Just as he had said, Stolas was home at six o'clock with just enough time to make dinner and he made a dish that not even Octavia could stomach. Vegetable loaf. A concoction of raw broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots that had been refridgerated in a broth. Perfectly healthy but about as tasty as cardboard.
"Stolas I don't mean to insult you or be ungrateful but I don't think even a dog would eat this." Charlie said pushing her plate away,
"A rabbit would." Stolas said.
"We're not rabbits." Charlie said. "Stolas why don't you ever cook something that's healthy and tastes good?"
"Becaus food that's healthy and delicious takes a very long time to cook and it's very expensive. Right now I don't have the time and I can't afford to spend a lot of money. Not until this matter with Stella is settled. Her complaints have led to all my accounts being frozen, the blood-sucking leech."
"Daddy this looks like slime." Octavia said poking her food with a fork and watching it jiggle.
"Don't play with your food Octavia." Stolas said. "Listen, I promise you both that as soon as I've resolved everything with Stella, things will change. I won't have to be away as much and I'll be able to make more tasty meals."
"I've got money." Charlie said. "I could handle the food."
"If you're referring to the settlement money your parents left you then the answer is no." Stolas said. "Your parents were perfectly clear about it in their will, that money is for you. Not us."
"If it's for food. I need food."
"I can provide food. I may not be able to provide food that is to your liking at the moment but that's not a reason to dip into that settlement. You're always saying that you dream about going to Julliard, that is something you can use the settlement for."
"Isn't it my choice what I use the money for?"
"Yes but you're not allowed to use a cent until you turn eighteen or until you guardian gives you permission. And I don't give you permission to use that money for your picky eating."
Charlie sighed in annoyance and drank her cup dry of juice. After that she retired to her room for the remainder of the night and started reading The Loneliest Heart again. As she read the pages, she couldn't help but feel so irritated with how Stolas had acted back at the table. He was trying to act like her father again. He wasn't her father, she had a father, and just because he was dead it didn't mean Stolas could replace him.
Eventually the story cuased her irritation to subside and she fell asleep. Hours passed and before dawn, when it was still so very dark, she heard a tap-taping nosie that awoke her. She sat up in bed and something moved. It was little more than a shadow, perching itself on the window of her room, looking like a little patch of night. She got out of bed and approached the window while rubbing her eyes. Once her sight had become less blurry, she saw that what had come to her window sil was an owl.
At first she just stood there, staring at the owl and waiting for it to eventually fly away. But the bird didn't move. Not even when Charlie came closer and slowly opened the window. It just kept perching there and looking at her with it's giant eyes.
"What are you doing here?" She asked the owl. "Go on, shoo."
The owl lowered it's head and with it's beak, it picked up something that it had been carrying in it's talons. It was four packets, each that contained something. The owl placed the packets in Charlie's hands and finally flew away behind the trees. She watched the owl until it was gone and then looked down at the packets. They were seeds, seeds for flowers. Tulip seeds, Chysanthemum seeds, Snow-Drop seeds, and Primrose seeds.
"That's weird." She thought. "Why would an owl bring me these?"
She placed the flower seed packets into the her night-stand drawer, then glanced at her alarm clock to see that it was 5:30 AM.
"Well no use going back to bed now." She decided.
She quickly got dressed, brushed her teeth, and fixed her hair. By the time she was finished, Stolas was just starting to wake up. She really wasn't in the mood for another bowl of flavorless oatmeal for breakfast, so she chose to go to school early by taking a morning walk there. She left a note for Stolas on a small mirror that hung in the kitchen, grabbed her jacket, and stepped outside.
She suddenly heard the sound of glass breaking coming from the apartment above her.
"This ain't no damn belfry! Out!" She heard a gruff voice shout.
Always the curious one, Charlie went upstairs attached to the side of the house and stopped at the front of the door. She jumped back when the door swung open and out came two bats and her neighbor Husk, chasing them with a broom in one hand and a bottle in the other.
"That's it! Fly! Fly away ya rats with wings! And never come back or I'll make borscht out of ya!"
"Um...Good morning Mr. Talanov." Charlie greeted with a friendly awkwardness.
Now aware of her presence, he put down the broom but not the bottle, and turned to look at her.
"Oh it's you." He said. "What do you want? My mail get mixed up with Stolas's again?"
"No. I heard glass break and I thought maybe someone might be hurt."
"The only ones who are hurt are those damn bats who think they can nest in my house!" He took a swig from his bottle and it calmed him down a little. "I don't normally see you up at this hour kid, something going down at school?"
