The Cursed Blood, стр. 35
“Be a good lad and run along down to the dining room. Talk to no one in the halls or do something foolish like opening any doors. There are things here that not even a young Darkling should trifle with. At least not if they don’t want to become a permanent spectral resident.” She warmed grimly.
“Oh, and don’t take anything from that wicked, insufferable old crone at the reception desk ether. Go on ahead and order whatever you fancy. Your Grandfather and I will join you in a jiff.” Her instructions done, she smiled, hugged me, and almost playfully shooed me out.
For some reason Gramps was in deep trouble. I knew this the moment the door slammed closed with a flick of Gams’ hand behind me. I felt bad for him, but there was nothing for it but to head down to the dining room as I was told.
I walked as fast as I could down the suddenly eerie hall, as I’d always been taught that in fancy places such as this one never ran.
Crying, scratching, thumping, banging, moans, screams, laughter, and worse could be heard as I passed each door.
As I passed a humming old ice machine a grotesque face bulged out of the wall, stretching it out like a fleshy membrane. Its jaws all but unhinging into a gaping silent shriek. Hands desperately pushing out at either side into the seemingly thin boarder between it and me, scratching, straining, and pushing at it like a thing desperate to claw its way out.
Somehow, I knew that should it get out terrible things would happen, most likely to me. Heart thundering, I gaped at it, shocked into stillness and terrified to look away. Feeling that if I even turned away for a second it would burst free and drag me into whatever nightmare it was trapped in with it, but in the blink of the eye it was gone.
A young maid, impossibly pale, shimmering, and flickering as she pushed her ghostly spectral cleaning cart gave me a smile that chilled the blood. It was impossibly wide and almost made me whimper as she walked flickeringly by, there and gone, there and back again with each step.
Wisely, I decided to move on, as quickly as possible. As suddenly, ghostly Grandma’s instructions made a great deal of sense. Especially given what I’d just seen and what she’d already told me about what lurked within the Reunion Inn.
A clean shaven, square jawed, serious looking man with a grizzly ragged hole in between his eyes (that you could see clean through like a ghastly peep hole) that was barely hidden by a bowler hat, gave me a cold, hard look. He wore a finely tailored old-style pinstriped suit and coat with a flower in his lapel. As he approached his room, he gave me a semi polite nod, and ruffled my hair, sending bowel clenching chills through me as he stepped through his door.
The folded newspaper under his arm dropped to the floor at the room’s threshold next to a silver room service tray of dirty plates and an empty champagne bottle and glasses.
Another pair of guests, a young couple arm in arm did the ethereal shimmering thing and all but walked through me, the pair not noticing me in the least as they headed back to their room. Leaving me feeling disoriented and unsettled, trembling, and fidgeting and rooted to the spot until I could pull back together my shattered wits.
Not quick enough I finally reached the hotel’s reception area where a smirking Gretta waved and cackled. I did my best to ignore her as I made my way to the French doored entry to the dining room. I was met by a white gloved, balding, very proper waiter who seemed to be expecting me.
“Follow me, young master, if you please,” he instructed, and he guided me to a nice, private table in the very back of the room with a tiny lit candle flickering in a gold rimmed frosted glass holder.
“Your grandparents will be joining you soon… I will return with your chocolate milk in a moment.” He smiled, taped at his head, and winked in answer to my unasked question and handed me a gold lettered kid’s menu with a flourish and was off to fetch my drink.
It was a strange, almost scary, interesting, and impossibly sad place all at once. Everyone smiled and laughed but not everyone belonged here, not really, and they had the look of those who knew it and dreaded the tick of time. Acting like each look, sip of wine, and moment was priceless and unspeakably important.
A young army officer in old style dress greens that looked brand new dined with an old, bent, white haired couple who clung to him tearfully and drank him in as they talked.
In the corner of the dining room at an intimate table, an old man held a young women’s hand and tearfully nodded as she talked. Staring at her, no that didn’t adequately describe it, he sat there dreamily drinking her in with the look of a man who had loved and painfully lost. One who couldn’t bring himself to let go no matter how much it hurt.
At another table a young couple talked softly and lovingly to a little boy, laughing and crying and hugging till I had to look away uncomfortably, a painful tug of sadness in my eyes and chest as I was reminded of my own losses, gripping at my heart with a squeezing hand of melancholy. I found myself longing after my chocolate milk, something my mother used to make me when I was little.
This place is cruel. Loss is hard enough, but this? I guess I was too young to understand then. I’m not