At Your Service

Chapter 7- Summon

    "Ridiculous!" Anja slapped the newspaper down onto the floor in anger. Now dressed after her shower, she was wearing a cropped grey tank top, a long royal blue cardigan, a pair of black high-waisted skinny jeans with cuffed ends, black lipstick, and small silver hoop earrings. Her silver hair was back in a long plaited braid draped over one shoulder, done by her own hands. "Do any of these putrid human doctors know how to keep a secret from the press!" The front page of the day's newspaper was about the fire. The headline read: VANDIVER PARENTS DEATH. ONLY DAUGHTER LIVES. FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. "First of all, of course foul play was suspected! I was found chained to a chair in a burning goddamn warehouse! Now, whoever did this to us knows that I'm alive!"
    Marjorie, Huko, Finn, and Solomon were seated at the table as their mistress sat at the head of the table, where her father used to sit, as Carlisle poured more tea for all of them. "Well, they'll know you're stronger than them. You survived. They didn't think you would. Don't that say anything about who you are?" Huko questioned before shovelling more toast into his mouth.
    "Sure, but now they'll just come back," Finn argued quietly.
    "There will be no worries about that now," Carlisle informed them cheerfully as he poured more tea for Anja. "Everyone here is safe. I make certain of that, as I am not just your butler."

    By 19:00, Anja had the closet and the dressers cleaned out. Everything that had been in their nightstands were placed neatly in a shoebox for future examination. All of their shoes were laid out in two neat rows on the ground at the foot of the bed. Anja was nearly finished putting their neatly folded clothes in totes to be taken to rescue missions as donations, as her family had always been heavily involved with such organizations.
    Anja laid on the floor, a little exhausted from the exertion of pulling things from the closet and dressers and carrying them. She was perhaps going a little too hard on herself for only being a couple of days out of the hospital.  She packed away all of the cloaks her father wrapped her with in the winters and the sweaters of her mother that she cried on the shoulders of when she was scared or heartbroken, all of the pants she sat in the laps of and the heels she tried to walk in when they were far too big.
    The witch turned her head to the left and scowled as she looked under the bed. Something obstructed her view from seeing clear to the other side of the bedroom: it appeared to be a book. Frowning and grunting with effort, she army crawled under the bed, grabbed the book, and dragged it out from underneath the bed with her. She hoisted herself onto the bed where she could sit before standing up.
    "Demon-summoning?" Anja whispered, her eyebrows knit together as she caressed the cover of the book, tracing the title on the book. "Why was...?" It didn't necessarily bother her that they may have been reading this. She read many books from the study just for fun, as her parents surely did, too. This, however, made it seem as though they were trying to keep it a secret, which they never did with their child.
    Anja left the book on the bed while she finished packing things up in the totes to be taken away, keeping a few articles of clothing from both of her parents for herself.
    As she was leaving the bedroom, book tucked under her arm, and closing the door behind her, she jumped when Marjorie was suddenly, frantically running up to her. "Marjorie, what's the matter?"
    "I just-" She took about five seconds to try to catch her breath, as she was breathing quite heavily. Her cheeks were flushed. "I just walked in on Mr. Lomen!"
    Anja's jaw dropped. "I beg your pardon?" She couldn't help but chuckle a little. Marjorie had never had a boyfriend, as she was extremely shy and a little awkward, so Anja couldn't help but be humoured by how flustered she was. Of course, she wasn't much further in regards to experience with males. "Doing what?"
    "He just got out of the shower. He was all," she gulped, "wet."
Anja pursed her lips to hide her smile. "Did you see...?"
Marjorie's eyes went wide behind her thick glasses. "WHAT?! NO! He was wearing pants!"
"Marj, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You're probably more spooked than he is," Anja assured her as she put a hand comfortingly on the maid's shoulder.
    Marjorie took a few deep, relieving breaths. "Wow, okay, you're probably right." She was silent for a moment before giggling. "I never thought he'd be the type to have tattoos."
    Anja's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped again. "He has tattoos?!" She had pegged him to be so formal, proper, and clean, not to say that tattoos couldn't be any of those things, but tattoos felt, to Anja, too unrefined for a man like Carlisle.
    "A tattoo," Marjorie corrected her mistress, "on his sternum."
    "What is it?" Anja inquired with a big smile. This was gossip.
    Marjorie shrugged and scrunched her nose. "I never seen anything like it. Looked like some o' the symbols I seen in your study."
    Anja's expression quickly dropped as chills raced down her arms to the tips of her fingers. "Do you remember what it looks like?"
    Marjorie was shocked by how much interest Anja was taking in her butler's tattoo. "Sure I do."
    Anja looked over Marjorie, then back down at her, before taking her hand. "Come draw it for me." She dragged her into the study, shutting and locking the door behind them, before grabbing the maid a piece of parchment and pen. Marjorie bit her lip as she picked up the pen and began drawing it, slowly to make sure she remembered every piece of it.
    Anja's adrenaline was surging through her veins by the time Marjorie was finished. This may have been due to the fact that this symbol was the same one that marked her skin.
    "Thank... thank you, Marj. You're free to leave now," Anja murmured quietly.
    The maid noticed this change in attitude. "You all right, there, miss?"
    "I will be. I just have some... things to do now. Carry on with your evening."
    "All right, miss. Would you like me to summon Carlisle?"
    "No." Anja chewed on her lip. "Would you fetch me a nightgown? I suppose I will be in here all night again, and I do not fancy sleeping in clothes again." She doubted she'd be sleeping much that night, but she wanted to slip into something a little more comfortable before the long night ahead of her.
    Marjorie nodded and gave her a little smile and nod before leaving the study, gently and quietly closing the door behind her. She let out a soft sigh as she turned around, jumping out of her skins and about to shriek with fright before a gloved hand was clapped over her mouth.
    "It is only I," Carlisle assured her with a dark chuckle. His hair was still a little damp. "There's nothing to fear in this house." He slowly uncovered her mouth, revealing her flushed cheeks.
"I-I'm so sorry about intruding just before." She bowed her head as she apologized, more so she didn't need to meet his unsettlingly intense gaze. "I figured, since the door was unlocked, that no one was inside. I should've just left the towels outside." Her breath caught in her throat as a gloved finger tilted her chin up so their eyes met, his russet ones with her hazel ones.
"I need to be more careful about locking doors," Carlisle said, his voice lower and smoother than normal. "I apologize for that less than enchanting encounter. I'm sure that wasn't something you wanted to see today."
Another wave of heat spread across Marjorie's cheeks. "No need to, um, apologize or anything. I'm just going to go and... do laundry now."
Carlisle grinned, letting his hand fall from her chin. "Carry on, then." He passed her with a cheerful grin, listening to the radio turn on within the study.