Chapter 1: Dad’s a Few Donuts Short of a Dozen

            “Heather, can I speak to you for a moment?”

            I knew Mrs. Trill well enough to know that was not a request.

            This wasn’t my favorite class; in fact it was probably my least favorite.  It was a class where I couldn’t say I knew someone, not that I knew a lot of people, there were only a few I even associated with.

            “Is there something wrong?”  I asked with false empathy.

            She glared at me as if she saw right through me.  “I don’t understand you, Heather, if you would just at least try you could do so well in this class.”

            This class?  She meant history…well; it was quite a boring subject and completely pointless.  I mean, what was the point of living in the past?  People should live for the future; history just keeps that from happening.

            Trill didn’t hate me, but I was guessing she didn’t like me very much.  Especially when earlier this year I decided that history class was a little too boring and decided to light my book on fire.

            “Heather would you listen to me,” she said in an exasperated way.  “I don’t see why you aren’t the least bit interested in the subject since the house you live in has a legend—”

            “What are you talking about?”  I asked.

            Her eyes widened, “You haven’t heard about it?”

            “Heard about what?”

            “Well, I suppose that would explain a few things,” she sighed.

            What was she talking about?  Explain what?  There was some kind of legend involving the house I lived in?

            “It’s just a legend,” she started.  “There is not evidence that it is true, in fact, this area is just filled with legends.  The history of this place has been obscured over time and the people who once knew about this area’s past have kept it to themselves.

            “Something of that caliber usually implies that something horrible happened in the past and it was so unbelievable that no one dared speak of it.”

            Fuck, I think I got her in one of her history modes, this probably meant she wouldn’t shut up for the rest of the period.  Not to mention that this happened to be my last class for the day, meaning that she could keep me here after the bell went off.

            Of course I was still curious about this legend since she seemed to know about it while I didn’t.  It made me wonder how many people actually knew about it.

            “There was said to be a really wealthy man, a noble or perhaps a king, who lived in the area.  The legend says that he often spent much of his time alone in a small stone structure not very far from the palace—”

            “Are you saying that the house I live in is the house this guy spent his time in?”

            It had to be, considering that the only stone house in the whole area happened to be the one I lived in.

            She smiled at my question.  “That is what everyone believes…”

            “You mean everyone knows about this legend?”  I asked.

            “Many people do,” the teacher said.  “I’m not sure about the younger generations, however I know for certain that most people my age know about it.”

            And how come no one told me about this sooner?

            “Why is this man so important anyway?”  I groaned.  “If you ask me this guy sounded pretty boring.  So he had a place to spend all his time alone, good for him, but why should I care about this?  This has nothing to do with me.”

            By the look on her face I knew I had said the wrong thing.

            “Really, Heather, no wonder you don’t do well in history.  History in most cases is to learn from past mistakes, however those who really find it interesting are just curious.

            “Perhaps if I tell you more it will interest you.  This man, his name was Malphas, and his mother was a Diviner named Pythia.”

            “What’s a Diviner?”  I asked.

            “A Diviner is someone if practices Divination, the art of foretelling the future.”

            Sounded like a bunch a shit to me.

            “Pythia predicted that her son would one day take control of the area and that he would rule with a cruel hand as his father did.  That would make sense since the meaning behind Malphas’ name is quite dark…

            “As predicted her son did indeed rule with an iron fist after killing his father.  No one could reach the man’s heart, that was probably for the reason that everyone believed that he did not have one.”

            “Then what happened?”

            “No one knows,” she answered.  “It is after this point where any knowledge of what happened stopped.  That’s why I believe that something so horrible happened that no one speaks of it.”

            The bell rang.

            “Lovely story, Mrs. Trill, but I have places to be,” I said as I started to head for the door.

            “Wait a minute, Heather, I have to tell you why I asked to speak to you.”

            Asked, my ass.

            “I thought you called me up to lecture me on the finer points of history,” I said.

            “That was one of my motives,” she agreed.  “But the main reason I called up is that your mother left you message to call her at home before you left the school.  She said she had something to talk to you about.

            “You can use the phone on my desk.”

            What could Mom want with me right now?

            Mom usually didn’t like to contact me while I was at school; I think she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.  Something told me this had something to do with Dad and in that case it wasn’t good.

            “Hello?”

            I sighed, “Hey Mom, Mrs. Trill told me that you wanted me to call you, I hope there is nothing wrong.”

            “Of course not dear, it’s just your father called.”

            For some reason Mom hated Dad and I really ever got why.  I just remembered that one day she decided she wanted a divorce and for some reason or another decided she didn’t want Dad to have custody of me.  I really couldn’t figure that out either since I know that Mom really had not special attachment to me.  She didn’t hate me or anything, but she didn’t like me either.  We just avoided each other most of the time and it suited us both just fine.

