Just Starting Out
1.22 - The Pieces Fall Together
The next morning, Cassandra, Kayla, and Bella’s friend, Maia, sat around the dining room table as Bella cooked up some breakfast in the kitchen. Mortimer was no where to be found. Bella claimed that he’d been woken up by the racket Kayla and Cassandra made the night before, and that, as a man with a lot on his plate, he had to catch up on that sleep to get through the next day. But Kayla and Cassandra definitely had their doubts about that.
“So! Aunt Maia, what are you doing in town again?” Cassandra asked. “It’s great to see you of course, I just found it odd that you showed up so suddenly. Especially after that vacation to Selvadorada. People usually spend months there, right? You only spent a few weeks.”
Maia gave Cassandra a forced smile. “Just, uh, I felt I’d had enough of the rain and the bugs, so I cut my trip short. And I had to stay here, because I ended up lease at my apartment to avoid wasting money when I wasn’t going to be staying there for months.”
“You ended your lease?” Cassandra asked, incredulous. “But you’d only been there for what, two years or so? I thought you were happy there!”
Maia shrugged awkwardly. “I’ve always been someone who doesn’t like to stay in one place too long, I guess?”
“You really should settle down, Maia,” Kayla cut in. “I actually researched people who move around a lot for one of my books, and I found that never having a consistent home to return to leads to a lot of general unhappiness. Home is typically a safe place, you know? Lacking that just isn’t a good thing.”
“I-I’ll keep that in mind,” Maia smiled.
Bella pushed into the room, carrying a tray of breakfast food. “I hope you girls weren’t bullying dear Maia too much, she has to deal with a lot, you know.”
“No, no, everything’s fine, Bella. The food smells delicious though!” Maia said.
“Thank you! You know, I don’t cook nearly as often as I used to. Ever since Cassandra, and now, Alexander took over, I’ve fallen a bit out of touch. So I’m pleased to see I’ve still got it!”
After an awkward breakfast and showers, Kayla and Cassandra reconvened upstairs in Cassandra’s bedroom.
“So… what’s this Maia’s relation to your family anyway?” Kayla asked.
“Just an old family friend,” Cassandra said, waving a hand dismissively. “My mom and her have been friends going back years, and she comes to visit occasionally. Sometimes multiple times in a week, other times, it’s years until we see her again.”
“That’s… really weird, Cassandra.”
“You think so?” Cassandra said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess so. I’ve grown up with it, so I guess it didn’t strike me as unusual, but you’re right. Don’t really hear about relatives vanishing for years then sticking around for way too long.”
“There’s a lot more that’s strange about your family than I ever thought,” Kayla said, shaking her head.
“I always wonder what I’d think of us if I was an outsider, like you or John…” Cassandra muttered. “If I’d had a normal childhood, where I didn’t grow up a feared member of the Goth family.”
The two fell into silence after that statement, Kayla unsure of how to respond, and Cassandra lost in thought.
Eventually, Kayla broke the silence again. “Cassandra, I’m curious. Do you even know why your mom and Maia are friends?”
“I… you know what, Kayla? I don’t. That is odd…”
“Maybe figuring out how they got to know each other could help us figure out whatever’s going on with your parents,” Kayla suggested.
“It might be a good lead,” Cassandra agreed. “I’ll try to mull over things while I’m at work today.”
“Sounds good,” Kayla nodded. “I’ll try to find what I can around the house and online.”
Once Cassandra had gone off to work, Kayla hung out in the living room all morning, waiting for a chance to sneak off while Bella was distracted. Much to her disappointment, however, Bella stuck with her, eager to entertain her new guest.
“So! All you really have to thank is this yoga instructor for the development of your whole genre of writing?” Bella said at one point.
“Yeah, she’s mentioned by name in my first book pretty prominently, so if you’d read it…”
Bella kept talking, totally ignoring Kayla. “You know Kayla, I might just have to pay this woman a visit! If it was so enlightening for you, I can barely imagine what I’d end up realizing!”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate the business,” Kayla said, smiling weakly.
