Strange Love

Russ looked around the room they had zapped into, arching his brows. "What are we doing in here? I thought Jos said mom's old room was on the left side of the hall. This is my room..."

Poseidon rolled his eyes. "If you haven't figured it out yet, kid, I only 'zap', as you like to call it, to places I've been to before. It saves a lot of headache in the long run, trust me." When Russ only stared at him blankly, he elaborated. "Aright, imagine if I were to look at that blueprint on your phone and zap into the room, we think is your mom's but there is furniture or heaven forbid more boxes, then we could easily end up busting through a box or dresser. It will be more inconspicuous if we just walk out of here and go looking. Hell, what's the worst that can happen someone asks why you're walking around the halls of your own palace? Fern's probably too busy still trying to smooth over things with his guests to even notice we're here." He shrugged. "With that in mind, if we do find the tunnel entrance, we should be on guard once inside."

Ry opened the door with caution, looking around as he stepped out into the hallway. "Well, don't look like anyone's around. He stepped to the side as he waited for Russ and his father to follow. He pointed down the hallway to the left. "If Jos was right, it should either be that door or the next... meaning..." He turned slightly and pointed to a door two down from where they just emerged from. "That one or that one should be your dad's old room."

"We should really thank Fern for the accommodations later..." Poseidon said as he made his way toward one of the doors Ry had pointed to on the left. He turned the knob and stepped inside. "Well, it could have been a girl's room at one point..." He wiped his finger across a dusty dresser as he walked through the room. "Doesn't look like it's been used in a while."

Ry shrugged. "I assume if the old king and queen were killed in the early 1820s then Cam and Ales would have been married shortly after. It's likely no one has been in it since then..."

"Guys, try this one." Russ called from the hallway.

Ry sent his dad a skeptical look as they walked back out of the room. He nodded toward the door. "Well? Are you going to open it?"

Russ rolled his eyes. "Really? You don't think I had thought to already? It's locked." He turned back to the door and sniffed it. "It has the same faint scent as the diaries... I'm pretty sure this was her room."

Poseidon patted Russ's shoulder as he walked past him and pressed his hand to the knob. The door popped open, and Poseidon stepped aside, crossing his arms in c.o.c.ky success.

Russ didn't waste any time walking into the room. Much like the other had been, there was a thick layer of dust on all the furniture. He walked over to the dresser. There were a few childish knickknacks arranged on the top. Russ lifted each studying them as he went. "Just looks like things a young girl had outgrown or something..." Russ murmured as he opened a tiny jewelry box and a ballerina popped up and began spinning to a soft tune.

Ry nodded in agreement as he closed the armoire and began filling around on top and behind it. "There were only a few old dresses left inside there." His eyes moved to Poseidon who was knocking lightly across the walls. "What are you doing?"

"Checking for false walls. If there are secret passages leading into this room, it should sound hollow..." He narrowed his eyes at the dresser Russ was standing by. "That first diary we read mentioned something about the dresser being moved, didn't it?"

Russ nodded. "Mom said it was her first night in the palace... her first night with dad..." He turned his attention to the wall behind the dresser. Pulling it out he began pressing the panels behind it. His eyes widened as something gave beneath his touch. His eyes moved to Poseidon and Ry's. "Something opened behind the wallpaper."

Ry pulled a pocket knife out of his pocket and handed it down to Russ. "Make the cut as clean as you can so we can cover it when we leave."

Russ nodded as he turned his attention to the wallpaper. Once it was out of the way, he bent and poked his head through the short opening. He fumbled around in his back pocket pulling out his phone and turning on the flashlight. "I mean once inside a man could probably make his way through... but it would be a tight fit..." He set back on his heels and pointed the light at the hole. "It's not much more than a narrow crawl space. If Fern was using this then he must have been pretty determined to spy..."

Poseidon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What if he wasn't spying... what if he was obsessed with her? She did start out his intended... it would explain why he had one of her diaries. Besides, he would have been fairly young as well when she first moved here." Poseidon bent and looked around inside. "A kid could have easily moved around in here."

Ry leaned over to look inside. "Well, you two may be able to squeeze into that tiny hole, but I doubt my d.i.c.k would even fit inside..."

Russ rolled his eyes. "Bullshit... but it would be hard as f.u.c.k for the three of us to fit in there, that's for sure..."

A sudden smile spread across Poseidon's face causing Ry to hold up his hands and start backing up. "Oh, hell no!"

Poseidon nodded. "Why not it would work... tell me it wouldn't work..."

"What wouldn't work?" Russ looked back and forth between father and son.

Ry pointed in irritation. "Turn his a.s.s into something weird all you want... turn yourself into whatever you want, but I refuse to be trapped as a damn animal for another second of my life!"

"Wait what?" Russ asked as he furrowed his brows. He turned back to Poseidon in time to see the man's smile widen as he lifted his hand.

"Suit yourself." With a flick of the wrist, Ry had shifted to a small girl in the cutest pale pink dress and matching ribbons holding up double pigtails.

The girl crossed her arms over her c.h.e.s.t and stomped her tiny foot. "You can be a real son of a bitch sometimes... has anyone ever told you that?"

