Made to Love (7 page)

 
I snuck into the
secret passage, pulling the wall shut behind me.  The hall was
narrow and there was no light, so I turned on my flashlight and ran
my hand along the wall to keep my balance.

It felt like I walked down
the sloping path for hours, but a glance at my watch showed that it
really took no longer than five minutes.  At the bottom there
was another hinged wall, and I pushed it open cautiously, peeking
my head outside.

It was the hall behind the
kitchen.  The passage must have been for servants back in the
day—a quick way to get around.

“
Cool,” I
whispered.

I started to hurry down the
hall toward the entryway, but I hesitated in front of the pantry
door.  The key was still heavy in my pocket.

Maybe just a quick look
wouldn’t hurt.

The key slipped smoothly
into the lock, and it opened with a quiet
clunk.

Faced with another dark
staircase, I decided this time to leave the door open a crack and
use the hallway light to navigate my way downstairs.  The
flashlight was maybe a little too conspicuous.

I crept downstairs, keeping
my ears and eyes open, ready to bolt at the first hint of my
dad.

The stairs opened up into a
lab at the bottom—not too unlike my dad’s workspace back in
Georgia.  There were alembics and calcinators, beakers in
metal racks dripping smoke and flickering with strange green
lights.  My dad had never liked new technology, so he had
papers, too, and lots of them—a thousand pages that recorded
formulas, procedures, and his thoughts as he worked.  He even
kept leather-bound journals, like some Victorian-obsessed
dork.

But he had never been so
fiercely protective of his workspace before.  He had even let
me in once or twice.  Why freak out at me for even finding the
door?

I turned a corner, and
froze.

There was a bed of some
kind—some crazy, medieval table propped against the wall at a forty
five degree angle—and a man strapped to it at his arms and
thighs.  The man was sleeping peacefully, blonde bangs
shielding his eyes.  He wore nothing but a pair of Tidy
Whities, which wasn’t too surprising considering how humid and
muggy it was in the lab, with a thin mist rolling on the ground at
ankle-level.

Considering the weird stuff
my dad did sometimes, finding a guy sleeping in his workspace
wasn’t really that weird.  He did have research
assistants.

But this was
no
research assistant.

There was something wrong
with his body.  He looked like a patchwork quilt—his right
shoulder wasn’t the same color as his left, and his legs from the
knees down were mechanical parts with rubber spacers between the
springs.  Where the parts met each other, there was fine
stitching—like he had been sewn together, a giant Raggedy Andy
doll.

“
Oh… my God…” I
whispered.

His eyes opened, and he
looked right at me.  One eye was ice blue, and the other
black.  “Calliope,” he said, his voice soft and velvety. 
There was such pain in his voice, and I knew he had been the one
screaming for nights on end.

For an instant, I was
paralyzed with fear.

My dad was keeping a
monster in our basement.

The instant passed, and I
ran.

Out the lab, back up the
stairs, shutting – and locking – the door behind me, and into the
secret passage once more.  I took the stairs three at a time,
dropping out of the tower and into my bedroom.

I threw the flashlight into
the corner and jumped into bed, pulling my covers over my
head.  My heart thundered, and my breath came in short
gasps.

“
I am never,
ever
leaving my bedroom again,” I whispered to no one.

At the time, I didn’t even
wonder how the monster had known my name.

Chapter
Fifteen

I stared at the ceiling for
about two hours.  There was little else I could do.  I
wasn't moved to write a poem; after all, blind terror inspired
little besides “ohgodohgodohgod.”

It was after the two hour
point that I decided it was a start.

ohgodohgodohgod

who is the figure in the
basement

patchwork skin

tortured soul

maybe he is my
brother

My brother?  That was
just stupid.  I tore up the page into little pieces and put
them under my pillow.  It wasn't the first time I'd done that
with a poem; it made it easier to mull the idea over a period of
time.

This time, I did it because
I didn't want my mom to see.  If she'd locked me up because of
practically nothing, who knew what she'd do if given
cause?

I heard a buzzing, and my
head throbbed in response.  I groaned and stuffed a pillow
over my head.  It couldn't be the lab in the basement, could
it?  I'd never heard anything of the sort coming from that
direction, and I didn't think it'd start now. 

But then, I didn't think
I'd find a half-naked monster in the basement, either.

The sky outside was dark
and ominous, like my thoughts.  From the looks of things, it
was starting to get foggy, since everything I could see from my
window had a glowing halo of sorts.  There was a peace and
innocence outside that mocked the house, mocked the prisoner
inside.  My heart was squeezed so tight I thought it'd
dissolve into powder.

I heard the buzzing
again.

A thought occurred to
me.  I looked across the room toward my backpack, which was on
the floor.

My backpack...that had my
cell phone
.

I dived across the room for
it.  “Don't hang up, don't hang up,” I muttered, near
tears.  It didn't matter that I could call whomever it was
back.  I needed out, and I needed out now.  I couldn't
waste time redialing.

The buzzing continued as I
searched the pockets.  Luckily, the phone was exactly where
I'd left it in the front pocket, so I extracted it and put it to my
ear.  “Hello?  Hello?  Please, answer
me!”

It was only when the
buzzing stopped that I realized I hadn't pressed the green
button.

“
No!” I cried.  “No,
please!”

My fingers fumbled across
the keys as I struggled to pull up the number and hit redial. 
My stomach was an icy pit as the phone dialed, and each successive
noise was like nails in the coffin.  If the caller didn't pick
up, I didn't know what I'd do.

The caller picked up on the
second ring.

“
Calliope, thank
goodness.  Where are you?”

