Just the Beginning (Kendall & Maisly)

fiction

Kendall had it all planned out: apple martinis by candle light at home to break the ice, maybe a little canoodling in the room’s one easy chair. His bitter chocolate colored corduroy sport jacket lay over the arm. His outfit would be complete both for fashion and chivalry in case the night air chilled her bare shoulders. He stood in the doorway to the library wondering when she would emerge. Kendall hoped she would wear the green satin cocktail dress again.

His shoes creaked on the hardwood floorboards as he shifted his weight. Looking back toward the coffee table to check the candle’s flame, his eyes gravitated to one book on the shelf – Rage of Angels – and he was struck how this tiny room stacked madly with books whose borders made a spontaneous order could bring him such comfort. Chaos at its best. Stepping toward the shelf, Kendall ran the flat of his fingertips against the bindings, stirring up dust and remembering these pleasures. A faint scratching noise returned him to the present. His watch hands snuck past 7:30, lurching against the evening’s plans.

Maisly wasn’t dressing. She wasn’t finishing her hairdo. Maisly wasn’t rouging or glossing. Kendall followed the scratching noise, noticing the narrow floorboards chasing past each other’s end down the narrow hallway, to the east wing where the Plainsman couple had been murdered thirty-three years before.

Maisly was sprawled on the floor scraping the remains of peeling finish where cleaning agents had burned through to naked wood. Bloodstains had been bleached too long. Sweat matted her fine, curly hair to her temples and her neck. Dark circles dotted with tears framed her troubled eyes. Small cuts on her fingers bled where the metal file had slipped or caught itself in uneven grooves. Her motion was frantic, panicked, even. Her lips were moving, but no sounds were escaping.

Kendall’s footsteps, though light, bowed tired boards, creaking with each pace. Maisly heard nothing, startling when he gently touched her shoulder. She looked up.
“I’m not ready,” she breathed.

“I know,” he said tenderly. Kendall slipped away without expectation to blow out the candle in the library.