FOUR
Delaney was a girl who had many times been described as looking just like a doll. It was a comparison that she hated, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t pretty damned accurate. She was far from tall, not even reaching five foot five, with long blonde curls that fell halfway down her back. That was when she actually wore it down, which was almost never. She found that it got in the way and so she kept it in a messy bun on top of her head, exactly the way it was as she stood in front of this bizarre place.
She had slightly almond shaped eyes, a trait she had inherited from her father, and they glowed a striking green against her porcelain skin. She was a truly beautiful girl who really did look like she belonged on a shelf of Madame Alexanders, which was why her disposition was so unexpected. It was like her looks made her drive to get what she wanted and go for the really strange and dangerous stories all the more intensely.
It had always driven her parents crazy and it had a tendency to get her into troubling situations such as this one. The thing was, it also gave her the balls to handle the situations once she was in them, and that could only be a good thing. As far as she was concerned, she was going to make this situation her bitch, even if she didn’t yet know what exactly the situation was.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, taking a steadying breath as she felt her heart thumping uncomfortably in her throat. “You can do this. You’ve got this, Laney. It’s just a house, right? I really, really big house.”
Although it was what she needed to tell herself to feel okay enough to move forward, it felt like the understatement of the century. The place was almost too big to even feel comfortable calling a mansion. She had the urge to call it a manor, with its turrets and aged stone and massive, wrought iron fence. The fence alone was more than a little bit formidable, standing at least ten feet tall.
It was a lucky thing that the gate was standing partially open because there was no way she would have been able to scale the fence itself. With one more deep breath, she slipped through the small space and into a wildly overgrown garden. It was the kind of garden she imagined Mrs. Havisham from Great Expectations must have had, the kind of garden that gave the impression of good, happy times long ago spoiled.
There were many beautiful flowers, but they grew in a way that struck her as somehow ominous, dangerous, even. The greenery was even worse with the tangled way it grew underfoot and over her head. Even as she thought this, she tripped over a large vine-like thing growing across the cracked courtyard floor and almost went sprawling across the ground. It was only her grace and the palms of her hands that stopped her descent, and when she looked at those palms they were badly scraped and already starting to bleed.
“Awesome,” she hissed to herself, more annoyed than injured. “Just what I was hoping for. I’m going to show up on some stranger’s doorstep and bleed on him. Who doesn’t want to open the door to a strange girl bleeding all over the place?”
She thought that whoever lived inside this place might not be too keen on opening the door to a girl who was talking to herself either, but it was a little late for that. Besides, on second thought, anyone who lived in a house that looked this unruly, might be the sort of person who also did some solo talking. It was definitely not out of the realm of possibilities, that much was for sure.
Still feeling a little shaken and now with palms that stung badly, she made her way (far more cautiously this time) to the home’s front door. Assuming that this was a home, and not some satanic ritualistic spot, which she thought might also be a possibility. She did her best to put on her “don’t fuck with me” look and knocked on the door.
There was nothing. It remained so silent that, for a moment, she wondered if she had just imagined her knocking in the first place. It didn’t seem likely, but she guessed it was always possible. She lifted her hand to rap on the door harder, and this time something actually happened. Nobody came to answer the door, but it opened anyway. It just creaked open as if it had been waiting for her to get there for some time.
“Oh, come on. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She looked around her, half expecting someone to be crouched behind a bush somewhere and watching to see what she would do. But there was nobody, just her and probably many a hidden little rodent waiting for her to go so they could go about their rodent business. What she was about to do definitely fell under the umbrella of breaking and entering, which should have mattered to her but didn’t.
She had been invited here after all, albeit by a strange drunk man’s card, and the owner of the home had left the door unlocked. Hell, it was more than unlocked. It was partially open, for Christ’s sake! If that wasn’t telling her that she should come right in and make herself at home, she didn’t know what would be.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
Her whisper hardly made a dent in the substantial, echoing foyer. She wasn’t even sure whether or not she wanted it to be heard. Maybe there wasn’t anyone home, anyway. Maybe the point of this whole excursion wasn’t to meet with someone, after all. Maybe it actually had something to do with the place itself. It had been large on the outside, but now that she was inside she could almost feel her jaw hit the floor.
