up by pleasant dim lights, there was nothing unusual here.

There were maniacs and murderers roaming through Blairville, but I wasn't afraid of people like that. They seemed to be following me, enjoying taking things that meant something to me. However, there was nothing left that meant anything to me. So why should I be afraid?

As a child, you were taught to fear the unknown, but it was the familiar, the things closest to you, that ambushed you in unexpected situations.

I bent down to pick up the box, took it into the house, where I placed it on the kitchen counter and searched for any labels. Unsuccessful.

My curiosity grew.

Then I carefully removed the lid.

Chapter 64

Julie

Wolf at the Door

Secession Studios, Greg Dombrowski

“Your progress has been underwhelming,” she rasped, stepping around the desk. “What am I supposed to report to her?”

I tried again, because it would be best if she said nothing to Gloria.

Usually, I was able to connect with my ice powers. But whenever I had tried during the past half hour, my memories had slipped back to him.

“I can’t concentrate,” I sighed with exhaustion in my chest and let my hands drop.

Harlow shot around, her eyes glinting. “No need to be rude, young lady!”

Startled, I recoiled and bumped into the side table next to the dark brown leather couch.

“Try again right now,” she demanded, paying little attention to me.

How many times did she want to see me fail?

Her finger pointed to the bowl of coal pieces that she must have fished out of the fireplace somehow.

“That's not a crystal ball.”

I appeared calm, but inside, frustration and grief were battling against a growing inner emptiness.

Larissa and Miles had brought me back to the accommodation the day before yesterday, where Bayla and Larissa had kept coming to check on me while I had cried under my blanket and frozen the entire room.