Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,12
as I walked to the front door, pausing in the closed-off porch to shut the outside door before I opened the door to the house. The light was dim and mostly came in from gaps in the boards that covered all the windows, just the way Mom had set them up, screening me, the girl in the house, from the world outside every time she left.
I took a deep breath and slid my key in the lock. While Mom had been missing for the past six months, Ariadne had checked the records and told me that there wasn’t a mortgage on the place. I had used my ample earnings to keep the property taxes and homeowner’s insurance paid and a lawn and maintenance service helped keep the place up for me. I stopped by every week or so, just to make sure everything was okay, but otherwise the house was empty.
Except when Charlie came to town.
The smell of something cooking on the stove hit me as I shut the door. The air conditioner was running and I felt the effects, the cool air filtering in like a sigh of relief after holding my breath. The alarm was deactivated; no reason to keep it active since no one was living here. When last I had left, the place was clean, a little musty, but otherwise all right. I had left all Mom’s clothes in her closet, the dishes in the cupboards, but cleaned most of the food out save for the things like Ramen Noodles that didn’t have an expiration date looming.
I heard her clanging some pots in the kitchen before I saw her. She peeked a head around the wall and flashed me a smile. Her hair was dark, long, and stood out against her tanned skin and white teeth. Her lips were curled, and painted the deepest shade of red the cosmetics companies made. “Hey there.” She emerged from the kitchen and I almost blinked in surprise. I shouldn’t have; nothing about my aunt Charlene – Charlie, she liked to be called – should have surprised me by now.
She wore a white tank top that was partially sweated through, and jean shorts that were cut off way too short. Her bare feet were leaving moisture spots on the linoleum floors as she stepped, walking delicately on her toes over to me. Her midriff was bare where her shirt didn’t quite reach the waistband of her shorts, which was frayed badly and washed out, white threads where there might once have been blue, the button at the top of her fly a clash against her belly. I shook my head and she smiled wider. “Your mom didn’t like how I dress, either.”
“I don’t care how you dress.” I walked toward her, suddenly self-conscious in my heavy jeans and t-shirt that covered me to the neck.
She spread her arms wide, prompting me to give her a careful hug, avoiding the prodigious amount of skin she had exposed. “Be careful,” she said in whispered caution, “you know the stronger succubus will drain the weaker.” I pulled back and she made to muss my hair, but I pushed her away with a gloved hand, drawing a laugh from her.
“What brings you back to the Cities?” I asked, using the local slang for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I walked my way to the couch as she leaned against the pillar at the edge of the kitchen.
“Just passing though.” She said it breezily, like she did almost everything, not a care in her world. She smiled. “Figured I’d drop in on my favorite niece.”
“Your only niece, to hear you tell it.”
“That too. You know, you could do a better job of stocking this place. All I found was Ramen.”
“Want to go out to eat?”
“No plans with your boyfriend, the agent, for tonight?” Her leer was suggestive, in a way that if my mom had ever let slip onto her face, would have freaked me out. They were so different.
“No.” I didn’t look away, exactly, but neither did I look toward her.
“Uh huh.” She bored in on me and stepped back into the kitchen, peering through the tiny pass-through that looked out into the living room. “You guys break up?”
I sat down and tugged at my jeans, which felt tight, restrictive and hotter than they had any right to be considering how low the air conditioner had been set in here. I’d feel the electricity bill this month, I bet. “No. Not