CHAPTER TWO

Saved from Solitude

The only windows to the basement office sat at the top of one of its concrete walls. Grates barred the glass but allowed in just enough daylight to stave off cabin fever, though that was of no consequence to Warren; he was too comfortable in his own company, so such an affliction was a stranger to him. He couldn’t deny that he sometimes got lonely, but the occasions were so rare that they weren’t noteworthy. He greeted the cold chill that came with complete isolation as an old friend these days, but he simply wasn’t sociable enough to rectify it. Besides, he kept himself busy with his one true passion; work.

That day was no different; he was too consumed with paperwork to crave company. He hadn’t even noticed the time, yet he’d been awake for forty-something hours straight by now. Work was only interrupted for moments of contemplation, cigarette breaks, and to refill the jug of water he kept on the corner of his desk. Without tearing his eyes from the screen of his laptop, he attempted to pour himself a fresh glass. He would listen to how the water trickled up the musical scale towards fullness, but when the final high notes never arrived, he glared at the empty jug in his hand, disappointed that his glass was left half full.

“Perhaps it’s time for whiskey instead, then.” He muttered to himself and checked his wristwatch: nearly eight pm was an acceptable time to start drinking the evening away.

As the brown liquor sang its way into the rock glass, he pondered whether he ought to be concerned about his talking to himself becoming a more regular habit.

“Maybe it’s madness? Perhaps I’m finally ‘old’ and gone senile? Maybe I should get a dog? At least then, I’d have something to talk to.” Aloud thoughts continued to stream past his lips before he interrupted himself by taking a swig of scotch.

“No, I suppose you’re right. It’d just be something else to look after,” His dark eyes looked about the office of his living quarters while thinking of the wider Compound beyond as he answered the voice in his head. These days, he looked after a great deal of things, seeing as he was the owner and overseer of the facility. The welfare of all its residents was his responsibility.

Warren had invested a generous amount of money into the International Vampiric Government’s ‘compassionate’ scheme. It was their last bid to save vampires from slaughter by their current adversary: mortals, a species by whom they were vastly outnumbered. After centuries where traditional predator/prey relations had prevailed, it would seem that the mouse had finally bared its teeth to the cat. Vampires had once confidently infiltrated every sector of the mortal world, but the Mortal-Mythical-World-War (MMWW) had raged since 2008, so by now, all the vampires that’d been in positions of influence had been weeded out and eliminated. From politicians, military personnel, corporate business people, and on down the economic chain, every ‘threat’ had been neutralised by genocide.

The Compound was a last-ditch attempt at saving those who remained; Warren included, as his race’s staple food provider, he was still extremely valuable to his coven. However, the deal he’d struck with the IVG; to oversee the Northern Mythical Compound felt like he’d bargained away a piece of his soul. For if he failed, he’d end up with a lot of blood on his hands, and although that prospect sounded ironically delicious, Warren wanted the haven to prosper, but not out of compassion for his adopted race. No, behind the scenes, the stakes were even higher because Warren was the keeper of a secret - one that only he and his mentor, Magnus, knew. The reason he’d wanted soul control over the Compound was so that he could protect not only vampires but mythicals of any race. He wasn’t running the Compound project as exclusively as his coven leader or council elders would’ve liked.

If his deception was discovered, he’d undoubtedly be handed a death sentence. However, with the council’s eyes focused elsewhere in the world and their trust in him greater than ever, they hadn’t sent anyone other than Magnus Va Rossa to carry out their audits. With Magnus in on the deal, all they had to do was keep their story straight and their reports tidy.

Warren set down his liquor glass, shut down his laptop and then began the day’s final task, filing away the day’s copious amounts of paperwork. Before collecting his beverage and leaving his office, the last thing he did was slip a folder into a filing cabinet. A folder labelled as ‘Southeast Watchtower – Patrol Reports’.

~*~

“He’s jus’ bitter cuz he ain’t the top dog ‘ere like he was back home, d’ya know whadda mean?” One said to the other, some brawny skinhead covered in tattoos with an attitude almost as colossal as he was.

“Nah, I don’t see it! Nate ain’t that kinda guy. Besides, I bet he’d still win in a fight against Apollo.” The demonic kin, named Kade, sniggered. He was shuffling a deck of cards one last time before dealing another hand to the table’s four occupants. They were sitting in the southeast security checkpoints watchtower, gambling away what little money they had.