She had never seen a place as large as this that functioned as an actual residential home. The only frame of reference she had for it was the one trip she had taken to New York City and standing in the middle of Grand Central Station.
It might have seemed like a stupid comparison to someone else, but to her it felt absolutely correct. In sharp contrast to the opulence of the marble floor and mahogany balcony of the sweeping staircase, however, she saw more of the dishevelled nature from the front gardens.
The floor was littered with brown, broken leaves and she even saw a series of thin vines crawling up one of the walls. It must have worked its way through the brick and plaster of the wall itself, which was nothing less than astounding. What the hell was this place? How could something so beautiful have been let go in such a massive way?
“Hello, there. Anyone home? I’ve come. Just like the card told me to.”
She crept further into the mansion of a home, peering through a dark so thick it looked smoky to her. Her heart was out of control at this point, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps, but she had no plan of retreating. She moved close to the walls, doing her best to blend in just in case someone was there and watching her make her progress.
Even the wallpaper, which she brushed against and somehow made her feel safer, felt expensive. It was thick and although dusty and peeling, nicer than any other wall covering she had seen. Her fingers trailed along its frayed edges, letting them reassure her that she was really here, that she hadn’t slipped into a dream, after all.
In doing this, the house led her into a massive room that could only be described as a ball room. Really, there was no other name for it. It looked like the ballrooms she had seen in movies about times that had passed by long ago. She walked into the very middle of the room and then stopped. She turned a full circle, feeling absurdly underdressed despite the fact that there wasn’t actually anything going on. It didn’t matter. She felt like she had crashed some kind of grand party that everyone but her could see.
“Well here you are! What in the world are you doing in here? Did you come to learn the waltz? Because if so, I fear that your visit will leave you sorely disappointed. I’m afraid I haven’t brushed off my dancing shoes in a very long while.”
Delaney let out a little shriek and jumped what felt like five feet off the ground. She whirled around so quickly she made herself dizzy. The combination of the extreme shock, her pumping adrenaline, and the hangover and lack of food made her physical condition less than ideal. For a moment, she thought she might actually faint. Except that was ridiculous, wasn’t? People didn’t actually faint out of fright anymore, right? Did they?
“Miss! I’m over here. No, not over there, over here! Turn this way!”
She did as she was commanded, too stunned to do anything else. She didn’t know what she expected to find, but it wasn’t what was there. It was an old man, but not the same one from the bar. He was short, very short for a man. If he was even five foot four she would have been shocked.
He had very, very white hair that was slowly receding from his original hairline and thin horn rimmed glasses so smudged she could actually see his fingerprints on the glass from her spot several feet away. He had the faintest shadow of a white beard starting to make its appearance, giving off the impression that he had been preoccupied with something and simply forgotten to shave.
In the brief amount of time that she had looked at him, she had seen him push his glasses up onto his nose half a dozen times. He looked like a child. He looked lost, which wasn’t good because she had zero idea of what was going on.
“Now please, don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what? What am I doing?”
“That!”
“But I don’t know that you mean by ‘that’! You’re confusing me!”
“The passing out. That’s what you’re doing. Well, you haven’t done it just yet, but I can see you thinking about it. It’s all over your face, and it would be so much better if you could just stay conscious. It would save us some time, and I’m afraid I have to tell you that I’m not quite the rescuing type. If you fall, I wouldn’t trust me to catch you.”
It was such an apologetic thing to say, such a strange and unexpected thing to say, and something about it jolted Delaney out of the almost paralyzing nervousness she had lapsed into. She squinted, looking at this odd man more closely, and realized that she recognized him. The only question was, from where? It wasn’t a personal connection, she was pretty sure of that. If it had been things wouldn’t have been so strained and awkward and, presumably, she would have recognized him right off.
Was he a man she had waited on some time in the past? Had she pissed him off without knowing it and now would be made to suffer some kind of weird revenge thing? But no, she didn’t think that was it, either. He didn’t give off the impression of a guy who would turn out to be some kind of crazy serial killer or anything like that.
