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Chapter Three: The Curse Jar - Part Five
Lenten
“The water has been blessed!” Lenten heard Calla announce, her voice full of mock sanctimony. “You may now add the lemon and basil.”
Lenten, still cradling Daisy in his left arm, crept toward the sound of her voice. He turned past the conservatory and into the first floor hallway.
“You can stop blessing it now,” he heard Rowan’s rhythmic brogue interrupt Calla’s strange, vaguely mocking chants.
Lenten stopped and looked at the door the noise was coming from. The library.
Three days had passed since he’d seen Rowan in there. Lenten hadn’t checked the hotel’s logs in more than a week, but — if the past were any indication — he supposed that the space was safe enough by now.
He’d meant to check on the door, maybe even have hotel services change the faulty locks.
But he hadn’t.
“Did we need basil leaves or seeds?” he heard Leander ask, his voice confused but calm.
Lenten let out a relieved breath. If Leander was in the library commons, then — Lenten was sure — everything was fine. Most likely.
About to turn to leave, he heard Olive chime in, “Seeds. Rowan said seeds. Can I add them yet?”
He froze, worry rooting him in place. Olive?
He leaned into the door. Reaching out to crack it open, Lenten peeked in. Though the small opening, he saw his little niece kneeling on one of the large walnut tables over an oversized terracotta planting pot, her fist hovered high over the rim.
Rowan standing behind her was turned, checking a large open book propped up on the low shelves behind him. Murmuring in a language Lenten didn’t understand, the boy scanned the book. “Yes,” he said after a moment, “yes, go ahead.”
Lenten watched Olive delicately sprinkle the seeds into the pot, raining them down in a circling pattern proudly. “There.” She wiped her hands over the pot to dislodge all the tiny pods. “All done.” Flouncing around to face the boy, she asked eagerly, “What else can I do?”
Magic-making, Lenten thought with a disgruntled shake of his head. Despite the fact that he lived in a fairly mystical, almost mythical hotel and the fact that Rowan’s last spell had... well, he supposed it had worked or at least done what it had intended, Lenten did not like magic. And he most definitely did not want his niece mixed up in the mess.
He listened for a while longer, trying to determine what they were up to, but after twenty minutes of Calla teaching Olive some song lyrics by someone called the Spice Girls, Lenten gave up.
He should have broken them up. He should have ordered Olive — all of them — back to their rooms.
He knew that. Would normally have done it.
Instead, he just walked away.
He wandered aimlessly for a while. He couldn’t go to his office — not if he was avoiding his work. He couldn’t go back to his room — not if he was avoiding his thoughts. So, with a sigh, he began to walk to a part of the hotel he rarely frequented.
“Lenten?” Flax asked incredulously when he saw the other man.
Lenten settled himself on one one of the bar stools and placed the doll down onto the counter next to him. There was a long pause as they stared at each other, waiting. “Well?” Lenten asked, irritated by the stunned expression on the man’s face.
“Well, what?” Flax asked, still shocked.
“Well, aren’t you supposed to get me a drink?” He was appalled by Flax’s lack of service. Never having actually come here for a drink, he hoped service wasn’t always this slow; it cast a bad impression on the hotel as a whole. “Well?” he asked again, impatience stinging his tone.
“What kind of drink can I get you?” Flax asked.
That stumped Lenten. Not much for alcohol — or the slip in one’s control it caused — he wasn’t exactly well-versed in the world of intoxication. “That,” he said, pointing to one of the bottles — a stout, sturdy, respectable looking bottle on the far left of the bar. “I’ll have that.”
Flax gave Lenten a wry once-over before ambling over to the bottle, retrieving both it and a short, small glass. Still studying him, Flax unscrewed the bottle’s top and slowly poured a very little amount of the dark, rich liquid into the glass.
“That’s it?” Lenten sneered at the glass.
“Do you know what that is?” Flax nodded toward the shot glass.
Lifting the drink, Lenten sniffed the liquid only to hold it away again. He gasped and coughed, choking on the one small whiff. The fumes were absolutely noxious. Overwhelming and overpowering, Lenten couldn’t imagine bringing the glass back up to his face, much less swallowing its contents. “Do I want to know?” He tipped the glass to watch the viscous stuff slosh.
“Moonshine,” Flax answered. “The real McCoy. Bathtub Dixie Mafia mix from the Prohibition.” Pouring himself a full shot as well, he said, “For a lush, it’s a good way to get plastered fast.” Putting the bottle back under the counter, he added, “For a lightweight, it’s practically lethal.”
It was a dare. One Lenten could see shine in the man’s dark, black eyes.
Usually, Lenten wouldn’t rise to the impertinent man’s baiting, seeing it as an egotistical exercise and completely beneath him. But, like he’d said before, nothing felt usual anymore. So, taking a deep breath, Lenten brought the glass to his lips and downed the drink in one swig. Almost the second the toxic stuff touched his tongue, he began to cough, sputtering most of the moonshine back up. But what little did pass through his throat burned a strangely sweet path down to his stomach. He set the glass back down onto the counter with a clink. “Another,” he demanded, determined to swallow the whole thing this time.
Flax eyed him again, disbelief, disapproval, and understanding warring in his dark gaze. Picking up his own glass, he took a drink. Never taking his eyes off of the man, Flax drained half the liquid in the glass in one smooth sip. With slow, deliberate movement, he set the glass down in front of Lenten, but didn’t let go. Instead, he let his fingers linger as he twisted the glass first one direction, then the other. “You wanna talk, Lenten.” It wasn’t a question.
