Verity's Tale
an excerpt

"Aren't you going to knock?" Verity shifted under her rain poncho. The steady drizzle managed to sneak under the hood and up into the cuffs of her jacket, and the plastic tent kept in all the dampness her body generated. It wasn't so bad when they were moving, but standing still, Verity was getting chilled.

Apparently that was a question so obvious her mother didn't feel the need to answer it. She rapped on the door, painted a glossy green that looked like it belonged on some other house. Two knocks, a long pause, and one more. Great. Now her mom had secret knocks. Maybe there'd be a special handshake.

Mom caught her eye. Verity knew that look. It was the 'behave yourself or else' look, underlined by one raised eyebrow.

Verity gave back her 'What? Me?' look, eyes wide, one shoulder hunched, the other dropped low.

The door opened and Mom didn't get a chance to respond. It didn't really matter. Verity knew it would either be the 'I'm warning you' glare, complete with head tilt, or the 'you're impossible' look, where Mom's eyes just slid away as if Verity wasn't there at all. Verity focused on the toes of her scruffy runners.

"Killian! So good to see you, hon. Been centuries."

"Hardly." Her mom was smiling, really smiling. It came out in her voice. Mom hadn't really smiled for almost a year, since the arguments started. Maybe she and dad had been fighting about this guy. "Andrew, I'd like you to meet my daughter Verity. Verity, this is my cousin Andrew."

About the bare minimum she could get away with was a nod, she decided, and bobbed her head in the general direction of the door. She managed to get a look at the guy without actually having to make eye contact. He was taller than her mom, but average-size for a man, thin, with skin the color of buttered whole-wheat toast, just like Verity's mother.

"Nice to meet you." He didn't sound particularly enthusiastic. At least it was unanimous. "Come on in, both of you. It'll start raining any time now."

Verity made a point of brushing her dripping poncho against him as she followed her mom through the door. He was too busy chattering away to notice. Or at least he didn't acknowledge the damp splotches on his worn jeans.

"The kitchen's just up the stairs. The fridge isn't new, but it works. Rest of the place was fixed up last year. Got a dishwasher and everything."

As if a dishwasher wasn't a necessity. Verity wondered if she should ask whether the place had a bathroom or if she'd have to run down to the Dairy Queen on the corner if she had to pee. With her mother occupied admiring the blue and white kitchen with shabby harvest-gold linoleum, Verity tugged her poncho off, hung it on a peg by the door and settled in to get a better look at Andrew.

He did look a lot like her mother, she had to admit, though where Killian looked like somebody's efficient secretary, Andrew managed to come off as a scruffy Antonio Bandaris, almost cute, in a self-conscious way, but not actually hot.

He noticed her watching him. "You're welcome to look around, Hon. Check the place out." He nodded off to one side.

Verity looked around her, trying not to believe they'd actually move in here. The entryway was really a landing barely big enough for the little built-in bench next to the door; three steps led up to the kitchen, and, opposite those, through the door, the twisty outside stairs led down. To Verity's left, another set of narrow stairs led down. After a moment's hesitation, she followed them, more to get off by herself than from any real enthusiasm for exploration.

Half a flight down, there was a smallish room, oddly shaped, with grey carpet and two small windows high on one wall. Two of the other walls held doors; a third had yet another stairwell, down again. Getting furniture into a place like this would be brutal. Not that they had any furniture. Everything they'd brought out here to the coast had been heaped up in her mom's aging hatchback. It was better not to think of all the stuff she'd had to leave behind at their house – their old house, now Dad's house. Better to check this place out, so she could show mom exactly why this was a bad idea. Dad would take them back.

Two doors were closets, one with shelves and one with tiny desk surmounted by shelves. Not bad for homework, if they were going to stay. Which they weren't. The last door led to a bathroom. A huge bathroom.

Verity paused, one hand on the doorknob. The rest of the townhouse was right out of the seventies, though some one with some taste had replaced what had probably been avocado shag carpet with the grey Berber. This bathroom looked like it belonged back in the thirties.

It was white, the walls tiled to waist height in the same one-inch square tiles as the floor. Pedestal sink, strangely old-fashioned looking toilet. She stepped inside, leaving the door open behind her. And a claw-footed tub. Tucked between the tub and sink was a little door, barely to Verity's shoulder.

"Plumbing," she said, softly. It was a funny door for plumbing access, thickly painted in white, droplets frozen in mid-trickle. Even the faceted glass knob was speckled with white. A few paintbrush bristles were embedded along the frame "Better check. Might have been covering up a leak." After all, there was no way her mom was going to know what to do about a water leak.

Verity crouched down and tugged on the door, trying to be as confident as Dad, checking things out. Inspecting. Whoever had painted the door had slopped a lot onto the hinges. She yanked harder. It opened.

She fell inelegantly back on her butt. No wonder Killian never did that sort of thing. Her mom was nothing if not elegant. Shoving herself forward, Verity peered through the door.

Not plumbing. Very definitely not plumbing.

Behind the tiny door in the downstairs bathroom was a watery cave, complete with stalactites and blind fish and an arching roof stretching right through the perfectly real kitchen above. There was no possible explanation, Verity decided, but the cave went right on existing as if it couldn't care less about the worn linoleum and chipped appliances occupying the exact same space on the other side of the wall.

"Mom? Mom! I think you better see this!"