He seemed more like the kind of man who would just faint dead away at the sight of too much blood. On top of that, now that her initial shock was wearing off, Delaney just didn’t get the feeling that this guy was of any danger to her. It was an instinct and although there were many people who would tell a girl not to put too much faith in her own instincts, Delaney most definitely did.
Her instincts were one of the things she trusted the most. They were the thing that had brought her here and she had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t see her through whatever this meeting was until the bitter end.
“That’s better.” He spoke nervously, realizing the smudges on his lenses and removing his glasses to give them a good wipe down, “that’s much better indeed. I wasn’t lying about the catching you, you know. It really does give me the most awful willies, seeing people ill. I’m not the sort of man to react in the knick of time. Not in the least.”
It was him taking the glasses off that did it. The slim little things were why she hadn’t recognized him right off the bat. He never wore glasses in the photographs. Never, or at least not in the few pictures that had managed to circulate of him, all of which were from many years ago,.
The aging didn’t matter though, not when he had the glasses in his hand. When she saw him bare-faced like that she knew who he was without a shadow of a doubt.
“Oh my god!”
“What?”
“You!”
“You? What you? What about me?”
“You’re Augusten Grady. I mean, I’m sure you know that, of course you do, but that’s who you are, isn’t it?”
His face looked both resigned and relieved at the same time. She couldn’t even really imagine what it was like to have someone know who you were without ever having met you before, but it had to be pretty freaking bizarre. And now that she knew who he was, she was also recalling all the information she had learned about him over the years.
Which was a lot. Augusten Grady wasn’t some d-list celebrity or anything like that. Augusten Grady was a bona-fide legend, a very reluctant star. He had written a couple of novels in the late seventies that had gripped the entire nation, then causing the whole world to want to have even a small piece of him.
Delaney could remember thinking in high school, back when she had read one of Augusten’s books and sat through many a lecture about the man who wrote it, how terrible it must have been for him. And how unfair. He had just wanted to write, right?
He had wanted to write and because he was so freaking good at it, people had basically stalked him. She didn’t blame him for wanting to go underground. She was sure she would have been every bit as reclusive had she been in his shoes. Although he had continued to write sporadically, Augusten had all but vanished from the world.
Each time something of his had come out into the market there had been a resurgence of interest in what had become of the odd author. People would go looking for him and then, after a surprisingly short amount of time, would forget about him entirely. It was shocking, but as it turned out, he had been right next to her home town all along.
“Yes, my dear, that is who I am. I’m surprised you knew that.”
“Surprised? But you’re famous. Why wouldn’t I know who you were?”
“Well, for several reasons, actually. For starters, you’re quite young. I’ve always assumed that people as young as you wouldn’t know who I was.”
“Of course, I do. I read your work in school.”
“Did you? Oh dear. Well, I do need to offer my apologies for that one. But I must say, even with that, I wouldn’t have thought you would recognize me. There haven’t been any pictures taken of me in decades. I had thought that might make it less apparent. You know, who I was.”
“I don’t know. It might. To some people, it really might. I just have an eye for faces. It kind of goes along with what I do.”
“Which is what?”
Delaney felt her face burning. She had spoken too quickly. She was talking to Augusten like she was actually the reporter she wanted to be. Except that she wasn’t. She was just some failed waitress desperate for a job that didn’t even exist. Never in her life had she felt so foolish. All she wanted to do in that moment was disappear. She just wanted to find some place to be where she didn’t feel like such a failure.
“How about this, dear: why don’t you join me in the study? I don’t think either one of us fancies a dance at the moment. Please tell me if I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re not wrong. But I just... I don’t see what you could want to talk to me about. The thing is, I’m not anything. I don’t do anything.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
He didn’t allow her the chance to go disagree with him, instead turning his back on her and walking out of the ballroom. What was she supposed to do but follow? She didn’t want to just stand there looking like an idiot and Augusten seemed pretty confident that the two of them had something further to discuss.
