The Girl and the Pendulum (An Original Story – Part 15)

Part Fifteen

She walked him through her home, through each room.

Cattrell inspected the bedrooms, pulled away furniture from the walls. A small bottle of Chanel No. 5 slipped from a small table and rolled onto the carpet, spilling out it’s golden perfume.

The master bedroom contained a lighted mirror towering over numerous make-up kits, and hairpieces and beauty products. They entered the master bedroom walk-in closet. In the close quarters, he could smell a light jasmine fragrance emanating from Cassandra. But there was not the smell of aluminum and rubber anywhere in the house. An antique fortune-teller machine stood in one of the smaller bedrooms, but the mannequin inside was not the droid he was looking for.

The droid was nowhere to be found.

“I don’t have anything hidden here,” Cassandra pleaded.

“I’m looking for the truth.”

Cassandra was silent. Cattrell traced the contours of her nose and face with his eyes. Something was different. There was a loss of … symmetry in her face. She caught him staring and mistook it for anger.

“Please, I’ll tell you. Come with me and let me gather my thoughts, first.” Cassandra returned to the sitting room, taking a seat on the Victorian sofa. Cattrell stood beside her. She avoided his eyes.

Cassandra kneeled and touched the pendulum. It began to slice through the sand. She studied it, as it made boxy arcs, not unlike the shape of a doorway.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Cattrell sat on the arm of a chair.

“For the last few decades, there was a man that I was with. He taught me everything about what it means to love and be loved. But I was never in love with him.” She stood up. “He always treated me with such tenderness, and respect.”

“Until?”

“Until the day I said no to him. He changed -- he forced himself upon me.” Cassandra’s eyelids grew smaller, as if she would cry. But no tear ever came.

“So you ran away.”

She nodded quickly.

“And faked your death?”

She finally made eye contact with him.

“Is Cassandra your real name?”

She shook her head. “What are you going to do with me?”

Cattrell averted his eyes. A slight blush escaped his cheeks and traveled down the sides of his neck. He thought of the failed search, his ransacking of her home. The violation. And that fucking Boone.

Cassandra kneeled again and tapped the pendulum. It swept away the designs before and made a simple arc, left to right, then right to left.

Cattrell eyed her, and peered back at the pendulum’s swing. The only image in the sand was a flat line. From left to right. Then right to left. Then left to right…

Cattrell looked up.

Cassandra wasn’t there.

He heard a pit-patter outside, which brought him to his feet. Rushing to the door, he walked out into the night air.

From every direction the smoky tendrils of fog greeted him, along with the eternal sound of silence.

Read from the beginning:
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen

Read the next chapter:
Part Sixteen

"The Girl and the Pendulum" is an 18-part future-noir science fiction story about a a private investigator's search for a missing android. How can a man who searches for missing women find lost artificial intelligence? I welcome feedback on this story about a man and his difficult case in a post-war, post collapse world. Stay tuned, as I also will begin publishing my 300,000 word epic novel "The Messiah" on Steemit in 2017.

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