As Catherine reached the bottom of the stairs, dim strobe lights flickered on, casting eerie light from the corners of the room. The space was dank and filled with artifacts. At first, she thought they were from Phoenix’s tribal collection, but then she ran into a stand with bones placed on top. Catherine screamed and jumped back, almost knocking it over before backing into some dangling, shrunken heads hanging from the ceiling like a mobile.

“Ahh!” she shouted, swatting the heads away as she stumbled into a giant book. It wasn’t large in length or height but was incredibly thick, almost resembling a witch’s spellbook with symbols and drawings of devil worship and demons.

Catherine's heart pounded in her chest, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The room seemed to close in around her, the macabre artifacts taking on a life of their own in the flickering light. She felt as if she had stumbled into another world, one where the lines between reality and nightmare blurred. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. How could Phoenix, the charming rock star, be connected to all this? What dark secrets lay hidden in this underground chamber? She reached out a trembling hand towards the book, drawn by a morbid curiosity she couldn't quite explain.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Phoenix’s voice came from behind her.

Catherine jumped and screamed again, turning to look at him with genuine fear in her eyes. Before, she had been wary and cautious, but now she was truly afraid.

“Don’t… don’t run,” Phoenix said, holding up his hand dismissively.

“I can’t run,” Catherine replied. “You’re blocking the door.”

“Well, please don’t freak out. Its ok. I promise. This is partly what I wanted to try and explain. I know you saw my face—the bad one. I mean, you weren’t supposed to find out like this, but maybe this way is better? Maybe this way you’ll believe me—now that you’ve seen all of this.”

Catherine wasn’t even sure what ‘all this’ was. “So… what is this?” she asked. “Devil worship? Are you some kind of male witch?”

“Warlock,” Phoenix said.

“What? So you are?!”

“No.” He chuckled, stepping closer down the stairs.

Catherine inched back.

“The term for a male witch is warlock… or wizard, I guess. But no. I’m not… anything like that. I’m not even sure they exist. Or if they do, I think the spell work is something anyone can do.”

“So, did you?” Catherine wondered. “Is that how you did it?”

“Did what?” Phoenix asked, though there was a look in his eyes that seemed to beg her to say the words she was thinking.

“Is that how you became so successful with only one song?” Catherine asked.

“I can’t answer that question.”

“Well, can you deny it?” Catherine pressed.

Phoenix looked like he was about to laugh. “I cannot answer that question either. Like, literally, I can’t,” he informed her, though there was a lightness in his voice, as if a weight had been lifted.

“So you can’t… confirm or deny what I said?” Catherine’s eyebrow arched.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“If there was a spell—or a curse of some kind, I couldn’t tell you about it.”

“But… I could stumble onto it myself?”

Phoenix shrugged, making a gesture that seemed to say, ‘you already have,’ but Catherine still wasn’t sure what he was—or wasn’t—telling her. “So, if there’s a curse—if you’re cursed… And I stumbled upon a room, of my own accord, where would I look for answers?”

Phoenix glanced at the book.

Catherine followed his gaze, then slowly, while still staring at him, reached for it.

“Not that one,” Phoenix said. “Behind it.”

Catherine didn’t want to take her eyes off Phoenix, feeling like he might attack if she did, like in movies when the protagonist glances away and gets knocked out. She didn’t want to give him that kind of opening. But she also couldn’t stare him down forever. Slowly, she flicked her eyes over to see… a leather journal.

She plucked it up.

“You can’t keep it,” Phoenix said. “You can’t show or tell anyone. But you can take it upstairs, into my room—not near Molly—and read it. I don’t think you want the answers, though. Not really.”

Catherine glanced at the other, thicker book—the one that looked like a spell book. “What about that one?” she asked. “Can I read that?”

“I don’t think you want to touch it, let alone read it,” Phoenix told her. “It’s made from real skin. The pages.”

“EW!” Catherine’s face scrunched in disgust. “Gross! I already touched it! Why the hell wouldn’t you lead with that? Why wouldn’t you be like ‘oh hey Catherine, by the way, that book is made FROM PEOPLE!’ Or at very least have some hand sanitizer readily available, I mean… gross. That’s just….”

For whatever reason, Phoenix smiled. It was annoying that he looked cute—Catherine didn’t want to think he looked cute—especially not down here, in his creepy dungeon filled with macabre artifacts.

“Do you want to go upstairs and wash your hands?” Phoenix asked.

“No, I want to sit here and lick my fingers clean—YES, I WANT TO GO UPSTAIRS AND WASH MY HANDS!”

Phoenix’s smile only grew as he led the way out of the room, shutting the hidden door behind them. There were still a few books splayed across the floor, but he left them where they were, and they made their way upstairs. Catherine’s instincts screamed at her to run—that Phoenix was bad news and she shouldn’t be here—but his presence… his energy was oddly calming.

There was something in his eyes.

Something that said she could trust him.

Clearly, Catherine was losing her mind, but after checking that Molly was still safe and sound—she was sleeping downstairs—she followed Phoenix up to his room. There, he told two Dobermans to sit and introduced Catherine to… a goldfish.

“Larry, meet Catherine,” Phoenix said. “Catherine, Larry. Larry is my best friend.”

“Your best friend is a goldfish?” Catherine asked, incredulous.

Phoenix shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Somehow that’s even weirder than what I found downstairs, but… hi,” Catherine waved at the fish. It made blob-blob faces at her. Catherine didn’t find it weird that he introduced her to the fish, but rather that he didn’t introduce her to the dogs. She had to ask their names, and then Phoenix warned her not to touch them. He said they were protective and might snap at her. Of course, he was too late—she was already petting them.

Phoenix turned to face her, not just surprised, but astonished and a bit more curious. The same way Catherine was becoming with him.

In that moment, as their eyes met, Catherine felt a shift in the air between them. It was as if a veil had been lifted, revealing a connection that ran deeper than either of them could explain. Despite her fear, despite all the red flags and warning bells in her mind, she felt drawn to Phoenix in a way that defied logic. It was more than just his charisma or his good looks - there was something in his eyes, a vulnerability perhaps, or a shared understanding, that resonated with her on a primal level. She realized, with a mix of excitement and trepidation, that she was seeing the real Phoenix for the first time - not the polished rock star, but the man beneath the curse, carrying the weight of a terrible secret.

Catherine sat on the side of his bed, opened his journal, and—with him watching—began to read. The first page had a passage that stood out, something of a rhyme, it read, “Fame will find you, like roots to a sword, it will bind inside your heart—your soul now tied to us, to immortal, to forever. One song will be your legacy, your only. Should you sing another word, or dare to break your sacred vow—your soul to us, it will become, like roots to a sword, bound eternal….”

Catherine shivered.

Something about that passage put the fear of God in her, but still, she continued to turn page after page, curious about what she would learn about Phoenix Astar.