Fables & Other Lies - Claire Contreras Page 0,24

lips twitched. “She’d be happy to know she hasn’t been forgotten.”

“Forgotten?” I let out a laugh. “Legends never die.”

“That’s the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

I felt some of my anxiety ease a little. “So, your father is ill?”

“He is.”

“What’s wrong with him? If I may know.”

“The doctors can’t quite figure it out. They’ve run tests and scans and find nothing, yet he’s lost weight, energy . . . ” He looked forward.

My gaze followed. The only thing I could make out was the rocky path, which made the car bounce every so often. My stomach clenched. I hoped I wouldn’t throw up all the tequila I’d drunk. I’d never done it before, but there was a first time for everything. I just didn’t want my first time to be in the back of a luxury car that probably cost what my shoes cost to detail. Suddenly, there was a low, and I knew we were finished going up the hill and getting closer to the house. I’d seen the picture I’d taken so many times, you’d think seeing it in person wouldn’t be shocking, but it was. I’d hoped so much that being here would mean that my memories would come flooding back. That wasn’t the case. I didn’t remember seeing the house at all. It was so much bigger than I remembered. An estate. A dark, gray estate with decaying windowpanes. Even the trees on the property looked dead, but that could be because of the lack of grass. It was an impossibility, this house, yet there it was, staring right back at me.

“Is it really six miles from the gate to the house?” I asked.

“Six and a half.”

“It feels farther.”

“Distance is an illusion.”

“Much like time.”

“Much like time.” He grinned.

My heart leaped. I focused on the trees to get a grip. There were no flowers, no leaves, just twirling branches on trunks.

“Do the trees ever flourish?”

“One does.”

“One,” I said. The magic tree. “So the rest are just . . . dead all the time?”

“Does anything ever truly die?”

“Yes.” My father had just died and I saw him lying in a casket just one day ago, so definitely.

“I don’t believe that.”

“But you just said the trees don’t flourish.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re dead.”

“Master River.” That was the driver as he parked the car in front of the steps that led to the house and got out of the car, opening the door for River.

“Thank you, Gustavo.” River got out of the car.

I stayed in my seat, not just because I knew one of them would open the door for me, but because I truly was regretting all of this. Suddenly, one night in jail didn’t seem so bad after all, but then River opened the door and offered me his hand and looked at me with those dark eyes of his and I just took it.

Chapter Nine

I stared at the exterior of the house as River walked up the steps. It was paneled in dark gray and had a porch that wrapped around its entirety. The house had such an eerie feel to it and I hadn’t even stepped inside yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. The more I looked at it, the less comfortable I felt. An uneasy feeling spread through me. For me to have taken a picture of the house, the picture I took and published and sold, I would have had to be standing just a few feet from it, but that was impossible. Nowadays, I could say it was my lens, but I didn’t have the lenses I had now, then. I willed myself to remember, but couldn’t, and it was madness.

“Are you going to stare at it all night?” River asked.

I blinked and made my way up the stairs. The porch was filled with black rocking chairs that swayed with a creak as the wind picked up. I shivered and rushed up the rest of the steps. When I reached River, I expected him to open the door. Instead, he cleared his throat and the large double doors before us opened. A pale woman with dark hair, dressed in a black blouse and long black skirt that seemed too long for her not to trip on, was on the other side. She didn’t smile, didn’t welcome me, didn’t even acknowledge me. She kept her head slightly bowed and moved out of the way for us to walk inside. There was music playing. Old music, the kind you play at a cocktail