Fables & Other Lies

“The gate takes a moment,” River explained.

I looked around again. “There are no people here.”

“It is pretty desolate, isn’t it?” He looked outside. “They must all be enjoying the concert.”

“That doesn’t seem right.” I shook my head and looked outside again. Every window brought the same emptiness. “I don’t understand. The people that . . . a lot of people come for the chair and for the house. Someone would be here, surely.”

“Do you want to get out and find out for yourself?”

“No.” I shivered and crossed my arms.

The gates opened, welcoming us in, as if my refusal to be near the chair was what it had been waiting for. When we drove past the gates, I turned to watch them shut behind us and felt my fate seal. I was going to the Caliban Manor and I was going with a Caliban. The heir to the house and the family’s troubles. That was what my father always said about firstborns. It was the way he introduced me to all of his friends. “This is my daughter, the heir to all of my troubles.” With that memory, a heaviness settled inside of me.

“It’s so dark out here. I can’t even tell where we are.” I cleared my throat, needing a distraction. Memories. For years the only wish I had was for some of my memories to return, my memories from home, which seemed as murky as the air around us. Yet, with remembrance came pain.

“We’ll be there soon.” River glanced at me, meeting my eyes.

“Do you go into town often?”

“Sometimes. When I’m meeting someone.”

“Like for a date?”

“Could be a date.”

“Hm.” I swallowed and looked away momentarily. “Do you normally bring your dates back to the house? I can’t imagine what that must be like when the tide is high.”

“We have boats.” His eyes twinkled.

“They say this water is angry. I’m not really sure I’d ever get on a boat.”

“I’m sure you would in the right circumstance.”

“Why are you selling?” I asked suddenly. The car began its track up the winding hill and I needed to take my mind off the idea that we could go overboard anytime.

“I’m not sure that I am. I just want to know what my options are.”

“Oh.”

“My father is ill. My mother never did quite like this house. She’s looking to move to the Italian countryside, someplace far.”

“Oh.” My brows rose. “Your mother . . . Sarah?”

“Stepmother. Yes.” River’s 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.