Lenten scoffed and shook his head at the arrogant man. He reached for the glass only to have Flax jerk it away. The manager peered up at the bartender with irritated incredulity.
“Talk to me.”
Standing, Lenten leaned over and made a grab for the glass. “I’m fine,” he insisted, his hand knocking the doll off the counter. He gasped before he fumbled for Daisy. With a worried choke, he heard the porcelain hit the hardwood floors. Lenten dropped to his knees on the floor, reaching out to cradle the doll in his hands. “Oh my God, oh God.” Lifting Daisy onto the bar counter, he frantically searched the doll for damage. “Please be okay.”
“Lenten,” Flax said, ducking his head to catch the man’s eye, “you’ve been carrying a doll around with you for days now.” He bent down to rest on the counter. “Talk to me.”
Holding the doll to him protectively, Lenten insisted, “I’m fine.”
Flax stared at the man for a long moment. “I loved her too, you know,” he said quietly but firmly.
Lenten didn’t bother asking her who. He didn’t have to.
He liked to think that, for as long as he’d known her, Mei had been his. Because, Lord knew, from the very first second he’d seen her in that moonlit garden, he’d been hers.
But Mei had been in the hotel long before that garden, long before they’d ever met and spoken and…
Flax shook his head when Lenten looked away. “I know it wasn’t the same, but you can talk to me, if you want.”
Thinking of Flax, with his salacious nature and scandalous reputation, and Lenten’s sweet, beautiful Mei made him feel crazed.
Lenten clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes against the tears. He wasn’t going to cry. Not anymore. So instead, he said, “I want another drink.” Holding out his other hand, he reached for the glass. “Give me another.”
Flax tilted his head, thinking about it for a moment before he handed the still half-filled shot to the other man. He waited until Lenten threw back the drink, still gagging on the strong swig but keeping it down.
“Now,” Flax said, “talk.”
“About what?” Lenten toyed with the now empty glass.
“About whatever you want.” Flax shrugged.
“I don’t want to talk,” Lenten reminded him with an uncharacteristic surliness that, frankly, thrilled him. “You’re the one who wanted to.”
“Okay,” Flax drawled with indulgence that bordered on impertinence, “fine. Talk to me about the suit.”
Lenten looked down at himself. “What?” he asked, his tone more caustic, more lethal, than the drink now burning nicely in his gut. “You don’t like it?”
“It’s the one you arrived in, isn’t it?”
Lenten shrugged. “One like it.”
“Why?”
Lenten took off his glasses to press his fingers against his eyes. “What do you want from me, Flax?” he asked, frustrated. “You asked me to change. Get cleaned up, you said. I do and it’s still not good enough, is it?”
“You locked up Mei’s suite. You got cleaned up,” Flax agreed with a nod. “These would all be good signs — signs that you’re ready to move on. Except you aren’t.” Leaning down on the counter again, Flax faced the shorter man seated on the barstool. “You locked the room so no one else could get in. You’re preserving it, like some kind of shrine. You’re walking around in the suit you first saw her in. You’re not moving on,” he said, “you’re going backward.” He shook his head. “You think all this is helping anyone? Helping you?” he asked. “Do you think this is what she would have wanted for you?”
Lenten sighed heavily and put back on his glasses. This is why he didn’t want to talk about it! What did it matter to Flax — to anyone — what he chose to do? How he chose to live?
“Talk to me.”
“I don’t know!” Lenten yelled back. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feel.” He took several shallow breaths. “Mei was the first person I met at The Elysium. She was the first person I really got to know in a very long time — not since before my brother disappeared. She was certainly the first woman I felt…” he shook his head, “close to.” He looked up into the bartender’s pitying eyes. “She was the hotel for me. She was home, my whole world.” He leaned back, letting his eyes roll up to gaze at the ceiling. “Now she’s gone.” Looking back at Flax, he asked, “What do I do now?” Incredulous, he eyed the man. “What do I do with that?”
Flax frowned and leaned back, shoving his hands into his pockets. With a small shrug, he asked softly, almost casually, “Is there something I can do for you?”
Lenten scoffed and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not really. I just need…” He shrugged.
“Time.” Flax nodded.
“And another drink,” Lenten said, liking the slight lightheadedness kicking in.
Flax reached under the counter without hesitation this time, flicking the cap open with a twist of his wrist before tipping the bottle over his glass. “You got it.”
Raising the shot in a mock toast, Lenten was about to knock it back when he looked at the doll still cradled in his arm. Remembering, he looked at Flax. “There is something,” he said, putting the glass down again, “you could do.”
The man shrugged. “Name it.”
“Olive is in the library with Calla, Rowan, and Leander doing God-knows-what.”
“Spell-casting, huh?” Flax asked.
“Or something like it.”
“Want me to put a stop to it?” the bartender asked, his eyebrow cocked.
Lenten narrowed his eyes, debating. He should say yes. He should have someone put a stop to all that spell nonsense, if not do it himself.
He knew that.
But the hotel — the world — was different today than it was two weeks ago. The rules he’d always lived by had changed.
Looking up at Flax, he shook his head. “No,” he said, picking up his drink, “just keep an eye on them. Make sure nothing gets out of hand.”
“You got it, boss.”
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