Chapter 5

“This won’t cause any trouble, right?” I ask, hovering at the church foyer’s threshold.

“In Veseud?” Carrick laughs, and it sounds, in a way, rehearsed. “No one here to cause trouble for. Most of the village is empty. Abandoned long ago.”

Marguerite steps inside the small sanctuary and lifts her slender, bare arms. “Nothing but age and dust, you see? Cordial Maladies can play for you.” She angles back and winks. “And perhaps you will create album art for us, no?”

My heart thumps. If they’re a house full of artists, why wouldn’t they want to create their own album art? But I won’t debate that now. Not when opportunity’s gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

I flip on my phone’s cell data, text Mom where I’m at, then flip off the data again. Dad may not accept that I’m a legal adult, but I don’t have to be stupid. Someone should know my location.

Carrick gestures for me to follow him. “Morgan, you’ll find we’re bereft of modern wonders here. It’s what inspires our art and our music. No distractions.”

I slip the phone into my pocket. This place is in total shambles. Pauper-chic, extreme. Verve rockets over me in a series of snaps and flashes. Mini fireworks of energy. What is it about investigating old, forgotten things? Unearthing secret stories, rekindling worth?

Repurposing when the purpose has been lost. Life means nothing without purpose.

Or so Mom says, even though I don’t think she always knows hers. I hope she’s still on her upswing right now, playing her flute for the morning birds in the sun.

We pass through a small dusty sanctuary with arched pane-less windows and iron bars. Must wafts past me—not a horrible smell, just the heady whiff of neglect.

Linear designs within the crown molding weave into one another and vault the tiered ceiling. An enormous fresco peels back in faded pastels on the wall adjacent to the archway—the upper bodies of angels in flight in a blue, clouded sky.

Marguerite twirls, and her lacy skirts fan out around her. Her tawny hair dangles like a satin scarf to one side of her neck. “As you say in America, welcome!”

We pass beside broken pews that line the sanctuary and a crumbling pulpit at the other end. Behind it is a four-panel altarpiece shrouded in thick cobwebs.

“What do you think?” Carrick asks from the next hallway.

“I don’t get it.” I motion to the disrepair all around us. “You live here?”

Cool air presses in from the thick-bricked walls of the arched hallway. Dried bundles of flowers and herbs dangle from broken sconces—lavender, maybe, and something else with aged bulbous buds of faded blue.

“Come, Morgan,” Marguerite calls from the next room.

I hadn’t realized she stepped away.

“You will like the tower,” Carrick assures me. “Varujan calls it his thinking space.”

We cross through a short corridor with two narrow barred windows. On the sill of the first window, a rook waits like a sentry, looking in from the outside with black eyes. The sky has darkened into a smoky charcoal above the forest hills. A slew of dark, dour clouds move in.

Uh-oh, weather issues. I’ll need to head back soon.

Around the next corner, I meet Carrick and Marguerite in a small windowless junction room. The concrete floor of the hallway turns into creaky wood planks. On the other side, a large cast-iron pot-belly stove sits, connected to the ceiling, its black iron faded and smudged with ash and soot, its lion paw feet fixed to the floor. Across from it, a thin doorless stairwell leads upward.

Marguerite rolls her hand toward the stairs, and her bangles jingle. “Mademoiselle …”

The boards squeak beneath my feet as I approach the stairwell. My scalp tingles and buzzes. Why does it feel like I’m being watched?

In a swift pivot, I turn.

Marguerite and Carrick are gone. Only the rook remains.

* * *

There is only the sounds of my breath, the shuffling of my Converse. I glance back at the stairs that must lead up to the clock tower.

And there he is.

Him. The stranger. Varujan.

It’s the face from the window, the figure from last night. I know it intuitively—the same way I know when someone doesn’t like me. The neurons in my head connect to the nerves in my stomach like dot-to-dots.

“Buna.” Varujan presses his back against the arched doorframe, his arms behind him. Tufts of shiny black hair stick out in various directions—chaotic yet by design. Big, bright manga blue eyes twinkle over a trim black goatee and pale, angular jawline. He can’t be much older than I am. One, maybe two years, if that.

