Splintered

Conrad’s mind seemed behind him, trailing on a thin tether as he drove up to the gate. He rolled down his window and lolled his hand out for the scanner to read, which it did with an impartial series of beeps. Met with approval, the gate opened for him and he drove on towards the house.

The Darrow family name carried with it a small prestige and fortune and so Conrad was no stranger to the attributes of comfortable living. However, the show of force put on by his elder sister Angela made their childhood look nearly impoverished. She had some rather ruthless ambitions and a somewhat inflated sense of entitlement that, combined with her husband’s rather similar moral code, had given rise to the lifestyle she now maintained, one that begged for a word more severe than decadence. The whole thing often seemed to Conrad more like a caricature of affluence, like he might have seen in a cartoon as a child, rather than a real life. Watching their vast manor come into view up the drive, the tall windows reflecting the sky across the face of the building, the long front steps beset by a large fountain and rows of meticulously tended greenery, it was more like a sweeping pan in a film than a realistic destination, no matter how many times he made the drive. Real people couldn’t possibly live there. This was where old timey heist professionals lived out their post-heist lives. This was where orphaned children were sent to live with their mysterious and distant relatives, hunting echoing, empty corridors for magic and mythology. Yet in reality it was home - if ‘home’ was the right word - to a vice president of promotions for a pharmaceuticals conglomerate, his tightly wound wife, and their eccentric thirteen-year-old daughter.

Conrad brought his car to a puttering halt in front of the front steps. The valet took his keys from him with a series of disdaining looks, first at Conrad, then at his less-than classically aged car, then again at Conrad. It was a familiar play that hardly bothered Conrad. He took the unflattering looks in stride, rationalizing that it was fitting enough punishment for his constant inability to remember the young man’s name, no matter how many times they performed the key exchange.

“Is Angie here?” Conrad asked, pausing on the first step. The valet’s face was a stiff, professional mask, but the eyes were filled to the brim with judgment, hating the scruffy man in front of him for any number of reasons.

“The lady of the house left early this morning... sir.” The title was begrudgingly tacked on.

“Okay... right… But Poc- I mean… the misses? She’s inside?”

An uncovered sigh of annoyance. “I believe so sir.”

“Thanks.”

The faint creak of the front door opening echoed through the vast and empty foyer. Walking through any part of the Whitmore manor was like walking through an unguarded museum wing. Angela’s taste in decor was everything gilded, marble, and crystal. Every room seemed to house a chandelier, an ornate and expansive rug, and a gold leaf medicine cabinet with etched glass doors in the corner. Paintings, sculpture, and books were added to the very precipice of excess like the mere superficial show of culture. Though particularly arranged, richly decorated, and kept in perfect order, not one of the rooms told any story, not by sight, sound, or scent. Conrad ambled through the halls slowly, peering into this room or that. Though he’d been through each room at one time or another, they all seemed strange to him. And empty. The disoccupency of the space was particularly tangible to Conrad for some reason. He felt that even ghosts would avoid those extravagant halls and rooms. The house was large enough that one could spend an entire day walking through its rooms and remain entirely alone. Along with the three residing Whitmore’s, there were a handful of people on permanent staff at the manor. Yet, as Conrad lazily searched the over-decorated corners of the building, he found no one. But he was fairly certain of where he could find the one person he had come to see.

The eastern-most wing of the manor was a fair walk from the main entrance and at a point took a very sharp design turn from the rest of the house. Conrad couldn’t help but smile each time he approached the oddly constructed doors that closed off the east wing. Beyond the doors, clearly placed as an afterthought to the original design, was a very small constructed hall. If one crossed the makeshift threshold it became immediately clear the only thing from the scene were a few biohazard signs and some bright strands of quarantine tape. The floral wallpaper that carried over from the rest of the ‘normal’ halls had been defaced there with several different shades of permanent maker, doodles of travelers and imagined creatures marveling at and exploring their own strange, classical landscape. The moldings had been carved into and belayed with coloured pins and tacks. Pictures from magazines following no particular pattern hung here and there, creating a strange and disjointed story board around the other door on the strange hallway’s end. Staring too long at all the noise and unexplained thought required either a strong concentration or a willingness to endure vertigo.

A rap at the door generated the expected lack of response. Conrad knocked again purely out of habit before letting himself into his niece's room. It often brought on the sense of stepping into a storybook from his childhood, or perhaps an elaborate side show of some sort. It was always different from how he’d last seen it, and yet really, essentially the same. To an outsider, and to his sister, the scene was pure chaos. There were small stalagmites and arrangements of treasures turning the lower half of room in to a veritable cavern of kitsch. The upper half was designed like a grand theater stage, a raised floor hidden away by a thick, red velvet curtain. The gilded frame of the stage, at one time concurrent with the rest of the manor’s décor with its sculpted classical figures, had been changed to a messily made-up chorus of clowns. They always made Conrad smirk a bit, remembering the afternoon he’d spent helping his niece complete that particular art project, the two of them applying the make-up with paint brushes taped to the ends of broomsticks. It had been the last tip of the scale for Angela and since then she had decided that rather than rage and plead she would simply ignore her daughter’s quarters all together. It was the best decision by Conrad’s judgment. To her mother’s eye and perhaps that of any outsider the room’s contents could seem like heaps of garbage but there was a method to all the madness, even if only the girl could really see it.

