"Clara wants to be back home, too. It is a beautiful white house. There are yellow potted flowers on the windowsills. Clara could paint on the walls. But Mama never praised Clara. Anyone could tell my paintings were better than Elder Brother's..."
Clara was prattling on and on. Clayton tuned her out.
For he was holding the birdcage in his teeth while climbing up a rugged wall, his sleeves rolled up.
If not for his choice of a forlorn spot, his actions must have been stopped.
In broad daylight, a werewolf's shape-shifting would be suppressed, but he could still turn his fingernails sharp and hard as at nighttime. This made his scramble up the wall a lot easier.
Sweat had been shed and time had been spent until he stood on the roof.
Ten feet from the ground, he had a view of all White Pegion Square.
The sunlight felt more scorching at such a height.
Easily calling it quits was no option for Clayton. Despite the Salvation Army standing guard, he had little confidence in these weak-willed weirdos.
Advancing across interconnected roofs along a route that Clara gave him, he soon spotted, in a dead end off to the back of the square, a run-down house. Judging by its window arrangement, it must be a three-storied building. Its exterior matched Clara's description of her home.
It was white enough to overshadow the whiteness of bird droppings.
But the walls appeared dotted with tiny holes, probably courtesy of the washing of the corrosive acid rain.
Roughly seven potted flowers lined the hem of a second-floor balcony.
It was 'roughly' because Clayton failed to determine exactly. They were half-broken, leaving shattered pieces, bases, and soil between the railings. Some bases were dirt-covered.
There was a garbage mound beside the building. Fortunately, the weather had turned cold, so its stench was not that repulsive.
"Is that Clara's home?"
Their height put them out of sight of others, so Clayton unveiled the cage, allowing Clara a clear view of the building.
Clara's jaw dropped open, her gaze colorless as a dead man's.
Her despair in the moment surpassed that when Clayton had sliced her head off.
Clayton consoled her, "It has been so many years. Without a caretaker, the house would turn just this way."
"Clara doesn't want to go home. Clayton, take Clara back to your home."
"Then stay put here on the roof. I will enter alone."
"Better let Clara keep Clayton company."
Clayton couldn't understand Clara's thoughts. Holding the birdcage in hand, he galloped down a sloping roof, nimbly hopping into the balcony of Clara's home. Pushing open the door, he walked in.
The dust in here could rival that in the Mani home.
An abrupt question struck Clayton.
Clara had said she had a mother. Since she was a spider, her mother must be a spider as well.
Then, the 'Arachnid Cleric'... He couldn't be sure. Because an insectoid's intelligence could hardly be expected to earn such a grand title.
Who would want Clara to preach their religion?
"What does Clara's Mama look like?" He scouted the bedroom behind the balcony. There were few to no personal possessions telling stories about the owner here.
He opened the closet, revealing clothes in all sizes for men and women.
The place seemed hardly like a bedroom but a garment warehouse.
"Clara's Mama is the most beautiful woman in all of Sasha."
Clara said proudly from inside the cage.
"Is she also a spider?"
Upon hearing this question, Clara offered an expression as though eyeing a monster. "Does Clayton believe that a spider would look good?"
Clayton stiffened momentarily, figuring that Clara must be the one in all the world who lashed at him the most creatively.
"By your face alone, I think you're good-looking."
"No, not at all!"
Clayton couldn't get his head around such an idiot's mentality, so he decided against debating with Clara.
Instead, he refocused on exploring the residence.
Clara's home was strange.
Part of its designs did not seem to cater for a family's everyday life but fitted the description of a prison's.
There were bedroom after bedroom, each with a door numbered and inset with a barred window.
Clayton casually stepped into one and found it small, with a bed taking up one-third of the area. The floor was scattered with crudely handmade toys, and the bed with small-sized clothes.
He tried shutting the door, then found it impossible to lock it from inside.
The next-door one was the same way, and it held fairy tale books, crayons, and pictures.
Throughout this, he hadn't talked with Clara. But Clara soon changed her mind and patched things up with him.
Unlike the exterior, the interior, though moldy in places, looked almost unchanged.
The ambient warmth flooded Clara's heart at her first sight.
This was her home. Clayton was a guest whom she had invited in. The mere thought of this made Clara unable to contain her excitement.