“Varujan?” I push a stray lock of hair behind my ear. It falls right back out over my glasses.

“You must be Morgan.” His words have a distinct Romanian accent, and it seems a mellow veil for something else more evocative—something that contradicts his gentle expression.

“How’d you know my name?” I ask.

“Word travels fast. No one has stayed at the Varig cabin for many months.”

I take a step toward him. “Nice place you got here.”

His gaze follows me. At a closer range, his complexion looks like fine porcelain. His simple black vest reveals solid shoulders, toned arms, and a smattering of chest hairs. From one vest pocket a silver chain links to black pants. Silver hoop earrings adorn both earlobes. For all I know he just strolled off-set from an expensive cologne ad.

“This structure was built in the fifteenth century,” Varujan says. He rights his posture and places a hand on the doorframe at arm’s length. “Imagine the many changes these walls have seen. Once, a place for weddings, funerals, and worship. So much memory.”

My gaze wanders over the uneven walls. “It’s like a bundle of weird-fantastic.” I meet his sky-blue eyes, and I have to know. “Were you outside my cabin last night?”

He quirks a half smile, no apology or excuse in his expression. “Yes.”

His presence vaguely mystifies me. Whatever this is—this ability to just be, regardless of what others think—I’ve always envied it. Are people born with it? Or is it confidence from some hard-earned reward?

“Why?” I ask, eager to conceal my approval of his indifference. Because that’s how it works in the wilds of teen-dom. Keep your vulnerabilities down low, or risk them being baited against you when you least expect it.

“I was hunting shadow thistles,” Varujan says, a finger to his chin. “You are new to Romania. You would not know that they grow near the foothills outside Varig. Nor that they come very dear.”

“Never heard of them.”

Varujan turns and starts up the narrow wooden staircase. “Rare herbs. They bloom only in moonlight.” His even-keeled voice thins inside the stairwell. “We hang them to promote healing and peace.”

I watch him from the bottom of the stairs—his agile climb, his carefree demeanor. Every fiber of my body wants to reconnect to his unique charisma again.

As if sensing my stare, Varujan pauses mid-step and glances back. “Coming?”

A jolt of energy makes my stomach tingle. I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t follow him.

Planks chirr with age below my feet. My fingertips press along the coarse brick walls.

“Marguerite and Carrick said you teach art,” I call.

Varujan looks too young to be a guru, but fourteen is considered old enough to be on your own in Romania. I Googled it earlier—back-pocket knowledge.

“They exaggerate,” Varujan replies modestly. “I only showed them how to better express and cultivate their artistic energy.”

Our voices carry a tinny echo.

“You’re an artist, too, then?” I ask. Only an artist would say something like that.

“A musician.” Varujan waits at the top of the stairs until I reach the highest step. “But art and music are inseparable, would you agree?”

I swallow, my pulse ramping up. This is the rare petal-pink hue of natural bonding, blended with the fiery crimson of desire. “Yeah. Totally.”

Varujan turns and his black leather slippers slide over the hardwood floor of the tower’s uppermost circular room.

“Maybe I can hear your band sometime?” I ask, and I hate my voice's submissive hint of desperation. “Where do you play?”

The clock tower nook is colorful and much cleaner than the lower building. Three large rectangular windows allow natural light to accent the vibrant shades. Sheer burgundy drapes hang at either side of the windows, and between them, rows and rows of bookshelves. On the floor, calico throw rugs cover the wood planks, along with tasseled cushions that appear to have been tossed about carelessly.

Varujan seems to have forgotten my question. He strolls toward the center window and peers out of it. A gusty wind blows the curtains inward around his black-clad body.

That’s it!

The picture I took earlier. His face in that very same window.

Sunlight breaks through the window and beams into the room in golden rivulets. Illuminated, the sheen of Varujan’s black hair shimmers with electric blue highlights.

It’s a genius shot—the sunlight in his blackest hair, the shape of the window, and his handsome profile against it—so timeless yet novel. It feels like he might leap out that window any second.

Quickly, instinctively, I pull my phone from my jeans pocket and snap about six pictures.

Varujan’s head jerks toward me.