            “Did he say he couldn’t make it?”  I asked a little worried.

            That was strange since he had never missed a meeting with me.

            “No,” Mom said.  “He just said that he may be a little late and he told me to tell you not to worry too much about him, not that the man needs it.”

            Right, I didn’t want to listen to her rant about Dad…again, and that meant that I should probably end the conversation as soon as possible.

            “That man really needs to learn his place, you wouldn’t believe the way he started talking to me when he called.”

            Damn, I was too late.  The only way to get her to stop talking about Dad was to change the subject and I had just the subject I wanted to talk about.

            “Mom,” I said before she could continue her rant.  “Why didn’t you ever tell me there was a legend about the house?”

            There was a pause.  “Where did you hear about that?”

            “Mrs. Trill told me about it.”

            I thought Mom was going to start to talk to me about getting in trouble in class again, but instead there was another silence on her end.

            “Mom?”

            “Go meet your father,” she said before she hung up the phone.

            I recognized him right away as I always did.  Dad always chose a corner booth and his hair was always the same messy dark brown as normal.  His hazel eyes scanned the area like he was cautious of something.  I always thought he was a bit paranoid, but I wasn’t about to ask him about it.

            A smile lit up his face as he spotted me.

            “Alouette,” he called.

            My full name was Alouette Heather Peris.  Mom hated my first name and Dad seemed to love it.  That meant that everyone who even associated with Mom called me Heather.  Dad was the only one who called me by my first name.

            “Hey, Dad,” I said as I took a seat.

            “How’s everything going with you and your mother?”

            Strange question considering that he had mentioned Mom.

            “Fine,” I said.  “Well, actually when I talked to her over the phone she was acting a little strange, but she gets like that every once in a while.”

            I swear I have the strangest parents.

            Mom wouldn’t let Dad anywhere near the house, although the house had originally belonged to him.  Dad was the one that seemed to love that house.  Anyway since Mom refused to let him be at the house Dad always had to visit me at a café.

            “What do you mean by strange?”  He asked.

            “Well…” I started.  “Mrs. Trill, my history teacher, mentioned that there was a legend surrounded the house, but I haven’t heard it.  When I mentioned it to Mom she got kind of weird.”

            “That’s probably my fault.”

            “What?”

            Dad seemed to meet my eyes and I couldn’t read his expression, “I decided to buy that house, your mother really didn’t like it.  She said it was too different and too old.”

            Sounded like Mom.

            “So you know about the legend then?”  I asked.

            He nodded.  “Yes, it’s the reason I bought the house in the first place.  The legend made me curious about the house…and the selling price wasn’t bad.”

            I laughed with him.

            “Now that I think about it,” I said.  “Mom has been acting sort of strange around me for a while.”

            It couldn’t be that I reminded her of Dad or anything because my hair was a lot lighter than his and my eyes…

            “What do you mean?”  He asked cautiously.

            “Mom doesn’t look at me anymore.”

            It was easier to be open with Dad for some reason, but I’ve never been able to figure out why.  I saw him a lot less than Mom, but I seemed to get along a lot better with him than I ever got along with her.

            “Maybe it’s your eyes, Alouette.”

            “But my eyes don’t look anything like yours,” I objected.  “They’re green.”

            In fact, they were an emerald green.  Nothing like mother’s eyes, which were a bluish color.

            “It’s not the color,” he said softly.  “It’s what they hold.”

            “That’s bullshit,” I muttered.

            I was sure he heard me, but unlike a parent he didn’t scold me.  I guess he expected that sort of language from me considering my age.

            “Alouette,” he said as he looked past me.  “Your eyes hold more than you think.”

            If he went into the whole eyes-are-the-windows-of-the-soul thing…

            “Come on Dad,” I groaned.  “Eyes are just eyes.  You can’t see anything in them.  They don’t do anything they just make it so I can see.”

            “Perhaps to most people,” he partially agreed.  “But your eyes, Alouette, are special they hold power.”

            Why did I have the feeling that arguing with him would be pointless?

            “Did you know when you were a child that you wouldn’t look at people, Alouette?  Even when you were born you didn’t look at anyone.”

            “That was probably because I was a newborn baby,” I stated.

            He shook his head.  “No, it’s not that.  I know that even now you probably don’t look at people, isn’t that right?”

            That’s just because I don’t like people.

            “One day you would look at someone,” Dad said in a sad voice.  “When you find that person he will be the luckiest man in the world and if he ever break your heart I’ll break his—”

            “Dad!”  I gasped.  “That’s enough, really, you’re talking nonsense.”

