The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

“W
hat do we do?” Travis whispered.

Blaire
shoved the picture in her pocket
, and then began
pushi
n
g all of
the
p
a
p
er
s
b
ac
k into the
f
ile
ca
bi
n
e
t,
c
losi
n
g it
a
s qui
e
t
l
y
a
s possibl
e
.

“Why are we so afraid?” Blaire asked him in a whisper. “What’s so wrong with us being in a basement?” She wanted to know as she scrambled to pull the sheet back over the haphazardly hidden files.

“It was locked,” Travis pointed out.

“Good point,” Blaire acquiesced.

Blaire swallowed the lump in her throat, crossed the room and opened the door. A wash of freezing cold air and dull light swooshed into the damp basement.

“Natalka,” Blaire said.

Travis sighed, “Thank God.” He rushed toward the exit.

As she stepped out the door, Blaire was shivering immediately.

“What were you doing in there?” Natalka asked.

“Natalka, what are you doing outside?” Blaire asked, looking over the girl who wore nothing but a thin,
ill
-fitting,
long
-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans.

“What were you doing in there?” Natalka asked again, not bothering to answer Blaire’s question. As Travis came out of the basement, Blaire handed him the key, and he relocked the door. Blaire scrambled up the stairs with her arms around the frozen girl, and she ushered her along the side of the building and back to the front with Travis close behind them.

Up in Natalka’s room, Blaire retrieved a blanket from the closet and wrapped the young girl tightly.

“What were you doing in the basement?” Natalka asked once again in a voice that told Blaire that her question would not be ignored.

“Nurse Wells and I were just trying to gather some
last
-minute supplies for the masquerade party tomorrow. We thought there may be some nice things down there.”

“You’re lying,” the contumacious girl proclaimed. Blaire stopped, offended by Natalka’s tone despite the truth of her words.

“I’m not
lying
, Natalka.”

“You should not be down there.” The girl waved her finger at Blaire.

“Why not?”

Natalka seemed to be reflecting on a cluster of confusing thoughts and shifted her eyes to the window and spoke no more.

“There is nothing to be worried about, Natalka. You get warmed up, and I’m going to make us all some hot chocolate, okay? Come down to the game room in a few minutes and help me put the finishing touches on our decorations and masks,” Blaire said, instructing the girl as she made her way to the door.

“I won’t be here for your stupid party, I told you!”

Blaire became flush with angry energy, and it was like nothing she had ever felt before.
You can’t escape, you can’t escape the curse!
Blaire wanted to scream at the girl. She wanted to grab the girl and shake her furiously, but she fought it, frightened by her own uncharacteristic rage. “Right. I’m sorry, I forgot.” Blaire stated, quickly fleeing the room before the wrath had a chance to infect her again.

Upstairs in their room, Travis was already getting out of his coat and gloves.

“How is Natalka?” Travis asked.

“She said that we should not have been in the basement.”

“Well, we just saw the basement, and there was nothing but some old toys and files.” Travis grabbed his towel and swayed, almost falling.

“Are you okay?” Blaire moved toward him.

Travis closed his eyes and shook his head lightly.

Blaire pressed the back of her hand to his cheek. “You’re burning up. I think you need to see a doctor.”

“I am a doctor,” he shot back.

“You’re a nurse.”
“Kick me while I’m down, eh?” he joked. Blaire could not help but giggle.

“I’m okay. I’m gonna grab a quick shower. Are you still doing decorations in the game room?”

“Yes,” Blaire responded as he disappeared out the door.

Blaire looked for a signal on her cell phone, but there was none. She opened her window and stuck it outside. Reaching far out, Blaire stretched her body, punching in the numbers that would ring Emma’s phone. She had not spoken to Emma in a while, and, for some reason, she hadn’t wanted to, as there seemed to be nothing that Emma could do for them. It was as if intimate involvement with St. Sebastian was like some sacred membership in a dark club to which no one from the outside was entitled to information.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she chanted to herself. “Yes!” she yipped when the number began to dial.

A lurking shadow appeared in the room behind Blaire as she hung helplessly out of the third story window. It drew closer to her. The phone was on its fifth ring when she heard the voicemail click to life.

“Ms. Baker?”

Blaire let out a soft cry as she drew her head back, bumping it hard against the window frame. Turning and sinking onto the bed, she touched the injured spot on her head.

“Ivan! You frightened me!” Blaire felt a flair of the newfound rage. She forced herself to calm the change that was growing inside of her.

“I’m sorry, but everyone is waiting for you.”

“Ivan, you shouldn’t be up here! I’ll be down in just a few moments.”

His small frame sunk into the shadows, and Blaire heard his lonely footsteps dragging down the hall. She looked down at her phone that no longer had any bars. As Blaire crossed the room toward the door, her mirror image caught her attention. She leaned in to study the deep, dark circles around her sunken eyes, even her hair seemed thinner, dull. She thought of Ivan and felt guilty for the anger she had expressed toward him. She was changing and not for the better; St. Sebastian was getting inside of her.

Blaire entered the game room with a tray of hot chocolate. “Is everyone ready?” she sang, trying to sound chipper though she hardly felt it.

The children tackled her playfully in an attempt to grab a cup of the sweet chocolate liquid.

“Everyone be careful, it’s hot,” Travis said, entering the room behind Blaire.

Blaire found Ivan and handed him a cup of hot chocolate. “I apologize for snapping at you earlier Ivan. You just startled me is all.”

“I’m sorry,” Ivan responded.

