River held out his hand. Luna barked, wanting to come with. “Stay,” he said, pointing to a corner of the tomb. Luna yelped and walked to the corner with her tail between her legs.
“Why don’t you want her to come with?” I asked, holding his hand.
“I don’t need her at the moment and think it’s better if she stays here for now. If I need her, I’ll call her. She can get to me on her own.”
Luna turned around in a circle, finding the right spot and settled down. With her head on her front paws, her big brown pleading eyes stared longingly at us.
I grabbed Zenon’s hand so that we could teleport and arrive at the institute together. I loved teleporting with Zenon. He moved through space and time much faster than anyone else. I knew little about all the powers he wielded—he wasn’t one for boasting about what he could do—and based on his quick teleporting; he was formidable.
When I opened my eyes, we stood outside the gates of Lake Hills Institute. I cocked my head to the side and frowned. “Why does this place feel familiar?” I asked, letting go of their hands and traversed down the steps to the front gate.
I’d never been here before, yet it felt like déjà vu. I stared up at the three and a half floors; the half was the attic at the top with clean crescent windows. They painted the walls a sterile white with gray-colored window frames. The lawn out front was in pristine condition, with neatly trimmed hedges.
“This doesn’t exactly scream asylum, does it?” Zenon mumbled beside me. He curled his top lip over his fangs as he tasted the air. Sometimes he was all animal.
“You’ll fit right in,” I said, teasing.
“Ha,” he said with one side of his mouth curved upward.
“It’s a hospital for the special, I think.” When I said special, I used air quotes.
“Crazy, you mean.”
I slapped his shoulder. “You’d definitely fit in then.”
“Let’s check it out,” Zenon said, walking ahead of me.
I flinched when a chime sounded from somewhere inside the building. Zenon stopped dead on the last step and glanced over his shoulder with raised eyebrows.
River passed us and yanked on the rope near the door, ringing the antique bell. It clanked, hurting my ears. A nurse appeared on the other side of the locked gate, wearing a smile and a sterile white uniform from the sixties with a nursing cap to complete the look. “May I help you?” she asked, grabbing hold of the rope to stop it from hitting the bell.
Zenon cleared his throat and glanced at me again.
I coughed into my hand and pushed past the men. “Hi, my name is Scout, and I was wondering if we could speak with someone who runs this place. We would like to know if you have an Alec Dakin here and if so, can we see him?” I pulled out the locket and showed her the picture of the professor’s brother wearing a white gown. He continued rocking back and forth in the moving picture. I pointed at his name and the name of the institution sewn into his uniform.
“Oh, dear me,” the nurse said, opening the gate. “Come inside. You’ll need to speak with Isaac Hilling first.”
As we entered the institute, on the right-hand side of the entrance next to the front door hung a plaque with a large picture frame. It read that the school had opened in 1889 and housed ‘talented’ children. I wasn’t sure if they meant the kids had a disability or they were supernatural.
They had pictures of about twenty staff members framing the photo. They all wore white; comprising nurses, orderlies, and the man in the middle who opened the place—Curtis Hilling. Underneath the frame hung more plaques stating which of the Hilling sons had taken over and from which year. Arthur took over from his father in 1901, and Isaac currently managed the institute from 1946.
I frowned, wondering who had managed the institute now in 2023. I glanced at River, who shrugged, and Zenon shook his head. It seemed we were all thinking the same thing.
“This building has been around for quite a while,” I said, pointing at the frames as I passed the nurse.
She nodded and smiled, and as she blinked, her nictitating membrane shifted into view; a transparent third eyelid moving across each eye, reminding me of a crocodile or lizard. I swallowed hard. I’d never come across cold-blooded shifters before and grabbed Zenon’s hand, forcing him to stay beside me. He squeezed my hand back, noticing the same thing. It relieved me that Zenon was here, limiting my interaction with River. Although I was glad he was with, the wounds were still fresh and the less I was near him, the better for me.
“Yes,” the nurse said, “we take in abandoned children and allow them to thrive as they are destined to. They either leave the institute once able to or we continue to provide them with the safety of remaining here until adulthood. Some have even died of old age here.” Her eyes flitted to a section beyond the border of the house, and I surmised it was their graveyard.
“Do you take in any child or only supernatural children?” I asked carefully and stepped backward… in case she wanted to lunge at us.
The nurse grinned, and it reached her eyes. Her pointy teeth stuck out from under her top lip. “Like you and everyone here, they’re supernatural.” She entered the building first, her heels clicking against the hard floor. “This way.”
We followed her through the large hallways of the institute, the security gate slamming closed behind us. A nervousness shot up my spine that we might be stuck in here, but I knew that not to be true, we could teleport our way out.
