Airel - Aaron Patterson [75]
When I was done and dressed, I took a passing glance at the door that led to the hallway. It was as if I had never kicked it down. I shook my head, trying to hold onto my version of reality. It didn’t matter that it was, like, version 6.2.7 by now. It just had to make sense to me.
I went back into the bathroom and peered into the mirror. Gorgeous, of course. Superhumanly gorgeous. Michael would die. So to speak. I ran a brush through my hair expecting it to frizz into a fro, but amazingly, it looked like I had just stepped off a cover shoot for a magazine again, only better. I looked into the mirror, leaning into it to get a closer look. “Aaaaaaaaand…no makeup necessary.” Bonus.
This was weird, I was not used to being—looking—like this. I knew it was a gift and I decided to enjoy it, because if I did have a baseball size tumor in my head I was dead anyway.
My thoughts turned to Michael. He seemed to be under some sort of pressure. Was he just worried about me? I didn’t want to push him to talk to me but at the same time I wanted to know what was going on in his head. I missed him.
After a few minutes sitting on the foot of the bed, I opened my eyes. I remembered, more than anything, two words: “I’m sorry.” They came to me in a version of Michael’s voice; it was recognizable but strange. I knew that he had sat at my bedside for the span of eight days muttering those two words. Now why would he do that?
I decided I needed to break with all of this. I was clean, beautiful, and ready to take on the world. “Never mind that it’s two a.m.” I rolled my eyes. It was time to create something new to look back on at a later date. I walked to the door that led to the hallway, expecting to find it locked, especially since it was dark outside. I was trying to imagine kicking it down again. How had 98 pounds of me done that, exactly? I stood in front of it and extended my index finger to it. I placed it on the door and pushed. It swung free, yawning open on the hallway, which seemed to be dark and quiet.
Why do I sense a trap? I went back to the nightstand and grabbed a fresh candle, lighting it. I looked up and down the hall, finding no creeps milling around in the shadows. I took the plunge, walking out in my bare feet so as not to make unnecessary noise.
There were doorways to my left and to my right and I remembered my last trip down this particular hall. I had been a rabid wolverine looking for someone to kill. They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and I believed them. I passed on by the room adjacent to my own, which I was pretty sure belonged to Michael. I wanted to go in, to talk to him, but I pushed the thought away.
I came to the staircase and descended it to the main level. It was a grand house, really, like an ancient monument that just kept going and going and going. I found that the house was situated with its front toward the mountain and its rear to the cliff face where the waterfall cascaded. It all looked stately and majestic, except it was underground, which was still weird to me.
I found the kitchen next to the ballroom, separated by three massive stone arches over two feet thick. I went in, needing food and all-of-a-sudden hungry. I grabbed a handful of bright red grapes from a clay bowl, popping one of them in my mouth. I stopped and looked down at them, marveling at their taste. Best grape I’ve ever had? I threw another one in my mouth and coolness satiated my jagged throat. I groaned aloud with delight and began to devour them.
Brick and granite ran throughout the kitchen, and the dark wood cabinets were carved with intricate feathers around their tops. A carving of an eagle was centered on each door.
A formal dining room was through the next set of arches, with a glass and silver chandelier hanging from a forty-foot ceiling. The room had to be seventy feet square, with an enormous dark granite table in the center that could seat over a hundred guests.
Okay, so this dude is excessive. I still don’t like it. But the grapes were good. So I ate them. I finished the last one and