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VVVVVVVVVVV
CHAPTER FOUR
The first thing I registered was the cold. It bit me, straight through my coat. The next was the scent of pine, and water—but not salt water. My eyes snapped open. We stood on old paving stones in front of a tall, spiky iron gate. The white moonlight illuminated the broad yard beyond it, and the dirt path that led up to a tall Victorian mansion. The mansion bore a looming circular tower with a balcony, dozens of windows, and a wrap-around porch. The house looked still and black, like a creature that waited in a forest with bared teeth.
Awareness came back to my whole body, and I realized my fingers were intertwined with Sylar's.
I yanked my hand out of his so hard it almost hurt. He jerked around to see me, then his expression closed and he turned to face the house again. We all stood a moment—me, Sylar, Peter, Emma, Hiro and Ando—in front of the gate as a thin breeze fluttered our hair and rattled the latch.
"Um, Hiro…" Peter panted. "Where are we?"
"Duluth, Minnesota," Hiro said proudly, smiling up at the foreboding house. His smile faded as he recalled. "This house used to be a bed and breakfast, but then the owner's wife had an affair and left him, and he shot himself in the attic and fell into the garden. Their son is convinced it is haunted, so he locked it and said no one can ever go inside." Hiro grinned again. "I saw it on the news when I was in the hospital."
"And…we're supposed to stay here?" I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.
"It's exactly what we need," Peter declared. Sylar nodded, running his eyes up the tower.
"I agree. If they think it's haunted…" He waved a hand, the lock clicked. He beckoned toward himself with his fingers, and the gate creaked open. "Why don't we haunt it for a while?"
A breath of cold air hit me, and I wrapped my arms around myself.
"Peter…" I said through my teeth. But Sylar strode right through the gate and up the path, as if he was walking up to his own home. I rolled my eyes. I was surprised that Sylar wasn't spooked by a creepy, haunted house?
But Peter walked right next to him. He didn't even look back at me. Their footsteps matched, and they gazed, like twins, up at the high tower. Emma followed on Peter's heels. Hiro and Ando hesitated a moment, then trailed after. My feet stalled as the gate groaned in the wind. I stared at what I saw:
Hiro, Ando, Emma, Peter and Sylar walking confidently up to an abandoned mansion in Duluth, Minnesota—where a man had shot himself—because the Feds somehow got the idea that we were all serial killers…
I had officially stepped straight into the Twilight Zone.
The wind picked up and whipped through my hair. I glanced behind me. Everything was dark, and the forest behind me gaped. The gate screeched again. I turned around to see it threatening to shut.
I clenched my teeth, growled in my throat, stepped forward and caught the gate with my hand. My fingers closed around cold metal. I stepped through, let go of the gate, and followed the path.
The gate clanged shut behind me. I spun and faced it. It clicked.
It was the lock.
"You coming, Claire?"
That was Peter's voice. I slowly turned back around. They all stood on the porch, gazing at me. Waiting. My jaw did not unclench. Sylar caught my glance briefly, then turned and regarded the front door.
"Open Sesame," he said. The door swung open like a slack jaw. He plunged into the dark beyond and disappeared. Peter followed immediately. Hiro jumped in after him, and Ando crept behind. Emma peered inside, then turned to me.
"Claire?" she said, and her voice quivered a bit. My resolve broke, I sighed and trotted up to the porch.
"C'mon," I muttered, taking hold of her bandaged hand. "Who's afraid of the boogeyman, anyway?"
Of course, I knew full well that the boogeyman was already in there, right next to Peter—but I wasn't going to tell Emma that. Not right now, anyway.
We stepped through the door, and were instantly swallowed by blackness. We halted. Emma's hand squeezed mine. Something off to my right clicked, then clicked repeatedly.
"Crap," Peter said. "No electricity."
Something thudded at knee level and Ando muttered something in Japanese. Hiro replied in the same language. Then Ando said something in an "of course!" tone, and shuffled toward where Peter's voice had come from.
"What?" Peter asked.
"Ando can turn on the lights!" Hiro said.
"That would be a good idea," Sylar growled. "If you wanted to broadcast to the whole coast of Lake Superior that someone was in here."
