The house itself might have been nightmarish, but this? This was a dream for a girl who loved art as much as I did.
“My sister loves paintings,” Brando was telling Walcott, looking up, up, up at the tall man, so he almost walked into a marble bust. The manservant adjusted his path with a hand on his shoulder, but Brando didn’t pause to stop talking. “She’s a big geek for it.”
“You’re a geek for Marvel comics and movies,” I reminded him, darting forward to squeeze his sides until he laughed and squealed.
“Superheroes are way better than stuffy dead guys who painted pictures of stuffy old things like flowers and things,” he protested, looking up at Walcott for affirmation.
It made my stomach hurt to see how much he yearned for male validation and influence.
“I am fond of the Hulk,” Walcott admitted with a wink.
“Really? But he’s big and ugly and mean!”
“Is he? I suppose I like the idea of being two different people. One on the inside and one for everyone else.”
“All superheroes are like that!”
“But the Hulk is the only one that seems mean and dumb yet still makes a positive impact on the world,” Walcott pointed out and I had a surreal moment of wondering how my life had come to this, philosophical discussions of superheroes in gothic mansions with an actual manservant.
“That’s fair,” Brando decided. “Anca, can we watch Hulk tonight before bed?”
“Sure, Brandy Boy.”
“You wanna join us?” he asked Walcott next.
The older man blinked, caught off guard as we stopped at a black door with a little plaque on it that read, “Mr. Brandon Belcante.”
It caught me off-guard to see such a permanent proclamation of our residency here. It made me realize some silly part of me had been clinging to the idea that this was only temporary. But this wasn’t a fairytale, it was real life, and there would be no prince charming to save us from the villain who had decided to take us into his haunted home. A shivered slithered down my spine.
“If you’d like,” Walcott finally decided, “I could make time to watch a movie.”
“Cool!” That settled, Brando bounced on his toes and indicated the door. “This is my room? It even has my name on it. That’s so cool.”
Without another word, Walcott opened the door to reveal the room within. It was large, too big for a little boy, and filled with old, heavy furniture that gleamed with care and wealth. Brando immediately ran to the four-poster bed and jumped on the thick, soft covers, rolling over the grey sheets and moaning at their softness.
“This room is bigger than our whole house,” he declared, going into a crunch to look at me from where he lay. “We just have to set up my comic book collection and get some superhero sheets and then it’ll be like…the best room ever.”
I grinned at him, moving over to ruffle his soft head of hair. “We can do that. Why don’t you read some comics in here while I go check out my room, okay? I’ll be back.”
He nodded, rolling over to pull off the little backpack he wore. When he pulled out the latest edition of Spiderman, Walcott and I were immediately forgotten.
I pressed a kiss to his head, my fingers feathering over the pulse point in his neck compulsively. It was a habit I was developing that I didn’t know how to break.
Done, I followed Walcott out of the room and back down the hall.
“I think you’ll like your rooms,” Walcott said with a little smile as he led me through the old, creaking house. “They were once Tiernan’s mother’s.”
I shivered a little at the idea of what Tiernan’s mother might have been like. If her son was anything to go off of, she was probably incredibly intimidating.
But when Walcott opened the door with a small gold plaque labeled with my name, the interior wasn’t cold or bleak at all. The darkness of the rest of the house was absent from the feminine room. Tiny blue flowers peppered the cream wallpaper, the color repeated in the lush silk bedding and the massive Persian carpet over the dark parquet flooring. The rest was all in shades of white and gold, from the quilted headboard to the tufted chair at the gorgeous vanity set in front of the curved turret window.
It was a room out of a fairy tale, a calm, feminine oasis in the otherwise masculine doom and gloom of the larger house.
Despite myself, I loved it.
Walcott laughed lightly at my slack-jawed reaction. “I’m glad it meets with your approval. I aired it out the last few days, but a bit of that unused musk might remain, so feel free to open the window over there by the vanity. The hinge sticks a bit, but most things in this pile of rocks need a little tender loving care, so don’t be alarmed. Just give it a little jostle and it will open right up.”
As he spoke, I shucked my stained Converse and walked over the pale blue, gold, and cream carpet, wiggling my toes in the plush ply. My fingers found the velvet of the footboard, rubbing the softness between my fingers.
A lump formed in my throat, surprising me. It was strange to get emotional about a carpet or a headboard, but they represented so much more than material items.
When I was little, I’d known luxury. Mom had been obsessed with labels and Dad filled our home with them from the clothes in our closets to the car in our driveway. We had a big house with a big yard in a posh neighborhood filled with commuters to the city and their trophy wives.
When I’d asked my dad for a pony for Christmas when I was four, one had appeared in our driveway with a great pink bow around its neck.
Then, they’d found us.
The Morellis.
The family that hated Dad with every fiber of their being.
And they would stop at nothing to end each other.
Even if it meant targeting Dad’s bastard children.
I could still remember the cold, triumphant grin on the Morelli thug’s face when he’d cornered me on the playground at my elementary school and tried to convince me he was a friend of my father’s and that I should go with him.
I could still remember what happened when I refused.
A shiver ripped through me as I stopped in my new room, hardly aware of Walcott asking me if he should start a fire in the mammoth fireplace for me.
Dad had moved us to Texas after that, far away from the home state of his enemies and from him. We’d seen him less and less over the years.
Losing the ridiculous wealth was nothing to me.
Losing time with my dad was everything.
And then, five years ago, both were gone entirely.
The headboard under my fingers, the carpet beneath my feet both brought those memories crashing back to the forefront of my mind, leaving me aching and hollow with all kinds of grief.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to admit I’d live on the streets if it meant I could have my parents back.
Instead, I had this opulent bedroom, a baby brother who counted on me for everything, and a new guardian I trusted about as much as I’d trust Satan himself.
A long, weary sigh escaped my mouth.
“Miss Belcante,” Walcott asked, stepping in front of my vacant stare to get my attention. “Are you alright?”
Before I could answer, Tiernan’s dark velvet voice entered the room. “She’s fine. You’re dismissed, Walcott.”
Walcott had no discernable reaction to the impolite dismissal, flashing me a little smile as he turned to leave. He shut the door behind him.