* This is the second book of this story that I wrote that started out as a companion piece to the fantastic web comic Clipped Wings that my friend did years ago. Unfortunately, we'd both let it slide for a very long time. Years later, I picked it back up again, made some changes, and just ran with it when I needed a distraction after a death in the family. Every time I take a peek at it, I just find this story's world utterly enchanting. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Check out all the sections, including Book One by clicking HER(fix)E
Book Two: Reservations
Chapter One: Vacancies - Part One
Oleander Tree: (Nerium Oleander) An evergreen shrub in the dogbane family, this small tree is one of the most poisonous plants known. However, though the raw plant is toxic, extracts of the plant have been used worldwide for their medicinal and magical properties for over 3,500 years, healing many things from hangovers to cancer, from snake bites to skin diseases, and even psychiatric and neurological disorders. Its symbolism, too, changes cross-culturally, representing everlasting love, temptation, courageous frailty, and even death depending on the place and time. However, modern, Western interpretations see this poisonous bloom as a symbol of caution and warning.
Rowan
What in the name of God was he doing here?
Rowan Drury held the spatula like a weapon in his sky blue potholder-protected hands, warding off the hot tin of muffins Calla Speedwell was shoving at him.
“Just try one,” Calla told him, her sneaker-clad feet squeaking on the checkerboard kitchen tile as she shook the pastries at him. “They’re pumpkin apple spice cake.”
Rowan backed away, stumbling into a maple stool and knocking it over before he could catch it. Shocked by the sound, he tripped over the cream-colored wood.
Falling onto the tile, his knees and ankles locked around the godforsaken stool’s sturdy legs as his backside crashed hard onto the floor with a loud thud. He kicked at it, his limbs thrusting and his body thrashing.
He grunted painfully, his face pinching into a wince as his head hit the dark cherry cabinets behind him. Causing a bowl of fruit on the counter above him to tumble down, raining round, heavy orbs onto his head.
Rowan flinched with a hiss as the heavy, green ceramic bowl struck him square on the head, before groaning and rubbing his head at the bowl’s breaking sound.
Shooting his eyes skyward, he caught sight of a bright, glinting, green apple as it rolled, teetering along the edge of the counter. He drew in a worrying breath as he watched it, as if in slow motion, careen toward the paring knife Calla had used earlier, hitting the smooth, white wood handle.
Rowan gave a tight, high yelp as the apple knocked the cused knife off the counter and over the side into a spinning nosedive down directly at him.
He sucked in a tense breath and watched its sharp, pointed blade fall as it nicked his cheek before sinking deep and sour into the shining, green apple that had rolled between his legs.
Murmuring fast, furtive prayers, he panted, too afraid to move, sure that any movement—any movement at all—would upset the paring knife that, at present, was far too close to his person.
He frowned at Flax Yew’s loud and raucous laugh. “You know, for a Widder-whatever-you-are, you sure are lucky.”
Rowan opened his eyes to glare at the chuckling man. “Widdershins,” he spat through gritted teeth.
He was Widdershins. A person of great duty and honor, despite his unfortunate luck. A role that, at home, had garnered him protection and a fair amount of diligent care and respect.
Here, he was just a klutz.
Rowan pouted, his nose crinkling and his cheeks flushing hotly.
The man just shrugged shamelessly. “Like I said,” he drawled with yet another laugh. “At least the knife only hit the one apple, kid.” With a pointed glance, he added, chuckling, “And not two.”
With a snort, Calla grabbed the apple with her own oven-mitted hands. “Jeez, they’re just muffins, Rowan.” She pulled out the knife and took a crunching bite out of the offending fruit.
Just muffins. Rowan puffed a strand of his bright red hair out of his eyes as he frowned up at her. Just muffins. Ha!
She—and Olive—had waken him up at dawn, dragged him half-asleep to the kitchen, and forced him into this torture session disguised as servitude disguised as bonding.
And, in the short time it took to cook up a batch of muffins, an omelet, and sausages, he’d already bruised, burned, and cut himself in more places than he cared to count.
Flax smirked and held out a hand to help him up. “You weren’t kidding, were you, kid?” He laughed and grabbed the towel from his waist to dab at Rowan’s cut face. “Jinx nothing,” he snickered. “You’re a damned menace. I’m surprised your folks didn’t just wrap you up in bubble-wrap at birth.”
