Page 10 of The Leaving Kind
His head throbbed and Victor nodded gently. “I know. We’re not painting today.” Thunder rumbled outside. “We’ll use the dreary weather as an excuse.”
From deep inside the house, Dexter let out a mournful wail. Victor rolled his eyes and turned away from the windows, calling out, “It’s all right, Dexie. The thunder can’t hurt you.” He offered the same reassurance every storm, as if the cat might one day become fluent in human, and then take him at his word.
Sinister, Dexter’s smaller, sneakier brother, arrived in the studio doorway and stood there with his slender black tail wrapped around the doorframe.
“Where have you been?” Victor asked. “I’ve been out here talking to myself for about half an hour. You’re supposed to be my muse.”
Sinister answered with a petulant squawk. From wherever he’d chosen to hide, Dexter howled. Victor flicked his fingers toward Sinister. “Go help your brother. He thinks the sky is falling again.”
Outside, the wind picked up with a sudden gust and roared through the trees like a freight train. Summer always brought storms, but the weather had been wild and wooly lately. End-of-times wooly. Victor frowned at the windows surrounding his studio. If this trend toward apocalyptic storms continued, he might have to consider shutters for this room. Thankfully, his studio was on the south side of the house, facing away from the wind.
Lightning arced over the trees across the lawn. Thunder boomed close by, making the house vibrate. Drafts sprang up from everywhere. His house was gorgeous in a mysteriously rambling way but leaky as a junkyard sieve. Victor tugged his robe closed over his chest and got a whiff of two-day-old body odor. He looked down at himself and sighed.
Dear God, had he changed his underwear since Tuesday?
Dexter wailed again.
No. No, he had not. And Dexter wasn’t the only one who should be upset by this. Was it safe to shower during a thunderstorm? Victor could never remember. He seemed to recall his mother had always warned him against it, with stories about people being zapped through walls. Dutifully, he’d passed the stories along to his own progeny. He also seemed to recall his son, Sage, reporting the rumors as false, however.
Had he ever fact-checked? He should set Cori on to it. She loved proving her brother wrong.
He was reaching inside a robe pocket for his phone when the lights went out.
Dexter hissed and growled from his hiding spot. Victor squatted to run a hand along Sinister’s furry back before nudging the cat toward the interior of the house. “Go. We don’t want to be here if this room tears away and takes off for parts unknown.”
Sinister disappeared into the deepening shadows, and Victor woke the screen on his phone. Despite the darkness outside, it was still midafternoon. And, surprise, surprise, he had no signal. He often didn’t in the midst of a storm. Pocketing the phone, Victor shut the door to the studio behind him in an effort to begin compartmentalizing the house. He had no central air to worry about, but preferred to keep the ghosts to a minimum.
A wry smile cornered his mouth as he recalled Sage’s year-long campaign regarding the Ghosts of Ness Manor. He could feel their fingers around his ankles and legs, he’d said. And on the back of his neck and sometimes in his hair. Tereza, the children’s mother and the more sensible parent, had not approved of Victor and Cori’s plan to stage an exorcism. Thankfully, such shenanigans had proven unnecessary when the ghosts had invaded the family room one night, teasing the back of every neck and wrapping around all exposed ankles and wrists, the mystery resolving into the Drafts of Ness Manor.
In the kitchen, Victor contemplated the weather whipping across the patio and wondered whether he could be bothered heading to the garage to hook up the generator. Depended on how long the power would be out, and how much water he wanted to use. He could leave it for now. The smell wafting up from his pits wasn’t going to kill anyone but him. Hell, if it rained, he could stand outside.
The phone in his pocket rang. Eyebrows crawling upward, Victor retrieved it and blinked at the screen. Then, smiling, he answered. “Tereza! Your ears must be burning. I was thinking about you. Also, I don’t know how you’re getting me. The weather is ferocious up here and a minute ago, I had no signal.”
“I’m surprised I had one,” she said. “It’s crazy down here.” She lived about forty minutes south of him in Stroudsburg. “I know it’s always hairier up your way, though. Do you have power?”
“Just lost it. How about you?” The infrastructure in Stroudsburg usually proved more robust, which was part of the reason Tez had relocated there. She’d rather have a steady supply of electricity to run her kiln than a steady supply of unbaked clay. She did not love drama as much as Victor—her words, not his.
“Still humming along,” she said now.
Dexter added a loud howl to the conversation. He was probably in the dining room, crouched under the buffet.
“Was that Dexie?” Tereza asked.
“It was.”
“Poor thing. So, listen. I planned to call you today, anyway. Are you all set for the weekend?”
The weekend? Victor consulted his phone screen. How in the heck was it Thursday already and what was happening this weekend? He put the phone back to his ear. “Yes?”
“Victor!”
“What? I drank a little too much last night.” The subtle pressure in his chest suggested he’d smoked a little too much as well. “We’re artists. It’s what we do.”
“It’s what we did when we were twenty. These days, you only— Oh.” Her voice lowered, and Victor could barely hear her over the rain now battering the kitchen windows. “Did Tholo come home?”
“Came and went. I tossed him out on his beautiful ass.”
“About time.”