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Chapter Five: Room Service - Part Three
Olive
Olive thought this was a fine game indeed, following Mei around. She always stayed a little ways behind, always hidden in alcoves and around corners, but she never let the woman out of her sight. Not for a minute.
Not when Mei went into Jonquil’s room to discuss Flax and his exploits—whatever that meant. Not when she went to water Mrs. Kinofuji’s plants and discuss Uncle Lark in hushed, secret tones. Not even when she’d gone to the gardens to take lunch alone.
That had been the hardest—to squeeze behind the bushes and keep so very still. But she did it, even when a funny, little beetle tickled along the tips of her fingers. She didn’t make one sound, though she was on the very verge of disgusted squeals and elated laughter.
And Mei never knew, she just sat and ate, while Olive sat crouched and watching.
And when finally Mei left, forgetting her cookie on the garden bench, Olive snatched it as a clue—taking only the tiniest bite before pocketing the rest for later inspection.
Olive was so the best spy. Rowan and Calla would be so proud.
She crept slowly on the carpet, willing her feet to be as quiet as they could. She turned the corner she’d seen Mei take, confused when she saw no one there. But then she noticed. The door to Suite 315 was opened just a crack. When she hurried toward it, she could hear Mei and Juniper talking.
“Mei,” she heard Juniper say, her excitement audible even with her voice muffled, “I was hoping that you would come.” Olive peeked in to see Juniper release the smaller woman from a very tight embrace.
“I promised I would.” Mei sat down on the small, red sofa in the room. “I’d hoped that Lenten might join me, but he’s been…” Mei paused before saying, “detained.”
“Is he giving you the run-around?” Juniper settled more comfortably in the matching red easy chair beside Mei. “Wouldn’t have pegged Lenten as that kind of guy. Now Flax, he pulls that routine every few days or so.” She laughed, but still somehow sounded sad. Juniper looked down at her hands folded in her lap and shrugged. “But I think he just does it to rile me up, you know.” She sniffled and then flipped her hair dramatically, and suddenly she was smiling brightly again. “So are you here to check my closet again?”
Her closet? Olive fell to her hands and knees and crawled swiftly and silently behind the sofa.
“Yes,” she heard Mei’s voice say above her. “Have you heard more voices since?”
“Oh, yes,” Juniper said. “Hundreds of them. I listen to them constantly—even the ones I don’t understand. Sometimes you don’t really need the words to know what’s going on. Like the French women ordering coffee sound just like the Australian women gossiping—all bitter and just the teensiest-bit jealous.”
Olive turned around on the fluffy carpet to face the opened closet door. Voices in the closet? Why was she just hearing about this now? No one told her anything!
Curious now, she made her way on hands and knees to the door, stealthily sneaking into the walk-in closet. The black carpet inside the small space was as thick and soft as the rest of the room and she noticed a pile of pillows had been placed in the back corner along with bags of chocolates and chips and other treats. Olive almost squealed with delight when she saw it.
It was the perfect hide-out, like the forts she built in her room using chairs and blankets. And the sparkly, spangly, glittering clothes that hung from high-up hangers just added to the effect, like the inside of some fairy queen’s tent. Olive reached up a tentative hand to touch a trail of soft, bright gold feathers that dangled from one of the dresses. They were dazzling and almost made Olive forget all about the mysterious voices.
But she was a good spy and always—always—kept her mission first in her mind. So she scuttled beneath the blankets and plopped on full pillows, pulling her partially eaten cookie out of her pocket to lay with the rest of her delicious bounty. And she listened.
“It doesn’t matter,” she heard a man whimper pathetically from somewhere beneath the closet’s plush carpeting. “We got the old man. That should be enough.” There was a tense pause before he squeaked, “Right?”
Olive cringed when she heard a loud crack followed by the poor man’s simpering whines.
“You useless tosser,” another man’s voice hissed. Olive shrunk a bit into the blankets. She didn’t know this man—couldn’t even see him—but she knew, just by the sound of his voice, that she did not like him. His voice, though it sounded a bit like Rowan’s, was angry and mean instead of musical and pretty.
And it reminded her of…something that she could only barely remember—and would rather like to keep it that way.
“We needed the boy too and you lost him. The plan’s no good unless we take them both out.”
“He’s probably dead anyway,” the first man pointed out helpfully. “Those woods, they’re haunted—everyone knows that. Conner O’Riley says his great aunt’s first husband went into that forest, got lost for fifty years, finally made it out after half-a-lifetime of torment and danger only to find his wife and the rest of the world hadn’t aged a day. The man died there, old and wrinkled, at his young bride’s feet. His family, horrified, threw the cursed body back into the trees which greedily swallowed the corpse up.”
“Bunch of rubbish,” the scary man muttered. “And you’d better hope that boy still lives.” He growled as another harsh thud sounded, followed by another chorus of howls. “If he died, it’ll take us months—maybe years—to find the next one. And between then and now, be certain, I’ll have killed you.”
Olive leaned in a bit closer, not remotely sure why she was so intrigued by this, while she knew definitively that she was. But no matter how hard she listened, all she could hear now was the first man’s quiet sobs.
She almost felt bad for him. You know, for a murderer and all.
Olive’s head popped up when she heard Mei call her from Juniper’s room.
She pouted.
Mei’d known she was there the whole time! So much for spy-like sneakiness. Oh, parsnips! “I’m coming,” she called back, searching around for her cookie.
“Who’s there?” she heard the man from the closet cry out, his voice suddenly sharp and alert. “I know you’re there.”
Olive, curious, leaned in closer, her knees crunching crinkly bags of potato chips and chocolate chip cookies. Was there someone else there?
“I can hear you,” the man said, starting to sound angry. “Come on out. Now.”
“Olive,” Mei said from the doorway. “We’ve trespassed on Juniper’s time enough now.”
“Olive?” the man said confusedly. Olive jerked when she heard her name. “Who the fuck is Olive?”
The small girl turned back, white-faced, to look at Mei. He could hear them. He’d heard her name. He knew her name. Though she was almost certain that she would like this man much more than the other one, she also was just as sure she didn’t want either of them to know her name. “Mei,” she squeaked very quietly, fighting back frightened tears.
Mei shook her head and put a finger to her lips.
“Hey, whoever the hell is there,” the man yelled, “show yourself!”
“What are you yelling about?” the other man shouted.
“There’s someone here,” he answered. “I heard them. Two of them, I think. Two birds; an Olive and someone.”
Olive turned back at the sound of footsteps approaching. “Find them,” the scary man ordered. “Get rid of them. Now.”
“Hey,” Juniper, oblivious to the sudden tension surrounding her closet, said loudly, bouncing excitedly behind Mei, “anything interesting on?”
But before Mei or Olive could silence her, the first man shouted, “That’s them!”
In the scared silence, they all heard the unmistakable sound of metal clicking.
Olive froze, only slightly sure she knew what was coming next while absolutely positive that it wouldn’t be good. She choked back sniffling, wet sobs, knowing she shouldn’t make a sound but unable to help it. She wanted to cry, to wail.
She wanted her uncle. He always made the monsters leave.
“What’s going on?” Juniper whispered before Mei clamped a hand over her mouth only to yank it back when all three females jumped and screamed at the loud shot that fired from somewhere beyond the closet.
Mei quickly scooped Olive up in her arms and swiftly swept her out of the room. Olive, shaking from trying to keep so quiet and so still, sobbed with such relief as the closet door shut that she didn’t even miss the cookie still left half-nibbled inside.
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