Women In The Night

Late Night Tea

Opal was having a hard time sleeping.

The bed was comfortable, and it was nice to spread out again, instead of getting all tangled up with Dean. They’d only shared a bed a couple of times, and Opal found it strangely familiar, like all the sleepovers they’d had as kids.

Dean was in the room beside her, and Opal felt far too restless. Deciding to see if her friend was also up, Opal got out of bed and threw on her house robe, one of the few possessions she’d refused to let go and instead packed it in her overnight bag. It was comfortable, and it always made Opal feel at home whenever she wore it, no matter where she was.

She also threw on her slippers and slipped out of her room. She quietly knocked on Dean’s door, and when she got no reply, gently opened it.

“Dean?” She whispered. However, Opal was greeted with a light snore and she sighed, stepping back out of the room and shutting the door.

As comfortable as her bed was, with its old quilts and fluffy pillows, Opal didn’t really want to go back to it. She knew that it was just one of those nights where she would slip in and out of consciousness and feel like she hadn’t slept a wink.

Instead, Opal decided to wander around the absolutely gorgeous house that she found herself in.

She didn’t mean to snoop, but everywhere she looked, there were knick knacks and charms of all kinds shining in the moonlight, and she just knew that every single one of them had a story behind them. Where did the gold-coloured statue of a praying Buddha come from? Was the painting of a lighthouse in a storm that smelled vaguely of the sea a gift, a blessing of some kind?

The house had a couple of vintage lamps in the hallways, the stained-glass kind that reminded Opal of a couple of old restaurants back home, the glass somehow greasier than the pizza on her plate. But the professor’s lamps were impeccably clean – the whole house was clean, cluttered in a way that felt organized but comfortable. The soft lamps and moonlight lit the third-floor hallway in a soft way that made it almost feel like a dream, especially with the green and gold wallpaper and odd bits and bobs all around. Opal had found it odd that the lamps were left on all throughout the night, but Dean had explained that most hunters slept with a kind of nightlight, as they knew exactly what lingered in the dark.

Opal made her way into the third and final room on the top floor, the game room.

The professor had explained that in Mark Twain’s house, the room;’ had been the billiards room as well where Mark wrote some of his most famous stories, like Tom Sawyer. However, Professor Quinn had changed it a little bit; there was still a billiards table, but there was also a pinball game as well as an arcade machine that held about 600 games. On a wooden shelf that held runestones, old scrolls, and an incredibly ornate Chinese vase, was also a VR headset. It was kind of strange, to see the sleek white headset alongside all of the old, time-stained paper.

In the far corner of the room, between two doors leading to the wrap-around balcony and surrounded by shelves filled with books, was a writing desk.

I won’t snoop, Opal promised herself as she made her way over, pulling the metal chain on the lamp to turn it on. In all honesty, she just wanted to see what the professor was working on. If it was anything remotely personal like a diary or a memoir, she would leave it alone.

To her delight, the writing desk seemed to be filled with notes, and in the centre was a three-ringed notebook. Opal picked up a loose sheet of paper, noting a strange pencil sketch of a deer with sharp teeth, standing on its hind legs, its snarl reaching almost to its neck.

“The not-deer,” Opal read out loud, “Hm. Interesting, never heard of that one.”

She sat down at the chair, the contours in the cushions unfamiliar to her shape. It was clear that Quinn spent a lot of time here and there were notes scribbled everywhere. As she picked up a piece of paper, she noticed a couple of pictures on the shelves near the desk. Most of them seemed to be of Quinn and Amador, but there were a few of Dean as well. One that caught her eye was a young Dean – couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen – holding a shotgun in one hand and a wrecked pop can in the other, clearly having shot it herself. She was grinning at the camera, looking rather proud of her aim. Opal chuckled before turning back to the desk.

She began perusing the notes, reading all about this cryptid called the not-deer. The research seemed to suggest that they had only started appearing within the last decade or so, and only in North America, despite the fact that deer existed all over the world. They didn’t have very many defining characteristics, mostly just things that looked like deer and by all means should be deer, but simply…weren’t. Something about them was wrong, like too-big mouths, eyes that were placed too far to the front, unnatural limbs. It certainly seemed interesting.

Suddenly, the overhead light for the room turned on and Opal jumped, whipping around in the chair to see Quinn standing in the doorway, his hand on the lightswitch.

“P-professor,” Opal stuttered as she dropped the pages she’d been reading and stood up, “I’m sorry, I was just curious about the notes. I wasn’t snooping.”

Quinn sighed and entered the room, wearing a Queen’s University sweater and plaid pyjama pants, his glasses perched on his nose. As he approached, Opal shrunk in on herself and stepped aside, allowing Quinn to look over his notes.

“Well,” he asked after a moment, “what did you think?”

“Excuse me?”

“About my research. You’ve been reading it,what did you think?”