An elemental, the weedier of the bunch, grumbled as he threw his hand into the centre of the table; it was another bust. “Betting on a fight between those two sounds like a better way to win money than playing this lousy game with you punks.”

“Yeah, if only Apollo wasn’t just another ex-marine with a chip on his shoulder!” The first brutish guy sneered and rolled his eyes.

“He’s a onexus, so ‘least he can grow it back!” Kade joked at the expense of a race best known for their ability to regenerate their bone matter, some even to the extent of forming solid calcium daggers from their joints - a useful attribute in combat in Apollo’s case.

They all laughed raucously, but that was quickly interrupted. Over the space heater’s buzzing and the static perverted radio music, a perimeter alarm sounded. It happened once or twice daily, and the frequency only amplified the monotony of the patrols, especially in such a cold climate.

“Hey ladies, knitting circle’s over. It’s show-time.” Nate, the lycan and topic of their gossip, barked through the door on his way to the Compound wall’s southeastern security gate. They’d have to go outside the Compound to see what had set off the alarm. The movement sensors had probably detected something; usually, they were disturbed by woodland wildlife.

Nate and Apollo met before the large steel gates as they peeled open, allowing their troop to exit into the surrounding wilderness. Checking a console in his hand Apollo silently directed the task force of seven towards the guilty sensor. A team of three, including the onexian leader, flanked the right-hand side, and Nate took the others to the left.

“So, d’ya’ reckon it’s another deer?” The elemental whispered to his comrades as they crept over the ground in stealth mode. Although he was the feeblest in appearance, he was the only one unarmed. After all, what use was a firearm to a trained pyromancer?

“Most likely. Why d’you wanna bet on that Danny boy?” Kade snickered and pulled a black hood over his head.

“Christ, shut the fuck up. Don’t you guys have anything better to do to pass the time?” Nate rolled his eyes, but just then, he spied movement in his peripherals. Rifle up and ready to fire, he hissed, “Movement at ten o’clock.” Instinctively the lycan sniffed at the air as he tracked the disturbance. Yet again, the group employed tactical silence and stalked over the snow, searching for whatever Nate had seen. What came into focus would’ve certainly lost the elemental his bet.

Trauma had finally tipped her over the edge, and Karou mustered enough courage to run away. She hitch-hiked as far out of town as anyone would take her until all-around was piney woodland and nothing else. No houses. No people. No cars, other than the one pulling away from her. The tan station wagon put some distance between them. Its wheels ground against the gravelly reservation on its way back onto the road. From the exhaust, a plume of grey smoke churned out and billowed into the cold air like breath.

All at once, she was alone, abandoned on the side of the road with no plan and nowhere to go. She’d daydreamed about her adventure in the warmth behind the car’s window as she stared out of it. Naively, she’d thought the woods didn’t look so scary, but now the long shadows cast by the towering trees seemed to move all on their own; it was spooky. It’s all in your imagination; she told herself to ward off the heebie-jeebies.

Beyond the treeline, she discovered that the further she wandered, the colder and more hostile the weather became. The pines were no shelter from the whipping wind that bit at her cheeks and chilled her to the core. Harshly, it blew straight through the two sweatshirts she’d layered. She tried to remember how the warm air from the car’s heater vents felt against her skin when she shivered against the cutting wind. Soon her shoes were sodden with mud and snow slurry. The cold numbed her feet and the tip of her nose. But, even if she was hungry and tired, being out there in Montana’s wilderness was still better than being trapped in that rundown shack she had been expected to adopt as home.

Five hours vanished underfoot; she was neither lost nor found but stumbling around the snowy woodland, hoping that she wasn’t walking in circles. Her only source of light had disappeared when the sun went down because her flashlight’s battery had long since died.

There has to be another town coming up soon, she thought.

Determined as ever, she wasn’t ready to give up on the idea that running away was necessary for her survival, even if somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that this would be the death of her.

Out of the pitch-black, her form was illuminated by several beams of light that came flooding from her left. Raising her hand to shield her eyes, she squinted into the light and made out three black silhouettes.

Holy shit, that’s no deer. Nate thought, identifying the girl by her scent as immediately as his eyes did.

People! Karou’s internal voice screamed simultaneously.

