Daughter of Detroit

Daughter of Detroit

  Part 8 of the Season of the Witch Series

  Amy Stilgenbauer

  Copyright © 2015 Amy Stilgenbauer

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Image: "Belle Isle, river-environed park, Detroit, Michigan." made available by the New York Public Library Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views. This work is in the public domain in the United States, because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923.

  Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my dear friends Jillian and Reno for all their support.

  Speramus meliora; resurget cineribus ("We hope for better things, it will rise from the ashes") -Motto of the city of Detroit, Michigan

  1.

  The Underland (Looking in on April 20, 1284. The Alps, near the town of Canzu.)

  Through the looking glass, the little log cabin in the mountains seemed almost invisible. It wobbled in and out of Calu’s field of vision as though it were trying to hide itself from the world. It probably was. He wouldn’t have put it past the Winter Witch to put some sort of enchantment on the area to protect her, but winter was fading fast, even there in the mountains, the snow was beginning to melt. Not as quickly, of course, as Calu would have liked, but enough to afford him little glimpses of the dwelling.

  It looked cozy and warm with the wisps of smoke drifting out of the chimney, and the nice, soft glow of candles in the window. He watched, barely able to take a breath, as her face appeared. Strenia’s face, but not quite right. Little details were off. He couldn’t have said what they exactly were, but he knew them. In the same way that two twins could look identical but be fundamentally different people, so were Strenia’s incarnations. As much as it hurt his heart to admit it, none of them would ever again be the exact same woman he had fallen in love with. Unfortunately, it had taken him centuries to realize this.

  He moved the looking glass closer to his face, trying to get closer to the cabin, to better see the flickering image. It didn’t work. He tried to will the image closer, but that didn’t work either. Calu cursed a few times, begging something to happen, but nothing did.

  “Graziella...” He grumbled to himself, knowing full well that she couldn’t hear him, but hoping she could. “I know what you’re doing, Graziella.” He stopped himself before uttering the words, ‘you’re trying to keep her from me.’ There was no keeping her from anyone and he knew that. He knew she was gone. He knew Romulus had killed the real her. He couldn’t change that fact, no matter how much he wanted to. Romulus was gone now too. All of those days were gone. He had to focus on the present. He simply didn’t know how.

  He tossed the looking glass aside. It hit the stone floor, shattering into several small pieces.

  “I hope that wasn’t mine,” a woman’s voice said from the hallway.

  Calu turned quickly, hoping to see anyone other than Jaclyn. Luckily, instead of his pushy apprentice, standing in his doorway was a diminutive, heavyset woman who had chosen to appear with a glamour of blonde ringlets: Rhonda, one of three fates. This was worse. The looking glass had indeed belonged to her.

  “Hey, Rhonda, haven’t seen you around,” Calu said sheepishly, watching her face.

  She frowned; her rouged creeks contrasted starkly with the emotions expressed in her eyes. “You know, those looking glasses aren’t easy to come by. It could be years before I fashion another that is as much to my liking as that one.”

  Calu squinched up his features then sighed. “I’m sorry. Okay. I had to try to see her. And, when you said she was with the Winter Witch, well, I - I went looking.”

  “You’re pathetic.” Rhonda rolled her eyes and walked over to the shards of glass scattered across the floor.

  Under normal circumstances, Calu would never have let anyone, not even a fate, speak to him that way. Even now, some residual anger welled half-heartedly inside him, but it wasn’t enough to crack the surface. “I know,” he said.

  Rhonda looked back at him, sincerely confused. From the look on her face she had been expecting a fight to result from her words. Dropping her tone into a sweeter, gentler rhythm, she approached. “Calu, kid, if you wanted to see her, you could always have asked me. I know a way or two around Graziella’s, what would you call it, security system?”

  Calu wanted to jump at this opportunity, but part of him, the same part that couldn’t bear to get angry with Rhonda’s words, held back. “Thank you, Rhonda, but there’s no point. She doesn’t remember me, and even if she did. She’s a completely different person now. She has a completely different life. I’ve already messed it up beyond repair.”

  Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Rhonda sighed. “You don’t even know how accurate that is, but if you ever want to do anything about it, you’re going to have to meet her again. Give her the chance to make her own decisions.”

  “That’s never going to happen. Not with the Winter Witch meddling in things.”

  “Maybe you could distract Graziella for awhile.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I may have a secret or two up my sleeve.” Rhonda grinned broadly. “And one of them, is that the fern flower has been found.”

  2.

  Detroit, Michigan. April 20, 2014

  The door to Clarissa’s apartment shut with a satisfying slam. It was almost worth the brief bang of annoyance from her upstairs neighbor to hear the noise. The past few hours had been one disaster after another. First, she had gotten lost on her way to her date. Then she had looked the fool when trying to explain why she couldn’t possibly have called or texted. The worst was the look of sheer exasperation on her date’s face when she genuinely asked what in the world he meant by texting. His eyes had grown cold and angry, clearly taking offense, but the rest of his face looked confused and exhausted, like someone talking to the worst liar in the world. She hadn’t been lying, but she had no idea how to explain that there were some simple things she didn’t understand: like cell phones. Desperate to get that insulting look out of his brown eyes, she fished through her memory and brought up the only thing she could think of: Opaline.

