She took a deep breath and slowly turned the handle, cracking it open. She peered inside, barely seeing into the heavy darkness. Black, velvet drapes shut sunlight out from every surrounding window. A small string of light filtered in from where she stood, making a soft, orange beam all the way to the foot of his bed. Afraid of what might happen if it were to reach his skin, she quickly closed the door behind her.
The room’s atmosphere was like a human mausoleum, the air stagnant, chilled with death. Her eyes could not adjust to the deep blackness. Holding up the lightning bug captive in the jar, she found it was no aid at all to her vision.
This is stupid, she thought, even as she continued to sneak slowly to his bedside. She should just go back to her own bedroom. She wasn’t supposed to be here. What good could possibly come out of seeing him this way? Yet she continued to creep closer to the bed, finally making out the dark figure in the center of the mattress. The hair on the back of her neck bristled as she leaned over the long corpse before her.
Valek lay there, a shell of the way he normally looked. His arms — bones with a thin layer of skin — draped gracefully over his chest. His hair, now gray and bristled, lay neatly on the cool pillow around his sunken skull. Charlotte’s eyes widened as she examined him closely. His eyes did not open when she traced them with the tips of her fingers. It felt like they never would again. He was nothing but a weathered corpse, merely glamorized by the magic of the moonlight at night.
To Charlotte’s surprise, a single tear slid down her cheek. So this was why he never wanted her here — why her strong father figure never cared to burden her with this secret. She knew he just couldn’t ever let her see him this way. She thought of how lonely it must be to die every single day, forever alone. She wished he would let her be close to him the next time this happened.
He would always wake up, Charlotte reminded herself to keep from sobbing. Valek, who had found her and raised her, was neither man nor monster.
Thunder whispered to her miles away and soft rain patters began across the old roof. Setting the faintly glimmering jar on Valek’s nightstand, she pulled one knee up onto the bed and then the other. She touched his forearm gently, carefully, as if she might shatter it. He felt colder even than normal. Charlotte stroked his hair, long and silken during the hours of the night, now brittle on the pillow. She turned so she lay next to him.
Charlotte took his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, resting her face on his chest. His body felt so fragile, and the rotting stench of his deathly flesh permeated the area around her, but she didn’t care. More tears fell as she listened to the rain pound heavier above them. She wondered if he could somehow feel her there next to him. A sob broke from her. The sound of the storm began to fade out in her mind as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Four
The Spider’s Burrow
A few hours later, Charlotte's eyes fluttered open to meet the white walls of her own bedroom staring blankly back at her. She had been tucked snugly under her bed sheets. Her white curtains flailed around violently in the storm now invading the open window. She jumped from her bed and forced the pane closed against the wind gusts. She glanced at the cuckoo clock hung on her wall. It had already turned ten. How could she have slept so long?
She frantically scanned the room for her shoes, which had been parked neatly by one corner of her bed. Her heart sank when she figured out she had in fact not dreamt what she thought she had after all. She really had mustered up the guts to go into his bedroom. She was in a lot of trouble. Charlotte slipped on her flats and hurried out the door.
She stood very still at the top of the stairs, hands clasped under her chin, listening. She didn’t hear anything and wondered if Valek was even home at all. Did he have a patient? She wondered how angry he was with her. He must be angry. Slowly, she began to descend the stairs, her hand sliding along the polished banister.
“Charlotte?” Valek’s voice lingered threateningly from the library threshold.
She froze on the third to last step, her skin bristling.
“Can I see you in here, please?” His tone struck her like warm poison.
She made her way to the library door; stopping short when she saw him perched on the arm of the garnet-colored armchair. The fireplace crackled in front of him and made threatening ember reflections in his crystalline eyes. She swallowed thickly when Valek stood.
“S-sorry. I know I woke up late. I’m leaving now.” She spun on her heel.
“I think you know that is not what I wanted to speak with you about.” His words halted her once more.
Biting her lower lip a little too hard, Charlotte turned slowly back around. She should have prepared a bit more for this. After all, she had broken the most important rule.
“What is this?” He pulled out the small glass jar, which had once held the glittering lightning bug. Charlotte saw the little fly had become nothing but a brown carcass crumpled at the bottom of the glass.
“It m-must have died.” She winced, her fingers winding in knots behind her back. “I caught it for you because I thought you might like it. Like a little piece of the sun.” Valek sighed and firmly placed the jar on the wooden end table by his chair. The sound of the glass bottom slamming against the wood made Charlotte jump.
“You are not allowed in my bedroom. You know that, Charlotte.”
Her heart sank when he used her full name, instead of the much more endearing term, “Lottie,” he normally liked to call her. He only did that when she was in a lot of trouble.
“I don’t know what made me do it,” she said quietly.
“Charlotte.” He approached her. “I make these rules for a reason. I am only trying to protect you.”
He stopped inches from her, his shoulders back, his stance broad and erect. Blood burned in Charlotte’s cheeks, yet she looked him in the eye in spite of it.
“Why do you have to be alone? Why do you have to do that to yourself?” She fought back tears.
“Because, Charlotte.” His glare pierced her. “It doesn’t bother me anymore. Can’t you see I am trying to protect you?”
“Protect me from what? You?” Her frustration built. “No one should have to die alone!”
“I will not subject you to that!” he bellowed.
Charlotte quaked in his shadow, frightened. He had never yelled at her before. She stared angrily down at the tears splashing on the floor in front of her feet.
“And why did you leave the Occult borders today? I told you, it is dangerous! If you got into trouble, I couldn’t do anything to help you!"
She looked up at him, surprised. “How did you know I left? Will you get out of my head, please? ” The taste of salty tears flooded the back of her throat. “Besides, you make me cross those borders every single night to do what you are unable to do so you won’t kill me!” She jabbed a finger at him. “I don’t see how the amount of danger you put me in is any less significant!”
Valek shuddered.
Charlotte hadn’t realized just how far she had gone until then. She could have said anything to him. She could have called him any name in any number of languages, and it would have never hurt him as much as what she had just said.
“If you regret living here so much, then I grant you your freedom. Just say the word,” he said quietly, sadly.
Charlotte’s mouth fell open. The emotions rolled from her like tidal waves. “You should have just left me in the gutters the night you found me. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe my real parents put me there for a reason?” She bit her lip harder than she had before, regretting everything spewing from her, but she couldn’t control it. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. His brows furrowed.