Her mind was void of thought or maybe fogged with it; either way, she couldn’t decipher any of the subliminal babble when her instincts took control. The presence of people meant that somewhere there was a settlement, and surely that was a good thing - but then why did her gut tell her feet to run?

From the guard’s point of view, Karou may not have been a doe, but her reaction to being caught was characteristic of a “deer in the headlights”, and when the flashlights attached to their weapons all homed in on her, her eyes widened before she took off over the snow at full tilt.

It was no use. Quickly, her breathing laboured, and her lungs froze up from panting cold air; it made her whole chest ache. Trudging through the snow was hard enough work without them being on her tail. Still foolishly convinced that she could get away, Karou tried to run faster, and for a while, she successfully evaded them. That was until a branch hooked itself over the instep of her foot and sent her tumbling forward into the powder. Its chilly embrace was a shock to the system but cleared her mind enough to gain focus on the voices of her apprehenders. Alarmingly they were all men, and there was more than three of them! Armed with that knowledge and terrified by all the horrible things she imagined they might do to her, she felt empowered to retake flight.

Meanwhile, watching the girl attempt an escape and then fight to her feet when they inevitably closed in on her caused Nate to feel a significant amount of pity for her. When he’d muttered her description over his radio to Apollo, the hardened war veteran had ordered them to hang back and wait for her to tire; it would make her capture easier on them. Now that she was down, they moved in. While she still attempted to scramble to her feet, two strong arms hoisted her back up, but rather than politely let her go on her way like she had prayed, they kept hold of her.

Apollo gave the order, “Take her in, guys,”

Although she was flighty, Karou ultimately was no match for the seven men who pursued her. “Nate, you’re sure she’s alone?”

“I can’t smell anyone else out here.” The lycan confirmed.

Apollo took it as gospel, considering a lupine sense of smell wasn’t something to sniff at.

Karou found herself constrained by four muscular arms, but now that she was apprehended, she had time to look at her captors. They have guns!

Along with all the deadly things that could mean, all she could do was stare helplessly into the chiselled face of the man to her left.

Seven well-armed men against one tiny little girl seems like overkill. Nate thought as he met Karou’s pair of sad and pretty blue eyes.

“Well, well, whadda we ‘ave ‘ere?” The smarmy-looking kin at her other side said, grinning to show off a silver canine while he ogled her petite frame.

Nate rolled his eyes and interjected, “Sorry to ruin your woodland stroll Miss, but you’re coming with us.” The kind look in his hazel eyes made it seem like he meant the apology.

“Whoa, would ya’ look’ a’ that! We caught somethin’ humanoid for once.” One of the other men announced in disbelief. It seemed that the kin wasn’t the only member of the troop to have false teeth – this guy’s two golden canines glinted in the glare of a flashlight and spooked her. Little did she know he was a real-life, defanged vampire.

“Yeah, but I bet she doesn’t last five minutes into interrogation. What is she, anyway?” Someone asked someone else as they escorted their catch towards the prison-like exterior of the Compound. Before them, the tall concrete exterior wall with a barbed wire halo stretched skyward through the trees.

Amidst the conversation, Karou’s mind was working overtime, going a million miles a minute, but at the forefront of her thoughts, she imagined that this was how a death camp would look.

I can’t let them get me through those gates!

“Smells pretty mortal to me.” Nate proposed having given her another discreet evaluating glance and attempting to remain out of her earshot.

“Ah damn, that’s unlucky.” The elemental bit down on his lip and turned away. It figured she was practically a lost cause if that were the case, so there was no point getting acquainted.

Having heard that, her hope faltered, but her will to survive held fast. Even if she was correct that the closing of the steel gates would seal her fate, Karou didn’t want to listen to any more of the men’s morbid chit-chat. So, regardless of being caught up in the arms of two military-looking men, she decided she had to fight harder because if she wanted to live, she’d have to rely on adrenalin to get her through.

Screw it, she thought, psyching herself up. I won’t go down without a fight!

Just then, the guy she presumed was in charge gave an order.

“Call the boss. He needs to see this one.” Apollo said as he cuffed her dainty wrists behind her back.

Boss? Has some sort of mafia caught me?

Karou panicked, and despite her exhaustion, she writhed this way and that, attempting to be as challenging to keep a hold of as possible, but it proved useless; the two men detaining her didn’t budge. Still, she was sure that her foot collided with someone at some point, and now her forehead hurt too.

