Spliced

Wolf ran as fast as he could. He made for the exit, skirting plants and knocking over a few pots as he ran past. Up ahead the door leading out was closed. He had two choices, run at it and hope the door was weak or unlocked and that his weight was enough to get him through uninjured, or shift back into human form, making himself more vulnerable to a blade and losing himself precious seconds in escaping.

Figuring he was far enough ahead, based on the sound of her footsteps, he chose the latter. He timed it so he came to a skid right beside the door just as he was done shifting. Trying the knob he was pleased to find it opened easily. He dashed through, ready to close it behind himself. As he crossed the threshold, and spun to close the door, he finally got a good look at what had been following.

He saw nothing. No pursuer. No Amanda. Nothing. Just a room full of plants. He hesitated. Then he closed the door and backed away slowly.

He turned around and sussed out his new surroundings. He was in a hallway, mahogany panelling on each side. The panelled floor was half covered in faded red and gold patterned carpet. Even though everything still looked very very old, this side of the house was much nicer than the other had been.

He paused and considered what to do next. Deciding whatever it was, was best done in wolf form, he shifted back. If he came to a door that needed opening he’d switch again but for now being in wolf form meant his senses were far better. If he smelt anyone else nearby they’d be easier to find, or if he came across a path they’d been on.

He followed the hallway in the direction of what should be the main entrance, but half way along he reached a staircase that spiralled upward. Behind it was a large iron grate. On the other side he could see another staircase also spiraling up. Further along he could see two bodies that looked a lot like Sirius and Kass. He couldn’t smell them from here though which was strange. He shifted back into human form once more and went right up to the bars of the grate, as close as he dared without touching it. It looked like them. But where was Amanda? And why were they lying on the floor. He suspected another trick but regardless that was the direction he wanted to go, and he certainly couldn’t just leave them lying there if it was a chance that it was them. The main problem was that from this floor it looked like the only way to the other side of the grate was up the stairs.

He hesitantly touched the bars. Nothing happened.

He rattled the bars and tried calling some names but the unconscious figures did not stir, and the bars gave no sign of weakness. He tried louder, certain that if it was Sirius and he could awaken him, then Sirius should be able to bend his way through the bars.

After far too long of an attempt he started to worry they might be dead. That was of course, if it was them at all. He wasn’t certain going up would get him any closer but it was at this point the most direct option. Keeping his human form he climbed butt naked up to the second floor.

He emerged into a large open and empty room. It was adorned in pale pink wallpaper. Lots of daylight filled the space causing shadows to dance around the room, cast from trees and clouds outside. There did not appear initially to be any other exit form this room, certainly no thoroughfare to the neighbouring staircase. Wolf didn’t trust his first impression however and began to give the room a through sweeping.

From the far window he could look down onto the conservatory. From this vantage it looked far bigger than he’d imagined. He also realised he had somehow managed to climb two stories up without realising it. He was sure he’d only climbed one floor’s worth of staircase. He wondered if he went back down again, would he return to the same hallway?

He wasn’t afraid, not for himself at least. Places like this lived off fear but they had been lived in at some point too. Much like the open ocean or the forest, if you showed enough respect sometimes they’d let you leave alive. Sirius would have scoffed at that. He didn’t believe in silly things like fate. Wolf wasn’t sure he did either but it made him feel calmer and if there was one thing he was sure about, it was that being calm was almost always better than panicking.

He walked around the room, twice. It didn’t change. He peered back down the stairs. He couldn’t see much but it looked like it had before. On his third trip around the room he tried tapping on the walls.

He was in luck. As he knocked on the wall that shared a border with the other stairs a small door propped open near one corner of the room, right down low. It reminded him of that small cubby he and Indi had found earlier in the day and it gave him pause. There had been something not right about that place.

He approached it warily, then shifted into wolf form. I was almost wolf height, a bit of a squeeze still. He didn’t feel quite the same hair-raising feeling as he had done ealier but still he felt that something wasn’t quite right. It felt almost like a creature had opened it’s mouth for him to crawl into.

It was dark and even in wolf form he couldn’t see much. But he could smell, and coming from somewhere in there he could smell soap. There was something else as well but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Two smells in fact, intertwined. He knew there were two and yet he couldn’t quite separate them fully. They reminded him of something.

