Caged in Darkness (7 page)

“Morning!” She stopped at the counter and
poured her morning cup of coffee, took a testing sip, while gazing
at us over the rim of the mug. “Did I interrupt something?” Her
eyebrow arched in a way that always reminded me of Ash.

Ash quickly responded, “Nope.” He shoved the
last bite of Frosted Flakes into his mouth and moved to bring his
empty bowl to the kitchen sink.

I grabbed an apple, from the bowl of fresh
fruit Ash placed on the table earlier and watched as he leaned back
against the sink behind Maye.

“What were you two chatting about then? The
room feels positively frigid.” She feigned a shiver.

“I believe we were talking about how I am a
klutz and Ash is bull headed, or something like that.” I jumped up
from the table and walked to the dining room side of the counter. I
looked at Ash innocently, expecting him to comment, but he didn’t.
Instead, he looked away and began to leave.

I frowned at his back, but he stopped in the
veil between the kitchen and the hallway leading to the front of
the house. He looked over his shoulder and said, “I promised
Griffin I’d meet up with him and I’m already late. See ya later.”
Ash then looked me directly in the eyes and disappeared into the
hallway.

“Bye!” Maye and I shouted in sync.

“What was that about?” I asked Maye, though
I don’t know why I thought she would have the answer.

“You tell me. I wasn’t the one in here
talking to him. Did you sleep well?”

“At first, no. Later I did though.” I
polished off my apple and addressed the elephant in the room. “What
time are we leaving?”

Maye paused between sips. “We are going to
leave as soon as I finish my cup of coffee. Be a dear and fetch my
shoes. The black flats with the little swirls on the side.”

I headed to the room in search of her flats.
While sorting through the debris of shoes tossed haphazardly into a
pile at the back of Maye’s closest, I came across an album.

On the cover of the album was the name
“Cross”, which was my line. I opened the album to the first page to
find a family tree, which dated back to the original members. When
I continued to turn, the family tree was replaced by drawings, then
portraits, and eventually pictures of people. I grabbed the album
and the shoes.

After placing the album beneath the covers
of my bed, I jogged downstairs to greet Maye. She was waiting at
the door with her car keys in her hand and a large tote over her
shoulder.

“Good, you found them!” She beamed and sat
to place the shoes on her feet.

Our ride to my parents’ estate was riddled
with silence. Too many emotions overwhelmed me and Maye seemed
tense. It wasn’t long before we pulled up in front of the house. I
sat still in the seat after the car went silent and built the
courage to go inside.

Ash

I climbed into my SUV, but didn’t put the
car in drive. I looked out the windshield at my house. When
Savannah fell against me it had been difficult to pull away. Our
noses touched and I felt a pounding need to close the space between
our lips. I wanted to taste her.

I shook my head; trying to wipe the thoughts
from my mind. When she first came to live with us, I was protective
of her, but over the years we had become closer. She began to
eclipse everything in my world, which is why I needed to stop these
kinds of thoughts.

Last night, I woke to Savannah’s nightly
screaming, but it was worse than usual. In response, I tried to
quiet her. She had been in a deep, fitful sleep and remained
unaware of my presence when I slipped into her room.

Careful not to wake her, I eased myself onto
the bed and her restless movements quieted. I held her face,
smoothed her cheek with my thumb, and sang lightly in her ear.
Savannah curled her body around mine.

I felt strange being in her bed when she
wasn’t aware I was there, and tried to detach myself, but she
pulled me in closer. I laid on my back with her legs tangled in
mine, and her head resting on my chest. Her smooth legs twitched,
and I gently eased her shoulder away, but she lifted her head.

“Ash.” Her eyes were mere slits. I paused in
the hope that she would fall back to sleep. “Ash…”

“It’s me.”

“Mmmm… stay.” Her voice was barely audible,
as she grazed her lips against mine and her head fell back against
the pillow into a deep sleep.

