Chapter 3. Cass

Two solid wooden doors stood between me and my destination. All I had to do was to get past them. Any moment now I would, just as soon as I cleared my head. What was I even waiting for? Oh yes, anything other than this stinky feeling that nothing had changed. Nothing had aged since I was last here. Did doors even age? My mind went very unhelpfully to an image of a door with saggy bulges in odd places. But it was freaking me out, the way everything felt the same. There ought to have been something to show how long it had been since I last stood here. The patio with its white brick walls, the spread of French windows on both sides, the patterned tiled floor and the uncomfortable curlicued iron chairs, everything seemed the same. Like I had just stepped away for a second, not like I had been avoiding this place for years.

I drew my hand down over the solid wood. It had always bugged me that these were not glass paned, like a longer version of the French windows, so you could see directly through into the garden. Even the door handle was adding to this overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It had the same smooth texture and a hefty roundness which felt like it was carved to fit snugly into your hand. I kept telling myself to turn them and step out. But I stood there, like some decorative shiny piece you kept around the house, the kind that didn’t actually do anything. The kind that nan brought out when folk she didn’t care for came round, but she still wanted to impress them.

I felt a nudge just beneath my right shoulder. I wasn’t all that surprised. Armari said that he had some stuff to sort out, but with him being the Retainer, he was pretty much aware of everything that was happening in the house, or in my case not happening. The nudge was to politely tell me to get on with it. I wanted to growl at the man. He had dragged me out of my nooky-nook flat with his mysterious letter and then looked surprised when he opened the door to me. Said letter was now all scrunched up in my pocket like a parking ticket. Had I known, I wouldn’t have opened the damned thing. But then Armari probably knew better than anyone else that a letter smelling of magic would have set my fingers itching.

“You’re here.”

“You sent me a letter, inviting me here,” I said, glaring at him.

Something flitted across his face besides his surprised expression.

“Seriously, Armari, are you going to let me in or what?”

“Oh, pardon me, Cassandra. I had prepared myself to…well I thought I was going to have to fetch you,” he said as he moved back to let me into the house.

“It’s Cass, not Cassandra. And even though I forgot about the whole cobbled lane bit. Sorta just hopped in a taxi to the station and then walked and yeah, ta da, here I am.”

Armari remained at the door as I walked into the house. He’d had his thoughtful face on, the one that usually came after we had completed a task sooner than he’d expected. It was probably at the fact that I’d found my way back here without his help.

And now after all that, he was going to find me loitering by the garden doors, like smoke gone awry. ‘C’mon girl’, down the steps, do the maze-quest thing and you can be done and dusted.’ A onetime revisiting was enough, I told myself. So, I shoved the crunched-up letter deeper into my pocket, turned the handle and pushed the doors open.