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EP 03. CASTLE MORNING STAR


WHEN I was a kid, and my stepmother was a fresh addition to our household, she often entertained parties left and right.

It subdue, I think, the alienating experience living in a new country with your new husband and new stepdaughter, and the now sleepy little town you find yourself in after living in the city, on the other side of the ocean, all your life. Parties with neighbours my father and I hardly knew; relatives we merely send out happy thumbs up on social media they understood; dad's coworkers he hardly got on aside from pleasantries when passed; and her new Afternoon Tea/Book/New Mum's Club, where I'm pretty sure she had the oldest charge.

She happily turned our house upside down and opened our doors for them.

"It helps in the long run, Henry." She never calls my father anything else but Henry. Or honey. Sometimes in both her usual ardour of that American accent, Henry honey.

She placed an assuring palm on his pulled eyebrows, smoothing out the lines. You'd be blind not to see the endearment sparkling in her eyes. Henry honey. "It's all psychology, honey. You'll see."

She winked at me as if I understood. She always did that; side-eye me after some thought was given, like us girls, us stepmum-stepdaughter specified class, only knew. I understood hardly 5% of it.

But we saw enough after a while. Neighbours visiting more often, friendlier in their approach; coworkers letting dad into their slew of inside jokes and breakroom gossip; relatives who would send us their shiny Christmas cards. Happy Holidays from Leicester!

Dad and I knew our new family addition was just lonely.

Estelle came from a big Italian family in Boston. And our house, with our silence, could be incredibly stifling. Could even drive you mad if you weren't used to it. Dad and I had our little minds to occupy that silence.

And although I came to understand her, didn't mean I liked the parties and casual splendour of people suddenly filling the spaces of usual silence and dust bunnies. It hurt when it was first hour, and my duty as a daughter was to welcome and lead the guests inside. She always placed a hand on my back and let me introduce myself to every person and to catch up to those I already knew. Always, my cheeks hurt from stretching them. Frozen in that smile that eased up whatever tension holding her down.

Gratefully, I was done after the first hour, and was pleased to do whatever I wanted after as long as I didn't lock myself in my room alone. And so I did.

Without either of their notices, and the notion that I could turn a boring event into something useful, I took it.

Armed with a pen and a notebook, a cheap kind and easily hidden from view, I studied people. Kept track of their psychological idiosyncrasies they weren't aware of. All subconscious and conscious movements were detailed. Their response to each other and to the environment around them. It was easy. The people were rarely new; recycled after every party depending on the theme, but even that usually cycled itself. Relatives, Dad's Coworkers, Neighbours, Afternoon Tea Ladies.

Sometimes, she even mixed them up for fun.

As the parties went, I grew bolder. I started asking questions and engaging with each target. At first the questions and attention pleased them, innocent enough queries that when plied with the right type of attention, could soften them up like a flower. Then I'd eased odder questions into the conversation, having a hilarious time in making note which question would disturbed them enough to wake up from the trance.

When they start to realise how truly odd the questions became, I would steer them back to pleasantries and topics they enthusiastically favoured, excusing myself when coasts were clear, and hunt down my notebook for new findings.

It took five months before I was caught. By then, I had a fat notebook bursting with notes and extra filed papers; profiles of people and their links to each other. I must've left it somewhere my stepmother stumbled upon. I was always storing things in random places, and Estelle was thorough in her cleaning. She hated a messy house, and she had busy hands. I was called into the kitchen one day, and the incriminating thing was on the counter, a feast for sore eyes.

I only stopped short because I saw my dad's face first before it. His expression hauled me into a standstill. I wrote in whorls of slanting ink and quick, messy handwriting. My dad could read it; it was obvious he did after Estelle read it and showed it to him.

I didn't plead my case. Instead, I awaited judgement with a hanged head and my gaze to the floor, voice barely raised from an audible murmur.

"I'm sorry. I'm never doing it again." At that age, I realised it was better to apologise first, speak slowly and not fast, and promise of stopping a bad thought before it became a behaviour.

"Why though, Wendy?" she was the one who spoke. In her quiet, accented voice.

I shrugged. I never really meant any harm. I just liked knowing. "I was just curious. I was never going to do anything bad by it. I just liked to know. And... I didn't have lots to do."

Estelle never believed in lecturing children, less of all me who she was still trying to get to know and fall for her at the time, like so many else who did. Everyone adored Estelle. She was kind, vibrant, and full of life.

And yet her last words burned themselves to the back of my eyes that day.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Wendy. Sometimes curious things- urges, should be left alone."

I never had a reply to that, but I later found out that it was not a complete quote.

And it played to me now, those words, as I walked eerily familiar roads, following a path that when I made another turn, a final right turn, that I understood immediately where my destination was.

For our little town was a hollow little gravesite in the maze and trenches of other cities and villages that had more substantial, historical markings in them.

Little Hodge only had one castle.

And of course, at a recipe for adventure, it would lead me to a castle.

And at the address I knew by heart; one I visited frequently as a kid that stood the most curious attraction to a girl who always followed her curiosity wherever it led her.



2ND to the Right. and Straight on till Morning.



Morning was capitalised for a reason. "Morning Star," I breathed, stopping just before a wrought iron gate. At the end of the little puzzle was a French castle. Chateau L'étoile du matin. It stood with its pride and effervescence amidst a sea of swaying trees where you could only really see dark blue roofs and stone walls this far from the gate.

Chateau L'étoile du matin.

Castle Morning Star.

I positively beamed at it.

"Oh, what a cleverly put puzzle." I hiked up my bad higher on my shoulder, phone still clutched to my hand, but I held it firmer on the note in my thumb.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Wendy, never forget that," I whispered to myself. It had become a mantra now, especially when I was about to do something I knew Estelle wouldn't approve of.

Yes, but see, satisfaction brought it back. And I am many ways very satisfied right now.

Quinn didn't tell me not to enter a castle, did she?

I didn't have a lot of time to think it through however, when the gates themselves swung open, and a guard house, I realised belatedly was tucked in a corner between thick trees, until a man stepped out of it. He was visibly old, but he was in a crisp uniform and his posture was ram-rod straight.

"Miss Wendy?" He had a calm voice and a pleasantly dull expression that didn't immediately scream murderer. Or go run, you idiot! Though I still raised my eyebrows at him.

"Yes?"

He inclined his head, a small but dutiful bow. "Young Master Song is waiting for you."

I was about to ask who, when his gloved hand showcased the castle once more, and things I didn't see before, stuck in my head of curiosities and exclamation points - one thing I really should've noticed first.

Police patrols.

Castle Morning Star was seized by law enforcement.

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