Now she had grown up, too!
As Clayton progressed down the hallway, she cried out in exuberance.
"This is Andrew's room. He is the fastest runner but a terrible painter. This is Sheek's, he loves dancing, and... this is Lula's..... Slow down a bit, Clayton, Clara can't keep up with you!"
Opposite to Clara, Clayton was feeling increasingly weighed down here.
Apart from the very first room, the other bedrooms looked intended for children, but showed no signs of parental care or thoughtfulness.
Everything was in perfect order.
The house was simply too tidy. He couldn't even find a kid's item outside these bedrooms.
Even if the owner would give the house a regular cleaning, there had to be a blemish, such as an occasional ragdoll or ribbon underneath a table or chair.
But there was none of these, as though they had lived confined to their own bedroom.
Only in the rooms were there traces of their lives.
Clayton felt as if laying eyes on a prison, where the seedlings of innocence had sprouted under suppression.
He set foot in another room, whose parquet floor was marred with blood-stained scratches, narrow in between, numbering five.
The sight immediately compelled his attention.
Clayton crouched down and inspected the surrounding traces on the floor.
Aside from the floor, they were also seen on the wall to the right of the door.
"This is Horen's room. He is good at singing." Clara said.
"Was there a kid in every room? "
"Yes."
"Where did they go?"
Clara's visage remained unchanged in innocence, but Clayton found himself unable to eye her the same way as before.
"Clara doesn't know. After the sacrifices, they disappeared."
"Sacrifices? Is that painful?"
Half kneeling, Clayton picked up from under the bed a fingernail fragment, which was crusted with dark blood.
As he studied it deliberately, his inquiring voice was cold, emotionless.
Clara failed to sense the change in Clayton. "Yes, it hurts so badly. But it was requested by Mama. If we don't make sacrifices, we cannot enter Heaven. In that case, we cannot be happy together after death."
Clayton slipped the broken nail into his pocket and rose to his feet.
"I want to have a look in Clara's room."
"Clara's room is 211."
Clayton resumed his way down the hallway and climbed down the stairs before counting it all the way to Clara's room.
He paused before the door and, after a few seconds of thought, turned the knob. The room looked no different from the others. It was plainly furnished. The quilt on the bed was neatly folded, but the walls displayed graffiti, suggesting the singular spirit of the kid who had lived here.
A few more steps inside carried Clayton before a small white dress, whose size was for a seven or eight-year-old. It seemed to have slid down from the bed and had collected dust. From under it, the silhouette of a pair of leather shoes swelled.
Clara cheered from the birdcage. "It is still here! Clayton, Clara's dress is still here! Can we take it back?"
Apparently, she had forgotten she could no longer fit into the dress and that Clayton had no obligation to bring her back to his home.
Clayton didn't answer. Clapping a hand over his forehead, he felt another bout of excruciating headache.
It was still during the day, yet he could sense his werewolf blood roaring ever more ferociously through his veins, as it had during his awakening under that full moon.
There was something furious growling in his mind.
His amber eyeballs were quivering in the sockets as tiny red vessels crawled across the white of his eyes.
His palms uncontrollably clenched tight as wolf fur poured out from the back of his hand. A scorching heat erupted from his grip on the silver birdcage.
Reflexively, Clayton tossed the cage on the bed before drawing from his pocket the paper-wrapped efficacious drug, taking a pill.
As the pill slid down his throat, he felt his raging blood calm down.
The peace in Clayton had been restored. Glancing at the burnt mark in his left palm that was visibly fading away, Clayton was struck by the sudden idea of releasing Clara from the birdcage, a notion that had been out of the question earlier on.
But not now. He was clear about this.
"What are you thinking about, Clayton?"
Unsurprisingly, Clara was irritated once more. Being tossed about in a cage would anger just anyone.
Clayton promptly cradled the birdcage up and seriously responded, "Clayton is thinking Clara is a good girl; Clara's Mama should learn from Clara. "
Clara burst into a blossoming smile.
The Lieutenant held the cage with his left hand as before. If Clara's Mama was still alive, he would chop her head off as well, he swore inwardly.
It was just unknown if a Darkin that hadn't been possessed by a devil had an undying body.