“You know, I must admit Kayla. I haven’t actually read your books. I read the reviews, of course, and while everyone was raving, I just couldn’t see it. How could a series of lifestyle books be so life changing? Especially for a woman like me, whose life hardly needs changing. But now, after talking to you? I might just have to pick up the whole series!”
“Don’t worry about it, Bella, I’ll just send you them all for free,” Kayla said, hoping being aggressively nice to Bella would finally get her to go elsewhere.
“You’d really do that?” Bella gasped. “Oh, Kayla, you’re the best!”
Bella squeezed Kayla to death in an excessively tight hug. “Y-You’re welcome,” Kayla sputtered.
Something shattered in the kitchen, causing Bella to step back from Kayla quickly.
“Maia, is everything alright in there?” Bella called out.
“Y-Yeah!” Maia called back.
Bella turned to Kayla. “It definitely doesn’t sound like she’s okay. I’m going to go check on her. You’ll be alright on your own, right?”
“Oh, definitely,” Kayla nodded. “I’ll just do some light reading, your family has such a collection of books…”
“Good, good,” Bella said, distracted and hardly listening. “You holler if you need anything, alright?”
Kayla nodded, and Bella hurried off, not even taking a glance back.
Once that happened, Kayla decided to make a move. She couldn’t sit around and waste even more hours once Bella stopped helping Maia in the kitchen. She hurried up the stairs, and before she could consider how wrong it was, she pushed open the door to the darkness that was Bella and Mortimer’s room, and quickly shut the door behind her.
She crept in quietly, and was relived to see that Mortimer wasn’t lying in the bed. But… that was also strange. According to Bella, he’d been so disturbed by the racket that he’d need a few extra hours of sleep. So… in that case, where was he?
Kayla frowned, and walked over to a bedside table. Cursing, she fumbled around until she was able to turn on the bedside lamps. Then, she opened up one of the drawers. Rummaging through it, she found some things she immediately discarded, such as a very old looking book, some security clearance badge for Bella, and several handfuls of Bella’s jewelry. Finally, at the very bottom of the drawer, she found a letter addressed to a Bachelor Pleasantview.
Dearest Mr. Bachelor Pleasantview,
First of all, I should warn you, you are trifling with dangerous information. I know not how you managed to obtain my contact information, nor how exactly you figured out what your wife was up to. Seeing that you’ve reached out, I assume you’re well aware of what she’s in the process of doing. It’s too late for you to reverse it.
However, as her loving, doting husband, you’re more than welcome to pay me a visit. Men like you seldom give up easy. You know where to go, having found this much out already. Of which, I must congratulate you. Not many of your kind make it that far. I’ve gone to great strides keeping everything secret, so for someone such as yourself to discover this much? I owe you information about your wife’s condition. I’ll be awaiting your arrival.
The letter was left unsigned.
Kayla frowned. So much about that letter was off, and she just couldn’t put her finger on what…
“Kayla? Where’d you go Kayla?” Bella’s voice echoed up from the first floor.
Kayla slammed the drawer shut, shoved the letter in her pocket, dashed out of the bedroom, and ran across the room to the master bathroom, which she quickly locked.
“Just using the bathroom!” Kayla called out.
She’d figure out a story once she got down there, Kayla wasn’t by any means an adept liar, but she was confident she could come up with something convincing enough on a whim.
She waited a few second, flushed the toilet, then exited the bedroom to find Bella waiting for her outside.
“What’s up?” Kayla asked innocently.
“What were you doing up here?” Bella asked, smiling. “I can’t be a good hostess if I don’t know where my guests are, dear.”
“Someone was in the bathroom downstairs, probably Alexander, so I just assumed it’d be alright if I used this one? And I was super careful to be quiet to not wake up Mortimer, so…”
Bella waved off her statement. “Just… don’t worry about it. If you ever feel the need, all you have to do is let me know if you want to see anywhere else in the house! It’s so much more exciting when I get to give a tour.”
Kayla nodded.
It was clear to her that Bella was hiding something. As much as she tried to dismiss her strange behavior as her being proud of her family, or proud of her house, or proud of her skill as a hostess, it only painted her in a more suspicious light. No normal person would act like that. Kayla was sure of it. So, after lunch, Kayla excused herself and went to go and see an old friend.