Rowan winced when the rough terrycloth touched his face with a sting. “My cousin Jack did it once for my eighth birthday, so I could go out into the garden,” he said. “As we were doing somersaults down the hill, I fell into a wasps’ nest. I was stung in sixteen places.” He gave a small, humorless laugh as he righted the stool and took a seat. “My grandda thought it ironic.”
Flax clucked his tongue with a sage nod and grabbed a broom to sweep up the broken bits of bowl and bruised fruit. “Maybe it’s best you leave the cooking to the professionals.” He shrugged while he pushed the mess into a dustbin, eyeing the dark, burnt scorch marks on the boy’s clothes and the colorful pallet of bruises covering his arms. “Or at least to those least likely to turn brunch into a trip to the burn ward.”
So, with a kiss to his cheek from little Olive Lenten, a muffin from Calla, and a chuckle at his expense from Flax, Rowan left the crowded kitchen and headed into the empty Elysium dining room. Walking among the rows of empty tables, he looked out the huge wall of windows and the vibrant fall of autumn leaves swirling about in the brisk wind outside.
It was strange, the change of weather and climate, on a weekly—sometimes daily—basis. The Elysium Hotel was an odd sort of establishment, spiriting itself all over the globe in a blink of an eye, existing in small cosmic pockets outside the real world. In the dreams of an Appalachian mountaineer and the wish of a Malaysian deep-sea diver.
And, like a dream or a wish, it—with its clear glass exterior—looked fragile but was held solid with a strong foundation. It looked as if it could disappear in a glaring glint of sunlight, in the brief blinding of an eye, even as it shielded and sheltered those who lived within. It protected and concealed its guests, offering them sanctuary and safety.
But at a terrible price, he thought as he watched a Faceless servant walk outside the window.
It’d been six days since Mei Ying had checked out and, though Rowan was fairly certain the short-haired blond Faceless servant currently outside wasn’t her, he couldn’t help but think about her and the somber, resigned look on Lenten’s face when he’d walked out of her room the morning after.
Rowan looked out into the courtyard, leaning against one of the bar’s cushy leather stools. He wished there was something he could do for the man but, if there was anyone who knew that no spell or potion or any amount of magic could ease a bleeding heart, it was Rowan.
There wasn’t a spell in existence that could bring his grandda back from the dead. And, though he refused to believe that there wasn’t a spell that could bring him back to the real world and back to his family, he hadn’t a single clue to finding it and, in his darker moments, he sometimes let doubt slip and set in.
Rowan huffed and stared at the pink, raw burns on his fingers that still stung with even the slightest touch.
What was the point of being Widdershins—of living with his lousy luck—if he couldn’t help those around him? If the rotten fortune he suffered didn’t balance out with good luck for someone else?
Bad fortune without a purpose wasn’t magic; it was just crappy luck.
About to go out into the courtyard to let the breeze and falling autumn leaves blow about him and whip away his rather gloomy thoughts, Rowan stalled, his hand on the door’s handle. He blinked, his eyes dazedly gazing at something. For a distracted moment—his mind on too many things—he didn’t even know what had drawn his attention.
But there it was, a tiny, tweeting bird.
Not just any bird, but the bright red lory with the tiny broken wing that he’d discovered Olive kept and called Poppy. At first, Rowan thought it odd that he could hear the bird’s song so well and so clearly through the hotel’s window, until—on closer examination—he saw that the bird actually sat on the hotel side of the sill, looking longingly out.
He was a beautiful creature, his feathers a sleek, shiny crimson. Proud even in his wanting, he sat so straight and still not even his maimed, badly formed limb disturbed his majesty.
Wanting to know if the bird’s feathers were as soft as they looked, Rowan pursed his lips to mimic Poppy’s song as he slowly made his way to the sill. Pausing to softly call to the bird, he stopped an arm’s length away from the window.
But, just as Rowan was reaching his hand out to touch the downy creature, Poppy surged up from the window and flitted away, his one tiny, good wing flapping furiously while he flew surprisingly fast in a sloping, downward curve around the corner.
Worried about the wee, injured bird, Rowan followed him, still whistling, trying to calm and reassure him.
But he stopped when he saw the shining and gleaming black surface Poppy had chosen for his perch.
A piano.
Not just any piano, but a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand sat—simply miraculously—on the Elysium’s small conservatory stage.