Whether she agreed with him or not seemed to be of little consequence. Reluctantly, she trailed after him, still gawking slightly at all the slightly decayed magnificence she saw around her. Her awe only increased when she made it into the library. This was the one room in the broken-down mansion that hadn’t been allowed to decay in any way. It was lovely, full of rich jewel toned fabrics and bookcases that went all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
She would have killed to get her hands on those books, could have locked herself up with them for months, years even. She would have loved to do that very thing, except that she was pretty sure that wasn’t why he had brought her into the room.
“Do you like it?”
“Hm?”
“The library.” Augusten chuckled, sitting at his large mahogany desk and looking around him with a deep warmth embedded in the lines etched in his face. “I was just wondering if you like the library. You’ve got a look on your face that very closely resembles the way this room makes me feel.”
“It’s amazing! I mean, seriously, this place is awesome. I’ve never seen a room like it outside of the public library.”
“Exactly. That’s why I love this room. And why it’s the perfect place for us to have our little chat, I think. Please, sit.”
She took one of the carved chairs in front of his desk, feeling like a kid having been called into the principal’s office. She felt small, which made her pretty damned sure that whatever it was he wanted from her was something she wouldn’t be able to give.
“Why so nervous, Delaney?”
“I’m not, I’m just- Wait. How did you know my name?”
“I’m sorry, does that disturb you?”
“Um, a little bit, I guess. There’s no reason why you should. At least none that I can see.”
“It’s simple, really. I’ve been following you.”
“Following me? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Oh, oh no! I’m sorry, I just now realized what that sounded like. I don’t mean that I’ve been following you really. Not in person. Good lord, no. I haven’t left this place in quite some time. Not for years and years. More years than I care to remember, I must admit.”
“Okay, well that’s good. I still don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, though.”
“I only meant to say that I’ve followed your work.”
“But that’s not possible.”
“True,” he answered with a conciliatory nod that reminded her of something her father would do. “There hasn’t been a lot of it. Not as much as you would have liked, I expect. But the things you’ve have published I’ve enjoyed immensely. Wonderfully strange little fiction publications those are.”
“They aren’t fiction!”
She hadn’t meant to shout, but it was exactly what she had done. She had shouted at him with enough force for it to have pulled her up out of her chair and back onto her feet again. Augusten just sat there with a silly, shocked look on his face, but at that point she couldn’t have cared less. Whether he had meant to or not, he had dug right down into the heart of the thing that hurt Delaney most. She was well aware that almost nobody believed that the things she wrote about were at all based in reality.
Almost nobody believed in the underworld, the supernatural and dark parts of the world that couldn’t be made sense of with science. People didn’t believe in it and so the only publications who would take her work were weird little fiction magazines, none of the actual newspapers would ever give her the time of day. It drove her crazy. All day every day, some part of her was thinking about the fact that the job she was meant for didn’t actually exist.
“Oh dear. There I go again, don’t I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you just tell me why you wanted me to come here, okay? Because, so far, none of this is making any kind of sense at all.”
“Of course, it isn’t. I apologize. This is something you’ll learn about me, should we come to the decision to continue our meetings. My brain works too quickly for me to keep up with it sometimes. It’s fine for me because, of course, I’ve got full access to my own thoughts. But for those unfortunate souls around me? Well, I think it’s safe to say that it makes conversing with me just a little bit difficult.”
“Okay, I can see that. But it would be really great if you just told me what you want. I’m pretty tired. I had-”
“A late night last night. Yes, Brady told me. From the looks of him this morning, he had a rough one himself.”
“The guy who gave me the card with the address. His name is Brady?”
“It is. Did he really not tell you?”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t do much talking at all, actually. He didn’t strike me as the sociable type.”
“Ah, Brady. He is the most helpful man, I must say, but he certainly isn’t the most couth. It’s no matter. Yes, his name is Brady. I sent him to convince you to come to see me.”
“But why?”
“Because. I think it’s time you realize that you aren’t the only one who sees what this world really has to offer. And this, if I may say so, is the perfect place to start.”