Page 30 of Magpie

I watch him from my perch at the windowsill.

I’m up in the attic, looking down on the porch.

A white picket fence lines the well-manicured lawn, picture-perfect.

I can’t tell what the House looks like, what type of structure the line of people on the sidewalk see when they queue up to enter.

Alister will be busy all night with the performance—the second type of ritual he told me about, the one that involves feeding off the fear of the masses that follow this place like it’s a cult leader.

I’m not allowed to participate in this one.

He said my aura would chase away the souls he needs to lure inside.

I don’t entirely understand the concept of this spell, this ritual based on fear and pain. But I don’t think too hard on it, knowing that it at least gives me a small reprieve from the lessons he has been giving me.

Tears spring to my eyes, sorrow and anguish clouding my mind and clogging my throat. With a great effort, I shove it all down. I’m always overwhelmed with grief and pangs of loss when I think about my lessons, and the murky void they leave in my mind.

I focus instead on the man with the skeletal face guarding the door, flashing his wide smile at the crowd, making them shiver and avoid eye contact.

I smile, not scared in the slightest at the sight of the wicked creature Sean becomes during this period when the veil between realms thins.

Alister says that this month calls to our baser sides, the malevolent force inside all of us.

It brings out our true nature. I can’t help but notice that I do not change.

I don’t morph into some creature of the night.

Maybe it’s because I have always been dark.

I tap on the glass, something to disturb the quiet of the attic.

As though he can sense me, Sean turns and looks up at the window I’m pressed against. He flashes me a grin before going back to tormenting the waiting crowd.

I watch as he lets a trio of girls into the House.

They squeal and jump when he lunges at them, before dissolving into a fit of nervous giggles.

I don’t hear any of it. None of it reaches me here.

Not a single bit of nervous laughter, not a scared shout; not any of the many screams I know are echoing the vast cavernous halls of this place. The attic is silent as the grave.

Yet it is impossible to ignore the magnitude of energy that swells inside the House.

I feel it like the currents of the ocean, swaying with each new soul that enters.

I nearly rock back at the ebb and flow of energy and power.

Alister will be drunk on it already. Another reason he leaves me mostly alone during the month leading up to Samhain—he is often too lost in his own haze to worry about giving me more lessons.

Slowly but surely, the crowd dwindles as I keep up my silent vigil on the windowsill. Sometimes Sean lets entire groups enter the House together; other times he makes people go in one at a time. There is no rhyme or reason to his selection, but I am sure it is all orchestrated by Alister.

The night is truly dark by the time the last patron enters, a scared but giddy smile plastered across their face.

Something tugs at the back of my mind, as it always does whenever I watch these crowds.

It all feels so familiar, a memory just outside of my grasp.

I shake the feeling away, focusing again as Sean comes into view.

Sean became my first real friend inside the House.

I thought it would be awkward, especially after the way we met, but there is something so easy about being around him.

Something that feels right . I fell easily into the habit of joining him for the ritual, although more often than not we simply sleep, curled up together.

Some nights we stay up well into the early hours of the morning, talking.

Since that first night, that first ritual, Alister has not sought me out to watch.

Maybe he doesn’t find pleasure in the small act of being held, being listened to, but I do.

There is painfully little I can tell Sean about myself that he doesn’t already know, though.

My time in the House has been considerably shorter than his.

He told me he was the first creation Alister and Irina made.

When I asked him about Irina, he placed a single finger on my lips, silencing me, begging me to never speak of her in front of Alister.

I want to question him about it, question Alister about the name scrawled on the back of that card on his hat, but I trust Sean.

I trust him far more than I should for how little I know him.

If I’m being honest with myself, I trust him more than I do Alister.

Beyond just keeping me company through the long nights of the ritual and chasing away anyone who tries to drag me into a blue-lit stone room, Sean has been there for me in other ways.

He is the one I go to when the cloud of grief from my lessons envelops me, when I can’t find my way out of it.

After my first lesson, when I was left aching and raw, Sean was the one to comfort me.

I wanted Alister to spend the evening with me, to warm me in his embrace and chase away the flashes of the nightmarish vision that plagued me.

Instead, he dropped my hand the moment we entered the House and retired to his study for the evening.

When Alister is in his study, he does not want to be disturbed.

He left me hollow and alone, a ghost to wander the halls aimlessly as I tried to put the fading memory of the lesson behind me.

Sean was the one to pull me from those visions, the one to bring me back to myself.

He protects me in all those ways, from the unwanted touches of others to the void of my own mind.

Sean walks down the stairs to the front door of this picturesque suburban home before turning to me.

He looks up, smiling and waving. Beaming, I give him a timid wave in return.

He motions for me to come down, and I falter.

Alister specifically told me to stay in this room until the performance was over.

He said he would retrieve me when it was safe.

Surely things are heading to a close, with the last of the patrons inside.

Alister will probably forget to come to me, like he does most nights of the performance.

Biting my lip, I watch as Sean inclines his head, motioning again for me to join him. Swallowing my nerves, I nod and push myself away from the window.

I creep down the attic stairs, padding my way silently to a hidden staircase.

After years inside the House, I’ve come to learn the easiest way to navigate the twisting hallways and winding staircases is to simply think of my destination, to imagine where I want to go.

I feel blood rushing to my face when I remember how many times the House has deposited me outside of Sean’s room.

I seem to be unable to keep him off my mind.

The House is eerily quiet as I sneak through it.

I expected to hear shouts of surprise and screams of terror.

I expected to have to hide from groups of patrons, or any number of creations performing in the ritual.

I wonder if the House is hiding me from them, or if it’s Alister.

I push those thoughts from my mind as I step into the foyer leading to the open front door.

Worrying my bottom lip, I pad silently across the floorboards until I am standing on the threshold.

Leaning against the doorway, I watch Sean.

He’s standing against the railing of the stairs leading to the front door.

He has a hand held out in front of him, a single finger pointed at a rock on the ground.

As he curls the finger in a quick motion, the rock flies toward him.

He snatches it easily out of the air, tossing it down in front of him and repeating the whole process.

“How did you do that?” I ask, startling him into dropping the rock.

He grins easily at me, pointing his finger and drawing the rock to him again. “It’s a trick an old friend taught me,” he says, a frown creasing his brow when he mentions his friend, his eyes far off.

“Can you teach me?” I ask, still standing in the doorway. It’s one thing to leave the attic; it’s another entirely to leave the House without Alister.

I learned the hard way to never set foot outside without him.

I was wandering the halls aimlessly when the House deposited me in front of a wide-open door.

The moonlit night was calling my name, and I couldn’t stop myself from strolling out.

Turning, I found the House was a large cabin situated in the middle of the woods.

I suddenly wanted nothing more than to walk the forest at night.

I barely took three steps before Alister was screaming my name, running up behind me and dragging me back inside.

He terrified me that day, yelling at me for hours on end.

It didn’t matter to him how much I sobbed or pleaded.

No amount of hastily repeated apologies or promises to never disobey him again were enough.

He was a man consumed by rage, and I huddled in on myself to weather the storm.

I was an empty husk of myself by the time he stopped yelling.

I was pressed into the far corner of his room, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, my head pressed into them, a crumpled mess on the floor.

My ears rang in the quiet aftermath of his explosion.

He knelt in front of me. He had to push aside the books and objects he had flung at me, littered on the ground around me. Nothing had struck me, though they came very close. I got the feeling he didn’t want to hurt me; he just wanted to remind me that he could.