She was right; violent contact caused one of the men to flash her a look that sent a chill rattling up her spine. It was the lycan. He had honest eyes and glared down at her with a warning; it said not to try anything funny. The look was meant to convince her to deploy another tactic; if she did as she was told and went quietly, she might have a higher chance of survival. Alas, Karou was not swayed by the treat.

~*~

Ignorant of the drama outside, Warren exited his office for the first time in days. In checking the thermostat, he saw that the temperature was in the low twenties (Fahrenheit), so he wasn’t surprised to see that, through the window, the snow lying on the ground outside had gotten thicker. Fall seemed to have lasted mere weeks, giving the illusion that winter had held the northern state for months. Warren didn’t mind or feel the cold much and didn’t bother turning up the heating, even though he could see his breath condensating in the air.

His glass of scotch found itself empty far too quickly, he thought while stepping across the hardwood floor in his moccasin slippers. Warren abandoned his empty glass on the coffee table and was about to settle down for the evening when he was interrupted by the ringing of his unit’s telecom. Mere moments before he’d reclined back onto the cool leather couch, he found himself back on his feet and answering the call from the console by the front door.

“Yes?” He inquired reluctantly with his finger pressed down on the receiver button.

“Sorry to disturb you so late, Sir, but there has been a security alert at the southeast gate.” The lilting feminine voice of the front desk’s receptionist, Ms Finch, explained.

“Aren’t the guards dealing with it?” Warren asked drily. Surely, he didn’t need to be disturbed for something like this? The sensors were continuously detecting something, but at least they worked; that was something to be grateful for.

“Yes, Sir, they have the intruder in their custody...” She confirmed, and initially, Warren was pleased to hear this, but then she continued, “But that’s why I called... The intruder; they’re not the usual sort. I think this might require your personal attention, Mr Howard.”

“Really?” He sighed, still reluctant to deal with the situation when he’d been working for so long already. Still, it didn’t take him many seconds to make his deliberations - ultimately, he figured it was his duty. “Well, if you insist it requires me personally, I’ll be up in five minutes. Have the guards bring the intruder to the front desk.” Warren flicked the telecom off, cutting off the receptionist before she could say anything more.

The night before’s frost had hardened the top layer of snowflakes like sugar on crème brûlée. The crisp snow gave way underfoot as he marched towards the Compound’s main building. Although he didn’t feel the cold, he still wasn’t keen on the cutting Montana wind as it whirled around the small courtyard that stretched between the main building and his unit. Right then, his gift of aero kinesis came in handy and allowed him to ‘push’ the air away from his body and create an insulating vacuum to keep back the wind until he was inside again. At his age, the use of his ‘gift’ had become second nature. Sometimes pulled tricks without realising - closing and opening doors and turning book pages were just small ways he used his gift in everyday life.

Letting himself in through an inconspicuous side door, Warren ventured down a corridor until the penitentiary atmosphere of the outer halls disappeared and gave way to a homely lounge and bar area. Seeing as the room was a community space, someone was always there, no matter the hour. Tonight, a few nerdy teenagers lurked by the library, where the public computers were stationed. They were taking turns on some old PC game and ignored the Compounds overseer passing by.

The feeling of home faded again when Warren let himself in through the reception’s rear door. The atmosphere was spine-chillingly authoritarian - gone was the warm-toned wallpaper, rugs, and blazing fireplace; instead, the whitewashed walls felt clinical, and fluorescent white lights flooded the office space. Upon entry into the facility, everyone had to pass through the reception, which acted as the Compounds border control. The front desk created a barrier with a thick glass screen between one side and the other.

In contrast, the receptionist had a reasonably pleasant face and a gentle look about her person, so it was difficult to imagine her probing someone and asking questions like, ‘Who are you? Where did you come from? Why are you here?’ Her welcomes were usually warm, but Mr Howard fit the bill of interrogator effortlessly; his aura was suitably aloof.

When she turned to face Warren and parted her glossy lips to smile, she’d been about to explain the situation, but Apollo appeared on the other side of the glass and cut her off.

“Evening, Sir.” The onexus greeted with a respectful nod.

“Good evening Apollo. I hope this was worth disturbing me for?” Warren asked impatiently, gesturing to the blossoming bruise on the onexus’ cheekbone. “It seems they’ve put up a fight?”

