Speculo

V

Oliver's head hurt. He clicked his fingers across the steering wheel as he waited on the light to turn green. Soft indie hummed through his jallopies radio and he sang gently with it. He loved the rain and raining it was. The light finally obliged and he slowly let off the break and slid across the intersection. There was almost no one on the road and he could go as slow as he pleased. The trees of Leváda were truly beautiful in the rain. Their dark emerald leaves seemed to capture the drops like the generous clasps of a crystal necklace. He should probably be looking into the house for his history project. If he remembered correctly he would need to take a right. He wondered if it would be appropriate of him to check on V and Elis. They probably weren't awake yet. He dialed Sean instead.
"hello?"
"hey, do you have the address for that house for our project?"
" the witchy one?" Sean sounded like he had been drinking fire last night and olivers throat hurt just thinking about it. He shifted into second gear.
"yes the witchy one" there were quite the pile of historic houses in Connecticut and so it was a suitable project to give them. Oliver was fairly certain it was a right so he turned.
" yeah lemme text it to you, how'd my sister get home last night?" Elis. That was the first time that Oliver drove Elis home and she wasn't completely smashed.
"Elis was fine its her friend I was worried about" Vienne. She seemed to keep popping up. He wondered how she was liking the car. She was strange but he thought maybe it was in the way that he was strange. He hoped anyways.
"yeah she was wasted...I think she puked in my bathroom" Oliver remembered with distaste the other places in which she had lost her gut as he pulled the car into the shoulder of the road to wait on directions.
"she's strange"
"you like her?"
"maybe" he clicked open his glove box and pulled out a small note pad and a Disney world pen from last summer when his cousin had gone and brought everyone back an identicle ballpoint pen.
"I'll send you the adress"
"yeah, thanks" Sean hung up and Oliver laid his head against his seat. His stomach rolled around in complaint. He hadn't eaten in two days. He pulled out his phone and checked his bank account. The same dreadful feeling as always filled his gut when he saw the shallow balance. He could go another day off oregano covered leftover pizza. The address buzzed onto the top of his screen and confirmed the turn he'd taken. He pushed into drive and rolled up the road, the wet trees formed a sort of tunnel over him and the inside of the car was filled with a dim green light. He found the mailbox he was looking for, Standard black city issued, and turned up the narrow drive. He turned down the radio so as to concentrate on his surroundings in case there was anything note worthy. The underbrush framing the road got ever thicker as he slowly cruised up the rocky drive. It was so dense in fact that he almost didn't see the house when he came upon it. It was obviously old with newer renovations added on like a sloppy jigsaw. It looked as if it had grown right out of the ground, covered in vines and surrounded by an uncut lawn it was just another random hill. Slightly more square shaped maybe. A blue car sat idly in the yard, but there were fresh tire tracks behind it. The city website hadn't said anything about residents. Oliver sighed, residents could get complicated. He snapped a few photos of the exterior with his phone before shutting off his car and climbing out, careful not to hit his head on the ceiling as he did at least once a week. The air had gotten colder than it had been when he'd gotten into the car and her reached into the back to grab the large jacket Elis had forgotten last night. His own was holed and thin and this one seemed the right size, if a bit scratchy. He hoped the residents were locals, and may-I-borrow-a-cup-of-sugar locals not no-trespassing-or-we-will-blow-your-head-off locals. He tripped up the grass strewn stairs two at a time and raised his hand to knock on the door. It took him a second to realize there was no longer a door to be knocked on, on account that it had been swung open the second his foot had hit the top stair. He also took a moment to realize that the door had been opened by someone on account of that someone being quite a bit shorter than him. He looked down. A young boy about twelve or thirteen stared up at him from underneath heavily lidded eyes. They were watery blue and held his rather intensely. It didn't make him uncomfortable and he held them back.
