Everytime (American Horror AU 5)

Chapter 4

"Cordelia? Where's my tablet?"

Clara was beginning classes the following morning at UCLA, the brand new semester that began her junior year. Cordelia had been preparing breakfast in the kitchen, and the sisters had gotten freshened up and ready to face the new day in their new home. For her first day back at school, Clara chose a unique outfit composed of a long black skirt, a black kimono shawl with white floral print in the lightly-woven grain, flat short black booties, and a brimmed hat that looked like it was plucked from Zoe's closet. She had known Zoe, a witch from Miss Robicheaux's Academy and the most recent Supreme, all her life and this outfit was almost directly inspired by her and what her own mother would wear.

"Cordelia?" There had been no answer.

"It's right here, relax" Amy said, prancing toward her with the tablet Clara had been inquiring about. Taking it into her hands, she smiled at her sister.

"Thanks, Amy," she said. "Say, are you alright this morning?"

"Huh, why wouldn't I be?" her younger sister asked.

"Well, your makeup isn't on yet," Clara noticed. Amy hadn't even put on a bit of her foundation let alone her heavy, pigmented eyeshadow; she just shrugged.

"Eh, I wanted to wait," she said, sniffing the air as she walked into the kitchen to see Cordelia standing over a few skillets on the stove. "Ooh! Are those eggs?"

"Scrambled with cheese and butter," their adopted mother said. "Get some plates, please? And…" She paused for a moment. "Oh! I almost forgot! There's an ingredient I need, but it's in the basement."

"What? Why the basement?" Clara asked, cocking an eyebrow up.

"I wanted to add a dash of the good luck potion," Cordelia smiled. "You're going back to school today, and of course, we all could use some luck adjusting to our new life here."

"I can't get it if I'm getting plates," the brunette said.

"Ugh, fine. I'll do it," Amy scoffed, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to where the basement door was located.

She grabbed a hold of the knob and turned it before carefully stepping down the creaky, old wooden stairs into the dark area below. The door had been kept open when she alighted from the stairs, allowing some light from the hallway to come in and allow Amy to see where she was going. Surrounding her were several stacks of cardboard boxes that had included holiday decorations and unused items, and her eyes looked over to see a container with a label that vaguely read "sundries"—as she walked over to it, she heard a strange sound. She tossed her head to the side to find the source of the noise, but there was no one, let alone nothing, there.

Amy removed the box right on top of the labeled one aside and opened the flaps to expose the tops of corks, the simple covers plugged into the tight openings of the bottles. She took each bottle and lifted them to see their labels and contents; most of them were for most of the same sorts of things such as love, attracting money, beauty, and…luck. Yes. That was the one. It happened to be toward the center of the crowded glass potion bottles, and once Amy got a firm hold of it, she turned around to a horrifying sight—she felt chills run through her body.

"Mommy…?"

In a rocking chair that had been in the basement when they moved there sat a grotesque, short-statured creature that looked like an underdeveloped child. Amy gawked at his features with horror, taking in the gruesome image of his sparsely bald head, black beady eyes, unnatural brow ridge, sickly pale skin that shined with sweat and who knows what else, long fingers much like those of a goblin from hell, and the tattered white christening gown on its body. What frightened her most were its two rows of sharp teeth in a menacing smile, hungry for flesh or blood or a mix of both. It seemed to hiss like a violent viper, and Amy screamed with fright.