"No. I just thought I'd take a morning walk. Do bats nest in your house often?"
"They won't once I get my hands on some rat posion. That'll fix em."
"Does anything else nest in your house? Like maybe owls."
"Owls? Why would an owl nest in my house? Owls hate people. Especially me. Come to think of it, all animals hate me and I hate them."
"The thing is this morning an owl came to my window and it gave me packets of flower seeds."
"That's freaky. I've heard of owls leaving pellets or dead mice lying around but not flower seeds."
"So nothing like that happens around here very often?"
"Not that I can recall. Why not talk to Stolas about it? He hobbies in bird-watching you know. Or if you really want to get answers, you could always go...Nah that's probably not the best idea."
"What?"
"I was going to suggest that you pay the town taxidermist a visit. He knows everything about every animal native to this town. But he's kind of a skittish hermit now and a lot of people don't think too kindly of him."
"Why is that?"
"Because of little Al Devalcourt."
Their conversation was joined by a very extraordinarily-looking individual who dressed flamboyantly. Charlie and Husk both recognized him as Mrs. De Luca's nephew Blitzo. The one who had to leave the circus after an incident with the lion tamer and now had to get by as a performer at a bar-theater.
"What are you doing up here?" Husk asked him.
"I got your mail again." Blitzo said handing Husk the envelopes.
"You didn't snoop thorugh them like last time did you? Because if you did I'm calling the cops."
"I didn't. The seals aren't even broken, check for yourself."
"Excuse me." Charlie said. "But who's little Al Devalcourt?"
"He's the taxidermist's son." Blitzo continued. "He just vanished about eight or nine years ago. But if you ask me, his father did it. There's a thousand and one places he could have hid the body in this town, especially if he chopped it up first."
"What?"
"Stop spreading bull shit Blitzo! Nobody knows for sure that's what happened to the kid." Husk said.
"What? What happened?" Charlie said.
"There's no evidence to prove it, but people around here say that when Mr. Devalcourt's wife died he went crazy and killed his son by chopping him into little pieces." Husk said.
"Yeah there's no evidence, but everybody knows he hated that kid." Blitzo said. "Always jealous over how his wife doted on him and then when she passed, he couldn't stand the sight of him because he looked so much like her."
"Blitzo you'd believe that your own aunt was an alien from Mars if an entire town said so." Husk scoffed.
"Oh and you know what happened to the kid?"
"As a matter of fact I do. He ran away."
"Did you see him run away?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"Because I knew the boy's father. Etienne was screwed up but not that bad."
"Okay then, why did he run away?"
"How the Hell should I know? Kids run away all the time and it's usually over stupid crap."
"I still say that his old man offed him." Blitzo said. "Once Marie was out of the picture, he just turned cold and hateful."
"Will you get off my property already?" Husk demanded. "I let a lot of things slide in life but spreading bull-shit talk is not one of them, and I know your aunt doesn't like it either. So beat it before I tell her that you're telling fibs."
"Alright, fine. No need to get so upset." Blitzo said going downstairs. "Geez, you're worse than my cousin."
Once Blitzo was gone Husk turned his attention to Charlie again.
"Look kid, funfact about Blitzo, his father sold him to the circus after his mother croaked so now he thinks all fathers are just heartless assholes. That's why he believes that crap about Etienne killing his son."
"But you don't believe it?" Charlie asked.
"I don't believe anything spoken by rumors and if you're smart neither will you." Husk then produced two brown vegetables from his pocket and handed them to Charlie. "Here have a beet, it'll make you strong."
"Uh...Thanks." Charlie said.
"Give the other one to Stolas's kid, tiny thing like her needs something that will make her grow." He then picked up his broom and headed for the door of his aprtment. "Da svidania, doll."
His final words before going inside. Charlie went back downstairs and waited until she was far from the house before throwing away the two beets. The gesture was nice, but she and Octavia already had enough vegetables to make them strong and grow. But that aside, she did wonder about what Husk and Blitzo had said in regards to this boy who went missing. Now she wasn't so naive as to think that a small town couldn't harbor evil people and scary secrets. There was no place on Earth that was one-hundred percent terror free. On the other hand though, neither Blitzo or Husk were reliable sources of information. She knew Blitzo to be a notorious con artist and Husk was pretty much the town drunk. For all she knew there probably wasn't even a taxidermist or a son. Could have been made up by them.
But then again, why would someone make up something like that?