I burst into tears. 
“Octavius!  Please, help me!”

“
What's wrong?”

As quickly as I could, I
recounted what had happened to me.  I didn't know how Octavius
understood me – I was still crying so hard I couldn't see, and it
made it even harder to talk – but after I finished, he said, “I'll
be there in five minutes.”

“
Hurry!”

The line went dead, and I
realized I should have asked him to stay on the phone with me while
he came.  I didn't know if he could on a motorcycle, but the
silence that followed his absence was so strong it seemed physical,
painful.

I tried to control my
sobbing.  I needed to breathe, but it was so
hard
.

Time passed.  I wasn't
sure how much, but it passed.  And after it passed, I heard
footsteps out in the hallway.  I gasped, then clapped a hand
over my mouth.

“
Calliope?  Are you
in there?”

“
Octavius!”  His
voice had never sounded sweeter.  “How did you get
in?”

To my complete shock, he
turned the knob on the door and walked in.  “Nothing was
locked.”

I ran to his arms.  He
held me in silence for a moment, then kissed the top of my head and
pulled back.  “Where's this monster you were talking
about?”

“
Oh, in the basement, but
it doesn't matter,” I said.  “Just let me get a few things,
and we can leave, and I'll never--”

“
I need to see him, Cal,”
he said.  I'd never seen him so serious.

I frowned. 
“Why?”

“
I just do.  Show me
the way?”

I pointed toward the
tower.  “The passage is there, but--”

Octavius walked forward
with a purpose.  I looked at the open door he left, wondering
at it, then grabbed the flashlight I'd used earlier and jogged to
keep up.

“
Open it.”

“
Are you sure about
this?  I don't know if he's dangerous.”

He gave me a faint
smile.  “It's fine.”

I stuck my finger in the
hole again, and the wall swung open.  Octavius waited for me
to turn on the flashlight and take the lead before
following.

Chapter
Sixteen

I led Octavius down the
passage, and his presence at my back was warm, comforting. 
But when we got into the hall, I reached for my key and found my
pocket was empty.

“
Crap,” I said, patting my
hands all over my body to search for it.  “Oh no…
Octavius!  I must have left the key in the lab!”

“
Are you sure the door is
even locked?” he asked reaching out to turn the
doorknob.

But it wouldn’t
move.

A frown furrowed his
brow.

“
Of course it’s locked, I
think it locks automatically,” I said, and he tried harder,
jiggling the doorknob with all his arm strength.

“
That’s… funny,” he
said.

I ran my hands through my
hair, pacing in a little circle.  “I took my mom’s lab key and
I think I dropped it by the—the monster.  When my dad finds
it, he’s going to know what I did.”  I gripped Octavius’s
arms.  “What am I going to
do
?”

“
He won’t know it’s you,”
Octavius said comfortingly.  “He’ll probably just think it was
your mother. But…”  He cast a glare at the door.

“
What?”

“
Nothing,” he said. 
“Try to relax.  Maybe you were imagining the
monster.”

“
I was not—”

Octavius kissed me, and I
sagged in his arms.  His lips were awfully
convincing.

When he let me up for air,
he gave me a pitying smile.  “You do feel sick,
Calliope.  You’re burning up.  You must have imagined
this whole morning—your bedroom door wasn’t even
locked.”

“
I guess,” I said
doubtfully.

He swept me up in his arms,
navigating the path back up the passage.  I buried my face in
his neck, breathing in his musky, salty scent.

Octavius deposited me on my
bed again, pulling the sheets over my prone body.

“
Try to rest,” he said
soothingly, dropping a kiss on my lips.  I tried to pull him
into bed with me, but he stepped out of my arms before I had the
chance.  “That would not be resting.”

I pouted.  “It might
be.  Well, at least I’ll see you at school
tomorrow.”

A shadow flickered through
his eyes.  “Yes,” Octavius said.  “Of course.”  And
then he left.

As it turned out, he was
lying to me.

Mom deigned to let me go to
school in the morning – I didn’t dare ask about the inhabitant in
the basement, lest they get angry and lock me up again – and I even
drove myself.  I arrived early and camped out the parking lot,
waiting for the familiar growl of Octavius’s motorcycle.

It never came.

I went to my first class in
a daze, ignoring Rita’s enthusiastic questions about where I had
been, and Rich’s attempts at being charming.  When lunch
rolled around and Octavius still hadn’t shown up, I decided to find
Allen and Paul in the cafeteria.

They were sitting together,
sans-drum sticks and guitar pick, and gave me a funny look when I
approached.  “Do you know where Octavius is?” I
asked.

They exchanged a
look.  “What do you mean?” Paul asked.

“
It’s just… I haven’t seen
him today.  He isn’t picking up his cell phone, either. 
I thought you guys might have heard from him…”

Allen looked at me like I
had gone mad.  “Who’s Octavius?”

I laughed, thinking he was
joking.  I stopped when he didn’t join me.

“
We have to do…
something,” Paul said, grabbing Allen’s shoulder.  “Something
not here.”

They left hurriedly, and I
stared after them in confusion.

Who’s
Octavius
?

I tried to shake the chill
that settled on my shoulders.  They were just messing with
me.  They had to be.

 
Returning to the
table with Rita, she grabbed my hand and started babbling about
something related to our advanced poetry class.  After a
minute of pretending to listen, I interrupted her.

“
Have you seen Octavius
today at all?”

She fell into uneasy
silence.  “Calliope?  Who is--?”  The bell rang,
interrupting her, and she snatched her backpack off the seat next
to her and stood quickly.  “Ooh, I have to go!  I can’t
be late for class this time or I’m toast!”