The nurse led us down a long hallway and stopped outside an office with a door plaque that read Isaac Hilling. She entered, whispering something to him, then when she came back out, she nodded and said, “He will see you now.” She bowed her head slightly and promptly left like she was the only one who heard a phone ringing somewhere in the distance.
“Hi, please come in. I understand you wish to see one of our patients?” Isaac said, standing up from behind his desk with his hand outstretched. He too blinked, and the third eyelid closed and opened again. His forked tongue slithered out of his mouth, then quickly shifted into a human tongue. I suspected he was tasting the air; perhaps tasting how dangerous we were or whether we were scrumptious enough to eat.
I placed my hands on my hips, caressing the hilt of the knife at my back. I could always use my hands and shove his soul out of his body, but only if I had to.
“Thank you for seeing us, Mr. Hilling,” I said, finally shaking his hand. “My name is Scout. This is River, and that’s Zenon.”
“Please sit and call me Isaac. My dad was Mr. Hilling.” He smiled warmly, but there was something about him I didn’t like. Whether it was the way he smiled, the scales that appeared, then disappeared, or just his demeanor.
“It’s fine. We won’t stay long, Isaac.” We didn’t sit, but stared down at the man. I hoped by outnumbering him he would think twice about eating us.
“Right. My nurse says you want to see Alec Dakin? May I see the picture in the locket to be sure we have the right patient?”
I showed him the picture but kept the locket in my hand. He tried to take it, but I held on. He peered over his gold-rimmed glasses at me when he realized he couldn’t take it and stood up again to see it properly. I doubted he needed his glasses to see, since he was a cold-blooded shifter. I was yet to hear of any shifter needing any kind of device to make their lives easier.
I stared at the top of his head as he watched the picture move; the professor’s brother rocking backward and forward, backward and forward.
Isaac had brown hair and freckled skin. The back of his neck seemed a little loose as it moved when he did; it was strange, like he wore a mask and the fake skin he wore was too large for him. This was odd, since he was a shapeshifter. He didn’t need to wear fake skin or a mask.
Isaac stood straight and cleared his throat. “Alec Dakin came to us two weeks ago. He and his brother had discovered a mask in a sarcophagus in Egypt and he was the unlucky one who picked it up. Apparently, it did something to him. He hasn’t said a word since then. And that’s the only thing he does all day.” He pointed at the locket of Alec rocking backward and forward.
“Do you know if he was a shifter or a supernatural being before he picked up the mask?” I asked, wondering whether Professor Alexander Dakin was one too and didn’t know. The professor’s throat was slit from ear to ear, and he’d bled out. If he was a shifter or some supernatural being, surely, he would’ve been able to fight his attacker. Or perhaps he too had held the mask and rendered mortal thereafter. But, if that was the case, why didn’t the brothers suffer as violently and quickly as Victor.
I glimpsed at River, who was too busy looking around the office. I was thinking this was way more complicated than I initially thought. It wasn’t a straightforward retrieval, but something else.
“We understand he and his brother are supernatural, but it was only the professor who survived the incident with all his wits about him. We still don’t know what type of supernatural they were though,” Isaac said, moving around his desk and pouring himself a glass of water. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know whether Alec can speak with us?” I didn’t know how the brothers related to Victor’s accident, but asking questions would help us understand what happened to the brothers.
Isaac turned to face me with his drink in hand and enjoyed a long sip, his eyes not leaving mine. When the glass was empty, he placed it back onto the tray beside the water jug. “Since his arrival,” Isaac said, wiping his mouth dry. “He hasn’t said a word. Perhaps you should ask him yourself. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I.”
Isaac approached the door, and we stepped out of his way. “Follow me,” he said, calling us over. “Let’s see how he’s doing today.”
We followed Isaac up the stairs to the second floor. As we passed each open room, I couldn’t help but look. There were well-behaved children playing on the floor with old toys while others were sleeping. And in one bedroom, the kids just sat in their chairs and stared out of the window.
Isaac paused in the doorjamb of the last room at the end of the hallway. “You’re welcome to stay as long as Alec wants you to stay. He isn’t violent or anything like that, but you must be gentle with him. He’s a little skittish, if you know what I mean,” Isaac said with a compassionate smile. “Good luck.” And with his parting greeting, Isaac left us alone with a man who rocked near an open window.
When Isaac was gone, we entered the room.
“Alec?” I said, knocking on the door as I entered. “My name is Scout. Is it all right if we come inside and speak with you?”
Alec’s room was sterile with the smell of disinfectants wafting in the air with a copper coin undertone. I wondered if they had hurt him and cleaned him quickly.
Alec stopped rocking and glanced up at us with unshed tears in his eyes. “I’m so glad you’ve finally arrived.”