Full Moon Fiancé

Argue with the Walls

In the kitchen, she skidded to a stop, and her eyes roved the kitchen wildly for the source of the sound. She breathed a large sigh of relief when she saw that Chief Bernard had, somehow, managed to knock his mug over. Tea spilled out onto the counter, and the mug rolled on its side in the spill. But he was still asleep.

She felt a sudden pang of guilt at having, essentially, drugged him. She felt sure there was a moral exception when being held hostage, though.

Grabbing her own mug, she slid onto a bar stool next to the unconscious police chief and nudged him gently, smoothing her hair and trying to look as though she had been sitting there the entire time.

“Chief Bernard?” she whispered gently. She reached out and shook his arm. “Chief Bernard,” she said again.

He stirred, but didn’t wake. She shook his arm more forcefully.

Diana sighed. Then she leaned over slightly and batted the mug off the counter. It hit the ground and shattered with a sound that seemed to rend the stillness of the air.

Diana screamed a little, not loud, but shrill, pretending to be startled, jumping in her chair for effect. She thought the Westerlys might wake, for a moment, but their bedrooms were on the other side of the house and she knew how well soundproofed the home was. There was no sound from above, nothing to indicate that she’d woken the household.

“Ah, what?” Chief Bernard was disturbed, and did jump up, his bar stool wobbling with the force of it as he looked around, his eyes wide and his glasses askew.

“Are you okay? Careful, there’s glass!” she said, pointing. She reached out to grab his arm as he moved to get off the stool. He seemed disoriented, which she thought was to be expected.

“What is going on?” he asked, his voice rising with confusion. He stopped trying to stand, though, and seemed to process the ceramic shards scattered around the kitchen floor. Diana took a moment to hope that the mug she had broken wasn’t one of Anna’s favorites. She had always been very particular about her mug collection.

“I think you nodded off,” she said. “We chatted for a few minutes, but you got quiet so I let you doze, but then a minute or two after that, you jerked a bit and knocked over the mug!”

“Oh,” Chief Bernard blinked. He was clearly having trouble waking up. “I don’t remember,” he put a hand to his head. “What did we talk about?”

“I just asked you how Paula is doing,” said Diana vaguely. It was hard for her to sit there, pretending that she was not whirring inside with thoughts and burning with anger at everyone involved in her detention. “Are you quite tired?” Diana faked concern, trying to keep her face neutral and look sincere. It was hard to do, so she turned away slightly.

“Long day at the station,” said Bernard, seeming to wake up slightly. “Guess it caught up to me.” He glanced at the clock surreptitiously, Diana noticed. She was glad she had not risked any longer in the library, much though she had wanted to.

“Well, let me clean up this mess– no, no, I will take care of it,” said Diana, jumping up. She was careful to step where there was no glass. “I know where everything is, so it’s much easier for me,” she added lightly. She took the opportunity to glance over at the police chief and try to assess whether he was suspicious. If he was, he didn’t show it.

He was stretching and yawning when she hustled back holding a broom and dust pan, and she watched as his eyelids continued to flutter low against his cheek while she quickly swept everything up. He was fighting the dose she’d slipped into his tea, she realized. But she felt certain that the moment he had safely returned her to the bedroom, he would doze off again. She thought wildly of escape, but knew it would be impossible.

Chief Bernard scoffed slightly when he looked down and realized that the tea had spilled onto his shirt, one cuff slightly tan colored and hanging wetly off his wrist. The police chief shook his head slightly, almost as if he was trying to get water out of his ears. Diana tried not to laugh when she saw little flecks of tea fly about and she realized that some of it had gotten in his hair.

She handed him some paper towels, which were sitting off to one side on a counter, and he tried to clean the mess.

“Ah, well,” he said, once the tea was cleaned up. He placed one hand on the counter and it made a sticky sort of noise. “I’m sure the maid will clean that up in the morning. I’ll make sure to let her know.” He swept a palm across the sticky, still slightly discolored spot where the spill had happened, frowning slightly.

Diana nodded noncommittally and she crossed the kitchen to return the broom to the utility cabinet. When she returned, he said, “have you finished your tea?”

“I’ll take it upstairs,” Diana replied, grabbing the mug.

Once upstairs, Diana left the tea on her bedside table, mostly undrunk. She lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, trying to commit the few phrases she had seen in the book to memory. Her mind was alight with possibilities, but she thought she knew what was going on. Sort of. She wondered if she would be able to convince Joshua to tell her more. Perhaps if she guessed right, if she shocked him, perhaps then he would tell her.

“He owes me an explanation,” she said, her voice resolute and angry, as if the walls themselves were arguing with her on the matter. But even the walls grew silent, and somehow that frustrated her even more.

Rolling over, she resolved to confront him in the morning.