Chapter Fifty-Eight

Havermouth, Present Time

“I… I can’t,” Aislen edged towards the door. “I’m really sorry about Guy, I am. He was a bit of a creep in high school, and the two of them were just plain stupid to try what they did, but neither deserved what happened to them, and I am really, really sorry…”

“But not sorry enough to help,” June replied miserably. “Everyone is always sorry, but they won’t help.”

“I’ve got my own troubles, believe me,” Aislen told her. Some of them were really stinging too, she added, trying to resist the urge to rub her breasts. “More than I can handle, without taking on anyone else’s. I’m actually just about to eat and go to sleep, and then, in the morning, I’ll be gone, never to return.”

June nodded and turned with a sigh. She took a step down and paused. “I’m glad you’re leaving,” she said over her shoulder. “This town has a nasty habit of contaminating people. It’s like a disease. You stay here too long, and you start to rot from the inside out.”

Aislen remembered Abigail’s words… “She’s a disease on your bond, and like a diseased limb, you must amputate it to save the body.”

Then she remembered what Anne had said at the charity store… “Sometimes people just need someone strong to stand up behind them, and all the strong people seem to leave this town as soon as they can.”

(Don’t go.) The look on the Triquetra’s faces as they had said goodbye lingered like the heavy grief that had settled upon them.

“Fuck it,” Aislen said. “Alright, June, I’ll stick around. I’ll speak at Guy’s hearing.”

June whirled, her face lighting with hope. “You will? You… really will?”

“Yeah,” Aislen rolled her eyes at her own sentimentality. “I’m not done with this town yet. Let me go inside and eat and get some sleep, and I’ll come by some time tomorrow so we can talk some more. Right now, if I don’t put some food in my stomach, I think it will eat me.”

“Thank you,” June said empathically. “Thank you so much.”

Aislen heaved a sigh. “Sure. See you tomorrow,” she turned to enter the house and paused. Fuck it, she thought. “Actually, hey,” she called out, halting June on her way to the gate. “Is there like… a place to buy laptops around here somewhere? I have no idea…”

“Oh, sure,” June said. “There’s a MegaStore, through town, down Main, just before you hit the freeway. Big building, no way that you can miss it. They sell… well, everything. They close at five though… Oh, there’s time if you went now.”

“Thanks,” Aislen replied. Her purse was on the hall table. She grabbed it and stepped back out, closing the door behind her. “I guess I’ll eat as I drive.”

“You… uh,” June flushed. “Not to criticize, but…” She gestured at Aislen. “You’re in scrubs, with no shoes.”

“Shit,” Aislen grimaced. “Good point. I’d better hurry. Catch you tomorrow June.”

“Yes. And… thanks,” June said with warmth. “You really don’t know what this means to me, to my family…”

Aislen flushed, embarrassed. “Okay. Well, I’d better hurry,” she ducked inside and closed the door between them with gratitude. She stuffed chips into her mouth as she limped down the hall to the bedroom. She forced her sore feet into a pair of sneakers, and put on a cardigan over the scrubs, not having time to do much else.

“Could leave it for tomorrow,” she told herself as she headed back to the door. “Could sleep and shower and eat and possibly cry. But, of course, you can’t let yourself do that, because now you’ve decided… Stupid fucking heart,” she growled as she locked the door behind her.

She continued to berate herself as she reversed out of the driveway and headed down the road, driving with one hand so that she could eat, dripping sauce onto the scrubs and cursing, until she remembered that she wasn’t wearing her own clothes. “Too fucking tired for this shit, Aislen,” she muttered, peering along the road as she neared the freeway. “Ah, there it is.”

She grumbled as she fought for a car park that wasn’t too far away from the entrance, pulling into a handicapped park.

As she got out, an older couple gave her daggers. “You don’t look handicapped,” the man grumbled at her.

“Who are you, the parking police?” Aislen snapped. “Fuck off.”

She limped towards the door.

“Welcome to the Mega Store,” the teenaged store clerk mumbled, her attention on her phone. “Do you need help?”

“Technology,” Aislen replied. “Laptops and printers and shit like that.”

“Straight, until aisle ten, turn left and you should see someone there who will help you pick out what you need.” The teen didn’t look up.

“Thanks,” Aislen took a trolley from the bay and pushed it towards aisle ten, ignoring the looks of other shoppers - they were entitled to stare, she thought wryly. After her swim, her hair had gone crazy with curls, she was bra-less in borrowed oversized scrubs, and limping.

In the technology section, the sales assistant, a built young man of Aislen’s age who looked like he spent more time in the gym than before a computer, was helping a harried woman with three bored kids pick out a new tablet.

Aislen caught his eye when the mother turned to chastise her misbehaving young. “Me next, eh?” He nodded and so she pottered along the display until she found the laptop that she wanted and winced at the price.

The aisle emptied of the woman and her young.

“Hey,” the clerk joined her. “That’s an awesome laptop. Lots of gamers love it, but you don’t look like the average gamer.”