I don’t think she remembered her actions
from last night, but considering my reaction to the memory, my body
did. I spent most of the night calming her with my presence and
voice. However, at dawn I managed to remove myself and get back to
my room. It had been a painful night. I winced at the memory.

My best friend, Griffin was usually the one
who had the heightened sex drive. Lately, mine had kicked into high
gear when I was around Savannah. It was beginning to worry me.
Maybe Griffin was right and I needed to get laid, but I was never
one of those guys who had casual hook ups.

Groaning, I pulled out of the driveway. If
there was ever a good time to visit Isis, it was now. Somehow, the
relief that she would provide, left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Instead, I turned my car towards the preserve. Maybe a walk would
clear my head.

Savannah

I mimicked Maye’s foot placement towards the
deceptively plain house. The lower section of the house was
multicolored stone and the upper portion was painted light yellow.
A wraparound porch gave the home a Victorian air. The grounds were
unkempt from neglect over the years, but the house was still
beautiful. It stood calm against the suburban storm raging around
it. The thunder screamed across the sky slapping the clouds into a
heated turmoil that flew towards the south.

I wasn’t surprised my parents’ estate took
this long to sell. From the outside it looked like an ideal family
home. However, its history was not conducive towards “baby making”
and family holiday dinners.

My mother and father had been discovered on
the property; their lifeless forms frozen solid against the kitchen
tile. Horrified expressions were taped across their features, and
strange markings left angry welts against their flesh. Maye kept
this information from me until she felt I was strong enough.

The police came to the house to investigate
my parents’ deaths and found the answer to serial vanishings in the
area. In the basement, the police found a giant freezer filled with
vials of blood from each of my parents’ victims. The police found
evidence they considered proof of their involvement in a cult. The
world pronounced my parents, as participants in a serial killing
spree, encouraged by a satanic cult. They were considered the
greatest mass murders the state had ever seen. That was one point I
completely agreed with. This house was not a home to build happy
memories, but a museum echoing the nightmares of my past.

Maye pulled a key from the chain around her
neck and opened the front door. I stepped forward, prepared to
enter when the faint smell of sandalwood incense wafted through the
opening to tease my memories.

The door opened into a dark foyer with a
small den to the right and a large dining room to the left. I
thought that once I was inside, the panic would consume me, but
instead I felt detached. I couldn’t hear the younger version of me
screaming in horror or my parents’ victims begging for mercy. The
house was barren, and I was vacant of emotion. My parents had taken
everything from me. They hadn’t even left me enough to react to the
destruction of my innocence.

The den was where my cage had been kept; it
was gone now. Most of the furniture had been sold, but a few items
remained. The books were still housed in wall sized bookcases, my
parents’ altar was still in the dining room, and a rocking chair
leaned in the far corner of their library. These were the only
pieces of evidence that someone had lived here.

“I’m going to look around in the basement. I
am sure you would rather not go in there.” Maye cupped my cheek
with her palm and looked me in the eyes. “If it gets to be too much
for you shout out for me. I’ll understand.”

I nodded. “I think I’ll be okay. Um, what
kind of items should I be looking for?” I bit my lip and gazed
around in puzzlement.

“Just follow your instincts. Your blood will
lead you to what is rightly yours. Don’t worry about the books. I’m
going to have them transferred to the Meadow Falls library in the
morning.”

I watched Maye’s retreating back, as she
opened a door and descended towards the basement. The idea of her
being in that torture chamber gave me the chills. Maye was the
essence of everything my parents had not been. The idea of someone
I love entering a place filled with such hate, did not sit well
with me.

She wanted me to follow my instincts, but
there weren’t any to be had. I considered what to do first. I could
go room to room, floor to floor, or just randomly pick rooms until
I had seen them all. One thing was for sure, the kitchen would be
my last stop. I wouldn’t be able to look at the tile without
imagining my parents’ blood flowing between the cracks. Though
their deaths did not haunt me; I had enough death to last a
lifetime.

