Mr. Smithin drives to his home a few blocks away from my parents' home. I stare blankly out the front window and barely notice the scenery passing. Mr. Smithin lives on a street that has mostly older houses, many of them dating back to the 1800's and some even to the 1700's. Mr. Smithin's home is certainly a marvel in and of itself. I've seen the house many times, but I had no idea it's his. The house reminds me of those old gothic style mansions with the tower and rounded edges. There are even gargoyles guarding the entrance way, though these don't look like traditional gargoyles. They are gigantic bears, each standing about 6 feet tall on either side of the driveway. The left one is reared up on its hind legs with its mouth open wide and threatening, sharp teeth gleaming in the afternoon sun. The one on the right is down on all fours, yet no less impressive. The massive bulk of the bear commands respect by merely looking at it. It too has its jaws open as if to take a bite out of someone that shouldn't be there. I bet he doesn't get many salespeople, I think to myself.
The wonder of the house has temporarily distracted me from the events of the morning, but Mr. Smithin's words bring me back to the present.
"Caleb, would you like to get settled? I think I have some of my son's old clothing for now and then we can go out to the store this weekend and get you new ones." His tone indicates that he's worried about me but wants to give me space at the same time.
"That's fine," I say as Mr. Smithin pulls the car around the house and parks in front of a detached garage. I get out of the car slowly. Everything around me seems outta time. Or outta place. I follow Mr. Smithin to the backdoor of the house. As I step on the wooden stairs, I'm slightly taken aback by the fact that they don't squeak or groan like most wooden steps do. That thought is banished as soon as I get a look inside the house. This morning, my parents, my brother, even my own mysterious healing injuries and blood-soaked clothes are pushed far from my mind. The room we enter from the back is just a basic mudroom where coats, shoes and the laundry is, but beyond that is the most intriguingly decorated room I have ever seen in my life.
The whole living room is something straight out of a Stephen King novel with a splash of Vincent Price and just a bit of a hint of Van Helsing thrown in for fun. To say the room was ornate would be putting it mildly. The carpet in the center of the hardwood floor (is that mahogany?) is a lush, soft rug, the kind that you would lay down on in front of a roaring fire with an enjoyable book. And, damn, wouldn't you know it, there is an enormous fireplace just to the left of where I enter.
The coffee table in the center of the room looks like it may be solid wood. I slowly walk over to it and reverently run my fingers across the dark grain. From what little I remember from my shop class last semester, I want to say this wood is snakewood. But that doesn't seem right. Snakewood is incredibly expensive. The wood on this table alone would cost in the vicinity of several hundred dollars, not including labor and transportation and everything else.
I reluctantly pull my attention away from the table to look at the rest of the room. The couch behind the table and against the wall looks so plush it's as if I could sink right into it. I turn around to face the wall behind me and see a 70-inch, high definition, top of the line television mounted on the wall.
My jaw drops open when I look under the TV and see just about every game system imaginable behind a clear glass cabinet ranging from the 1980's (before I was even born) Atari to the brand new, difficult, if not impossible, to get X-Box X Series and PlayStation 5 and everything in between.
"You're drooling." I hear Mr. Smithin chuckle behind me. I turn to look at him. He's leaning against the doorjamb that separates the living room from the mudroom. He has a smile on his face.
"Thank you, Mr. Smithin," I say.
"While you live here, how about you call me Joshua? Just at home though. At school, I'd appreciate it if you'd still refer to me as Mr. Smithin."
I nod, "Okay then. Thank you, Joshua."
"Come on. I'll show where you'll be staying." He pushes off the door jamb with a fluid movement and beckons to me to follow him.
I follow him through the living room to the hall, which is no less impressive. The crown molding, the high ceiling, the ornate carved banister of the staircase. This house is something else. The carpet on the stairs sinks below my shoes as I follow Joshua up to the second floor. He leads me past a few closed doors to the last one on the left. He opens the door to reveal what is certainly the most beautiful room in the universe.
The room is dominated by a large, possibly king-sized, four-poster bed with the heavy velvet curtains in a deep purple drawn back. Normally, I would hate having purple in my room, but this is so luxurious looking that I don't even mind the color. Besides, it's so dark that in some places, the purple looks like black.
The headboard and arms of the bed are so dark that no light seems to escape or gleam off the wood, and they look like they may be made with African Blackwood, but I'd need to look it up to be sure. The overall theme of the room seems to be 18th century royal castle. The furniture sure looks like it belongs in an European castle from a few hundred years ago. Even so, everything is clean and free of dust.
"This...this is for me?" I ask a bit dumbfounded. I turn to see Joshua standing in the doorway, his face is a little flushed with embarrassment.
"Yeah. This room is the guest room, but I don't get too many guests. So, for now, it's yours." He turns and walks to the closed door across the hall. He opens the door to reveal an elaborately decorated bathroom complete with an iron claw-foot tub with shower, double sinks, and a very fancy-looking toilet. And that's just what I can see from inside my room. I follow him across the hall and take a closer look. I stick my head in the doorway and look to my right. The bathroom curves around the wall and opens up into a second area with a jacuzzi hot tub big enough for six grown adults.