            “If only you knew,” I heard him whisper.

            I decided that was enough about the topic of my eyes.  I really didn’t think much of my eyes anyway; it was Mom who had beautiful eyes.

            “So tell me more about the house,” I demanded.

            “You know about the legend?”  He asked.

            I nodded.

            “Well, there isn’t much to tell.  There is only rumors and legends, not much else.  I already told you that one of the reasons I bought the house was because the legend appealed to me.

            “I sensed there was something more the house then what I had heard so I decided that it would be a nice place to live.  Your mother believed that it wasn’t a place for a child since it was cold and made of stone, although as I now see you have turned out to be a beautiful young lady.”

            I blushed.  “Dad,” I groaned.

            “It’s true,” he insisted.

            “Enough,” I said as I tried to quit blushing.  “If I didn’t know better I would say that you were trying to keep something from me.”

            He was silent.

            “Dad?”

            He seemed wistful.  “Do you remember the last time you left that house for more than a week?”

            “I was six,” I said.  “You and Mom went on a trip, and when I got sick you cut it short and returned home.”

            “And the time before that?”  He asked.

            “I can’t remember how old I was, but Mom took me on a trip with her to visit her parents.  I think we stayed there for a few days before I started feeling sick and then Mom took me back here.”

            “And before that.”

            I thought for a moment.  “I don’t remember.”

            “You got sick then too,” he said.

            “What are you trying to say?”  I asked.

            He was quiet.

            “Dad?”

            He sighed.  “I really don’t know how to explain it, Alouette, but every time you have left that house for a long period of time you get sick.  Why do you think your mother still lives there when she can’t stand the place?”

            That didn’t make any sense.

            “What are you talking about, Dad?  You can’t mean that leaving the house would make me sick.  I am perfectly fine at school and I have gone on field trips from the school where I have spent the night at hotels.”

            “That’s only for a night or two,” he said.

            He couldn’t really think that, could he?  Dad was certainly strange, but something like that…

            He must have noticed my expression.  “Have you ever wondered why when your mother gets called out of the area that she leaves you behind?”

            “It’s because she doesn’t want me in her way,” I justified.

            He shook his head.  “No, you’re mother knows what will happen to you if she takes you away from that house.  That’s why she won’t bring you with you, that’s why she makes sure that you don’t spend more than two nights out of that house.”

            My voice was shaky, “I think I should go.”  I said and stood up to leave.

            “Don’t you want to order something?”  He asked.

            “I’m fine, I should get home.”

            I started for the exit.

            “Alouette.”

            I turned around.  “What is it, Dad?”

            “If you are still wondering about the house why don’t you take a look in the cellar…and please stay away from the wine.”

            “Sure, Dad, I’ll see you later.”

            I didn’t believe him, I didn’t.

            I thought about his last words about he cellar.  When exactly did we get a cellar anyway?  I don’t remember ever seeing it, and what exactly was down there?

            “Hi, Mom,” I mumbled as I walked in.

            She glanced my way for a moment before mumbling a greeting back.  I wasn’t surprised though; it was always like that…awkward.

            I had lived in this house since I could remember and now that I thought about it, I had never really left here.  I may have when I was a baby, but I wouldn’t remember that.  I could have been born in the house and not know it.

            “Mom?”

            “What is it, Heather?”  Mom asked rather tiredly.

            “Do you drink wine?”

            She gave me a strange look.  “You know I don’t drink.  It’s your father that always—”

            An idea came to mind as she talked.  “Do you think I could go on a history fieldtrip, Mom?  I’ll only be gone for a week—”

            “No,” Mom quickly said.  “I don’t want you to be gone that long, and you will have too much school work to make up.”

            Dad couldn’t be right about the house thing, could he?

            “It’s during vacation,” I argued.  “So it wouldn’t interfere with my school work and Mrs. Trill said that it would help me find an interest in history.”

            Mom shook her head.  “I don’t want you going, Heather.”

            “Mrs. Trill is even willing to offer me extra credit if I go.  She said it would help my grade tremendously,” I lied.

            “I told you, Heather, I don’t want you leaving.”

            In the past I would have thought that she was just being the typical mom that doesn’t want her child to do something, but normally if I mentioned that it would improve my grade she would let me do something.

            Dad couldn’t be right, though, it didn’t make any sense at all.  Maybe he was just overly superstitious.  I mean, no one could possibly believe…but then, Mom seemed to believe it, didn’t she?  Why else would she not let me leave the house for more than a day or two?

            “I have homework to do,” I said.  “I’ll be up in my room, please don’t bother me.”