I opened my mouth to retort, but then a match snapped and hissed, and Sylar's carven face was illuminated in flickering light. The corner where he stood lit up. Then he turned, pulled the glass chimney off of a kerosene lamp on the mantle, and lit the wick. When he put the chimney back on, the lamp gave off a surprising amount of light, and I was able to glance around.
Sheets were draped over all the furniture, but I could see two chairs and a couch circling the dark fireplace. Sylar stood in a corner between the fireplace and an antique bookcase. Off to my right, there were two windows—one front window and one west window, and long curtains covered them. Two arm chairs and a coffee table stood by the front window. There was a window seat in the west window. A little off to the side of that stood a covered baby grand piano, and beyond that, I could see a staircase heading upward.
Ando hovered next to the coffee table—I guess that was what he had barked his shins against. Hiro waited just behind him, assessing the room just as I was. Peter was on the other side of the mantle from Sylar, his hand on the light switch, which undoubtedly would have lit up the small chandelier in the high ceiling if the electricity hadn't been shut off. I swallowed. I was not superstitious. But I was having a hard time, in this light, not believing that this place was haunted. Especially with Sylar standing like Dracula next to the lamp, arms crossed.
"Well," Peter sighed, glancing around. "This will do for tonight, anyway." He ran his hand through his hair. "I didn't have time to think about it before, but…" He glanced at Sylar and chuckled. "I am tired."
Sylar raised his eyebrows, uttered a deep sigh, then nodded.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Very."
"So we're going to stay here?" I said, still trying to process this. "All of us, in some stranger's house? There's no electricity, probably no running water—"
"We are hiding from the government," Hiro said. "We cannot be too picky."
I shut my jaw so tight my teeth ground together. I was supposed to sleep under the same roof as Sylar? With nobody knowing where we were, not even my dad?
I cast a look at the murderer, who was scanning the titles in the bookshelf, and I realized that if he decided to suddenly go postal, there wasn't much we could do about it. Nobody would ever know what had happened.
"Gabriel," Peter called. Sylar turned around. Peter beckoned to him.
"Help me get the sheets off of this furniture."
"I thought you said we were only staying tonight," Emma said, finally letting go of my hand and approaching Peter. Peter shrugged.
"We might as well be comfortable. We can put the sheets back when we leave."
Sylar began whipping the sheets off the chairs and couch around the fireplace. Peter and Emma started on the other furniture. Reluctantly, Ando joined them. Sylar made some crack about a certain armchair near a window, and Peter shot back an equally clever and equally mystifying remark. Hiro just stood there, arms folded, near the front door. I sidled up next to him.
"Are you seeing any of this, Hiro?" I muttered. "Or am I the only one who hasn't lost their mind?"
"I am watching. Very closely," he answered. "And I see the look on his face again."
I frowned.
"What look?"
"The look he had when he fixed Charlie. Amazed—but sad. As if he wanted to do that again, but didn't know how." Hiro smiled a little. "But now when he has that face…he looks at Peter. Or you. As if he thinks you have the answer." He nodded once. "There is a hero inside him somewhere. Or at least a man with a heart." He glanced at me. "Maybe Peter sees it, too."
"It wouldn't be the first time Peter wasn't seeing straight," I said under my breath, but Hiro was no longer listening. And I had no time to get his attention again—Peter looked up at me as he took Emma's hand.
"Hey, Claire? You and Emma wanna go upstairs and find a place to settle for the night?"
I glared at him, but he didn't notice. He was busy giving a reassuring smile to Emma. He led her over to me and nodded toward the stairs. After giving him a lingering look, Emma started that direction. Peter put a hand on my shoulder.
"Look after her, okay?" he asked. "I'm not sure how many of the details she has picked up, but I want her to understand." He gave me a pointed look. "You'll explain, won't you?"
I narrowed my eyes.
"I would," I said. "If I knew what the heck was going on myself."
He patted my shoulder, then gave me a push toward the stairs, where Emma was waiting. I came up to her side, and together we started up the stairs. Sylar watched us go.
We ascended the switchbacks of the staircase into the next storey of the house. It was only then that I realized we had brought no light with us. I kept one hand on the railing, and the other on Emma's elbow. I wouldn't have, except Peter had said to look out for her, since she was obviously new to this whole freak lifestyle.