"Hello, may I speak to your mother?" the boy stared up at him more and he was beginning to think he couldn't talk at all when he finally spoke in a quiet cautious voice,
" well no, I don't think you can..." Oliver felt his brows come together and his mouth make a tiny o. "but, that's probably because I don't have one so's I think I'll have you speak to my aunt Mr. Oliver" Oliver tried to remember having introduced himself but the boy had stepped back to let him inside and he politely obliged. The inside of the house was humid which came from housing more people than you had space. Evidence of said people was anywhere you gave the time to look but the people themselves seem to have disappeared. "today is market day Mr. Oliver, they've all gone to town" Oliver nodded. He was busy looking around the house and too intrigued to be bothered by being slightly rude with his looking. The outside of the house seemed to have also taken over the interior and he was mesmerized. Plants were everywhere, some of them he recognized and others seemed foreign. Tiny colorful chairs and pillows littered the corners and books stacked all along the walls. Oliver was pushed lightly by the small boy into a squishy chair. He sat. "I'll get her, don't move" Oliver nodded that he wouldn't dream of doing anything of the sort and honestly he wanted to keep looking and the chair was quite comfortable. The boy left. He hadn't decided what kind of locals they were, possibly they were a different kind altogether. Oliver had no issue with waiting and he spent his time staring around at the odd knick-knacks and whatchamacallits. The house smelled familiarly oregano and he sat back.
"what do you want" Oliver would have jumped if he hadn't been who he was, and as he was he simply twisted his head slowly in the direction the voice had come from. He was met with an equally short but less adolescent person. Also decidedly more female. She wore a long green shawl and her straight mossy brown hair hung all the way down her back. She glared at him and he self continuously sat up straighter.
"Hello ma'am I'm sorry to intrud-"
"skip the niceties I would like to know why you are here so I can send you on your way" definitely different kind of locals.
"I'm doing a history project-"
"oh and you want to know which ones of my family members burned in Salem is that it?" she had her hands on her hips now and Oliver was starting to decide this had been a bad idea.
"oh-wait I...I'm not. Pardon me?" he was now extremely confused which was an emotion that Oliver seldom was because he didn't enjoy being so and so stayed away from confusing things as much as he could. His train of thought slowly pulled back into the station. "your house is on the historic list I am to use for a history project." he stood up and folded his hands in front of him. " I'm here about the house ma'am" she looked him up and down reproachfully. He tried to slouch a bit so that his height wasn't overwhelming. He was just like her, he belonged here.
"well...take your shoes off then I'd hate to soil the carpet, I think I may have a book on the house itself somewhere but you'll have to wait" he nodded a couple times and attempted a smile at her. She had large brown eyes sort of like Elis's friends. Though hers were warm while Vienne's had been intense.  "do you like tea? Actually ignore that you'll have tea. Take off your shoes and hurry up" Oliver quickly followed the woman's directions, only slightly self conscious of the hole in the toe of his sock. He followed the woman deeper into the bowels of the house. There had been a staircase straight to his left when he had entered and a narrow hallway straight in front of them. He mapped it out in his head since he figured taking pictures would not be permitted. If he continued left past the staircase he would be in the living room where the young boy had left him. Now they walked through a doorway in the back end of the living room furthest from where he came in. The room they entered seemed to at consist of at least half the back of the house. A large circular table sat directly in its center and the young boy that lead Oliver in was busily sweeping the dark stained floor.
"Hersley put on the kettle" she snapped her fingers at the boy and he jumped to do as he was told. He pulled out a large black kettle onto the stovetop. The house had marble wood countertops that looked like they would be very hard to clean should something spill. "Oliver, sit" had he told her his name? He opened his mouth to say something about it but she interrupted him again to snap at the boy. "Basil, bay leaves, and ginger Hersley" she turned back to Oliver who at this point looked sincerely confused and was starting to become upset with the fact that he was confused and in consequence probably looked very stupid which was not a look he wore well. "Do you take sugar?"
"Ma'am?"
"Sugar?"
"Yes, please" he couldn't forget his manners. He may not come from much but he was raised to respect. The boy hustled around plucking leaves and shtuff off plants and things and throwing them into the kettle.  A grey cat slinked into the kitchen to observe what the noise was for and it rubbed lovingly on Olivers ankles. He bent and rubbed behind its ears.