Her friend had purchased a tiny, whitewashed building. It sat at the end of a long pathway, and was surrounded by giant weeping willows. Smiling to herself, Kayla walked up the stairs to the front door, and knocked.
Melody threw open the door, and immediately embraced Kayla in a giant hug. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“Good to see you too, Melody,” Kayla smiled.
“Come on, let me show you the place,” Melody said, gesturing.
Kayla followed Melody through a waiting room into a well decorated room, with a long couch and a chair just perfect for any stressed patient to talk to a professional therapist.
“This is nice, Melody! Seriously nice,” Kayla said, looking around.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Melody said, shaking her head. “If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have been possible for me.”
“It was nothing, Melody! You don’t need to keep thanking me every time we run into each other.”
“Oh, come on, Kayla! I feel like I need to, and who are you to turn down praise anyway?” Melody argued. Then, she changed the subject. “Here, take a seat. You want anything to drink?”
Kayla shook her head as she sat down, so Melody sat down next to her.
“So, before I delve into all my issues I told you about over the phone, tell me about you,” Kayla insisted.
“I have some of the weirdest patients,” Melody said, shaking her head. “For instance, you know that famous author, Zoe Presley? She wrote the A Day in the Life of Granny series? One of her friends bullied me into preforming hypnotherapy on her, and you don’t even want to know the lengths I had to go to to achieve that…”
“Bullied you how? And come on, you’ve got to explain how that’s even possible! Hypnotherapy is the last thing you would have advocated for as a yoga instructor who was obsessed with finding your inner self, peace, tranquility, and whatever else.”
“With a large sum of money,” Melody laughed. “She was, frankly, loaded. How could I say no? And as far as how? I had to do a lot of research, then seek out someone who lived deep in the woods to educate me… and I’m not going to say more than that.”
“Okay, okay,” Kayla said, nodding. “So you moved to Willow Creek, and suddenly got a lot more materialistic and secretive…”
“Kayla, it isn’t like that!”
Kayla rolled her eyes. “I was just joking Melody, honestly. Anyway, I want your opinion on something.”
Kayla pulled the crumpled up letter she’d stolen from Bella and Mortimer’s bedside drawer out of her pocket, and passed it to Melody.
“Does anything about this strike you as odd?” Kayla asked.
Melody spent a minute reading the letter, then set it on the coffee table, and looked up at Kayla. “Well, yeah. Bachelor was Mrs. Bella Goth’s maiden name, and before they moved here, they lived in a place called Pleasantview.”
“Wait a minute. So you’re saying the name is a pseudonym?”
Melody nodded. “It has to be. No parent would name their child Bachelor, that’d just be cruel. And once you figure that out, it isn’t that hard to figure out who this letter is addressed to. And as mysterious as the Goth family is, I think that threatening someone saying it’s too late for their wife is a little beyond them.”
“How do you know all this, anyway?” Kayla asked.
“I’m Bella and Mortimer’s therapist. Duh.”
“So then… who is this letter addressed to? The person who wrote to whoever sent this letter originally used Bella’s maiden name, clearly, but then they mention a wife… and Bella loves Mortimer way too much to have a secret wife,” Kayla muttered.
“It has to be Mortimer then,” Melody said. “He cares a lot about Bella, and would definitely do whatever he had to to get her back from whatever this situation is. And the only other people in that house who’d know Bella’s maiden name would be Cassandra and Mortimer. Cassandra is way too focused on her political career, and Alexander is just a kid. He wouldn’t have a wife.”
“But… that’s weird. Mortimer’s been missing since last night. And Bella’s been home, entertaining me and another houseguest for the last two days. She’s definitely not off somewhere suffering like the letter implies,” Kayla muttered.
“Maybe Mortimer went off to save Bella and got caught himself?” Melody suggested.
“But Bella doesn’t even seem concerned. It’s much more like she’s covering for his absence.”
“What did Cassandra say was weird about them again?”
“Well… apparently, for about a week, Bella vanished every night to come home early in the morning, just before the sun rose. Then, she had a strange aversion to garlic, and refused to go outside without a parasol. And in recent months, Mortimer’s started doing the same thing. Eventually, it got so weird that Cassandra finally broke down and emailed us.”
