Page 37 of Just for a Taste

A s I soon discovered, each room felt different in design, and the house must have been steadily built from a hiding spot into a proper dwelling.

The hallway itself was far more lavish than the one that had brought me into la cantina . Its walls were covered with such intricate crimson-and-gold Moroccan wallpaper, I felt compelled to stop and admire it. Even more beautiful were the massive romantic landscapes and golden sconces between each door. I peered into the first room on the left, and upon seeing bookcases, quickly shut the door again. Who would eat dessert before dinner, and similarly, who would see the archives before the rest of the house?

The room beyond it was a straightforward dining room, decorated in traditional 1920s Italian fashion. Though small and rustic in feel, it housed a crystal chandelier, crystal glassware, a porcelain vase, and countless other fragile things that gave me the same swell of anxiety as the china section of an antiques store. Holding my breath and sucking in my stomach, I stepped around a Queen Anne dining chair and into a modern kitchen. Granite and steel surrounded me here, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the stoves had ever actually been used.

Across from the kitchen and dining room was the master bedroom, a familiar sight. It carried the essence of Zeno’s room at the abbey, a Renaissance-style bedroom with crimson and black, satin and lace. A single four-poster canopy bed with matching nightstands on either side.

I gulped. One bed. We’d be sleeping in one bed.

I stepped slowly in front of the vanity and stared long and hard in the mirror. This was the face he’d wake up to, and the small, slender body he’d hold at night.

One part of me was terrified of sharing a room so soon, while the other part wondered why it had taken so long.

I was deep in thought when I first noticed birdsong, so distant I almost thought I was imagining it. My attention went to the massive curtain covering the entire opposite wall. I crossed the room slowly, brow knitting, and took hold of the curtain. The cloth was heavy and thick, and I could not easily cast it aside. Instead, I had to swim into the dark curtains, only to be plunged into light.

Utter confusion stunned my muscles, and the curtain fell over my back. Before me was overwhelming light— sun light. I rushed out of the room and forced my way into the most tightly locked door of all, beside the bedroom. It gave with great effort, revealing an outdoor courtyard on the other side.

I realized la cantina had been built into a mountain, and this courtyard had been carved into its outer face. Much of the natural stone had been preserved in the outcrop, now fashioned into sculptures and the bases of topiaries. Local clay formed the pottery and vases which housed small but flourishing fruit trees and flowers. How the greenery had been so well-maintained on such a remote estate was a mystery, but something I appreciated nonetheless. It wouldn’t feel like I was living underground.

A set of chirps greeted my arrival and drew my attention to the nest of sparrows in a persimmon tree. Now I wouldn’t miss the finches or Leonore so much either.

I took a seat on a bench and breathed in the cool mountain air. A glass wall similarly partitioned the other side of the courtyard, but the sunlight made it impossible to see the interior. With no other option but to satiate my curiosity, I abandoned my place and went to examine this new room.

The bathroom consisted almost entirely of a modern open shower, with that half of the room formed of marble, except for the courtyard-facing wall. Instead of stone, two sliding glass panels made up the courtyard-facing wall of the bathroom, allowing the shower to open up to the outside. The first panel was clear, and the second was tinted, so vampires could shower while still being able to see the courtyard.

I was tempted to abandon my search then and there, to stand beneath the rainfall showerhead and let warm spring water flow over my body while watching birds flit across the mountains. Or perhaps I could sink into the whirlpool tub built into the stone itself and let the world wash away.

Both options sounded divine, yet neither of these earthly delights could overshadow my excitement for the penultimate room of the house: the archive.

The door to the archive had almost as many locks as the entrance to la cantina itself, but those had been unlocked for me by Zeno prior to his departure. I tossed aside padlocks and used all of my bodyweight to push the door open.

Based on the dust that permeated the air and covered the furniture, it was unlikely anyone had entered it since Zeno was a child. In the corner was a large desk and matching chair, but the rest of the room could more accurately be called archival storage than anything else. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were packed in tight rows with loosely organized documents and folders stacked on top of one another in small cubbies. The papers ranged from slightly yellowed to nearly falling apart, and I cringed to think of what would happen if book louse or mold were to enter this place.