  “I honestly don’t have a cell phone. I mean it. I’m not trying to trick you,” she pleaded one last time. “I...I’m Amish.”

  The anger faded slightly, but the confusion remained. “Amish? Like...horses and buggies and all that?”

  Clarissa nodded profusely, a pit growing in her stomach as she lied. “Yeah...I uh...” she searched through her brain for something, anything that Opaline had said about her life before Detroit. Words swam before her like vague concepts with no meaning. She wished now that she had asked more questions. “I’m on my rumspringa.”

  Her date laughed. Clarissa felt a mild panic race through her. Had she used the word wrong? Did it not mean what she thought it did?

  “I guess that explains a lot. I thought you came through a time warp.”

  Now, it was Clarissa’s turn to laugh, though nervously. “Nothing like that.” She reached for her water, but her hand shook and she spilled the glass all over the table.

  It got worse.

  After pleading Amish, Clarissa found it hard to talk about herself while still maintaining her lie. She accidently mentioned growing up in Corktown, for which her date gave her a side eye, but moved on. Then, when he began talking about his love of classic cars and she excitedly threw out the tidbit about her Chevy Delray, he got up and left. She wanted to run after him, but instead she paid the bill and went home. She knew it wasn’t worth it to bother. She had asked Opaline the same question so many years ago: what’s the point of dating someone if you can’t tell them who you really are?

  Trying not to think about it any longer, she went into the kitchen and began to brew a pot of tea. Images of he
r grandmother flashed before her eyes and she felt a sudden chill. Clarissa tried her best not to think about the woman who raised her and how she had completely abandoned her one stormy June night. Every so often though, when her defenses were down, the guilt and worry came rushing back. What had become of her? Had she known that Clarissa still loved her? Did she try and save her from being trapped in that monstrous form for almost fifty years?

  Opaline said she had tried, but Clarissa didn’t know if she could trust Opaline anymore. She wanted to. She wanted to more than anything. For years, Opaline had been her best friend, her sister, her confidant, the one person who truly understood her, and the one person she loved. But now? Now, Opaline had lived a long and lovely life and was an old woman, while Clarissa herself didn’t look a day over 25 and couldn’t remember anything that had happened to her between June of 1965 and June of 2013.

  Clarissa poured milk and tea into a mug and took a long drink, letting the steam warm her face. The only thing to do was take her mind somewhere else.

  She switched on the radio and turned the dial through mindless static until she found a Tigers game. That would have to do. She didn’t know the names of any of the players any more, but at least the rules of baseball in general hadn’t changed all that much.

  *

  Clarissa looked down into her hand and saw a baseball. ‘Great,’ she thought. ‘A dream.’ She had been dreaming a lot more lately, which was jarring. Since waking up on that highway, she had been expecting to dream all about the days she had been missing, but that never happened. Not once did those days haunt her nightmares. For months, she had slept undisturbed. Since October, though, other oddities had crept in instead.

  She had dreamt multiple times of a hooded woman standing over a blue fire and a man making apple pie. There had been dreams of hiking through snow covered mountains and Christmas trees decorated with what appeared to be antlers and small animal bones. Baseball had yet to make an appearance, but she chalked that up to the game on her radio. It was yet another annoying dream that she would have to spend an hour or two convincing herself wasn’t real, despite its bizarre contents.

  Still, annoyed as she was, she threw the ball toward home plate, hoping that she would wake up before the crack of a bat. Instead, she watched as the batter connected with the ball and it went soaring over her head. Instead of fielding, she watched with rapt attention and the batter raced around the bases.

  As he ran, he morphed before her eyes. His skin became grey and patchy with fur. His nose lengthened into a snout. Before, she knew it, a man was no longer running. He had been replaced by a wolf.

  *

  Clarissa woke with a start. The kitchen was dark and the radio now only played the faint voices of men discussing the outcome of the game, which she hadn’t actually heard a moment of. Worse, her tea was cold.

  “I didn’t realize I need sleep that bad,” she muttered to herself, going back over to the stove to warm up some new water.

  Then she spotted it. On the tile floor next to the table a spot of scarlet glistened. Blood.

  Clarissa froze.

  “No,” she whispered. A thousand possibilities burst into her mind so fast that she almost collapsed from the weight of them. Her body felt hot. Her ears rang. The room began to spin. “No...please...no. Not again...”

  She had only lost an hour or so at most, but more was coming. She closed her eyes and waited to wake up in a strange place.

  It didn’t happen.

  Instead, a knocking at the door snapped her out of the spell.

  No one ever knocked at Clarissa’s door. Not even package delivery. The only mail she received were the electric and heating bills. She liked it that way. No one, not neighbors nor landlords, disturbed her peace and she could make her way through life without unprepared for disturbances that would only serve to fluster her.

  The knock came again.

  Her mind whirled back to the last time there had been a persistent knocking on her door: the day the monster came for her. She felt her heart begin to race again.

