Cassie's Corpse

Chapter 2

*updates will be every Wednesday-Thursday*

We pulled up to the lake house sometime in the late afternoon, and I didn't pay attention to the clock.
It didn't take long to unpack the car, as we only brought things for our rooms, and within half an hour Reese and I were settling into the attic bedroom. That was one of the perks to staying at a cabin owned by our grandparents, Anna said, because they had it fully stocked.
I'm sure it was a nice house, because Reese liked it and by default that meant Cassie did, too. The kitchen and living room was one big open area. It was all wood flooring, with a big rug in front of the stone fireplace. There was a television, a couch, two chairs, and bookshelves lining an entire wall. I was excited about that, because Nicolai had told
me all about books. He had really liked Earth when he had been a Watcher. Being of higher authority, I didn't go down there much, but when Nicholai would visit he told me all he could. Angels didn't have friends, but if they did Nicolai would have been mine. Before he went crazy, that is. Angels weren't built for freedom. I guess that's why the war started.
Unconsciously I glanced up at the ceiling, as if I could peer right through the heavy layer of wood and plaster and right into Heaven itself.
Maybe there was a window here, in this house, and the Angels were watching me. I highly doubted it. If they knew where I was they would have undoubtedly sent an assassin.
I followed Reese up the pull down ladder to the attic. It was about the same size as the living room, all wood, with two dock beds on the left and right walls. There were desks underneath them, a small closet next to each bed, and a window in between the beds. Reese pulled a string hanging from the ceiling and the room filled with the harsh yellow of artificial light.
When we pulled up I saw that the house had been built into a hill, and looking out the window I saw the ground was only a five foot drop below. Easy access for Nicolai, and easy escape should I need it. I pushed open the window and shivered when a blast of cold air hit me. It was summer, but the lake, which I could see through the forest, carried cold air towards the house.
I turned when Reese spoke. She was underneath one of the beds, stacking assorted knick-knacks on her desk. "Grandpa Rowland is coming up."
By the tone of her voice, I assumed this was something to be excited about. I feigned enthusiasm. "Really?"
"Yeah, he's been lonely since grandma died. He'll be here next week, and he's staying the whole summer!"
"Yay. How fun."
She turned a questioning eye on me. "Are you feeling okay? The doctors said it was remarkable, how fast and completely you healed. It's almost as if you never had a heart condition at all."
'I didn't,' I thought, 'I never even had a heart.'
I shrugged. "Just tired."
Pretty soon I had all of Cassie's belongings unpacked--her books, notebooks and pens, all stacked on her desk; her assorted blue jeans and T-shirts, including quite a few Beatles ones. Reese and Cassie must have had a lot in common.
Reese decorated her desk with sheet music and Beatles records, along with her violin case. Sitting on the floor, I flipped through a book while Reese played her violin. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard, despite only having ears for three days. Reese said it was the strings to "Eleanor Rigby," which I later found on YouTube on Cassie's phone.
So Reese was the musician, and Cassie the poet. She scrawled the most beautiful poems in her journals, in tiny black and blue ink. Something about her writing was enticing. I felt compelled to emulate it, if only to honor her memory. But then Anna called us down to dinner, and I was forced to emulate Cassie's love of a horrid food called macaroni and cheese. God help me.