Melody stood in a clearing in the woods. In the center was what looked like an altar. At its center, a pentagram. Twigs snapped across the way, branches began rustling. All sound stopped, as if everything had been sucked from the very air around her. She became acutely aware of just how heavy and cloying the air felt. The snapping twigs and rustling branches were getting closer. She saw red eyes, shining out from between the trees across the clearing.
Low growling sounded behind her. “Melody!” Low and frantic, someone was calling to her.
“Melody!” Alan was shaking her gently while Copper growled. She groaned and sat up. “Easy now, you fell and hit your head.” A wave of nausea overtook her.
“I feel sick.” Melody wanted to curl up and die of embarrassment. The first time she and Alan had been able to maintain a relatively normal conversation for an extended period of time, and the chaos that her life had apparently become was working to end even the little bit of time she had hoped for before facing what Max and her had discussed this morning.
“Here, let’s try and get you to the couch and then I’ll get you some ice. What happened?”
“I think I tripped,” She lied. “The board games were on such a high shelf. I was trying to pull them down and as I was backing up I tripped over my own feet.”
“Well next time, ask for some help would you? You could have been seriously hurt.” Melody blushed when he said next time. Although she wasn’t entirely sure why, he didn’t necessarily mean next time with him, just next time.
Alan returned with ice and held it out to her. He softly and deftly checked her for any other injuries and when he came up with none, took her hand and the ice away from her head to assess that damage. “Well, you’re going to have a nice bruise,” he said, taking the ice and holding it to her head himself. “But you’ll live with no other issues.” Melody snorted. He chose to ignore her and continued, “That being said you did hit your head pretty hard. You shouldn’t be alone tonight. Is there anyone you could call tonight to stay with you?”
Melody thought about it. She could interrupt Alexis in whatever she was currently doing, that was if Alexis would answer her phone. If Alan was the one who had to handle work calls she doubted Alexis was taking any calls, let alone hers. The only other person she could think of was Max, and with everything that had happened and that she was trying to avoid dealing with she didn’t want to see him right this second.
“Well, I could attempt to call Alexis,” It was Alan’s turn to snort. “Or I could call Max.”
“The office manager? You two do have an odd relationship if he’d be willing to come over in the middle of the night.”
“No nothing like that. He was just very helpful when I got back into town. And don’t look at me like that. He’s our age, not some lecherous 60 year old man praying on a poor defenseless young woman.” Melody shot back. “Or at least he looks our age.” She thought. She realized she honestly had no idea how old Max really was. Just something else they would have to discuss.
“I think I’d prefer it if he was some lecherous 60 year old.” Alan grumbled to himself, so low Melody almost didn’t hear him. “Well then there’s nothing for it. I will stay to make sure you’re alright. It’s the least I can do since you were injured on my account anyway. Besides, the thought of returning home during one of Lex’s escapades,” He shuddered.
“Alan, really I’m fine!” Melody protested trying to stand up from the couch on her own. Everything in her body protested and her legs deposited her back onto the couch.
Her protestations were met with a raised eyebrow. “Fine huh?” He bent down and picked her up. “No more arguing. I’m staying and you’re going to bed or at least being put in one. Now where am I going?”
Melody sighed and directed him upstairs to the room she had been using since returning home. Copper followed close behind. He deposited her gently onto the bed and Copper was immediately in her face, sniffing anywhere he could reach. “I’m alright bud. Really, I just banged my head. I’ll be fine in the morning.” Melody said, reaching up to scratch behind the worried dog’s ears.
Alan went to leave the room, “Is there anywhere I can grab pillows? Maybe a blanket? I’ll crash on the couch. I’ll come up every so often to check on you. And if he,” pointing at Copper, “needs to go out, I’ll take care of it.”
“Third door on the left, right next to the stairs. It’s a linen closet. You could use a bedroom if you want? There’s plenty.”
Alan shook his head. “I’ve apparently already caused enough trouble. Besides, I still have some work calls to make. I wouldn’t want to keep you awake when you need to sleep. Goodnight Melody.” With that he left.
Melody found herself drifting off quickly. It had been a long day, for a few blissful hours though she had been able to act almost normal. She felt Copper curl up into her side as she finally drifted off.
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She was in the woods again, the clearing. Everything was still, eerily still. Rustling across the clearing startled her and she looked towards the source. A familiar figure emerged from the trees, heading for the altar. “Mrs. Hawsworth?!” Melody whispered furiously, recognizing her highschool writing teacher. The figure gave no indication that it had heard her and continued to the center of the clearing. Upon reaching her destination, she knelt down and placed branches and berries in the center of the pentagram on the altar. A knife materialized from somewhere in the robe Mrs. Hawsworth was wearing. With a flick of her wrist, a line of scarlet appeared on her palm and began dripping onto the altar and its contents below.
“Ab iniuria eam defende, ab eo quod sequitur et perdere quaerit. Ab eo quod est defende venturum.” With that the figure at the altar wrapped their palm and walked back towards the way they had come.