Turning right, I entered the den. It was a
bland room with wooden floors. I could make out the scratch marks
my nails had left on the finish, and shivered. From what I
remembered of this room, there wasn’t anything special about it.
Now, without any furniture to give it a lived in air, it was even
drearier. Trailing my fingers across the dusty drapes, I followed
the length of the walls all the way around until I approached the
library door. Maye had said not to worry about the books, but in
truth the library was the only room I had fond memories of.

Before my parents became the embodiment of
evil, my mother occasionally had a maternal side. The memories were
faint, but I remembered her reading to me beside the fireplace. As
I aged, my mother’s mental state deteriorated and her chaotic mood
swings came more often. Eventually, her sanity was completely
immersed in evil, and there was no sign of the mother who taught me
to read.

The rocking chair we used to curl up on was
in the corner now. The fireplace was dead, and the floor contained
scorch marks. I sat down on the burgundy rocking chair. My horrible
memories crashed down around me. The tears came quickly and drifted
down my cheeks to land on the velvet chair. Not wanting to stain
the velvet, I leaned forward to bury my face in my hands and let
forth a keening cry. It was the cry of a wounded animal, a woman
who just buried her child, and a little one who lost their first
pet. It was a cry from my wounded soul.

My breath came in pants, as I tried to
stifle my tears. Brushing the salty moisture from my flesh, I
looked down at the rug beneath the chair. When I leaned forward, my
only thought was to save the chairs fabric, but I hadn’t noticed
the rug enough to protect it. The strange thing was that I didn’t
remember seeing the rug, until after my tears fell onto it. A
memory teased my mind and I vaguely recalled learning about the
royal lines among witches.

There were ten royal families who were the
first witches. The Cross family was one of the most powerful of the
royals. Maye had told me during one of my lessons that the royal
lines had learned to protect their secrets by ensuring that only
one of theirs could find them. They used blood, sweat, saliva,
and…tears to do this.

I pulled the chair toward the middle of the
room and knelt beside the rug. From a distance the rug looked
Persian, but up close it was more like pixels that didn’t quite
blend together. It was like looking at a photograph so closely that
it no longer resembles a picture, just fragments of random
colors.

I half expected my fingers to pass straight
through the rug, but they felt solid wood when I touched it. There
was a board on top of the real floor that was half an inch high,
and camouflaged by the rug. Why would my parents go through this
much trouble to hide something and yet make it so obvious that it
was there?

The board wasn’t difficult to pry away, and
once it was removed from the space, it looked like an ordinary
board. In its place was a tiny indentation in the floor. It
revealed a small lever resembling an elongated door knob. I didn’t
hesitate; I reached to pull the lever, and the bookcase against the
wall, glided forward and to the left. It left a hole that was
barely big enough for an adult to fit through.

I vaguely wondered if finding this lever had
been the type of instinctual feelings Maye had talked of. The
secret pathway was jet-black. It was difficult to imagine light
ever being held within its walls.

Thanks to modern technology, I was able to
use my cell phone as a flashlight. After I tugged the phone from
the pocket of my jeans the pathway lit up. It revealed a narrow
hallway. Cobwebs and I imagined spiders, hovered around as I moved
forward.

Pointing my cell phone towards the back
wall, I kept my right hand on the wall to make sure I didn’t miss a
turn and to brush the webs from my face. I could still feel the
silk graze my neck and shoulders. After about 300 feet, I felt a
draft graze my bare arms. The source of the draft was a small
rectangular room. It resembled an attic in an ancient house, with
cobwebs connecting various artifacts that were layered in dust and
the occasional sheet draped furniture.

A five foot long metal chest sat in the
middle of the room, and when I tried to open it I found that it
needed a key. A bar similar to a ballet barre connected two walls,
and was filled with garments and bizarre robes. Some of the
clothing looked like it was from the Renaissance period.

From a bookcase, I pulled out a leather
bound text with torn pages that were literally falling apart at the
seams. Sifting through it, I discovered it was journal from an
ancestor of mine. In fact, all of the books looked like journals
from various ancestors.