We arrived on a landing, and moonlight streamed in through a window. Just below the window stood a little table with a candle in a stand. It had just been used for decoration—never lit before. I pounced on it.
"Are there matches?" Emma asked from behind me. I dug in the drawers of the table. In the very last one, I found a teeny box of penny matches.
"Yes!" I exulted, striking one and lighting the candle. I let out a breath and glanced down the dark hall, now only partly illumined by the small flame I held. Together, Emma and I crept down that hall, our feet creaking on the old floorboards between the rugs. The first door we came to would not open. I wondered if it was the entrance to the upper stories—maybe the tower where the man had shot himself. I shivered as I let go of the handle. Emma went on ahead, tried another doorknob, and the door opened. She turned and beckoned to me.
"Here!" she said. "I think this one has two beds."
I followed her and leaned inside. She was right. Two frilly twin beds stood inside, a nightstand in between them, and windows over each headboard. I slowly entered, my eyes sweeping the room. I found another kerosene lamp standing atop a dresser, removed the chimney and lit it. The room lit up some more, and I gave a half smile.
It was a cute room, all done in white and soft, sunshine yellow, with patterns of flowers on the quilts, and lace curtains. The floor was wood, but there was a rug between the beds. Apparently, all the furnishings in the house were antiques. I shook my head.
"I feel like I've been thrown back to 'Little House on the Prairie.'"
"Okay, Claire," Emma said, moving to the far bed, sitting on top of it and crossing her legs Indian style. "Come sit down."
I set the candle down on the nightstand, and sat on the bed that was apparently mine, now. Emma looked at me seriously, her hazel eyes bright in the candlelight.
"Now," she began. "I want you to look right at me, talk very slowly…and tell me exactly how we got here."
VVV
Peter traipsed through the house that still felt empty, even though six people now occupied it. He left Hiro and Andow downstairs, for those two were standing by the fireplace holding a rapid-fire conversation in Japanese. Peter listened to the vast space above him as he climbed the stairs—Gabriel had vanished a few minutes ago. Peter needed to find him. They had to talk.
Peter arrived on the first landing and paused. He heard female voices coming from one of the rooms down the hall, and he saw a faint light from beneath a door. His shoulders relaxed a bit. That was Emma and Claire. Good.
A cool draft hit him, and he caught sight of another door to the left that hung partially open. The way beyond was black. Peter halfway smiled. Gabriel couldn't have been clearer if he had put his signature on it. Peter opened the door and stepped through.
Walking up stairs in the pitch dark didn't bother him anymore, but he had to take it slow—this staircase spiraled. His hand found a smooth, wooden railing, and it guided him upward. Finally, he reached another landing, hesitated a moment, then felt a rug beneath his feet. Hands stretched out in front of him, he shuffled forward. His hands met a door. He opened it.
He squinted against the bright, cold moonlight, and peered into the circular room. Inside stood a single bed, a large wardrobe, a dresser, a rug, and a tall, walk-out window that led to the balcony. That window was open. And Gabriel stood outside, leaning on the railing of the balcony.
"Hello, Peter," Gabriel said quietly, without turning.
"Hey," Peter answered, and stepped in. He crossed the floor and stepped onto the balcony too. The night air cut through his clothes, but he ignored it. He rested his left elbow on the rail and faced Gabriel. Gabriel's eyes were distant, as he gazed out over the darkness, and the faraway pinpoints of light on the coast. His hands were clasped in front of him, both elbows bearing the weight of his upper body. An out of place strand of hair brushed his forehead.
"Why did you come up here?" Peter questioned. "You didn't waste any time—just came right up here to where the guy shot himself."
Gabriel didn't answer. Peter shook his head.
"I swear, sometimes I think you go hunting for morbid stuff."
"Better that than to be surprised by it," Gabriel murmured. "I don't know if I told you—maybe I did—but I can touch something and know everything that happened to it and around it. I can hear the whole conversation that man had with himself…I can feel the walls echoing after the gunshot…" He straightened and ran his hands across the railing. Peter stepped closer to him.
"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You need to quit that."
Gabriel lowered his head.
"How did you know?"
Peter stopped, realizing they had changed subjects.