“It’s okay,” Blaire said as she ruffled the boy’s hair. “You ready to work on decorations?” Ivan nodded.

Soon the children were hungry, but food was low. The next morning Anya was to complete the regular food shopping as well as the final shopping for the party. Blaire went into the kitchen and searched the bare cabinets, finding enough food to throw a lunch of sandwiches and chips together. As she came back down the hall carrying a tray, Latif was walking through the front door.

“Hey, you working today?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got the last part I needed for the elevator,” he told her. Then he whispered into her ear, “I got a new batch of your stuff.” Blaire knew he was making reference to the duffle bag that he used to bring in medical supplies on previous occasions.

“Oh, great,” Blaire said. “Can you do me a favor? My keys are in my pocket, can you just take the duffle bag up to my room and put it in the closet?”

“Sure,” Latif said, as he reached his hand into her pocket.

“Be sure to lock the door when you leave.”

“Sure.”

The children were knee deep in construction paper and glitter, and the room was warm with their laughter and chatter. Except for the fact that Vesna had been watching her curiously all morning, things felt almost normal.

“Hannah, have you seen Marko? I figured he would come over for our little preparation celebration,” Blaire asked.

“He took the day off and went into Kerchaviv. He should be back tomorrow. I think he has a
friend
there,” Hannah said with a wink to Blaire.

“Oh,” Blaire responded distractedly as she watched Natalka enter the room with a small plate of lemon squares, which Travis began filling up on immediately.

After a couple of hours, the decorations were complete, and the room was filled with idle babble and sporadic bursts of laughter. Blaire watched as Danya painted her sister’s face in outlandish makeup. Every so often white flashes of light burst into the room from her camera. Andre and Ivan came over to Blaire, who was sitting on the couch. They stood in front of Blaire cutting up and laughing at one another. Andre held up a paper mustache that he had cut from black construction paper. He placed the mustache in front of his face, and he and Ivan chuckled playfully along with Blaire. Next, Ivan took the costume piece and held it up just above his top lip, and Blaire laughed but stopped abruptly. The boys continued their mafficking as they moved on to entertain Hannah, but the image of Ivan with the mustache had burned deeply into Blaire’s mind.

That evening everyone in St. Sebastian quickly fell into a bottomless slumber, everyone but Blaire. It seemed to her as if even the walls moved in and out in unison with the heaving chests of the sleeping inhabitants, as if St. Sebastian and everything inside of it was becoming one. Blaire woke Travis.

“Can you,
please
, tell me what is going on?” Travis asked as he zipped himself up in his coat and slipped his hands into his thick gloves.

“Just come on!” Blaire urged as she fled the room with her flashlight in hand.

“I just want to lie down,” Travis said in a whiny voice that Blaire hardly recognized.

“Travis, please. This is the last time, I promise. If you come with me this one last time, I won’t bother you with this anymore.”

Travis sniffed and felt a wad of phlegm gathering at the back of his throat. He coughed violently to keep from gagging and was alarmed when he saw that his
gray
-gloved palm was marked with
blood
-filled saliva. He wiped the blood on his
dark
-colored coat before Blaire could see it and dragged his tired body out into the hall to follow his friend.

“Blaire, tell me what is going on? Why are we going back to the basement?” Travis asked again, as he followed her stealthily down the steps. “It’s freezing outside.”

“Shh,” Blaire directed her gesture toward him as they came to the first floor. Travis was still hot on her heels when he grabbed her shoulder gently and turned her to face him. They stood just in front of the large black and white group photograph. Blaire turned and shined her light along the line of ominous characters, starting with Ida and moving her light along several faces of children until she came to the face of the young, unhappy boy, and then she let the light linger there for a moment.

“What? You think this little boy is Dmytro?” Travis asked.

“No,” she answered. “I think this is.” Blaire whispered as she drew the light up to the face of the young mustached caregiver standing over the boy.

Blaire heard Vesna’s voice once again.
One of the workers wrote it, a strange man…He made up that rhyme for one of the little boys…

Mommy, mommy take me home, far away from the unknown. Pick me up and fly away into the light of another day. Rescue me from the halls of the haunted, the desperate, the evil, unloved, and unwanted
.

He said that his name was Dmytro
,
Blaire could hear Ivan’s mother’s
words.

“What?” Travis said staring at the
rugged
-looking young man who stared back out at them.

“I was assuming Dmytro was a child, but what if he wasn’t a child? What if he was a man?”

Snowflakes busied the deep, blue landscape, and the only thing that moved between them were the two creeping, human figures. The snow showed no signs of stopping despite the fact that everything was already almost completely covered in its whiteness. It was utterly silent outside, not even the whisper of wind crossed the wide expanse.

Blaire and Travis descended the cement steps and unlocked the basement door, which swung open, squeaky and sluggish as if it suffered from some rusty illness. Travis found the hammer and popped the second file cabinet open.

He held up his flashlight as Blaire began sifting through the files. She worked through the top drawer quickly, and when that one yielded no information, she proceeded to yank out the second drawer and filtered through the names on the manila folders until her hand came to a stop.

“Dmytro Prada,” Blaire said, reading the name on the folder out loud.

“You have got to be kidding me?” Travis’ eyes widened in disbelief.

“You still think this is just a train of minor coincidences?” Blaire asked, as she flipped open the file and stared at the black and white photograph of the same mustached young man whose photo hung in the hall in St. Sebastian.

“What does it say?” Travis asked.

“He
was
from Slokivka,” Blaire said, looking to Travis.

“So what do you think this means?”