Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) by Jacqueline E. Garlick Page B

senses alight.
    He slips through the first door, the curls at the back of my neck tousling as he yanks it firmly shut, abandoning me in the kitchen. Or so he thinks. My blood bubbles with rebellion.
    Closing my eyes, I count to thirty— one thousand one, one thousand two... —then sprint across the room and sling back the door—
    “Can I help you?” Urlick’s eyes burn like red rays through the darkness.
    “Uhhhh!” My hand flies to my chest as I gulp in a breath. “I, uh —” my brain wobbles, searching for a worthy excuse for my presence, spotting tea towels drying on a rack behind his head “I...was just looking for a tea towel. Thought I might do up a few dishes. You know,” I smooth a curl next to my cheek, “hold up my end of our deal.”
    For a moment he just stares at me like one would a lying child. “Very well,” he finally says, grabbing a towel from the rack and tossing it over my head. “You’ll find the drying rack under the sink.”
    “Thank you,” I say from beneath the towel.
    “Don’t mention it.” He slams the door again. This time he trips the lock, turbines churning, followed by the clunk of a deadbolt.
    I stand there, humiliated, listening to his shoes clatter up the narrow hallway then down a set of stairs. “ OooooOoooo! ” I shriek, yanking the towel from my head. “Who does he think he is? Locking me up like this? My keeper?” I stomp my way backward into the study, snapping the tea towel to rest over the back of a chair. “Keep myself amused until lunch is served, eh? Well, we’ll just see about thaaaaaaaaaa…”
    … something sharp jabs me hard in the back. A shiver ripples down my spine. I lift my arm to find a giant beak peeking out from under my armpit with nostril holes the size of jewelets. Raising my arm a little higher reveals a giant head, streaming down from one of the longest necks I’ve ever seen.
    I turn around to find myself in the company of a giant stuffed ostrich, standing nearly floor to ceiling, tucked in behind the entrance to the study. And not just any ostrich, either: a two-headed, double-winged, four-legged specimen, stuffed and mounted on a dirt-covered plinth, its wings perched mid-flap, legs flailing. One head juts upward while the other juts down. Four sets of giant marble eyes peer from under four sets of feather-long lashes. I shudder at the thought of coming face to face with such a creature in the wild. I imagine the look on the face of the hunter who did.
    Who stuffs such a hideous thing to put on display? Better still, who keeps it in their study? I look around. Taxidermy trophies sit everywhere. The room is full of them. And not one of them is normal. A two-headed goat bleats from a tabletop. The heads of double-fanged boars peer down from the walls. A disturbing-looking three-eyed wolf stares at me from over the fireplace, while a snarling grizzly, baring rows of teeth like a shark, hovers in the opposite corner. What kinds of people collect such horrid things? And where did they find so many?
    I lurk about soft-footed, searching for an alternate door to the kitchen, worried at every turn I’ll find something new and even more frightening. But I find nothing. There appears to be only one way in and out of this room—the way I came in, past the oversized guard-chicken. The room has only window and it’s been painted black. The room is oddly triangular, with one of the walls being shorter than the other two. Honestly? An isosceles study? Who builds an isosceles study? I push on the shortest wall, shocked when it pushes back.
    Must everything here be a mystery?
    The room smells of old fur, stale cigars, and formaldehyde. Dust layers every inch of the woodwork. Clearly no one has cleaned this study in quite some time, and by some time, I mean a century. I drag a finger over the bookshelves, regretting it instantly. What lurks underneath the room’s woolly grey coating? I rub my fingers together. I wish I had a Petri dish.
    I take in