The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) (25 page)

Blaire was shivering, not from the raging cold outside, but from the words that slipped from Margaret’s tongue, words that Blaire knew were true, every last one of them.

“All of the unwanted are thrown away there, and they slowly deteriorate with every passing second until…madness, and the unwanted that is on the inside escapes and sucks everything into its darkness.” She finished talking just as Blaire felt something take a firm grip upon her. Blaire whipped her head around to see Horace who had his hands planted steadfastly on her shoulders.

“You need help with these bags?” he asked. “We have to go.” Horace scooped up the two large sacks.

“Morning, Marge,” Horace greeted the shopkeeper.

“Morning,” Margaret responded with a suspicious eye that traveled to Horace, back to the unsuspecting girl, and then once again to Horace.

“Thank you,” Blaire said to the lady.

“Good luck,” the woman responded as Blaire stepped back into the storm that was quickly bearing down on them.

Horace pulled his truck up into the
snow
-flanked drive of the St. Sebastian orphanage. Blaire felt nauseated at the thought of reentering St. Sebastian, and, as the thick white snow continuously swallowed up everything in sight, Blaire leaned over and pressed her face into her hands. It was strange, but at St. Sebastian she felt safe from the savage city of Borslav, and in the savage city, she felt safe from the black halls of St. Sebastian.

“You okay?” Horace asked.

“I’m okay,” Blaire said, sobbing through her hands.

All that she and Travis had to do was get through a night or two. They could lock themselves in their room, put the dresser in front of the door, stay away from everyone, especially Natalka, and as soon as the snow let up, they could go. They could leave, right? But somehow it just didn’t feel that simple to Blaire anymore. Something was coming, something more deadly than any snowstorm.

Blaire felt Horace lean into her, and she knew immediately that his hand was on her thigh. She froze. He leaned a little closer as his large hand began coasting upward, and she pulled herself up and locked him in a crazed stare.

Blaire catapulted herself toward Horace screaming and throwing wild punches. The truck rocked with her fury and she felt like two people, the animalistic woman who fought to defend herself and the reasonable soul who seemed to be out of body, watching the scene and wondering how she had lost control. Horace was strong and had her pressed up against the door within seconds, his eyes featuring a desolate rage that managed to break through Blaire’s wild emotions and frighten her. Her hands scrambled to locate the door handle behind her, and she pulled the handle to plummet into a mound of drifted snow that nearly covered her.

“Crazy bat!” Horace yelled as Blaire shot up angrily and pulled her bags from the truck. She kicked the truck door closed with a shriek. Her chest heaved in and out as she stared Horace down. Yelling a few more obscenities through the window of his truck, the man then put it in gear and began rambling back down the drive. Once he was out of sight, Blaire turned and sighed at the sight of the building that would have to suffice as her refuge until the passing of what was to come.

Against the winds and heft of the grocery bags, Blaire fought her way into the building where Anya was waiting just inside the door.

“What took you so long?”

“It’s getting bad out there!” Blaire warned lifelessly as she shook out her coat.

“Blaire…” Anya began.

“We could barely get through the roads,” Blaire said, continuing to speak in a monotone voice that signaled her
trance
-like state. She was just going through the motions, and no longer had the capacity to feel. “And this is only the beginning…” Blaire babbled as she hung her coat, picked up the bags, and headed robotically to the kitchen.

Halfway down the hall, Blaire realized that she did not hear Anya’s steps following her. Blaire turned back to see Anya still standing by the door, the expression on her face an ominous harbinger.

“What?” Blaire asked. Anya’s throat tightened. “What is it, Anya? Speak!”

“It’s Travis…”

Blaire heard her bags plunge to the floor as she lost feeling in her hands. “What happened to Travis?”

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

“H
e fell down the stairs.”

“What? How?” Blaire was practically screaming now.

Anya’s heavy shoulders rose in a shrug. “I’m not sure. I know that he wasn’t feeling well and he didn’t look good. Maybe he fainted. We managed to get him into bed. I called into the city for a doctor, but with the trains not running, no one can get here now, but Travis is breathing. He has a few bumps and bruises and he’s unconscious, but I think he will be okay.”

Blaire sprinted up the stairs to the third floor. Something held her outside of the bedroom door for a moment, and she pressed her head lightly against it, before opening it and stepping inside.

Travis was laid out on his bed, his eyes were closed, he was peaceful, and his chest rose and descended subtly.

Next to the bed, Natalka sat in a chair rocking back and forth.

Blaire stepped forward silently.

Natalka’s rock slowed until it came to a complete stop at which point she turned in her seat and glowered at Blaire.

“What are you doing, Natalka?” Blaire spit out the words as if even Natalka’s name on her tongue was poisonous.

Natalka rose from the chair and took long strides toward the woman who backed up until she was against the wall. Natalka opened her mouth abnormally wide to speak, her
foul
-smelling breath covered Blaire’s face just as Anya pushed open the door. Natalka’s attention whipped toward Anya.