Poseidon shrugged, "Actually my mother was quite the lovely woman... my father on the other hand... Besides, you said no animals, though I have to say young girls can resemble animals from time to time..." He shook his head as he turned his attention to Russ and lifted his hand once again.

"Wait!" Russ called out, but his voice shifted and broke as he said it. He squeezed his eyes together. "Please, just tell me I'm at the very least still human..."

The girl stomped past the other two toward the hole. "Sure, you two get to stay male while I'm stuck with this shit!" She huffed out as she shoved the dress out of her way. Glaring back at them, Ry asked. "Well, are you coming?"

"Well, you heard HER... let's get moving..." Poseidon said as he walked toward the hole.

Russ shook his head as he looked over his toddler body of no more than five. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm not a dog again but still... why children?"

Poseidon flipped his tiny, chubby wrist and produced a flashlight. "Several reasons... One, it will make these passages easy enough to navigate, especially if they get narrower anywhere. Two, if we are caught, we can plea innocence. Which, I should add, if we are caught try to sound like a child... Ry..."

Ry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure it will be perfectly believable three random children got lost in the f.u.c.k.i.n.g walls in the middle of the night..."

Poseidon shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Who knows as bad as this place has gotten..."

"You may have a point there..." Ry said coming to a stop at an intersection. "Alright which way?" He stepped aside and pointed. "Left, right, or creepy a.s.s hole?"

Poseidon stepped to the edge of the hole and pointed the flashlight downward. "There's a ladder leading down, and it looks like a much wider walkway down there." He looked overhead and pointed the flashlight up. "Looks like it goes all the way up as well."

Russ stepped up beside them. "So... down? I mean if we're looking for tunnels leading to the ocean it would be down, right?"

Poseidon nodded. "Yeah... if there's a path down there that leads farther down maybe... But that should only be the ground floor." He handed the flashlight over to Ry as he began down the ladder.

Russ was the last down the ladder. His eyes moved around the wider, taller walkways. "Wow, it's hard to believe this is here..."

Poseidon nodded, fl.i.c.k.i.n.g his wrist to produce Russ's phone. "Here, pull the floor plan up. If I had to guess I'd say that is the main stairs over there." He pointed to a wide area in the dark passageway.

Ry walked over to where Poseidon had pointed. "There's another door just over here. What is below here?"

Russ zoomed in on the floor plan as he followed Poseidon to where Ry stood. "According to this, there's a storage area that's separate from the main bas.e.m.e.nt... directly above it should be one of the offices or a library... Does this palace have a library? I don't know... it's kinda hard to make out what these things should be based on an old a.s.s floor plan..."

Poseidon pressed a hand to the knob causing it to open. To his surprise, it wasn't as pitch dark as the rest of the passageway had been. There were tiny lights built-in along the slender spiral stairs as far as they could see in both directions. He clicked off the flashlight. "Well, that's convenient..." He was just about to step out onto the stairs when voices echoed from below. He took a step back pressing his hands against Russ and Ry. "We have company." He whispered.

Ry tugged at the front of the dress. "I thought that's why we're dressed like this?!" He growled as he stepped past his father's child-sized body.

Poseidon shrugged. "I mean, do you want to risk spending the night in whatever hell is in that bas.e.m.e.nt? You were the one who said you suspect him of human trafficking... You make an exceptionally believable girl." Ry's lips tightened closed as he stepped back away from the room. "That's what I thought." He closed the door and pressed his hand to it once again. He turned and placed his hands on both Russ and Ry and within a blink, they were back in Cam's old room. "Push the dresser back for tonight. We'll go back to the cottage tonight and work out a better plan... There has to be some information on those passages. If Cam thought to cover them with wallpaper she's bound to have been inside them at some point."

"And if she's been inside them, she's bound to have written about it." Russ finished.

"Exactly!" Poseidon said. With another blink, they were back in the cottage. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to see if any texts had come through while they'd been gone. Seeing one from Chary, he quickly opened it.

"I can't believe you guys consider this a cottage... Usually, when someone says beach cottage, a little one-bedroom shack comes to mind. This thing is bigger than any of the apartments we ever rented." Russ said as he snooped around the expansive living room. "How many rooms are in this thing? Did you build it yourselves?"

Ry chuckled as he looked around himself. It had been a while since he'd been there. "There are three bedrooms, two with balconies upstairs; a study overlooking the south end of the beach; and this open combo area. It wasn't always this big. When we first built it, back when we were training Jos, it was only one main room." He pointed toward the large open kitchen with a long bar separating it from the living room. "It used to only be that room, pretty much. There was a small kitchen with a tub over there by the fireplace." He pointed to the small seating area nearest the door. "That was the full extent of any living room, and right behind it was the bed." He shrugged. "It was cozy though... Arei had contractors come out some years ago to build on to it, then not too long ago had it renovated. Neither of us has spent much time here since it was first built, but Peg and Andy come here from time to time. Tri stays here when he's forced to be in the area for extended periods." His attention moved back to his father, who was now on the phone.

"Hold on, let me put you on speaker." As he tapped the controls on the phone, he explained. "They have found what we're looking for. Go ahead finish what you were saying."

Chary's voice held a bit of excitement as she replied. [So, Shelly was reading through one of the diaries and you wouldn't believe what all was in this one! It should be enough to open an investigation for sure, even without verification!]