Sickly

There were sheep grazing in the rain behind the gothic mansion on top of the hill. The estate was unsettling at best, but Frank Wallace had been a policeman for twenty-five years, and ivy-eaten stone walls and decrepit towers did not impress him at all.

Frank turned off the lights and pulled himself out of his patrol vehicle with a grunt, his back sore from the drive. The middle of nowhere was no place to keep a house in his mind, but the worst was to imagine that more than a single lunatic had chosen to live here, namely the odd lady in her cabin a mile below, with all her strings of scented herbs and bowls of dark water on her porch. She had chosen the single most deserted patch of land in the whole province and still decided to complain about the only neighbor she had for several kilometers around. 

“It’s the countryside, ma’am, dogs run,” he had told the woman, trying not to be overwhelmed by her awful scent of garlic. “Just because yours is gone doesn’t mean your neighbor stole it.”

“Sick,” she had replied in accented English, rhythmically holding out a worn leather leash and a flask of pills. “Sick.”

“Fine, I’ll ask the guy.” Frank had reluctantly pocketed the flask. “If I find your dog, I’ll give it its medication, but don’t get your hopes up.” 

The woman waved him off before she slammed the door, and he had heard locks click, one by one. 

He had forgotten how people in this town had a poor sense of priorities. This was what happened when a heart attack forced you out of the station for weeks, Frank thought as he walked his way in the dark towards the mansion. He patted his jacket for his own pills. A blood clot, the doctor had told his wife - in much more complicated terms. Something about thick blood, too many wrong proteins and far too many late night snacks.

The knocker remained stuck by rust, and Frank resorted to banging a fist against the heavy door. A thin man in a white suit skewed it open, half concealed in the shadows. With fingers like syringe needles and shiny beetle black eyes, he reminded Frank of the corks of cough syrup bottles and unpleasant things hidden in a pretty wrapping. But Frank was a bad judge of character, for he also happened to be happily married to an unpleasant thing hidden in a pretty wrapping.

“Mister Wallace,” the thin man said with a pointy smile. “What brings our chief of police to our modest door this evening?”

Frank did not think he recognized the man - the butler, he assumed by the cloth on his arm -, but it wasn’t unusual for people to know him. He was, after all, one of the only policemen in the county. 

“The lady in the cabin had her husband call me earlier. Any chance you might have seen a big dog running around your place?”

“I’m afraid not, but perhaps my Master could be of more help. Please, come in. We intend to keep our relationship with our neighborhood friendly.” 

The butler slid quietly aside and gestured for him to follow.  Frank obliged. He was off duty now, and he’d come this far anyway. 

The butler led him  through a dim-lit corridor. It was a surprisingly nice house, all things considered, if you liked cobwebs, flaking wallpaper, and weren’t afraid to sleep under a roof that might fall apart at any given time.  

“I hope you don’t mind the heat, Mister Wallace, it’s to preserve my Master’s old bones. You see, at his stage in life, he’s constantly cold. Here, allow me to take your jacket.”

“Is that him?” Frank pointed at a portrait on the wall. “Jesus, arthritis takes them younger every year.” 

The Butler waved him off with a pleased chuckle.

“Oh, he’s much, much older than he looks like, but I’ll take this as a compliment to my good care.”

The kitchens at least looked sanitary enough to Frank, with clean black tiles and empty bottles of wine lining up next to a door recessed in a corner. 

“What’s in there?” Frank asked.

“The cellar, naturally. I keep the fermenters stored in it as well. The Master is a heavy drinker, and fortunately, I know a trick or two about brewing.”

Frank had to stop short at the entrance of the dining hall, where the butler was already pulling a heavy oaken chair for him at the end of an interminable table. Although the sight of the food made Frank’s stomach growl, he wasn’t one to invite himself. 

“This is unnecessary,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of sheep to protect back there. Shotguns do well with wolves, but accidents happen. I can very well explain it to that lady.”

“No, please, we must sort this matter out,” the butler said. “The Master’s hunting days are over, and while I provide for him now, I assure you I don’t carry firearms. He will wake soon and certainly have something to clear our names from those theft accusations. In the meantime, I insist, be our guest.”

“Does your master always sleep this late in the evening?”

The butler heaved a concerned sigh.

“It’s not unusual but he has taken ill recently. Something lacking in his diet, I presume. I’m still trying to make adjustments to lend him back his strengths.”