“Are you okay?” Anya asked, as Natalka fled the room.

“Yes,” Blaire responded. She was shaking as she rushed across the room to lean over Travis, putting her ear to his mouth to hear his slow and short breaths.

“Travis? Travis, please wake up!” Blaire felt Anya’s hand on her back rubbing, but it was of little comfort. Blaire grabbed Travis’ cool hand and held it tightly between hers. His lower lip was busted, and there was a bruise across his left cheek.

“Did you see this happen?”

Anya shook her head back and forth. “I just heard the fuss, and when I came up the stairs, he was already unconscious on the
second
floor landing.”

“How do you know he fell?” Blaire questioned.

“Well, what else could have happened?” Anya was clueless.

“We have to get him to a hospital.” Blaire tried frantically to lift his heavy body from the bed.

“Blaire, I told you I already tried, but no doctor will come. We can’t get him to the city now.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What can we do?”

“My God,” Blaire said taking the seat next to his bed. “He didn’t just faint; he is really sick.”

“I know that he has not been feeling well lately.”

“No! Anya, I mean he is really sick. He’s been poisoned.”

“Poisoned? How?” Anya asked.

“Follow me,” Blaire said.

In the kitchen Blaire went straight for Natalka’s baking drawer where she pulled out boxes of cake mix and other ingredients.

“What are you looking for?” Anya asked.

“The rat poison,” Blaire mumbled as she rambled through the cooking utensils, sending them flying over her shoulder like dirt behind a dog digging his hole, incipient rage adding frenzy to the removal of each item as she realized that all of the incriminating materials had been removed.

“Rat poison?” Anya was startled by the implication. “Who would give him rat poison?”

“Natalka! Natalka, that’s who. Those…those desserts that she has been giving us have been laced with all kinds of stuff!” Blaire yelled through her frustration removing every item until the drawer was empty.

“It’s gone! It’s gone! She took it out,” Blaire screamed.

“Blaire, I think that you’re just in shock about Travis. Why would Natalka want to poison him?” Anya asked.

“I don’t know! She’s crazy. She is losing it!” Blaire screamed as she threw the brownie box across the floor and pressed her bare forehead to the cold floor weeping softly.

The round woman held the pathetic bundle that was Blaire gently against her chest. “I know how stressful things can get here, but everything is going to be okay. As soon as the storm lifts, we will get Travis some help and he will be okay,” Anya assured her.

“What are you doing in my drawer?”

Both women were startled.

Blaire scrambled to her feet. “What did you do with it?”

“What did I do with what?” Natalka teased subtly with a manner that assaulted Blaire, but just escaped Anya.

“The rat poison! You know what I’m talking about!”

“I would never keep rat poison in my baking
drawer
—it’s dangerous. It causes sweats, coma, failure of organs, and eventually death,” Natalka said with her young, soft face morphing and stretching until all features were frightening and out of place, and then once again becoming normal. Blaire gasped and looked to Anya who had not witnessed anything unusual, only Blaire could see the truth.

Blaire pushed passed the girl, into the hall, up the stairs, and didn’t stop running until she was in her room. She sank into the chair next to Travis’ bed and stared off into the
maze
-like white of the walls, her brain failing to finish any reasonable thoughts that it began. She couldn’t think, she could only feel and what she felt was empty; empty and tired.

“How are you?” a mousy voice whispered.

Blaire was startled awake and soon realized that she had been sleep for some time.

“You’re freezing.” Anya said, touching Blaire’s shoulders. “I’ll get you some tea.” She took the blanket from Blaire’s bed, wrapped it around the shoulders of the young woman, who was still sitting in the chair by Travis’ side, and disappeared from the room.

As the leftover fragments of Blaire’s sleep faded into the room around her, Blaire thought of Latif. He could help them.

No,
she remembered.

He had gone off to Kerchaviv and left her to weather the storm alone.
How could he have left her, after she shared so much with him?
Blaire wondered to herself when her eyes fixed on the bottom drawer of her dresser that was slightly ajar. Blaire pulled the drawer out onto the floor and rifled through it until she found the rolled up pair of pink socks, unrolling them rapidly to find that there was nothing there. Her diamond earrings were gone along with her gold watch. Blaire threw the empty socks aside and began rummaging through the drawer, opening nearly every pair of socks she had, but her belongings were gone, most likely to the city with Latif. He was the only one that knew about them. Blaire would have cried if she had any more tears, but she didn’t, and suddenly there was a strange giggling in the room that soon mutated into garish, cackling laughter. It was the same laughter that she had heard while standing in the backyard of St. Sebastian on her first day, and she was even more frightened when she realized that the laughter was coming from her. She laughed until she was out of breath and could not laugh anymore.

Blaire pulled open her top drawer and found her cell phone. Even half a world away, there had to be something that Emma could do. Blaire powered the phone up, and as soon as the screen came to life, she punched in Emma’s number. The phone rang once, then twice. There was a click as if someone was picking up, and then she heard the death
blow
—silence.

