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For now.
Already I can feel my hunger stirring again. I cannot yet discern the level of my new owner’s appetite. Will it start small and slowly ratchet upward? Are they greedy and will spiral out of control like those with the least power of personal will? Either way, I am intrigued, as much as I am filled with a sense of nostalgia as I take in these once familiar tunnels.
How much time has passed? I look back at where I burst from my prison and wave a hand to fix the crumbled stones and erase any trace that something was chained there. It does not erase the normal ravages of time on the walls around me. I drag my claws along its surfaces, moving out from the alcove just enough to peer around its edge and take in more of the old underground, but I do not fully leave where my owner asked me to wait.
It has been decades, surely. Many. Mattie is gone, likely more than just gone from these tunnels, this building, but gone from the world entirely. There is a new proprietor, and only one seamstress, if my owner is even that. It is not my place to wonder about what I have lost. If I focus my attention there, it could become all that consumes me, even more than my insatiable hunger. It is better to focus on desire, even if disaster lies there too.
It always does.
My owner is upstairs. I can hear them, see them in my mind’s eye, tethered as I am to their whims and wishes. I obey, always, and will wait until I hear them make a request of me. My true chains are desire itself, the constant presence of it and need to fulfil more and more and more.
I pause to stare down at myself rather than the stones and dirt. I am unchanged, as always, my skin the same color as the gemstone on the amulet that binds me. My owners are often afraid of me at first, seeing a creature from myth, yet this one came to trust and accept me quite quickly compared to others. I am glad, but I will an illusion in place regardless, so I am ready when they call.
Wish, I think and pray and plead. Wish.
For the hunger in me grows.
Chapter three
Jeffrey
The streets aren’t dead yet this time of night, but it’s still about the most daunting thing I can imagine seeing Mrs. Sherman impatiently waving me to the door after trying the handle five times in full view of me. As if once isn’t enough to know that, yes, it’s locked!
I am extremely grateful I took my makeup and costume off before this encounter, because I have seen the snide look it creates on this woman’s face, and I do not need that added dose of agony tonight. Mrs. Sherman owns one of the first new businesses in this neighborhood that bought out an old one. She runs a Curves gym. The Cold Stone Creamery that is now across the street from her knew exactly what it was doing when it chose locations a few months later.
I open the door but don’t move, preventing any assumptions that she is invited inside. “Yes, Mrs.—”
“I saw your light was on.”
Her inconsiderateness always throws me. “Yes, um, we just closed, Mrs. Sherman. Mr. Bevilaqua is gone for the evening.”
“You’re here.”
“I live upstairs. I’m always here.” It’s perhaps a little ruder than I’d usually allow, and the purse to Mrs. Sherman’s lips says she is not a fan. I hate that it makes me feel bad for even mildly snapping at her when she is the one knocking on my door after eleven at night.
“Yes, well, I assume you’ll see Mr. Bevilaqua tomorrow, won’t you?” There is something about her that is everything you’d expect of someone who runs a Curves gym. Not to disparage anyone who does or who goes there to have a safe place to work out without gawking men, but she has that Real Housewives look that screams she is this fit and this blond and trying to look twenty-five when she’s actually twice that age because she has money and thinks she’s better than everyone. “You can show him this petition then to help move things along.” She thrusts a clipboard at me with maybe two or three pages on it. “I would apologize for stopping by so late, but I was on my way home after a rather long evening, and again, I saw your light was on.”
I would apologize, as if the rest excuses her from needing to be cordial.
I stare at what she’s handed me, at first only really registering a list of names. Names of our neighboring business owners. Even faculty from St. Mary’s is included. I scan my eyes back to the top, and it has the most convoluted paragraph of explanation I have ever read.
Petition to unify as a business-minded community to reject all negative influences threatening current and future patrons of our establishments, pertaining specifically to the solicitation of immoral activity, merchandise, or historical reference.
“What is this?” I ask. The following sentences are even less clear.
“It is your neighbors saying we do not appreciate negative influences that might affect our businesses or brand image.” She crosses her arms with a haughty huff.
I look again, and at the very bottom of the first page in tiny lettering it lists examples of these supposed negative influences.
Mad Madame Mattie’s is cited first.
“There is no way most of these people realized what you were trying to say with this. Not Tony!” Tony from the antique store loves Madame Mattie’s. He sends referrals to us all the time, and we’ve let him sell historical pieces we no longer needed plenty of times too. “You manipulated these businesses with confusing language on purpose. This is bullshit.” I feel a sharp dip in my stomach as soon as the word leaves my mouth. It is bullshit, but if I wasn’t riled up from everything that happened tonight, I would never be that blunt.
Even if I did say it to Mr. Bevilaqua earlier.
But he’s like family! It’s different!
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Sherman moves her hands to her hips, standing taller to achieve full Karen mode. “How dare you use such language with me. It’s no wonder. Negative influence indeed. Cursing, promoting the unsavory practices of this place—”
