Salem got out of the Uber and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the row of houses facing Piedmont Park. The park was the draw when she and David purchased the house. Ready to start a family, Salem could think of no better place to raise children than across the street from the park. Her childhood at Blanchard House had been spent roaming hillsides, flying kites in meadows, lazing under a shade tree with a book. Piedmont Park was about the closest thing there was to that in Midtown Atlanta. Pulling her bag behind her up the steps to her door, she guessed that didn’t matter so much now. She had no children to run free there.
The house was like a tomb inside. Hollow silence confronted her at the threshold and filled every corner of the living room. The moment she entered, she felt the absence of her husband and son in the house. It used to be when she came home, she’d have been struggling to unlock the door balancing Michael on her hip. Most days she would give up on entering the house the normal way and just used her powers to unlock and open the door. David always cautioned her that people strolled up and down the sidewalk in the front of the house all the time and it was risky to use her powers. But then he never had to juggle a kid, a purse, a briefcase, and several bags of groceries all at once.
Slowly she walked through the rooms of her house on her way to the kitchen. The remnants of the potion she had used to propel herself back in time were still scattered across the kitchen counter. She would clean that up later. For now, she needed to look around, to feel. To try and get some sense of David, or Michael. She did not know what she’d expected exactly when she had decided to return home. But whatever she’d thought she’d find waiting there, wasn’t there. There was no warm blanket of memories to comfort her. She wasn’t met at the threshold with some sudden release from her feelings of loss. Salem had genuinely thought coming home would provide something tangible which might alter the emptiness in her heart. But this was just an empty house. Hauntingly empty. Any life which once roamed here had faded away.
There had been dirty dishes in the sink from the previous night’s dinner, she remembered. But the sink was clean. No dishes in sight. And there had been laundry in the washer and some in the dryer. Salem went into the laundry room; certain mildew had ruined whatever clothes had been in the wash. But both the appliances were empty. Molly. Molly and Travis probably came over here while I was gone and tended to things. She glanced back at the counter where the ingredients to her spell still lay along with her notebook of spells. I bet they didn’t touch those. I’m sure they have a lot of questions after seeing that.
Salem was now wishing she had not come back to Atlanta after all. Though everything she had said to Fable on the porch yesterday was true, she just hadn’t expected home to offer no solace. This house was a shell now. A sad memory of a life which was over. And Salem was all alone with it.
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The phone rang from her purse, breaking into her thoughts like a siren. At first, she thought to let it ring, but something inside made her answer. She did not recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Salem?” called a meek female voice.
“Yes. Who is this?”
A pause came after Salem spoke.
“Hello?” Salem said again. “Who is this?”
“Arielle. Arielle Obreiggon. Is it alright that I called?”
Salem was unprepared.
“Salem? Hello? This is a bad time isn’t it? I am so sorry I bothered you.”
“No, wait!” Salem cried. “Yes, it is a bad time. I just got back to my house in Atlanta for the first time since—but I am glad you called.”
“I telephoned your family home in Daihmler, and they said you’d gone home. I didn’t tell them who I was. Anyway…when they said you had gone home, I just thought it might be difficult. I wondered if maybe you could use a friend?”
“That’s very sweet of you Arielle,” Salem answered. “It was thoughtful.”
“I’m actually going to be in Atlanta tomorrow,” Arielle announced. “If you feel like getting together…but if you don’t it’s totally cool. It was just a thought.”
Salem paused momentarily. This was the last conversation she expected to be having, especially right now. Part of her felt as if she were being placed on the spot, but Salem could not help but also feel endeared to the innocent clumsiness of the girl.
“Arielle,” she began. “Why are you going to be in Atlanta?”
“I—I, eh, have a friend that lives there,” Arielle fumbled.
Salem grinned. “What is your friend’s name?”
“Uh…Betty.”
“Betty?” Salem laughed. “You are how old? Twenty? I didn’t know too many young girls were named Betty anymore.”
“Yes,” Arielle replied. “Her name is Betty…Ford.”
Salem could almost hear Arielle’s hand slap her own face as she said that. “Betty Ford?” Salem repeated. “Interesting.”
“All right!” Arielle confessed. “I don’t have any friends in Atlanta. I just wanted to get to know you a little, and I thought that coming home by yourself might be really, really hard on you. I thought you might could use a friend. I know I’m being presumptuous. Now that I hear all this coming out of mouth, it was a really stupid idea. You want to be alone right now, and you don’t even know me.”
“Call me when you get into town,” Salem smiled to herself and to the nervous girl over the phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Is Arielle Obreiggon to be trusted?