“Neither do you,” she looked him over. He’d give the Triquetra a run for their money, looks-wise. Although she didn’t know it, she was almost certain he was a werewolf, because humans didn’t come in the same range of glossy as werewolves did.

He laughed. “I haven’t seen you around Havermouth. Are you new? Work at the hospital?”

“Nah,” she looked down at the scrubs. Her cardigan had fallen open, and her nipples were pressing against the cloth, making it obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and that she had hardware through them. She tugged the cardigan around herself. “Fell in the river today, ended up at the hospital, they loaned me the clothes.”

“Laptop went in with you?” He guessed with sympathy.

“Something like that. I’ll take one of these, an external hard drive, a printer, paper, ink, poster glue, and a staple gun,” she told him.

“Okay,” he raised his eyebrows at the list. “Got an assignment due?”

“Yeah,” she heaved a sigh. “Overdue.”

“Alright, I won’t keep you waiting,” he told her. “You sure you need this model, though? It’s a serious piece of work, and…”

“I’m an artist,” she told him with a shrug. “It’s what I use for work.”

“Ah, okay, you’d know what you need then,” he winked. “Be right back.”

Aislen drifted out of the aisle whilst she waited, browsing the random specials that the MegaStore displayed along the main walkway. Amongst out-of-season Christmas and Halloween decorations were a range of costumes.

“Sexy vampire? Sure, why not?” She muttered and, thinking of her own sexy vampire, she added the costume and a black eye-mask to the trolley as the cute werewolf clerk came back.

“Right, here we are,” he showed her the laptop box before setting it onto the costume within the trolley basket. “Printers and stationery are down this way,” he waited patiently for her to limp along with him. “Man,” he commented, his eyebrows raising as he noted the pain that she was in. “That must have been some fall.”

“Yep,” she replied grimly. “I cut up the soles of my feet, amongst other things.”

“Fuck… oh, excuse me,” he pulled a face. “Not allowed to swear on the job. Gosh. Look, if you trust me to do right by you, I’ll pick out a printer for you and bring it back, save you the walk?”

“That would be great. It doesn’t need to be top of the line. Just reasonably cheap on the ink as I’m going to be doing a lot of printing. Can you grab paper…”

“Yep, printer, paper, ink, poster glue, and staple gun,” he repeated.

“The heavy-duty poster glue, if its stocked,” she said. “The stuff bands use, you know? Wheat-paste."

“I know the stuff. Wait here and rest those feet,” he walked briskly down the aisle, displaying a very nice, tight arse.

“For fuck sake, Aislen,” she rolled her eyes at herself and shook her head. “Stay away from the bad candy.”

He returned with the items and escorted her to the check out, processing the transaction himself, and slipping her his number with the receipt and a wink.

With her purchases on the passenger seat, Aislen drove back to her father’s house as dusk settled in the sky. She locked the door firmly behind her and went through the house, turning on every light to banish the shadows and the feeling of being watched as she made her way to the kitchen. Her sketch pad and art supplies sat on the table untouched.

She put the kettle on to boil as she began to unpack the laptop and turned it on. She made herself a soup-mug of black instant coffee, for once grateful for even the bitter generic brand that her father stocked after going without at the river house.

She located her phone and flicked through the missed messages and calls. As predicted, her agent and publisher were chasing her next release, and the few friends that she had in Kabramatta had called to see when she would return, including one message from her friend, Bianca, who was looking after her flat for her, that stopped her heart.

“Was at your flat last night, taking in the mail, and this walking God of a man approached me asking if I knew you. Said his name was Talen. I told him that I’d let you know that he’d been by.”

“Talen,” Aislen’s heart was racing, and she touched her mouth, covering the grin. He’d gone to Kabramatta looking for her. “If you see him again,” she messaged Bianca back. “Tell him I’m in Havermouth…” She hesitated. Things were… complicated… with the Triquetra, she admitted to herself. That whole situation was far from ended. But that didn’t mean she had to close her doors to Talen. “And if he’s in the area again, to come and knock on my door.”

“You dirty bitch, I’d planned to marry him, I bet he’s got a great…” Bianca replied with a row of aubergines.

Aislen chuckled to herself as she finished logging into her cloud storage and uploading the programs that she needed. Bianca had no idea how great Talen’s cock was, she thought to herself. She texted back: “The *aubergine* is only the start of his many assets and talents. Mine, though. XX.”

“Bitch. When you coming back?”

Aislen considered the question and sighed. “Not sure,” she replied and then typed into the screen:

Dear Havermouth,

These are the secrets that I am keeping,

Perhaps it is time that I began speaking?

What was Alfred Boyston’s crime?

And why did he not serve the time?

Who was the father of the fruit,

That Guy’s knitting needle tried to uproot?

Who saw Patrick Carter dead,

For the things that he left unsaid?

Which Pastor uses his flock,

When his boots he wants to knock?

The answers to the questions that I ask,

I give Havermouth’s residents the task.

The Secret Keeper