He crawled inside. The house was quiet, unnaturally so. It felt dead. Or dormant. It was strange that he could hear no other person, not even the wind blowing outside. He wondered what had become of Indi. He hoped she was alright. He hoped she stayed put. That courtyard was something that would at least be visible from above the house. He worried a little less about the others. He knew they could take care of themselves, except perhaps for Zephyr. Indi wasn’t like them though, she was sweet, naive, kind. Not that the others weren’t kind, just that, well, Indi was different. She believed so much the best in everyone, honestly actually believed it. That alone made the world that much brighter for those around her, and Wolf had grown fond of her, even if she could be a pest sometimes. But that kind of naivete, that kind of trust that everything would be okay. That could get one killed, and so Wolf worried.

He padded along inside what seemed to be a semi-open crawl space. He followed a raised path of boards laid down on rafters. As he rounded a corner in the path something off to the right caught his eye. He paused and waited for his eyes to work it out. When he did he wished he hadn’t. It was a pile of children’s shoes, all different sizes and styles. A chill went through his spine and his hair stood on end. How did they get here? Why so many?

He decided not to ponder on the question and continued on his way. He followed the smell of soap.

The crawl-space was warm and despite the strangeness of the house and the danger he sensed just beyond the edges of his vision, Wolf felt calm. He felt calm right up to the point the entire floor gave way beneath him.

For the second time that day Wolf found himself falling. This time, instead of being surrounded by darkness, he was blinded by light. It took a moment for the glare to fade and then he could look around properly. He was in a bedroom, on the ground floor. It was decorated with pink flowers and lacy white frills and it smelt like someone had dumped the entire contents of a perfume store into the one room. Through the large, almost full wall windows Wolf could see the front gates to the house and behind them in the distance the unmistakable glow of the mid-morning sun. Wolf gave an involuntary whine. Seeing the sun there when he knew that couldn’t be possible sent chills down his spine like nothing else. It’s unnaturalness frightened him so much that it took him a full three seconds before he even thought to check himself for injuries.

Still in wolf form he got to all four legs and shook himself so fiercely that a cloud of dust surrounded him glowing like a halo in the light.

Looking back up at the ceiling he noted he had only fallen one floor. With the extra tall ceilings it was a bit more than one floor in a modern house but definitely only one floor. He must have imagined how high he was before when he’d been looking out over the conservatory, except the conservatory itself had been higher than this ceiling. Now he thought about it, it had been two floors easily. He glanced back out at the morning sun and suddenly found the room felt a lot colder. Not just an imaginary chill down the spine, but literally, physically, colder.

The driveway was right there. He could see their cars parked. They beckoned. But the sun scared him. It wasn’t right. He couldn’t have explained to anyone how he knew. He just did. But if he didn’t look at it, if he just looked at the cars. Amanda and Sirius’s light blue truck, Cat’s sleek black sports car, Kass’s sensible sedan. They all beckoned to him. It wouldn’t take much he thought, to just break through the window. Then he could at least go and get some help. The sun drew his eyes back up. He looked just below it, at the dark iron gate, the trees beyond, and somewhere through them and far enough away was the ocean. He couldn’t smell it. But somewhere beneath the overpowering scent of flowers he caught a whiff of something else. Someone familiar.

He turned his back on the creepy sun and moved instead in the other direction, out into the hallway. He followed his nose. As he got further away from the flowery room, her smell got stronger, horse sweat, hay, leather, and a touch of rum and whiskey. Amanda, the real Amanda, not some fake imitation conjured by the house. Wolf was sure. He followed her trail as it twisted through hallways, up stairs, across rooms, and right into a solid wall.

Wolf was so focused on the scent that he almost walked right into the wall itself. He stopped short just in time and then, confused, walked along the wall to the right. The scent got weaker so he turned and went the other way. Same thing again. Up and down he went but always he came back to the same place. Had she stopped to rest there?

He was in a dead end room on what was probably the second floor at the back of the house but who really knew? There was no furniture here and no other exits. He circled the room but the scent ended there at the wall. He sat down on his hunches and looked at it. In that moment he was sure that was the way she had gone. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but the house was weird, and instinct told him that was the truth.

Tired of playing by the house’s rules Wolf decided this time he was just going to take the most direct route. He lunged at the wall, claws out, and was surprised to find the wall was weaker than he’d first expected. Tiny bits of wallpaper fluttered to the floor landing on chunks of rotten wood and old plaster. With a blood-curdling howl he started fighting his way through.