“Erm, yes, Sir. She, uh- head-butted me, Sir,” Apollo explained bashfully; apparently, his ego was as bruised as his face.

Behind him, Nate and Kade were still having a hard time keeping the small girl constrained and from causing a ruckus. Apollo wasn’t the only guard who’d felt the detainee’s wrath - Nate wiped his dripping bloody nose on the back of his sleeve, having taken a knee or foot to the face at some point.

“She?” Now Warren was intrigued and raised his brows to show it.

Stepping up to the glass, Warren peered past Apollo. What he witnessed was a feeble-looking teenage girl held under her arms by two of the southeast gate’s strongest guards. From his point of view, she was anonymous; just a petite feminine body drowned in her ragged and dirty sweatshirt, with a mess of brown hair covering her face as she writhed. He imagined she found their detention of her enormously unjust.

Abruptly her struggle ceased when she stopped dead and stood there panting erratically. Perhaps she’d finally accepted that it was pointless to fight? Warren knew the calm look that often came with defeat well. It wasn’t until she whipped back her head and her hair fell aside that she revealed her face. Warren instantly recognised her - he remembered those eyes.

Apollo was the first to notice that all colour drained from Warren’s face, along with any expression his lips or eyes previously held. Was this a look of defeated calm too?

“We haven’t identified her yet, Sir. Should we take her down for interrogation?” He asked, hoping to mask his boss’s peculiar reaction.

Oh God, it’s him. Karou thought while staring hard at the man through the segregating glass screen. The intensity of his eyes brought forth memories that took her back to August and the night she’d encountered a dark, handsome stranger in the woods near Walden Pond. It has to be him.

There was little doubt in her mind because she hadn’t seen the like of him before or since. Maybe her situation might not be so hopeless. There was a chance he recognised her too. Indeed, the dumbfounded expression he wore while staring back at her made her think that he most likely did.

“No... I’ll deal with this visitor personally,” Warren stated plainly, and all while he spoke, his eyes never shifted from the girl.

Internally he fought the urge to ask, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ - but it would’ve been uncharacteristic to talk to her casually in front of all those people. Moreover, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to reveal that he knew her yet.

If he thought she looked pitiful and dishevelled during their first meeting, now she looked to be in a worse state and cold to boot. Because she was suddenly inside, the extent of how freezing she had been was overwhelming; her limbs had started to burn, and under her clothes, chilblains covered her skin. Indeed, he wondered, How did you manage to get here dressed like that? But on balance, Warren supposed he didn’t think that was so odd, considering her state of dress when he’d first bumped into her. For sure, she hadn’t dressed appropriately for the season this time either, certainly not Montana’s outdoor temperature in November. Furthermore, he knew that she wasn’t even from Montana! Massachusetts was a long way away in a southeastern direction.

Warren’s choice of words had Nate and Apollo share a look of confusion. ‘Visitor?’ Nate mouthed to Apollo, to which the onexus merely shrugged, nonplussed – neither had any idea what the implication meant. Their vampiric overseer couldn’t have expected her, could he? Usually, he had blood hosts delivered to the warehouse depot on the west side of the Compound, but that sort of business was kept very ‘hush-hush’.

Warren unlocked the reception entrance, allowing the intruder girl access inside the guard’s silent conversation when he invited her to “step this way.” Assuming she’d followed his instructions once the guards let her go, Warren hoped that the small sniff he took of her as she passed him went unnoticed. As discreet as he’d attempted to be, it was hard to stop his nose from twitching when he deduced; she still smelled the same, mortal, but far too sweet. The bitter notes of iron usually found in human blood were absent and replaced with a delicate, honey-like fragrance. It made his throat sore and nose itch and caused a sharp sting to flash behind his eyes while his mouth welled with an excess of saliva.

“Oh, Apollo, I’ll need the keys to her handcuffs.” Warren merely raised his hand to grasp around the small set of silver keys the onexus threw his way; his gaze was distracted and captivated by the girl. “Thank you, gentleman. Please return to your post now. We wouldn’t want anyone sneaking in while you’re not looking, would we?”

Warren locked the door behind him, and to his left, the receptionist backed up against the copier machine in a wary fashion; a look of bewilderment glazed her brown eyes. There were feelings of fear and suspicion and a twinge of oddly placed jealousy about her as she stared down the other female over the rim of the coffee cup she clutched to her bosom.