Good Lord, what was one of the very finest pianos ever made doing here? How had it gotten here—for Rowan was absolutely sure it hadn’t been there earlier. He’d have known. He’d never seen anything up on the little oak stage. It had always sat empty in its little, glassed-off room.
But now, with the glass door wide open as an embrace, the piano stood proud and inviting.
As if called, Rowan forgot the bird who’d glided and twittered off without much notice. Rowan moved on soft, silent feet through one of the thrust-open sets of glass doors into The Elysium’s small conservatory. The thrill of the forbidden mixed with the undeniable connection and rightness he felt with magnificent instrument as he stepped closer to reverently trail his fingers along the Imperial’s sleek surface.
As he stroked the piano, it looked both venerable and brand new, as if neither man nor time had dared touch it from its construction so long ago to now.
Feeling bold, Rowan sat down at its bench and gently lifted its cover. With bated breath, he laid his fingers—lightly, barely touching—on its keys. They felt cool and soothing against his skin, familiar as kin, as his hands—as if of their own accord—began to sail through scales.
The sound! It was so clear, so rich, it made simple scales seem like concertos. His feet reached instinctively for the pedals as he slipped into his mother’s favorite Mozart sonata—No. 8.
She loved how passionate, how stormy, it was. She’d told him that it was what love was like. Sometimes soft, sometimes driven, sometimes so violent it was hard to breathe, but always changing, always growing.
Rowan closed his eyes, playing by sound and touch alone, as he imagined the Drury castle conservatory. He pictured his mother seated on her favorite Victorian-style chaise lounge, her laptop open across her knees, the click of her fingers across her keys a quiet, erratic percussion to his music. He imagined her stopping, stooping her computer screen, and closing her eyes to just sway slightly with the music as she was wont to do just as the song crashed toward the crescendo.
He stopped.
Breathing hard, he jerked his burnt fingers back from the keys as the memory still seared in his mind and heart, making his eyes tear.
He swung his legs around the bench only to pause.
There just outside the small windowed room, he saw a dark-haired boy slightly crouched and poorly hidden behind the glass conservatory wall. Lanky and long-limbed, the teen was all shoulders and elbows and knees, all awkwardly angled as he pressed his hands and face to the clear surface.
Caught, the peering boy jumped back, his longish, spiraled, unkempt hair whipping his full, flushing cheeks. His gray, slate eyes, set in a sweet, boyish face, were impossibly wide as he quietly mouthed a stuttered apology before hurrying away on too large, terribly clumsy, bare feet.
“Wait!” Rowan stood up from the bench and headed down the stage steps. Following the fleeing boy, Rowan headed down the adjoining hallway, but the odd boy was already gone.
Stepping back into the conservatory, he stared at the wall and the still warm handprints left on the glass. With his lips slightly parted, Rowan reached up to place his hand tentatively over the marked glass, the surface smooth and cool beneath his hands.
“See you met the little library rat,” Flax drawled from behind him, amusement dripping from his voice.
Rowan whirled around, jerking his hand back. Feeling foolish, he thrust his hands behind his back. “What?”
Flax, with an indulgent smile on his face while he leaned lazily. Framed within the conservatory’s entry, he nodded toward the hallway. “Leander,” he said. “He lives in the library. Rarely ever comes out of it, actually.”
Rowan turned toward the hallway. “The library?”
“He’s got a room attached in the back of it. Just showed up there one day.” Flax studied his nails. “Something like sixteen months ago. Never left.”
“The library.” Rowan pursed his lips and thought about the room he’d seen with the maze full of books.
He stood back, his mind on all the books he’d found on his bedside that just mysteriously appeared since he’d arrived. Old favorites. New recommendations that suited just his tastes. Even the book of magic spells.
As the silky, awed glint in the boy’s slate eyes flashed sweet and admiring in Rowan’s mind, he wondered if the boy was the one who’d sent them.
“You should check it out,” Flax suggested far too casually. “You just might find something interesting.”
Rowan nodded distantly, thinking that he might do just that. Stepping toward the hallway, he was surprised when Flax reached out to grab him by the elbow.
He turned back to the man, confused by the hard, still look on his chiseled face as he stared off toward the library. With his eyebrow cocked and a question perched on his lips, he was about to ask Flax what was wrong when the man answered the unasked question tersely, “Not right now.” Still not looking at Rowan, but still peering at the library as if he could see through the wall, he said, “Come on, breakfast is done. Eat first.”
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