  “Miss LaRoux,” came a honey sweet baritone from the other side of the door. “Please open up. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “That’s what you would say,” she muttered to herself, not meaning to be heard. Still, the voice was calming. It had a smooth, elegant quality. The monster’s voice certainly hadn’t.

  “Miss LaRoux...”

  With careful, hesitant steps, Clarissa went to the door and unlatched it. On the threshold, she saw a young man who looked like Dean Martin had walked straight out of a Rat Pack movie. Except for his eyes. Clarissa knew right away that something was off about the eyes. They sent a shudder through her. “Hello?” She asked, feeling awkward and unsure.

  He smiled, seeming to sense her need for reassurance, and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss LaRoux. My friends these days call me Calu.”

  Taking a deep breath, she shook his hand and momentarily felt the warmth drain from her entire body. “What is it that you want?” She didn’t mean to be rude, but the words were out before she could stop them.

  “Direct and to the point, I like that in a girl.” With his cold amber eyes, he peered past Clarissa’s shoulder and into the apartment. It made Clarissa profoundly uncomfortable. “Or should I say old woman?”

  Clarissa released his hand immediately, taking a step back and shutting the door, hoping for a satisfying slam. He was too quick, however. He stuck out a foot and latched it into the path of the door. The door froze halfway.

  “Not up for the usual games and banter, I see,” Calu said, a frown beginning to darken his face. “No matter. I’ll be brief. I’ve come to ask for a favor.”

  “What sort of favor?” Clarissa tried to force the door closed, but it still wouldn’t budge an inch.

  “I need you to find a little girl.”

  Clarissa stared back at the stranger in her doorway, her nose crinkled up with confusion and disgust. “Excuse me?”

  “A very specific girl. She’s gone missing and I can’t seem to track...”

  “You’ve got the wrong person. I can’t help-”

  “You’re the only one who can.” His eyes flashed and he smiled, showing his teeth, which looked more like those of a carnivorous animal than a human. It reminded her far to much of the monster. Clarissa took a step back. “I know what you are Miss LaRoux.”

  “You’ve got the wrong person,” she repeated.

  Calu ignored her protest. “Her name is Fiammetta. She’s the daughter of someone I’ve got - well, a bit of a grudge against to be honest, and I figured, you, as a revenge spirit, could maybe sort that out for me.”

  Clarissa didn’t bother to repeat that she wasn’t the person he wanted a third time. Instead, she slammed her entire weight against the frozen door. This time it closed.

  “Fine,” muttered the man on the other side of the door. “Fine. I suppose I’ll take it up with the Mooreland woman then.”

  A chill ran through Clarissa at the mention of Opaline. “Don’t you bother her. She has enough to worry about right now.”

  Calu laughed. “You know, come to think of it, facing off against the witch of winter might actually appeal to someone like her.”

  “I mean it...please...”

  “And your history with the white doe isn’t exactly spectacular, if I recall my stories properly.”

  Clarissa felt the chill begin to warm into a rage. She couldn’t place exactly why she was so angry. Maybe it was this stranger bringing up Opaline to her, or maybe it was because he questioned her abilities, but no matter the reason, she threw the door open and scowled at him. “If it’ll keep you away from Opaline...”

  He paused and turned back to her, a wicked grin on his face. “Are you sure?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t know about that. She’s not a revenge spirit, but she might be more willing to do what needs to be done. I mean, with the right persuasion at least...I mean,
I hear that her granddaughter...”

  “I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM OPALINE!” The walls and light fixtures of the hallway shook violently and Calu took a few steps toward the exit.

  “Right,” he muttered. “Right. I forget who I’m dealing with sometimes.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a sketch of a scowling little girl with a pinched face and long unbrushed hair. “Fiammetta. The white doe keeps her. And be quick about it.”

  Before Clarissa had looked up from examining the drawing, he was gone.

  3.

  A cold gray mist fell on the Detroit River as Clarissa stood looking out over it and the city across the way. She had come out to the island often since that fateful June day just to look at the city. It felt strange to her, even now. She didn't know the skyline quite as well as she used to. Things that had been as familiar to her as her own face were gone and replaced with new and even newer. Still, she liked to look at it. As lost as she felt, Detroit was still her home and she felt a deep affinity toward it; one that she felt incapable of explaining, but one that pervaded every moment of her life. Looking at the skyline from Belle Isle only made that feeling stronger.

  This time, thanks to her errand, the whole island felt different, like a pall had been draped over her memories. Before heading out, she had tried to call Opaline to check in or maybe to warn her, but no one has answered at the farm house. This wasn’t unusual -- Opaline rarely answered the phone -- but it still made Clarissa feel all the more alone. Belle Isle brought Opaline to mind in so many ways. It was hard to take a step without thinking of her, especially now that Clarissa found herself once again searching for the white doe.

  With great care, Clarissa turned from the shore and made her way back into the woods. She knew the white doe was around. She had seen her last June and once or twice since, but she never approached. The doe wandered through the more secluded areas of the Island, keeping mostly to herself and away from others. Clarissa respected that. It was her own instinct to do the same. But today, now that she actually wanted to find her again, of course, the doe was no where to be seen.