            She gave me a tired look.  “Okay, do want me to leave dinner out for you then?”

            “No, I can find something for myself when I’m done.”

            She nodded before she walked away.

            I probably should have gone back up in my room to do homework, but I couldn’t help think about the cellar.  It was bothering me for some reason.  I think I was more curious about it than anything.

            Where was the entrance?

            I’m fairly certain I have been everywhere in this house, but I never encountered the entrance to the cellar, if we had one.

            Dad was a few donuts short of a dozen.

            Still, something told me that there was a cellar somewhere in this house and chances were the Mom knew about it and kept it from me.

            The entrance to the cellar had to be somewhere on the first floor, but where on the first floor?

            Then the answer came to me:  Dad’s old room.

            There was that time period when Mom and Dad were getting divorced and they were separated, but not quite separated.  Dad slept in a room downstairs after a few arguments, for some reason Mom hadn’t felt comfortable when Dad was there, she refused to go near the room.  She even refused to go near the room when they were together.

            I never really thought about it, but Mom never let me near that room.  I can even remember a few times she went out of her way just to make sure I didn’t get anywhere near it.  Of course I thought nothing of it at the time.

            What was in the cellar anyway?  Dead bodies?  Did Mom and Dad decide to kill people and hide them down there and Dad’s half-baked excuse was to keep me from going down there?  That would make for sense if Dad didn’t tell me to go down there in the first place.

            What the hell was I thinking?  If Mom or Dad killed anyone then they would want to get out of here as soon as possible.

            Before I even really thought about it I was in front of Dad’s room and I didn’t have an idea in hell how I was going to get in.  I was sure that Mom always kept that room locked.

            I tried the door knob and it opened.

            That was a little strange, not that everything had been that normal around here to begin with.

            I couldn’t let Trill’s little legend get to me.  Even if there was truth in that it wasn’t as if this house was haunted.  I think Dad was getting into one of his moments where he believed in the supernatural.

            But then again, Dad didn’t mention anything about ghosts.

            I looked around; maybe Mom didn’t like this room because everything looked so creepy.  There was a bed and a few pieces of furniture, even then it still looked sort of empty.  Like the room was just there…

            Like it was hiding something else.

            Great, now I was starting to think like Dad.

            Usually I really hated to think about Dad the way Mom thought about him, but I think I should probably stop listening to him at all.  Seriously, I still couldn’t figure out why I would even take him seriously.

            Even so, Mom was keeping something from me.

            Okay, if I was trying to get to the cellar and I found just the room to make an entrance…where would it be?

            The floor.

            “Yeah, genius…” I muttered to myself.  “But where?”

            The floor was covered in carpet, but it couldn’t have always been like that.  I’m pretty sure people didn’t use carpet when this place was first built.  So assuming that there was no carpet…

            I had to pull up the carpet.

            “Mom’s going to kill me,” I groaned as I started pulling up the carpet.

            Actually I was probably doing her a favor.  The carpet was the color of vomit or something resembling it, even if Mom didn’t go in this room she could at least change the color of the carpet.

            Without the carpet there was only a wood floor.

            What was with the carpet anyway?  The floor was so much more nice looking that the carpet.  I had no idea how old the floor was, but it was made a smooth cedar.  So why bother with carpet…oh, was that some kind of door located in the middle of the floor?  In that case the carpet would make perfect sense.

            I pulled the door open and noticed steps leading down into the dark.  I could only hope that someone had installed a light down there at one point.

            What the hell was I thinking wandering down there in the dark anyway?

            Oh, right, I had been listening to Dad.

            Somehow I reached the bottom without tripping over myself.  It took me a few minutes stumbling against a wall to find a light switch, which must have been Dad’s doing.

            I would thank him, but he was the one to convince me to go down here in the first place.

            The sight of a wine cellar greeted me.

            Dad really wasn’t kidding about the wine, no wonder he warned me about it.  He probably didn’t want me touching the stuff because it was probably valuable.  Dad really wasn’t the type to tell me that I shouldn’t drink.  He was kind of irresponsible like that.

            I really couldn’t see what was so strange about this place.  It was just a wine cellar.

            I spotted a chest made of cedar in a corner and approached it.  It looked really old…I wonder how it got there.

            Slowly I opened it, expecting it to creak loudly.

            It was eerily silent.

            The first thing I came across was a necklace.  It was more like a pendulum or a pendant.  It looked like it was made of silver and it seemed there was an emerald in the middle.  Of course I couldn’t tell if it was real or not, but it was pretty nonetheless.

            I draped it over myself and continued looking through the contents of the chest.