My cheeks flush with heat. “Uh, sorry. Do you mind if I take your picture to draw … that probably sounds weird.” My shoulders hike up my neck. If I’m not careful, everything I am will spill out like a jar of loose change for him to stash inside his pockets.

A mischievous smile lifts Varujan’s face, but it doesn’t seem to reach his placid eyes. “I would be honored to be your muse, Morgan.”

He resumes his former pose in the sunlight, eyes closed while soaking in the rays, that same satisfied expression on his face.

I snap about ten more pictures at different angles.

A slow roll of thunder rumbles overhead. At the same moment, a white-eyed rook lands in the window beside Varujan, its wings extended in a rustle of sable feathers—the same inky luster as Varujan’s hair.

Click, click, snap, snap.

Static tingles over my flesh. I capture every second—the darkness and light entangled, connecting man and beast, human and fowl—and the perfection of the blurred lines between. This is exactly the image I need for the contest …

Varujan makes no big thing of the rook, like it’s so common to have one alongside him that it doesn’t bear mentioning. There’s something so collected in his gentle voice yet authoritative in his poised shoulders. It’s rare to find someone so in control of their emotions. It’s so different from the chaotic, moody world I live in. This guy lives off-grid, with rules of his own. The ultimate bohemian lifestyle. What I wouldn’t give for that kind of clean, un-muddled vision.

The rook’s pearly stare locks onto me.

“That’s a rook, right?” I ask Varujan.

“Indeed.”

“Does it have a name?”

Varujan’s dark brow slants. “A name?”

“It’s the same one that with you last night, right? Isn’t it a pet?”

“Far from it.” Varujan glares at the bird. “It insists on following me. It has the devil’s eyes, no?”

I think of the sketch on the scroll map and the blackbird’s blank eyes. Coincidence?

“What’s wrong with its eyes?” I ask, studying it.

Varujan saunters away from the window, an expression of amusement on his face. “I could not say, it has always looked this way.” He traces his fingers along the silver chain extending from his vest pocket, pulls out the pocketwatch, flips it open, and closes it. “I agree that a name would be fitting. Shall we call him Fate?”

His gaze falls over mine for a long, steady moment. And just like that, my insides turn to butter. I like that he said we.

I avert my gaze to the bird now preening its feathers. “A rook called Fate. Interesting.”

“It is what led you here, is it not?” Varujan asks. “We can say Fate united us.”

I make a little snort because … what? “Did you …”

He couldn’t have sent this bird to the cafe or have known I’d be there. He wouldn’t have known Dad and I would be at the cabin.

Varujan leans a shoulder against a bookshelf. “Rooks travel between many villages. They remember landmarks, as well as faces.”

“And take commands?” I ask.

“Starea de spirit,” he says. “Depends on their mood.”

Moody birds. Great. One minute Poe, the next, Hitchcock. Mental note: research rooks in more detail later.

“Do you mean it’s like a messenger bird?” I peer out the nearest window. Veseud’s hills crowd the tiny village from every side like a rumpled patchwork quilt of gold and green. It’s so peaceful—a direct contradiction to the currents racing through my veins at this proximity to Varujan. I brush past him to browse some of the books, avoiding his gaze so as not to be obvious. He smells like a winter forest. Cold and clean, like withering pine and fresh falling snow.

Romanian, German, English, French, Arabic, and Russian titles fill the bookcase.

“Do you read?” Varujan asks, observing me thoughtfully, the way a researcher might watch a mouse in a maze.

I pretend not to notice and brush a finger over the weathered bindings at eye level. Titles I’ve never seen before. “Sure. Have you read all these?”

“Many times over.”

“How many languages do you speak?”

“Five.” Varujan grins. “But I am always learning more. Here in Veseud, there is nothing but time.”

“Is that why you carry a pocket watch?” I tease.

His grin fades. “Always. To remind me.”

“Of what?”

“That the world obsesses over something they never have enough of.” Varujan focuses on the rook.

It’s a strange thing to say. But stranger still is how much I want his attention back on me.

“It’s impressive you speak so many languages. What do you even call someone who speaks five languages—multi-lingual, I guess?”

