Episode Eleven – You Can Lead a Horse to Water

     It had snowed during the day, with temperatures dropping into the twenties, and a light layer of snow covered the farmhouse roof, the barn, and the surrounding wilderness. Silence followed, the kind that feels both strange and beautiful at the same time. It was as if the world were either sleeping or dead around me.

     I had just kissed Albert goodnight and slid the stone crypt closed when Sterling came around the side of the house looking even more annoyed than usual. He hadn’t seen me yet, his face down, eyes scanning the darkened ground in front of him.

     “What’s wrong?” I asked, smiling as he jumped. “Did you lose your keys?”

     His brow relaxed as his eyes locked onto me in the darkness.

     “No, I lost your little friend,” he said.

     It’s hard to describe the feeling that washed over me. It wasn’t panic exactly, not yet anyway, but it was cold, empty, and stuck in my chest like a fist.

     “Well, she has to be around here somewhere. Did you check the house? Her room?” I said, moving past him on the path back toward the house.

     “Of course I did, I’m not stupid,” he said, his voice rising slightly. “I knew she was going to be nothing but trouble.”

     I raced into the house and upstairs, checking each bedroom as I reached it. Nothing. The room she had chosen, the one closest to the back of the house, had her bag. The bed had never been touched.

     I checked the attic, the basement, nothing.

     Sterling sat at the kitchen table watching me as I walked back into the room.

     “She must have left before the snow started to fall, or we’d see her tracks,” he said. “I’d love to sit here and waste time with you, but we don’t have that luxury. The Collective is waiting, and if I don’t bring you back soon, they will send someone less polite to bring you in.”

     “You did something to her, didn’t you?” I said. “You piece of shit. You didn’t want me to bring her along, so you did something to her. Well, you screwed up big time, because I’m not going anywhere with you until I find her. I don’t care what you do or who else comes looking for me.”

     In a blink, Sterling was standing in front of me, his temper hot.

     “I should just kill you now and get it over with,” he said, his jaw working overtime to control the growth of his teeth.

     “I couldn’t agree more,” I said, my own canines sliding into place. “Kill me, get it over with, only first take me to Patience.”

     “I told you I didn’t touch her!” His voice vibrated the air around us.

     I was watching him until I wasn’t. His head tilted to one side, and I noticed it. The kitchen cabinet under the sink had the door slightly open. If I had a heartbeat, it would have stopped.

     I pushed past him and rushed to the cabinet, rooting through the different cleaning supplies.

     “They’re gone,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “Both bottles.”

     “What are you talking about?” Sterling asked.

     “I hid my bottles of Absinthe back here. I didn’t think she’d be able to find them.”

     “Let me see if I have this right: you left a raging alcoholic alone in a house that had two bottles of Absinthe hidden in a kitchen cabinet? That’s the first place anyone would look,” Sterling said.

     I was done listening to him.

     Patience wasn’t in the house. I ran to the barn, but found nothing. I checked to make sure Sterling’s car was still locked. Not there. I looked out into the snow-covered abyss of trees that surrounded the farmhouse. She could be anywhere.

     Albert.

     I could hear Sterling behind me, but I didn’t stop. He was less than unimportant to me right now. I needed to find Patience, and I needed Albert’s help.

     I made my way back to his resting place at the back of the house and rested my hand on his marker. The light from the windows didn’t reach past the small lawn, but I could still see where I was going.

     “Albert, I need your help. The young woman I came here with is named Patience. She’s missing and in trouble. Do you know where she went?” I asked the darkness that surrounded me.

     Nothing.

     “Albert!” I yelled. I felt Sterling step up behind me.

     “What the hell are you doing?” he said.

     “Shut up,” I said. “I’m trying to hear.”

     “Hear what? You’re fucking nuts,” Sterling said, and laughed. “She’s gone. Probably drank herself to death or froze. Who cares either way?”

     He reached out in the darkness and grabbed me.

     Rage and fear boiled over. I snapped. I grabbed him by the collar of his leather duster and slammed him hard against a nearby tree, shaking the snow from its branches.

     Sterling’s laughter grew quiet.

     “I’m not fighting with you over this,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “We need to get going. She could be anywhere by now.”

     “I’m not leaving here until I know what happened to her,” I said. “You can either help me look for her or stay in the house until I come back. It’s your…”

     Albert was at my side.

     “Angelica?” Albert said, his form glowing blue-green, fading in and out. “Do you need help?”

     I released Sterling and stumbled back.

     “Albert, I need you to help me find my friend. She’s lost in the woods, I think, and I’m not sure if she’s still alive.”

     Sterling looked at me like I truly was insane. Apparently, he couldn’t see my Albert.

     Albert grew quiet, with his eyes closed, listening to the world around him.

     “She’s not dead, not yet. But there will be no coming back from where she is; the line is taut, ready to break,” Albert said.

     “Where? Where is she, Albert? Take me to her,” I said.

     “Our place,” Albert said, his form moving forward in the darkness. “The place we used to go and swim,” he turned back to me. “And make love.”

     I remembered it well.

     I looked back at Sterling. “I know where she is.” My canines slid back into hiding. “As I said, you can either help me or stay here, your choice.”

     Without waiting for his reply, I darted into the surrounding woods along a well-worn trail, the moon casting long shadows in the darkness. The loud crunch of leaves under my feet, muffled by snow, my gaze shifting from the illuminated figure of Albert beside me to the rough path and back again.

     “Not far,” Albert said. “Hurry, I can feel the line beginning to break.”

     I ran full tilt into the darkness in front of me until I could hear the loud rush of the waterfall. I paused to look back just as Sterling came up behind me.

     “No games,” I said. “I won’t let you hurt her.”

     Sterling’s gaze was dark and unreadable.

     I turned from him and ran until the thick trees parted and the small gully of water opened up the forest around us. Snow and moonlight glowed blue against the black velvet of night.

     There, lying by the water, was Patience, covered in snow. Two empty bottles of Absinthe next to her.

     “I’m here,” I said, rushing up to her, cradling her head in my lap. “I told you not to leave the house. I told you to stay put.”

     Patience was cold. Cold like me, like Sterling. Like Albert.