            There were books in here, really old books.

            Banging caused me to jump away from the chest and turn around quickly.  I scanned the room seeing nothing out of place.  Again there was banging and my eyes drifted to a door hidden in the dark corner on the other side of the room.

            Who the hell would be knocking on a door down here anyway?  There was no way in hell I was going to believe that there were ghosts, right?

            I opened the door, which seemed to open to another set of stairs, this time they went up and it wasn’t dark, rather it seemed the sunlight was illuminating the area.

            At least it wasn’t as bad as walking into the dark.

            I started up the steps and the door slammed shut behind me.

            That really wasn’t good.

            I turned back and tried to open the door back into the cellar, but it refused to budge, that left me the only option of going up.  I suppose that I should be thankful that I hadn’t ended up locked up in the cellar.  I mean, really, I could only live off of wine for so long.

            The familiar scene of my backyard greeted me.  Then the unfamiliar person, a beautiful woman with long red hair and piercing blue eyes, also greeted me.

            “Excuse me?  Is there something you need?”  I asked the woman.

            Her eyes lazily shifted in my direction and it seemed as if she was looking past me rather than at me.

            “Are you here to speak to Mom?  I wasn’t aware she was expecting anyone over.”

            Her eyes seemed to focus on me and she offered me a small smile.  “What is your name, child?”

            Okay, lady you are freaking me out.

            “You know what…” I said quickly.  “I’ll be back in a moment, I think I should tell Mom you are here first, okay?”

            Before she could say anything else to me I ran back in the house.

            Whoever that freaky lady was, I was sure that she must have known Dad at one point.  I don’t think someone like Mom would associate with her willingly.

            “Mom!”  I called out.  “Mom, where are you?  There’s someone out in the yard and I was wondering if you knew her or something!”

            Strangely there was no answer.

            “Mom!  Where are you?”  I tried again.

            Something weird was going on, not that it was the first weird thing that had happened to me today.  It must be all Dads’ fault, no wonder Mom didn’t want him around.

            I found myself running back to the entrance of the cellar and instead of the ugly carpet I had tore up earlier, there was only a rug that had been rolled and set aside.  The door to the cellar was wide open.  Without really stopping to think I ran down the steps and glanced around.

            Where the hell was all the wine.

            Then something I saw earlier finally registered.  The house I had just run through may have looked like my house on the outside, but on the inside everything was different.  There wasn’t a couch in the living room or the washing machine in the laundry room…what the fuck was going on here?

            “Who are you?”  A stern voice demanded.  “Why are you here?”

            I froze.

            Sitting on a chair was a man with black hair that ran just past his shoulders and coal black eyes.  He might have looked normal except for the fact that he was wearing a large silk robe of some sort.

            “Ummm…”

            “Well?”  The man growled.

            Wait just a minute?  Why should I be embarrassed or even afraid to be here?  This was my house damn it!  I couldn’t let this man intimidate me.

            I took a deep breath.  “My name is Alouette Heather Peris and this is my home, I would appreciate it if you would ask things of me more politely because of that.”

            He gave me a look that made my skin crawl.  “Well, then Miss Alouette, I don’t see how this can be your home since this place was built for me and I have constantly spent my time here since I was a young child.  So please excuse me if I find it difficult to believe that this is your home for I have never seen you around here before.”

            What was he talking about?  Did he live in the cellar or something?

            I glared at him.  “So who are you?”

            “I am King Malphas,” he said in his scary, but strong voice.  “Since I am the king I demand the respect a king should receive.”

            “Did you say Malphas?”  I asked with eyes wide.

            He glared at me.  “Yes, I did.”

            Fuck.

            Welcome to insanity where you are only offered a one-way ticket, please enjoy your stay…yeah, right.

            “Wonderful,” I muttered before I spoke to this guy.  “I think I will be going now,” I approached the door that took me to my backyard in the first place.  “As much as I enjoyed your company I have to get back.  They say hallucinations are bad for your health and such.”

            It was all Trill’s fault for putting this ideas in my head.

            I started to walk out the door, but the redhead from earlier appeared right in front of me.

            Um, excuse me lady, but your blocking my way to sanity.

            “Mother, what did I tell you about coming in here?”  The man who claimed to be called Malphas growled.”

            “Not to,” the woman replied as though the man’s tone had not affected her in the least.  “Not that I would ever listen, dear Malphas, you should know that by now.”

            “Of course, mother,” the man sighed.

            I glanced between the two before I spoke.  “If you are Malphas,” I said to the man before turning to the woman.  “That would make you Pythia, wouldn’t it?”  I said to the woman.

            The woman nodded.

            I think it was then that I passed out.