Frank shrugged, and eased himself in the chair as the butler worked his long fingers on the lids of the casseroles. As much as Frank loved his wife’s cooking, she had also turned to tasteless healthy foods since his heart attack, and the rich scent of leafy greens drowned in butter mixed with that of grilled lamb had the best of his reticence. 

All things considered, perhaps the middle of nowhere had its advantages, he thought as he sliced the lamb in his plate. He wouldn’t have to hear his wife’s shrieks, repeating that he knew how that will make your blood thicker honey, if you think I’m driving you to the hospital a second time, fill out our divorce papers now.

“If the dog does come back around your estate, know it’s sick,” Frank said between bites. “I think it’s mostly what worries her owner.”

The meal was delicious, and came just short of perfection. Wine would have completed it nicely, but while the cellar probably contained a lot of it, the pitcher on the table was filled with water.  

The butler dabbed his lips with a tablecloth.

“Yes, a rare disease, I’m aware. The opposite of anemia - too many red blood cells. I had my doubts the first time I saw it on the porch of the cabin. Very sluggish animal. Bread?”

“It seems like an odd thing a butler would recognize,” Frank said, leaning over the basket in the butler’s hand. “Is it garlic bread?”

The butler shook his head.

“Regular. You see, I’m not a mere butler, Mister Wallace, and although I prepare his meals, I’m the Master’s doctor. Hematology is my forte.”

“And what brought a blood specialist to exile himself in a secluded estate?” Frank asked. His head throbbed a little, and he reminded himself not to wait too long to take his pill. He should have gone easier on the lamb. “I understand he’s ill, but someone with your qualifications can’t aspire to cook food and herd sheep for the sake of a sick old man.”

The butler took a sip of water.

“Well, I do visit the hospital once in a while, and I did recommend medication for that widow’s dog, but I would consider my talents wasted on modern science alone.” Frank lingered on his bite of bread, eyes narrowed. “Curiosity is my dark muse, and the Master’s condition is unique. I could argue it defies science itself, and I find myself in a better position than I could have ever hoped for.”

Frank pushed his empty plate.

“Widow, you said?”

“I did indeed.”

“Have we spoken before?” 

The butler’s eyelid twitched.

“It’s a small town.” He pushed to his feet, his syringe-like fingers moving to his tie with the same agility they probably drew needles in limp arms. And Frank had seen many fingers over his arm in the last few weeks. “I should go fetch the Master now, if you’d excuse me for a moment.”

The butler disappeared in a flash of white, and Frank sat still for a moment, puzzled, until the headache knocked like a hammer on his skull. He fumbled over his uniform, before remembering the pills were in the jacket the butler had taken off his shoulders on his way in. 

The estate was vast and poorly lit, and it proved more difficult than he’d envisioned to trace his steps back to the entrance. The lights were still on in the kitchens which made it easy to walk past the black door that - if the butler was to be believed and Frank wasn’t sure he was anymore - led to the cellar. 

The sound of breaking glass that came from behind it didn’t startle him - but he didn’t appreciate it, either. 

Even once he found the interruptor, the steep staircase hidden on the other side was dark. Frank was an impassive man. He went down the cellar even as his blood rushed to his ears, thick with the meal and thicker with those wrong proteins, and his pills were in a jacket he no longer wore. There was only one thing he was notably afraid of, and he’d left her home in front of the television with popcorn and curlers in her hair. 

Frank concluded the room was accessible from the outside by the smell of wet hay, dirty wool and dirtier animals, and the many sheep drowsing by empty and full fermenters.

One of them had shattered on the floor, and next to the mess, a black dog sat quietly.

Frank had seen disturbing things in his career, but his skin suddenly felt a little too tight for comfort when he took a closer look at the red leash that tied the dog to an intact container. Suddenly, he didn’t know what to make of the butler, or the bowls of dark liquid lying on the porch of that lady’s cabin, or the overwhelming amount of garlic she grew in her garden. He certainly didn’t know what to make of the jugs filled with red at the end of the tubes that stuck out from the animals’ necks.

“Fear not, Mister Wallace, we do not intend to keep the dog. It turned out it’s not sufficient on its own. However, combined with the vitamin K from the lamb you just had, I’m positive the proteins released by your marrow will prove more efficient.”

At the top of the staircase, the butler clutched the arm of a man in a robe, with sickly pale skin and a green tint to his eyes. Frank could only watch in stupor, his heart already overflowing with the density of his bloodstream. The old man’s lips were curled in a weak smile that would have looked friendly on any other mouth, but any other mouth didn’t have canines that long.

“Master,” the Butler bowed his head, a hand fluttering towards Frank. “Dinner is served.”