The House in the Woods

Chapter 9

A month passed, and after no sign of Ted Roscoe, I began to relax. The summer had dwindled down into August, and I realized with a start that I’d been staying with Apollo for more than a month now. It wasn’t such a long time, but I couldn’t imagine life any other way.

The weird part was that I wasn’t bored, at all. Technically, nothing ever happened – Apollo wandered around like a lost child inside his giant house , and Jannosh and Myrnah busied themselves with typical housework, which didn’t really extend passed cooking and cutting firewood (which we didn’t really need, seeing as it was summer, but I wasn’t about to ruin Jannosh’s fun by telling him that). However, I never tired of simply watching them; there was something so different and graceful and beautiful about all of them. It was this element that kept me intrigued – I could say with a hundred percent certainty that I’d never met anyone like them, and it wasn’t just because they weren’t human. Or at least part-inhuman, on Apollo’s part.

Something finally happened, though. I woke up one morning to the delicious aroma of cookies and muffins. Even though the thick walls and doors muffled sounds, they did nothing to block out the smells of Myrnah’s amazing baking.

I tip toed into the kitchen to find its cavernous depths crowded with pastries on every counter. I gawked.

Myrnah caught a glimpse of me as she pulled a sheet of cookies from the oven. “Oh, good, you have awakened! Quick, I need you to try these.”

That was my only job, ever. She found out early on that I was pretty useless in the kitchen, unless I was sticking food in my mouth. According to Myrnah, my “palette is delectable!”

I happily obliged. “Myrnah, there’s no way I can finish all of these.”

She rolled her scarlet eyes heavenward. “They aren’t all for you, my dear. Jannosh and I have friends coming over for the weekend.”

“Oh yeah!” My words were muffled through the amazing cookie I was eating. Apollo had actually mentioned this to me, not too long ago.

“It’s your shifter friends, right?” I continued.

“Yes.” She didn’t seem surprised at all that I knew already. “Only a few can make it this year, I think.”

“How many?”

“Nineteen.” Myrnah was calm, but I struggled to wrap my head around the number. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of birthday parties – or slumber parties, for that matter – and the most people I had at my house at one time was maybe five (including my father).

I voiced my concerns aloud. “Isn’t that a lot of people? That’s a lot of work.”

Her laugh was just as girlish as ever as she stuck another baking sheet into the oven. “But I love work! This is paradise to me.”

My eyes questioned her sanity.

Myrnah ignored me. “I have a job for you, my dear. I’m busy in here, and Jannosh went down to the border to greet a group coming from America. I need you to greet everyone out in the lawn, I will not let my guests arrive to my home unnoticed.”

I shifted uncomfortably where I was leaning against the fridge. “Myrnah, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not really a people person…”

She paused and looked up at me, her eyes twinkling. I wondered vaguely how I was ever afraid of this tiny woman in front of me.

“Lilah love, they won’t be arriving as people, so you have nothing to worry about.” She laughed again at my expression. “Now go make yourself pretty, I’ll have a chocolate muffin waiting for you when you come down.”