"Know what?"
Gabriel met his eyes. Peter had never seen him look so sad.
"How did you know that it was Claire?"
Peter frowned. Gabriel faced him, his gaze intensifying.
"I never told you. I never said her name in that context. How did you—"
"You gave me about a million clues over the course of five years," Peter stated. "I'm not a total block-head." He shrugged. "I figured it out."
Gabriel's brow furrowed, and he studied Peter's face.
"And you weren't angry with me."
Peter took a breath, then shook his head.
"No."
"Why?"
Peter glanced out at the moonlit yard. That was Gabriel's favorite question.
"I'm not sure. Really, I'm not. But it could have manifested some other way—like in the Wall."
Gabriel's eyes flashed.
"One of the reasons you were afraid to let me out."
Peter nodded slowly.
"Maybe."
Gabriel looked at him sideways.
"But you did let me out."
"Yeah, I did," Peter stated. "Which should make you feel better."
"Feel better? Why?" Gabriel demanded again. "You saw her face, Peter. Do you see the way she looks at me?" Gabriel turned back to the yard, bracing his hands on the rail. "She is never going to see me as anything but a monster."
"Hey, woah," Peter grabbed his shoulder. "How long have you guys been around each other now? A couple hours? And you're already giving up?"
"I can't stand the way she looks at me," Gabriel breathed. Peter shook him.
"Deal with it! She's just gonna look at you like that for a while, okay? But I know Claire. She's a good girl, and she can be a sweetheart." Peter gripped his shoulder harder. "You've just got to keep beating against that wall, you know? It'll break down eventually."
"Peter, I don't know how!" Gabriel cried, knocking Peter's hand loose and gesturing helplessly. "I don't even know where to start, what to say—nothing! She condemns every move I make and when I look at her, she…" He stopped, and sucked in a breath, swallowed and shook his head. "I can't stand it."
"Listen, you know more than you think," Peter insisted. "How many books did you read while we were in there?"
Gabriel frowned.
"I don't know. Hundreds."
"Then you'll remember that in the old days, guys used poetry and music and stuff when they couldn't figure out exactly what to say. They quoted Shakespeare or some other poet, or serenaded the girl they liked."
Gabriel arched an eyebrow.
"You want me to—"
"I'm just saying think about it, okay?" Peter interrupted. "You're creative." He slapped his arm. "Now come down out of this creepy attic. Us guys can camp out in the living room."
VVVVVVVVVV
I lay underneath the covers of my new bed, trying to get comfortable. I hated sleeping in jeans, but I had no other option. The pillow was soft and deep, though, and the comforter and quilt were warm. The box springs squeaked as I turned my back to Emma and stared at the little, indistinct pictures on the wall.
I let out a long, shaky breath. Tears ran down my nose and onto my pillow. I felt infinitely tired, but fear and instability coursed through my veins, keeping my heart-rate up and making me twitch at any little sound. I hugged my arms to my chest, squeezed my eyes shut and fought to keep my sobs under control.
But then I remembered that my new roommate couldn't hear anything. I could tell that she was asleep, by her breathing. I wouldn't disturb her. At that realization, I couldn't hold it back anymore.
A gasping cry escaped me, and I wept hard, choking and rasping, my tears scalding my face and sending an ache through my temples.
He was here. In this house. Walking these halls. Perhaps standing outside my door.
I couldn't bear it.
And for most of the night, I couldn't stop crying.
VVV
And then she dreamed she was walking by a brook bordered with trees,
And lamenting her sad fate,
When a young prince, handsomer than anyone she had ever seen,
And with a voice that went straight to her heart,
Came and said to her:
"Ah, Beauty, you are not so unfortunate as you suppose.
Here you will be rewarded for all you have suffered elsewhere.
Your every wish shall be gratified.
Only try to find me out, no matter how I may be disguised,
For I love you dearly,
And in making me happy you will find your own happiness.
Be as true-hearted as you are beautiful, and we shall have nothing left to wish for."
"What can I do, Prince, to make you happy?" said Beauty.
"Only be grateful," he answered. "and do not trust too much to your eyes.
Above all, do not desert me until you have saved me
from my cruel misery."
TO BE CONTINUED