#52stories

“Mellifluous.”

He looks up from his computer screen, a line of concentration already etched on the space between his eyebrows, the very one his boss always tells him to be conscious of because we are in the customer service business, Nate, and I can’t have you scaring off said business. He becomes conscious of it now, and wills the rest of his face to settle in a more welcoming form, the sort that will invite money in and not chase it away, running and screaming of murderous intentions. He trains his best I-am-pleased-to-serve-you face to the girl still hovering on the opposite site of the marble counter, wearing a sheepish smile behind her freckles. Nate thinks she’s already computed her dues and found herself short of funds, hence the speech she’s likely to spout off any minute now.

“Dulcet. Honeyed. Euphonious.”

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, a finger posed delicately over the keyboard’s ENTER key.

The girl looks just as surprised, as though she hadn’t expected to be heard. She gestures at him lamely, her cheeks quickly taking on a rather astonishing shade of pink.

“Your voice,” she says by way of explanation, sounding every bit as though this is one conversation she’d very much rather not have. “It’s just…you have a very gentle voice.”

He stares at her for a span of five full heartbeats, because you have a nice voice wasn’t included in the plethora of excuses he’d honed himself to respond to, and he is imposssibly flustered. He watches her cheeks grow rosier by the second, only tearing his eyes away when he thinks she’s reaching combustion point. A sigh of relief reaches his ears as he turns back to the computer screen.

He quotes the fee and she nods, fishing in her purse for bills and coins. He received her payment and quietly stamps her card, marking the date. February 5th.

“Rosy,” he says as he hands her card back to her, and she looks up at him in askance. “Peaches-and-cream. Rubescent.”

“I’m sorry?” she asks, mirroring his earlier tone, and was that a hint of amusement he could hear in her voice?

“It’s just…” he smiles, a real one this time. “You’re lovely when you blush.”

They both go silent as he rings up another book for her, one of Neruda’s older works. He wraps it up in one of the store’s brown bags, and sticks a Post-it note scrawled with a date and time on the enclosed flap.

“I’ll have coffee and donuts waiting if you manage to give it back on time,” he says as he hands her the package. Four days, seven hours and twenty-five minutes and counting. If she says yes, that is.

“A charming motivation,” she answers as she wrestles with the contents of her saddle bag until they make room for the paper bag. Something close to an apology lines her eyes when she glances back at him. “But I don’t drink coffee.”

Oh. Well. His heart is somewhere on the floor, he knows. He’ll have to look for it and pick it up when she goes. Maybe it’ll have recovered from this slight brusing in four days, seven hours and twenty-one minutes. He watches her walk back to the shop door.

“I take tea, however,” she calls back, smiling. Her voice almost lost amid the tinkling of the chimes by the shop’s door. She steps out and her words still remain, singing in his ears to the tune of tinkling bells.

He had bought the house from an old nobleman who, at that time, had been desperate to sell it. Jimmy heard the man had lost his entire family to suspicious circumstances, and now he was all alone in a big and empty house. No one living in the vicinity of the house seemed to be surprised by this news. It appeared the whole family had been cursed since an incident that had happened four generations ago, in which several people had died at a private party held at the estate. Since then, the family had endured several tragedies, until this most recent tragedy had only left behind the old man, with nothing left to keep his legacy going.

Jimmy sometimes wondered what had happened, and at the same time found it ironic that he of all people lived in a house where so many had died. He had never found any evidence of the house being haunted, although the servants were very superstitious and told each other ghost stories when they thought he was out of earshot. Most likely Jimmy himself would also be incorporated in those stories in some way; they’d seen him do weird and unexplainable things from time to time. He never explicitly told them about himself, but they were well aware he wasn’t human.

He realised he would miss his servants. He’d grown quite fond of them over the years. He’d taken them in when they had nowhere else to go, having been rejected by their former employers because of who they were or what they’d done. When they found out about him they could’ve ran, but they stayed. They were an odd bunch, but very close to each other.

There were five of them. Mathilde had been working in the kitchen her entire life, and wasn’t planning on leaving when the house had gotten its new owner. Jimmy had been alright with this, since it meant he didn’t have to go looking for a cook himself. Now she acted like a mother to all he’d taken in.

Pierre had been the first, after he’d been kicked out by his previous employer because he loved men. Julie had shown up at his door one day, running from people looking for her. He’d later found out she was suspected of murder, although she never spoke of what happened. The two of them made sure his needs were being met; his food served, his baths drawn, his guests welcomed. And they both seemed to think they were in charge of these tasks, which often lead to both of them showing up when he called.

Angelique had ended up with him after her former employer kept insisting she was a man and therefore wasn’t allowed to wear a maid’s uniform. Jimmy just let her wear whatever she wanted and occasionally bought her a dress. And then there was Robert, who maintained the outside of the house and the garden. He mostly kept to himself, especially around the full moon, but was very gentle and loyal. Jimmy suspected Robert was the only one who truly understood that he was a demon, although all of them had seen him in that form. In return, Jimmy was the only one who knew his secret.

When he looked up he could see Julie peering through a window, her head quickly disappearing as their eyes met. He didn’t want to leave them behind like this, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Staying here had become impossible after what had happened. People from his past had caught up with him, and wouldn’t hesitate to hurt anyone standing in their way. They would most likely be coming to his house, that’s why on his last visit to town he’d made it abundantly clear that he was leaving. He spoke of his return to England to whoever wished to hear, and then to those who didn’t. Hopefully his enemies would catch up on the rumour and follow him rather than to pay his servants a visit. But to be sure he’d ordered them to find a safe place for the coming weeks.