I turn my head slowly back towards Joshua with my mouth hanging open. There's just no words for what I'm feeling right now. I can't even imagine what the rest of the house looks like.
"Let me get you some clothes," Joshua says and exits the bathroom. He seems like he might be embarrassed that someone has seen his home. He walks down the hall, back in the direction of the stairs and disappears behind a door opposite the stairs. I look down at my blood-stained clothing and feel embarrassed all over again. Here I am walking through this beautiful house with blood on my clothes, and now that I look closer, I see my shoes have blood on them too though I can't figure out how that it got there for the life of me.
Joshua comes back and hands me some fresh smelling clothing.
"These belonged to my son," he says a bit remorseful. There's more there, but I'm far too anxious to get out of my nasty clothes to ask about it right now. "You can use the shower. I'm sure you need to." With that, he backed out of the bathroom and closed the door.
I set the clothes down on the counter and go to examine the shower workings. It looks pretty straight forward. There are two taps, hot is marked "hot" and cold is marked "cold". There's a little pull tab on the spout which I assume is to make the shower come on. I test it by first turning on the hot and letting that run a little bit.
Once it gets a little too much for my hand to take, I turn the cold tap on. The temperature is just about right so I pull the tab on the spout and sure enough, the shower kicks on. I draw the curtain closed so I can get undressed. I stuff my destroyed clothes in the wastebasket I see near the sinks.
The shower feels like heaven. It's difficult for me to believe that just this morning is when everything happened. I just stand under the spray for a few minutes before borrowing some of Joshua's body wash and shampoo.
As soon as I'm finished showering and I feel almost human again, I turn everything off and exit the tub to step on a lush bathroom rug. To my right, hanging on the wall are very plush bath towels. I take one and hold it to my nose tentatively. I smell flowers and take a larger sniff. It smells like my new clothes, clean and fresh with a hint of wildflowers. I use the towel to dry off and then start to get dressed. Thankfully, my underwear wasn't stained or damaged. I'd be mortified if I had to use someone else's underwear, but I will have to get more.
The clothes feel like they were made for me. They fit me so perfectly and are so soft, it's like wearing air. Okay, I know what that sounds like, but seriously, they are incredibly comfortable. I hang the towel back, not knowing exactly where to put it, and head back out of the bathroom to look for Joshua.
I figure he's downstairs, so I head in that direction. Directly, at the bottom of the stairs is the front door and then around the corner is the hallway we entered from the living room. Since I don't see him in the living room, I continue down the hallway. It empties out in a large (everything here seems to be on the larger side) kitchen. Everything is ultramodern and most definitely 21st century, a massive 180 from the rest of the house. I see Joshua sitting at a table with a cup of coffee or tea in his hands. His head is hanging down and he doesn't seem to have noticed that I've joined him.
"Hi, Caleb," he says without moving. I jump at his voice. I was sure he didn't know I'm here.
"Since we're being casual here, please call me Cal. Cole, Max and my parents did."
"Okay. Cal it is. Would you like something to eat?" He asks turning to me. It wasn't until that moment that I realize that I'm hungry. I've been running on pure adrenaline all day and I haven't eaten at all. I just know that I'm gonna crash hard tonight. I nod and he gets up to go to the fridge. I sit down at the table and hear him rummage through the fridge for something.
"How's a sub sandwich sound?" he asks with his head in the fridge.
"That sounds good. I'll eat most anything. Turkey, chicken, beef, ham. Whatever. And I like most cheeses too." I tell him. He grunts a response and comes out of the fridge loaded with meats, cheese, veggies, and sauces. He dumps it all down on the counter in the middle of the kitchen and goes back to the fridge. This time, instead of opening the door, he reaches up to the top and pulls down a large loaf of French bread.
"Why don't you come on over here and build it how you want it? There're more things in the fridge and cabinets if you don't want what's here," he says, indicating the mound of food on the counter. I get up from the table to look closer at what he's laid out. My mouth starts to water even as my stomach grumbles. Joshua hands me a plate with a length of French bread sliced lengthwise on it. I don't even know what I'm putting on the sandwich at this point, I'm just piling whatever sounds good. The food scene from 17 Again flashes briefly through my mind. I chuckle quietly to myself as I picture Zac Effron spraying cheese wiz into his mouth and eating a sandwich with everything from mayo to Nutella on it as well as chips and more cheese wiz.
I take my perfectly normal turkey and ham sandwich back to the table and dig in. Joshua smiles as he gets up to put the ingredients back where they belong, tosses me a small bag of chips, and joins me, drinking out of his cup once again. We sit in silence as I chow down like a man who hasn't eaten in decades.
Once I finish and everything is cleaned up, Joshua invites me to come to the living room and play video games or watch something. I don't feel too much like concentrating on a game, so I ask him to pick a mindless movie to put on. He scrolls through Netflix and finds a comedy movie I've seen a million times. Good, I think to myself, I won't have to pay too much attention.
The movie ends and we both head upstairs to go to bed. Joshua bids me good night at the door that's right at the top of the stairs and enters his own room. I continue down the hall to mine. I climb into my bed, thinking that it will take me hours to fall asleep in a strange place, but I'm out as soon as my head hits the pillow.