I whipped out my phone and typed out a text to Zeno, knowing full well I’d have to wait until surfacing to for it to deliver:

I’m going to need a dehumidifier , pesticide , cleaning supplies, a respirator, and soejbewsdfg

The message had already been sent. I frowned and started another one.

Sorry, I sneezed. Anyway, all that and some notebooks and pens, STAT. xoxo

I erased the last four characters, pressed send, then pocketed my phone.

Even though I was too nervous to properly examine anything until I had my tools, I carefully stepped between the shelves to glance over what I would work with the next few weeks. Rather promising were several stacks of what appeared to be letters, so old they would have been dust by now if they hadn’t been laminated. Beside them were several hand-bound notebooks stuffed with receipts, envelopes with old photos peeking out, and leather-bound books.

Tucked in the corner, on top of a shelf, was a dark box. It was cleaner than the rest of the room and had clearly been handled within the past few years. Despite my initial intention to deep-clean the room before touching anything, I was too curious to wait.

A ladder was necessary, but nothing in the room looked remotely trustworthy to stand on. Eventually, I settled on testing my luck with a shifty-looking crate in the corner. My stomach flopped, and I clutched onto the shelf as the crate wobbled beneath my feet. I took a deep breath and reached up but was still a bit too short.

Every bit of me knew how bad of an idea it was to continue, but I rationalized it by telling myself the sooner I got the box, the sooner I’d be out of danger.

The crate creaked and whined when I shifted my weight to stand on my toes and creep my fingers along the shelf’s edge. Then finally—

“Oof!”

The box, far larger and heavier than expected, crashed into my stomach the second I slid it down, sending me toppling.

Against all odds, I landed on a pile of furs, but this did little to save me from pain. When I hit the ground, the corner of the box jabbed sharply into my sternum, knocking the wind out of me. Even with my body to cushion it, the box slipped through my fingers and the wood scratched against the side of my hand. It bounced off the floor with a hollow thud and disappeared out of view.

“Shit,” I hissed under my breath. I touched a hand to my chest, then recoiled at the budding pain. A massive splinter about the size of my pinkie had implanted itself at an acute angle in the base of my thumb, sticking out like the quill of a porcupine.

I contemplated pulling it out in the archive itself but thought better of it. Even as a child, my parents had boasted about my high pain tolerance. Throughout most of my life, bottles of painkillers had remained unopened on my account. But I knew the truth even then: my pain tolerance itself was abysmal, but distraction was the most powerful analgesic of all. And of course, my greatest talent was the ability to abandon reality.

The blood and annoyance could wait.

Instead, my attention turned to the fate of the box itself. Up close, I could see it was clearly handmade, but I couldn’t tell exactly how recently. Decades at least, if not centuries. The black paint was chipped, revealing some sort of hardwood and yellowed glue. I could only imagine how vibrant the portrait on top had been. It, too, was faded, but I could make out the pale-white figures of vampires crowded beneath the Medici crest.

The only modern thing was the nearly new padlock tightly bolting it shut. It was massive, with a twelve-letter code.

A quick tug showed it had been scrambled, and I didn’t bother guessing any codes. College algebra told me I was looking at a billion possibilities if the letters were entirely scrambled. I dug into the wood around the hinges to reveal that a layer of metal was welded beneath it. Burning and forcing weren’t options, it seemed.

Feeling a bit like a child on Christmas Eve, I shook the box next to my ear. The faint shifting sound suggested it was full of papers, photographs, or a mixture of the two.

I huffed and peeled myself off the ground. If I had merely heard the jingle of coins or jewelry, I would have given up on opening it, but now I wanted to look inside more than anything. I put the treasure back, then returned to the living room.

In my peripheral vision, I saw the door to the room where Zeno had stayed. Something about the old, chipped wood reminded me of the room I had spent the past half hour staring at. Any sort of clues would presumably be in the documents, but I felt better looking into this room with Zeno gone.

With a deep breath, I put my hand on the cold metal knob and prepared myself to look inside.