“In English, yes,” Varujan says. “Do you know what we call someone who only speaks one language?”

“No, what?” For the first time, I notice this room has no outlets, modem, or devices. How could they not have electricity?

“American.” He throws me a crooked smile that looks so right for his face you’d think he invented it.

“Funny. Do you get Internet up here?”

Varujan shakes his head as if it hardly matters.

“How do you get online?”

“We do not.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No need for it.”

Dad said some of Romania’s rural areas would seem stuck in last century, but I thought he meant the senior citizens. “Doesn’t your band wanna connect with an online audience? How else will you reach listeners?”

Varujan’s head cocks to one side. “I am afraid we are quite shy. We have yet to perform for an audience. I did just have a thought, but ….” He puts a finger to his chin, and he looks so innocent.

“What?”

“Perhaps you could tell us what you think—if you believe our songs are ready to debut. Surely, Morgan, the modern American, would know. You must have connections, no?” He smiles softly. “If you find us worthy, perhaps you can help us find our audience.”

My stomach flips. “Me?”

“In fact …” Varujan’s face brightens. “I believe it is a silver lining within our new friendship.”

I push my bag behind my hip. “Yeah, I could try. Are we talking about starting a channel? Uploading performances and audio clips? Or just a website? I can do all that, no problem, but you should know that album art is my mojo. I’m also really good with aesthetics.”

Slow down, Jaeger. Maybe I’m selling myself a little too hard.

Varujan makes no blush at his ignorance. The fringe of his black eyelashes is so thick above his sharp blue eyes, his complexion so fair in contrast I can’t pull my gaze from him. He should have full-body tattoos with his vintage rocker bohemian style, yet I don’t see one.

“All of it,” he says. “We are novices with today’s Inter-webs. But curious. Very curious.”

I shake my head. Inter-webs? Really? “I can’t believe you don’t even have YouTube.”

“You may find we do things differently here,” Varujan says a little tartly. “You are in Transylvania now. Our ways are not your ways.”

I blink. De ja vu. “Yeah, but everyone uses the Internet.”

“Here, we find it only distracts us from our pursuit of creativity.”

“Do you have a phone?” I ask.

“I have never had use for one.” Varujan pads toward the stairs. “We have no money here, I cannot hide that, but there are better things in life than money. My band and I prefer to immerse ourselves only in music and art. Though, at its price, it has caused us to miss technology’s advancement. It is worth it since we have found the secret to infinite muse. Come, I will gather them.”

I run my fingers through the top of my hair. Handsome musician, infinite muse, messenger rooks, stopped clocks on abandoned towers … Feels like a dream.

“How old are you?” I ask.

He pauses at the stairwell, a hand on the doorframe. “Eighteen.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

My chest squeezes. “I’m so sorry.”

Apathetic, he shrugs. “It happened some time ago.”

But I know all too well how apathy creates a solid veneer for pain. The last thing I want to do is make him uncomfortable talking about his parents. I would know—my number one rule in the social wilds, both online and in real life, is that Mom’s condition is private. Sharing personal information of that magnitude means lowering my gaze in the face of challenge and offering up my heart, and Mom’s.

Call me over-protective, but some things must be contained.

“Well,” I change the topic. “I should get an idea of your style of music.”

Varujan notices a small gangly beetle scurrying across the floor and scoops it up.

On the top of his head is a tiny bald patch crowning his scalp—stark white against his ebony locks—a birthmark the size of a twenty-piece euro. When he rights again, he cradles the bug in his palms like he holds a bit of respect for it. He heads for the window, opens his hands, and blows a gust of air. The beetle’s wings open and spread. It buzzes off his palm onto the sill. Freedom is only a breath away.

In a deft swoop, the white-eyed rook snatches it with its beak and swallows it.

I shudder. It was only a bug, but it felt deliberate somehow.

“Fate was hungry.” Varujan half smiles.

I want to both melt and scoff at the same time. Why do I want to snap another picture of him—of this awkward moment when he obliviously mocks my very nature?

“And to think,” he continues smugly, “the tiny creature likely tasted victory on its tongue … right before its untimely death.”