“Hello?” Blaire called. She looked at the screen, and it had gone blank.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she chastised the phone. Blaire turned to the window over her bed and looked out at the cold, white world that was developing around them. The sea tossed gallons of dark glacial water on the shore every few seconds in the stark wintery landscape.

There was no escape. The world seemed without life, no birds or small animals scampering around. Everyone retreated inside to find shelter from the storm, but there was no retreat when the storm on the inside was harsher than the one outside.

Blaire forced the window open and was almost knocked from the bed by the forceful winds that rushed inside. Against the wind, Blaire forced herself through the window, placing the phone as far away from the building as possible in what she knew was probably a vain attempt to get a signal. She squinted and pushed further until she was hanging dangerously from the
third
floor window. The screen of the phone brightened to alert her of a signal.

“BLAIRE!” a voice called, startling her, and she whipped around to see Anya standing in the doorway with a cup full of a steaming liquid. When she turned back to the window, her hand was empty and her fingers so numb that she had not felt the phone slip from her grasp. Blaire pressed both hands against the ledge and lifted herself to peer down the side of the building just in time to see the phone disappear into a large mound of snow.

“No!” Blaire yelled as she hopped out of the bed and shot down the hall.

“You can’t go out there!” Anya yelled after her.

Blaire raced down the stairs and rushed quickly by the children that were playing in different places throughout the hall. She nearly toppled Danya, who was bumped into a wall as Blaire pushed passed her, the girl’s bundle of distorted photographs flying across the floor.

Blaire caught Danya’s glare as the girl bent to pick up her belongings, her dark eyes heating Blaire’s blood until it was almost boiling over. Blaire unlocked the massive door and turned the knob slightly, and it replied by blowing open violently. All of the children shivered and ducked out of the path of the hateful squall. Blaire struggled to push herself out the door and labored to close it behind her, but caught a glimpse of Anya coming down the stairs chasing after her.

Outside everything moved in slow motion, as Blaire studied her surroundings. An unreasonable amount of snow had fallen in a short period of time, and she felt as if she were lost in a snow globe, struggling to see things that were right in front of her.

Blaire maneuvered around the building through the ice on the ground and the heavy curtain of snow. Just as she found her bedroom window along the back wall, her breath was getting short.

Cold. Numbing, cold.

Blaire dove into the snow and began searching wildly.

Her chest was aching now. Hearing her name on the wind, she looked back, but saw nothing, only a veil of whiteness. Blaire quickly refocused on finding her phone.

Her head became crowded with thoughts of how cold she felt. She dug and dug, but the more snow she swept away, the more it was replaced. On her knees, the snow was up to her chest, and she couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. Blaire was dizzied by the rapid chatter of children. She looked around, whipping her head in every direction, and it was just her in the boundless white, but children were singing to her somewhere.

Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes…
the voices sang on as Blaire looked around trying to figure out from which direction they came. She sucked in a huge breath when she saw Dolly’s naked, headless body lying at the top of the stairs that descended into the basement.

“Dolly,” Blaire heard her voice cry out, and she began to crawl toward the steps but quickly stopped. Rich,
ruby
colored blood traveled out of the depths and up the staircase until it surrounded Dolly in a sea of red. Blaire watched in morbid awe as the white snow became infused with brilliant red, like sweet, flavorful juice being poured upon a snow cone. A ferocious growl erupted from the sunken steps and a tiny arm clothed in a bright yellow fabric reached out and snatched Dolly back into the depths.

“Lorna?” Blaire whispered.

Another soft growl exploded from the steps just as Blaire heard her name again. Anya was running toward her.

Ring around the rosie…

The playing and laughter of the children rose up and died down until there was a moment of complete silence, and then Anya approached.

“Are you completely out of your mind?” Anya screamed, hoisting Blaire from the white mounds.
Yes, I think that I am,
Blaire thought to herself, but she could not answer. She was dizzy from the cold and drunk on snowflakes.

“Lorna?” Blaire spoke in a whisper that was lost in the blustery weather.

The children watched in awe as Anya dragged Blaire back through the front door.

“We have got to get out of here! Help me!” she babbled wildly. Vesna came toward her with a large,
archaic
-looking needle that spit drops of thick, yellow liquid from its tip.

“No! No!” Blaire screamed as Anya did her best to keep the young woman still. “Blaire, please, calm down!” Anya told her. “We are not trying to hurt you!”

Blaire looked around to see more children,
odd
-looking spectators, coming out of their holes. “No!” Blaire yelled again as she railed against the staff of St. Sebastian, but Anya was too strong. The moment the needle plunged into her arm a dense warmth flooded her body with locomotive power and purpose. Her legs began to fold involuntarily, as she allowed Anya to guide her up the stairs without resistance. Nothing mattered anymore; she was limp and free from fear. Her feet were heavy like bricks, and she labored with every step. Her sight was weakening, and there was a vague visual of her room with Travis on the bed in the corner, and then darkness.