“Mrs. Hawsworth, wait!” Melody called. The figure gave no indication that she had heard her. Melody began to smell burning and her head began to swim. She put a hand to her head and leaned against the closest tree…
Melody opened her eyes and heard cursing from downstairs. She had had another dream, the second one in fact after Max had supposedly warded the house. However, this one there did not seem to be any malicious intent, unlike the others, more dream than nightmare. More cursing from downstairs, and the smell of burning, which she realized is what had woken her in the first place.
Being careful to not move too quickly after the events of last night, Melody made her way to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror she couldn’t help but agree with Alan that she was going to have a nice bruise from where one of the game boxes hit her in the face, otherwise she seemed mostly ok. She threw on a pair of sweatpants and tshirt and went downstairs to see just what kind of mess Alan was making in her kitchen.
“So you aren’t perfect.” She said aghast walking into the kitchen. Dishes were everywhere, some sort of batter was splashed across the counters, and toast was sitting in the toaster so black it looked like a piece of charcoal.
“Never claimed to be,” Alan grumbled grumpily, turning around. Melody realized the damage did not just include the kitchen. The poor man was also covered in batter and unmixed flour. “I was trying to do something nice. Instead I’ve made a mess and woke you up.”
Melody laughed. “Go into the linen closet you went into last night and grab a towel. You need to shower and get cleaned up. Door across from the linen closet is a bathroom. I’ll deal with this.” He tried to protest, however weakly. “Alan, look in the mirror.” The protests immediately stopped.
Melody got to cleaning up the mess and making a fresh batter for pancakes. By the time Alan came downstairs, the mess was cleaned up and pancakes were done. Melody even made a mini pancake for Copper as a special treat.
“So how are you feeling? Better I hope?” Alan asked, sitting down at the table as Melody handed him a plate.
“Much, thank you. And I’m sorry for inconveniencing you last night. You had already been nice enough to bring me home after Alexis all but stranded me there. Then I went and tripped over my own two feet.”
“Really you saved me from having to be in the same house as those two. I should be thanking you. I would have just ended up driving aimlessly and then had to go home to god knows what. You’re right. It’s a big house but not that big.” He laughed. “Look, I feel like I owe you an apology for when we were kids. I was an ass.”
“True, you were an ass. But we were kids. Water under the bridge as long as you don’t hold it against me either.”
He held his hands up in mock surrender, “Never.”
A brief knock at the front door followed by the sound of it opening interrupted their conversation. Copper left his spot by the sink and immediately happily bounded towards the noise. Not even two seconds later Max walked into the kitchen, “Melody we need to finish our..Oh! Hello.”
“Max, this is Alan, Alexis’s brother. Alan, Max, the office manager at my parent’s business who has been helping me since I moved back to town.”
Alan raised his fork in Max’s general direction, “Nice to meet you Max. What brings you here this early in the morning? I didn’t realize you had a key to Melody’s place.”
“And I didn’t realize Melody would have company this morning. Her parents had given me a key to the house prior to their passing to make working on large projects easier. As Melody wasn’t in the office this morning and I needed her signature on paperwork, here I am.” He pulled a folder from behind his back. “The Simm’s project. You forgot to sign it before leaving the office the other day,” Max said looking at her.
Melody knew that wasn’t true. Just like she knew that Max didn’t have a key to the house, but she wasn’t about to cause a scene in front of Alan. As much as humanly possible she wanted to keep up the appearance that everything was normal. “Ah. Sorry about that Max.” She held her hand out for the folder but he would not give it to her.
“I don’t want to interrupt your breakfast more than I already have. How about I take Copper for a walk and then we can deal with this?” He had already started reaching for Copper’s leash. The dog was practically dancing next to him. Melody knew when she was beaten.
“Alright. But don’t take him too far, and not into the woods.” Max raised an eyebrow and nodded, already heading back towards the front door. Once he was gone Alan, who had been pointedly digging into his pancakes, cleared his throat.
“So, he seems very comfortable here. Are you sure he’s, ya know, safe?” Alan asked dubiously.
Melody pointed her knife at Alan. “Look, mister, until last night I was on better terms with him than I was with you. So take whatever this is and put it somewhere. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
“Alright, point taken. Put the weapon down.” He got up and placed his dish in the sink. “I really should get going though. I need to change before Bryant’s interview. Although if Alexis gets any say, which after last night she is not, he’s getting hired. Thanks for breakfast and the couch.”
“No problem. Sorry things didn’t go as planned.”
He shrugged, “Hey, it all worked out in the end. Good luck with the office manager.” With that Alan was gone and heading to his car. By the time he was at the end of the driveway, Max could be seen turning the corner at the end of the street with Copper. It was almost as if they had just been waiting for him to leave. Melody snorted, “They probably were.” She thought to herself. Her night's reprieve was over. It was time to actually face the mess that was dumped in her lap instead of running away like she had yesterday.