"So Mrs.-"
"Miss. I'm not married"
"My apologies ma'am I was wondering if you had any history on the house itself" the woman let out a sharp one-syllable laugh.
" well, I'd hope so it's been in my family for over three hundred years" three hundred years. It was hard for Oliver to hide his amazement and the woman seemed to be amused by it because She chuckled to herself.
" do you...I'm sorry but do you maybe have like a family photo book you wouldn't mind me looking at?" she seemed to consider this before shaking her head.
"I'm not sure where it would be but I can tell you what I know if your ears will listen" he wasn't sure what she meant by that and it obviously showed on his face because she quickly elaborates, " our history is a strange one, it has many twists. You may not believe certain parts for its quite strange"
"I'm good with strange...ma'am"
" I thought so"
Hersley set two mugs down on the table in front of each of them. Oliver scooted his chair forward and placed his elbows on the table.
" well, I suppose we should start at the beginning and then the end comes and I guess there has to be an in between. I like to keep things in threes" she took a sip of her tea, and politely, Oliver did the same. It was sweeter than he had expected and he took another drink of it, " I'm going to give you the beginning, which in this story starts somewhere in the middle. A few hundred years ago there was a coven, a group of witches that live together as a sort of family, that migrated from Europe to the U.S and by some way wound up here. That part is fuzzy because of the fact that witches are extremely metaphorical in their writing and so it was harder to determine what the history books meant. They have to make everything so dramatic" she sipped her tea, " Nevertheless there was a new coven in Connecticut. This was before people went on the witch burning rampage you'd know as the Salem witch trials.
"there was a castle on the beach owned and ruled by a selfish and greedy king. King Peter, he was called. He was the one who started everything. The coven of witches, they lived off into the woods. They liked to be left alone. They kept to themselves good and didn't pester the locals. White witches, the lot of them. The king, of course, being a king he wanted more land, more followers. He wanted the world to bow down to him. He stole the coven's keeper. The keeper knows everything there is to know about witchcraft, she's the advisor, the mother. He kidnapped her in cold blood, killing six young women. Her six courts. Her daughters. He forced out of her an ancient ritual that the coven had brought from Europe. It was called the Luna Lupis. It turned boys to dogs. It transformed" she took another sip of her tea, " man.." she slid the empty cup across the table to Oliver and he peered into it. The now black leaves twisted in the last remnants of tea. A dog. "into beasts. The rite, the king called it. He gathered all the young men in the castle and with the forced help of the coven's keeper he began transforming them for his army, but the coven wasn't going to let what he did go. Witches are not good enemies to have. They organized and attacked, killing him and the wolves that were fully through the rite. The half wolves, however, werewolves of a sort, found it easier to hide their dog like mannerisms. The witches took in the young men that weren't fully transformed. They split their one family into four with the extra men they now had. The four covens, there's only three of them now. but It didn't take long for the witches to find out that the boys they'd saved were not fully human. They killed them. Every last one they could find. and the castle itself was condemned for years until it was refurbished. I believe it's now used as a boarding school for boys. Little did they know there was an apprentice, a young witch who had fallen in love with one of the halfling wolves. She attempted to hide him...and when the coven found out he was burned in front of her eyes." The rain slapped against the window and Oliver jumped. The story sending shivers down his spine. He had no trouble believing the woman, she had the look of someone whose ancestors had been set on fire and Oliver himself was no stranger to the legends of leváda. "she was cursed with immortality, to live with that pain forever. Some folks say she still travels, looking for suitable young men to change into wolves so as to get revenge on the four covens that banished her. This house belonged to the second coven. The one in which my mother belonged to and my mother's mother. The one in which lives here now" witches. Of course, there had been rumors of such but to actually be in the house of one who claimed to be from one of the original coven. Oliver had done countless hours of research on the oddities of Leváda. It was no surprise now that she had known his name. But why let him in.
"why would you tell me all of this?" she stood up and walked around the circular table. She looked down into his cup and he did the same. He had drained the liquid and all that remained was muddy leaves in the shape of a hideously contorted face.
"because Oliver dear. You are about to be irreversibly tangled up in it all"