There was always a path through the room, though it shifted and changed over time. Conrad ambled through like a patron perusing the latest gallery exhibit. Eyeing this and that odd piece Conrad wondered, as he often did, where she came by some of them. How exactly was it that one girl could accumulate so much? It was a question she had always managed to avoid answering directly.

That particular afternoon it was one Major Friedrich that brought him to pause in the middle of his wandering. Major Friedrich was laying awkwardly on his side atop a stack of society magazines, his legs locked in stiff mid-step. Yet for his upset station he wore a dumb little smile on his face. Conrad could remember a similar wind-up toy military man from his own childhood and he sympathetically helped the Major to his feet again. His own toy had been an antique piece of mostly tin, but Major Friedrich was a more modern military model made of plastic, a fad piece for youth who considered ‘antiquity’ stylish. Conrad gave him a short wind and let him go, watching in good memory as his hooked plastic feet moved him robotically forward, his little plastic gun shifting in his miniature march. He tromped on towards the edge of his small magazine cover world without a moment of doubt and carried himself right over the edge with the dedication and obedience of any soldier. Landing on the floor at Conrad’s feet with a little plastic clatter, he looked up still with the same simplistic little grin.

“Another soldier fallen then.”

Conrad broke eyes with the major and looked up to the curtain’s corner. She was sitting on edge of her stage, swinging her legs over the short ladder and looking down towards his feet where the toy had fallen with her large, sleepy eyes.

“Good morning, Pocky.”

“Good afternoon, Uncle Raddy,” she replied with the tiny curve of her thin lips and a birdlike tilt of her airy, blond head. She toyed absently with a long string of fake pearls wound around her neck, thinking a moment before she decided to add, “Well then, to Major Herman Friedrich. A good man and a good soldier. God rest his soul and bless his widow and four young children.”

Conrad smirked and shook his head. “What...? Have you been to the theater recently? And without me at that?”

“Actually it’s from a book,” she told him, bouncing down from her perch. She disappeared from view behind the jumble for a moment and soon reappeared at his side with a heavy, cracked hardcover tome in her hands. She handed it out to him for inspection and bent down to collect the major in her hands like a fallen baby bird. “It’s a collection of letters written during war. Some of them are very lovely.”

“Where on earth…” He thumbed through the yellowed pages without digesting a word. Pocky carefully sought out a new perch for her soldier and settled him in with a caring pat on the cap. A spin on her heels and she was on to the next order of business.

“What adventure shall we have today Uncle Raddy?”

“Well… we’re both dressed up today. I’d thought we could go out for a nice lunch, maybe at the Cirque Center. And we could stop by and say hello to your father afterwards if you want.”

Pocky stretched her arms behind her back and traced a line on the floor with her toe. “Sounds fine. Does Papa have work for you then?”

Conrad smiled. “I’m not so sneaky am I?”

“You only wear your good suits when you expect to see him,” Pocky remarked matter-of-fact. She’d figured his scheme but didn’t seem at all hurt. He held out his arm which she linked her own into. “But you do look smart. And Gerard makes excellent French fries. Ari says he likes them a lot, especially with mayonnaise.”

“Indeed,” Conrad agreed, opening the door for her and marveling at her sharp memory for names and details. He himself had no face on file to put to the name Gerard or Ari. He leaned down as they walked through the front doors and the unfriendly young valet went to bring his car back around. “His name?”

“Leon. And knowing his name won’t help you. He thinks you’re a brainless leech.” Conrad threw her a wide eye and she smiled. “His words, not mine. We play poker sometimes.”

Conrad mumbled a halfhearted thank you as Leon handed over his keys, purposefully enunciating the name. The younger man simply narrowed his eyes in contempt. As he nodded them away he added through slightly loosened lips. “Have a good day Miss Whitmore.” With a shot glance he added, “Take care.”

As they drove through the gate Conrad scratched at the plastic steering wheel cover and ran his tongue over his teeth. “Brainless leech huh?”

Pocky rolled down her window as they pulled out onto the road and let her hand bob and weave against the air. “That was the most recent diagnosis, yes. But in the past you’ve been…. A dimwitted bore… waste of space… lucky dumbshit…”

“I get the picture. And you shouldn’t talk like that…”

“Don’t worry,” she said dreamily, leaning against the window frame and toying with her pearls. “He just doesn’t know all there is to you Uncle Raddy. That’s all.”

“Thanks Pock. Thanks…”