Melody chuckled. “Kayla, isn’t it obvious? They’re vampires.”
“They’re what?”
“You’ve always been so grounded in facts and what’s right in front of you that it might be hard for you to recognize, but it’s clear that Bella and now, Mortimer, are in the process or have become vampires.”
“But vampires aren’t real!”
“Oh, Kayla. You’d be surprised by what’s not real and what actually is.”
Although still not entirely sold on Melody’s ideas by the time she left, Kayla reunited with Cassandra in her bedroom when Cassandra got back from work later that day.
“I think- I think I’ve figured a lot out, Cassandra,” Kayla said.
“I’m sure glad you did,” Cassandra said, shaking her head. “I didn’t. I saw Maia show up at my work mid afternoon, and she went to meet with someone in a meeting room. And that was so weird that I just couldn’t think about anything but that for the rest of the day.”
“Maia showed up at your work and met with someone? Isn’t that building you’re in dedicated solely to the government? That is weird…” Kayla muttered. “But anyway, I snuck into your parents room and found this.”
Kayla pulled out the letter, and passed it to Cassandra.
“Where was this?” Cassandra asked as she read over the letter.
“Just in a bedside drawer.”
“Ah. That’d explain it,” Cassandra nodded. “I could never bring myself to open those, even when I started getting real concerned about both of them. Just years of mom and dad telling me to keep to myself and out of their business persisting, I guess…”
Cassandra finished reading the letter, and looked up at Kayla. “So. The use of bachelor as a name is clearly a pseudonym, I know about the name’s history. And clearly, one that’s been used before, seeing that whoever wrote this addressed it to that name.”
“And when you think about it…” Kayla cut in. “The only one with a wife here is Mortimer. So this has to be a letter addressed to your dad.”
“So… something that sounds this serious was going on, and they didn’t even think to tell me or Alexander? We’re family. I’ve had it! I’m going down there and confronting her. About everything,” Cassandra declared, the letter clutched tightly in her hand.
Positively fuming, Cassandra threw open the bedroom door and marched down the stairs to where Bella was seated in the living room, reading a book. Kayla rushed after her. After all, she’d never gotten to the point where she actually told her the conclusion she and Melody had come to.
“Mom. We need to talk,” Cassandra said.
“Of course, sweetie,” Bella said, smiling sweetly. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about time you finally explain yourself,” Cassandra snarled. She shoved the letter at Bella. “Explain this, mom, explain it!”
Bella briefly read over the first bit of the letter, then sighed, got up from the couch, and threw it into the fire roaring in the fireplace.
“That’s nothing, Cassandra,” Bella said simply. “I don’t know how you got ahold of that letter, as it clearly wasn’t addressed to us, but storming in here and demanding I explain something that doesn’t even belong to us should be a bit beneath you, don’t you agree? You work for the President, Cassandra, have a little self respect. You’re humiliating yourself in front of your mother, and your guests.”
Bella nodded at Kayla, and Kayla nervously stepped back.
“No, mom. I’m sick and tired of hearing your excuses! That letter isn’t hard to figure out, if you’d spent more than two seconds reading it before destroying it, maybe you would have realized how easy it is to piece together the fact that the letter was addressed to dad, and talked about how you were doing something that was too late to reverse? What the hell is going here?”
Just then, Maia walked in through the front door, wearing full athletic gear and dark sunglasses.
“Bella, you’ve got to hear what Mitch-“ Maia started to say, but she shut up the second she saw what was going on in the living room.
“And what the hell going on with Maia, mom? She showed up at my work, and there is no reason for her to be on a first name term with Mitch Laurent, the president. You can’t hide things anymore! I’m your daughter, and an adult, we can’t keep secrets like this from each other!” Cassandra insisted.
“Maia’s just a very close friend, Cassandra, you know this,” Bella said calmly. “The Mitch she’s referring to is not the president, the very idea that there’s only one person named Mitch in the world is simply ludicrous, Cassandra, honestly. Mitch is just an ex boyfriend of Maia’s she went to go and see today, for old time’s sake. Isn’t that right, Maia?”