“Alright, time to go, or I’ll miss the boat.”

Pierre nodded and carried his last bag towards the coach. The driver was starting to get impatient but tried not to show it. Jimmy pulled up his collar; there was an icy wind. He knew it would only get stronger the closer he’d get to the coast. He wasn’t particularly fond of travel overseas as he tended to get sick, but he had no other option if he wanted his enemies to keep tracing him. Besides, he couldn’t possibly take all of these bags when flying.

From the corner of his eye he spotted Robert standing between the trees, who didn’t feel like saying goodbye but still wanted to watch him leave. He gave him a nod, which at most times was all the communication they needed. Please take care of them. The nod was silently returned.

Something brushed up against his leg. It was the cat that was always hanging out around the house, gratefully ate the food they gave it, but never seemed to be interested to stay. He had named it Luna, because just like the moon, she was there, then she wasn’t, but always at a predictable time. It was like everyone had come out to say goodbye to him. He petted the cat and moved on.

Pierre had already put the bag away and opened the door for him.

“One last thing, sir.” he said as Jimmy wanted to get in.

He held out the key he was just given. Jimmy gave him a puzzled look.

“It’s still yours, sir. Please take it with you, as a reminder. We’ll have plenty of keys here.”

Jimmy smiled and took the key back. “Does that mean I’ll have to come back some day?”

“Well, since you’re not planning on selling the house, it would always be a possibility, sir.”

“We’ll see.” Jimmy said as he put the key in his pocket. “But the house better be clean when I do.” He winked and got into the coach.

“As always, sir.” Pierre nodded as he closed the door behind him.

“At least you won’t die.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Aerina came running towards them and hid behind Tharryn, hoping Dariel wouldn’t dare to hit him. Tharryn simply teleported a few metres away and Aerina got hit after all.

“Not fair!” she protested, already gathering snow to hit back. She teleported behind Dariel to hit him from the back.

“Like you’re playing fair!”

“If you can’t play nicely we’ll go back,” Tharryn warned them.

Yes. Please, let’s go back.

Seb had seen enough snow to last him a year already. He’d rather be on the beach right now, nice and warm, perhaps with some rum. No, there would definitely be rum. If only Tharryn would have given him some time to grab a jacket this would’ve been bearable, but he was in a t-shirt. Tharryn didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold, or at least he was pretending not to be. This was surprising, since he was usually wrapped in at least three scarves when it was cold out.

“Let’s make a snowman!” Dariel called. “So we can hit that with snowballs!”

“Or blow it up!” Aerina added.

“Cool!”

Tharryn crossed his arms.

“We are not blowing stuff up.”

“Fiiiiine,” they sighed, and started on the body of their snowman.

Seb blew warm air into his hands.

“I love that they’re having fun, but did we really have to go to the middle of nowhere? I mean, we could be sitting somewhere warm right now, having a coffee while watching them.”

“With kids wanting to blow things up? I think not.”

“I’m sure there’s places where we can be warm and unseen.”

“Probably.”

Seb started to feel like Tharryn had brought them here on purpose, just to annoy him. He’d better not have more surprises up his sleeve if he still wanted dinner. Although Tharryn probably wouldn’t mind not eating. They’d have to keep an eye on him to make sure he did.

Dariel and Aerina stopped pushing their big snowball and ran away laughing to throw some more snow at each other. Apparently they’d gotten bored of making a snowman already.

“Dai is coming as well, right?” Seb looked over at Tharryn and noticed his hands were shaking. So he did feel the cold after all.

“If nothing comes up,” Tharryn said while quickly hiding his hands in his pockets.

“Who would be stupid enough to call him on Christmas?”

“A lot of them. Demons don’t really care about Christmas.”

“Right…”

“But unless it’s an emergency, calling him would probably result in death.”

“In that case, please wait with the killing until after dinner.”

“Of course. I’ll try to keep him in check.”

Seb wasn’t sure whether that was even possible, but if anyone could do it, it was Tharryn. At least they wouldn’t be suddenly teleporting away during dinner, that was nice.

He rubbed his arms again. Standing still like this wouldn’t really make him feel any warmer. He might as well join in on the fight. Seb bent down to grab a handful of snow and threw it at Tharryn. He only then realised that might not have been the smartest idea. Tharryn was staring at him but didn’t react to being hit, at least not as far as he could tell. A minute passed in which nothing happened. They didn’t move at all, and all that could be heard was Dariel and Aerina yelling and laughing in the background. Seb started to worry he might have angered Tharryn, when he got hit by a load of snow falling from above. Confused, he looked around to see if one of the kids had thrown it, and again snow fell on his head. He looked up, just in time to see a new bunch of snow appear out of nothing in the sky and land on top of him.

“You know, you’re supposed to throw the snowballs,” he told Tharryn.

“My hands are cold,” Tharryn shrugged. “And this is just way more fun.”

Seb jumped aside before another snow pile would hit him and brushed the snow off his shoulders.

“You think that’s fun? How about this?” He flung another snowball at Tharryn, who stepped aside.

“You do realise I could just bury you under a mountain of snow, right? You don’t stand a chance.”

Seb sighed. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

“It’s a known fact.”

“Daaaaaaaaaad!” it sounded from behind them. Seb turned around and saw Dariel and Aerina standing between two huge snowballs. Apparently they’d continued with their snowman after all.

“If you’re done playing, could you lift this for us?” Dariel asked.

Seb grinned. “Sure thing.”

He looked at Tharryn.