How peculiar. Mr Howard never has visitors, and he never carries out interrogations personally. Strange indeed. I wonder where he’s going to take her.

“This is all highly irregular, but if you do everything I tell you for the next little while, we might make it out the other side unscathed, do you understand?” Warren’s tone was blunt and authoritative when speaking, but everything was optional. Even though the alternative wouldn’t be as comfortable, he had no intentions of physically forcing anything on her. At least his stern request insinuated that she had a chance of survival, and that would’ve been a comfort if she could focus on anything other than the fact that he’d stipulated she follow his orders. Unfortunately, Karou hadn’t registered the nature of his intentions from his tone, so it made her uneasy when she wondered what he was going to ask her to do.

Despite Karou’s awkwardness about her drenched feet squelching in her tennis shoes, she was too curious to hang her head. Instead, she took the time to check out where she was.

They passed through a lounge room with three comfortable-looking leather sofas complete with scatter cushions and faux fur blankets. The vibe was very cabin-like, with a majestic stone fireplace as the room’s focal point. Parts of the building were what she imagined ordinary homes would feel like; cosy and inviting, but once they stepped through a door, the home comforts vanished. The façade of home only existed beyond a screen, like on a movie set. Behind the scenes existed a very different world, one of concrete and industrial fixtures that lacked personal touches and simply built for function. Ominously, their footsteps echoed down the dimly lit corridor while open-air electrical cables and plumbing pipes stretched down the walls and overhead. The few doors they passed looked like prison cells, riveted metal sheets with tiny peephole windows.

Although, for now, Karou remained handcuffed, Warren dared to hope that she had an ounce of trust in him. He hadn’t hurt her on their first encounter, and he would attempt not to this time around too, but, of course, it had crossed his mind that she might be scared. His guards had manhandled her, and she could only guess where she was being led now. He had no way of knowing she was wondering if the place she found herself in was an extermination camp.

Warren’s path never faltered as he navigated his way through the Compounds corridors. He’d become blind to the undisguised differences between the main lounge and the rest of the place. It was rare that he left his unit anyhow, so it didn’t matter to him. Little did the girl know, but that’s where he was taking her. For a while, she’d been shivering, and unfortunately for Karou, they had to traverse an outdoor courtyard before they made it back inside. Perhaps what was more unfortunate was that Warren’s unit was barely any warmer than the outdoors.

Similar to the corridor, their destination was fridged, dark, and sterile feeling. The house’s exterior felt like a tomb rather than a dwelling. The steps they descended to the front door dropped a couple of feet into the ground. Karou quickly found that inside, although the concrete walls remained, they were painted dark grey, and some attempts had been made to make the place fit for purpose as a home. The electrics and plumbing weren’t visible, but it was still decorated in such a monochrome fashion that it felt impersonal - the ultra-modern and crisp finish reminded her of a minimalistic show home.

Warren noticed her awkward loitering behaviour, and despite being a man of few words, he gave her a few directions regarding what she should do next.

“Perhaps this would be better processed in the morning. It’s already quite late.”

“Uh, sure...” Karou nodded, unsure how to handle her situation, though she glanced down at her cuffed wrists; it would undoubtedly be a nicer experience if she weren’t tethered.

That alone prompted Warren into action. The moment he came closer to remove her handcuffs was when Karou remembered how disarmed she’d felt by him on their first meeting - as she held out her wrists to him, she didn’t feel threatened by him this time either.

“The bedroom is down the hall.” Warren gestured while insinuating he would be going in a different direction.

The bed he’d offered her had been made with such precision that she was afraid to disturb the sheets. So for a while, she simply laid on top of them, staring around the pitch-black room until she eventually succumbed to the cold and wrapped herself up in the quilted comforter.

Though there was plenty to think about, she was so physically exhausted that sleep threatened to take her the second she curled up in a foetal position. With her head buried in the pillows, Karou found her nose filled with his scent. Now, he wasn’t alone in noticing how the other smelled; he smelled clean, musky, masculine, and oddly comforting.

How she’d managed to go from sleeping with a mildewy quilt and hand-me-down crocheted blanket to pristine a thousand thread count sateen sheets in the space of a day, she couldn’t fathom, but just before she drifted off to sleep, she thanked her stars.