Maia closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “Give it up, Bella. Cassandra… Cassandra’s right. You owe her an explanation.”
Bella blinked rapidly several times, clearly completely taken aback.
“Alexander?” Cassandra called out loudly. “Come down here. I think mom has a lot of explaining to do.”
Once Alexander came downstairs, everyone settled down on the red couches in the living room.
“Well?” Cassandra asked, looking Bella dead in the eyes.
“I can’t believe I’m telling you both this…” Bella sighed. “It’s ridiculous to say out loud, but Maia and I… we are both part of an elite group of secret agents that work for the president called the Blue Jays.”
“Wait. You’re what?” Alexander snorted. “No way. You’re like way into your jewelry and nice dresses, I can’t picture you doing anything that requires more exertion than walking down the stairs.”
“Remind me why I’m telling them about this again, Maia,” Bella said, giving Maia a dead eyed look.
“Because they’re your children, and deserve to know why you disappear all the time,” Maia said gently.
“Fine, fine,” Bella said. Then, she started her tale.
“I’ve been doing this since long before you two were born. Back when I was young, I was scouted by a Blue Jay recruiter for performing exceptionally in high school track tournaments. I accepted, of course, because I knew it would pay well and it sounded exciting. And one of the first things I got to do was meet Mitch, who was, at the time, the recently elected President, so I couldn’t be more excited.”
“It’s through this job that I met Mortimer, actually. I always told you, Cassandra, Alexander, that it was an arranged marriage between the Bachelor and the Goth families, but that was just because it was a believable tale. The real reason we met was due to a mission. Mitch wanted insight into the Goth family, how they maintained such an iron grip on Willow Creek despite appearing to do nothing but stay indoors. So, I broke in, and Mortimer found me, and helped me escape discovery by his parents.”
“I later slipped him an address, and we started meeting for dinner once a week. From there, it wasn’t long before I fell in love. We were wed not even a year after that first meeting. However, once I got pregnant with you, Cassandra, Mortimer and I agreed not to speak of what I did for work out of fear that worry about wether or not I’d come home would keep you up at night.”
“Now, Maia here is a long time Blue Jay friend of mine. We’ve been going on missions together for as long as I can remember. For instance, Kayla, you remember when she broke a dish earlier? That’s been a signal that the two of us need to convene the next possible chance going back, well, years. The two of us… we’ve gone through so much, that it felt wrong to me to not introduce her to you and Alexander as your aunt. I’ve always known that doing so was a risk, but… until Maia got sloppy as of late, it wasn’t an issue.”
“So…” Cassandra muttered thoughtfully. “You’ve had this whole second life going on this whole time? And never once considered telling us about it?”
Bella shook her head. “Of course not, dear. Mortimer and I came to an agreement that it was better for your and Alexander’s safety.”
“Um,” Kayla spoke up quietly. “If I can interrupt. What about the letter?”
Bella waved a nonchalant hand. “Mortimer uses a fake name whenever he writes to Mitch about me, for security’s sake.”
“What letter?” Alexander said quietly.
“Kayla does have a point though,” Cassandra cut in. “That would mean that when Mitch wrote to Mortimer, you were going through some kind of transition? And it’s written more like a threat than a letter from a longtime employer of a significant other.”
“I can’t remember every mission I’ve ever been on, Cassandra, honestly,” Bella sighed. “To be quite honest, I’m rather tired of the subject of this letter. It’s been burnt, yes? Move on.”
“So, just to make everything crystal clear, you, dad, Maia, even Mitch have all been lying to me for how many years?” Cassandra said, her voice shaking. “I can’t believe any of you! How am I supposed to trust any of you after all this?”
To everyone’s surprise, Cassandra suddenly burst into tears.
Bella smiled sadly, got off the couch, and walked over to Cassandra and embraced her. Cassandra only sobbed harder, but she hugged her back, crying into her shoulder.
Watching Bella’s sudden display of affection, Kayla couldn’t help but frown. They’d definitely gotten something out of Bella, she didn’t doubt that what she’d just told them all was the truth, and yet… something was still putting her off.
She resolved to talk to Cassandra about it later.