“Oh.” Opal looked at the notes, “I uh, I haven’t been reading for very long. But…I’ve never heard of the not-deer. It’s very interesting.”

Quinn hummed as he moved some notes, picking up one of the pages that Opal had been reading, “Yes, the subject for my next research project is modern legends and cryptids. It originally began as a sort of curiosity – the phenomenon of the sasquatch, Mothman, Jersey Devil. And now, most recently, the not-deer.”

“So are those cryptids real?” Opal asked, curiosity eating away at her.

“I’m still trying to figure that out. I don’t believe they are, but the fact remains that there are so many witness reports about them, even in a casual context, that they’re hard to ignore. I have a theory, but it’s frustrating to put into words.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Quinn sighed through his nose, reaching up to rub his eyes behind his glasses, “It’s the idea that the more power an idea has, and the more people believe in it, the more it comes to be.”

“Like manifestation,” Opal suggested, “You think about it so hard, put it out there into the universe enough, and the universe responds.”

“Yes! Well, not quite that, but definitely along those lines.” Quinn turned to Opal with a quizzical sort of look, “Interesting idea.”

“Oh, well,um, thanks. I can’t really take credit for it, though. It’s a pretty popular idea with the New-Age wave, to think something into existence.”

“That actually may be a large part of it – the New-Age wave. Something similar happened in the seventies with occult activity, but now it’s just transferred itself to internet and local legends. It’s an interesting notion.”

Opal hummed in agreement. She was just about to say that she was going to go back to bed, when Quinn sighed again and turned to her, his weary eyes boring into her.

“What are you doing here, Opal?”

“I was just looking around. I couldn’t sleep, a-and you have such a lovely house so –”

“No, no,” Quinn said with a shake of his head, “I don’t mean here here, I mean why are you travelling with Celeste?”

“Oh. That.” Opal chuckled nervously as she pushed some of her hair back from her face, absently trying to shape her thick curls, “I’ve been getting that question a lot lately, and I haven’t really been able to be honest about it much.”

“Well then, let’s have an honest chat. I’m in the mood for tea, anyways.” Quinn then began to lead Opal down two flights of stairs to the kitchen in silence. He gestured for her to sit at the table while he made the tea, and she did. It wasn’t long before she had a warm mug in her hands, Quinn sitting across from her.

“So,” he said, his glasses reflecting the moonlight, “why are you doing this?”

Opal sighed and took a sip of the jasmine tea before beginning, “I hated my old life. I know it seems like something that people would love – a cushy job in a big city, great apartment, friends and coworkers that I really liked. But it was just…it was just so dull!” Opal stirred her tea, watching the ripples in the water, “I read a lot of fantasy books and stuff growing up, and I kept expecting to get whisked away to some magical world and go on some quest. And when everything happened with Dean, I kept expecting her to come back and for us to reunite and go on this epic journey in a sorta coming-of-age movie way. But that just…never happened. I went to university. My parents died. I moved out. Got a job. I…I grew up, y’know?” Opal sighed again and leaned her head on palm, “I knew that this was what my life was going to be, and I kept trying to accept that I would never get a letter from a magic school or find out one of my parents was secretly a god or something. I would go on vacations or try new things to make myself feel like life was still exciting, but it never matched up to what I wanted it to be. Even the witchy stuff I got into felt mundane. So when Dean blew back into my life and introduced monsters and real, actual magic, I couldn’t just let it go. It was obvious, to quit my job and follow Dean. It was everything a younger me had dreamed of, and I guess I never stopped dreaming it.” Opal chuckled a bit, and she looked up at Quinn. She was kind of expecting a little smile, because it was a little funny, but instead his gaze was cold and calculating.

Now I know where Dean gets it from.

“So you quit a safe, perfectly fine life, because you were bored?” Quinn accused, “Opal, do you have any idea how many hunters would trade just about anything in the world to have the life that you just gave up? Because you were going through a quarter-life crisis?!”

“I wasn’t just bored!” Opal defended. Then she remembered that Dean was sleeping and lowered her voice, “Look, I know that I had a privileged life and that it’s something that a lot of people want, but I absolutely hated it, and I despised it more every single day. So like, yeah, I know that it was a good life, but it wasn’t good for me.”

“So the alternative is to throw yourself into a dangerous career where you’re constantly surrounded by death and literal monsters?”

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if I had the stomach for it, but I don’t care. Compared to the monotony of my old life, I’d take a bloodthirsty werewolf any day. And I mean that wholeheartedly.”

Quinn scoffed and leaned back in his chair, peering over the top of his mug decorated with Egyptian hieroglyphics, “You realize how insane that is, yeah?”

“Yeah, I do. Everyone back in Toronto kept telling me how crazy I was, that it was a terrible idea and I’d regret it in a couple of years.” Opal shrugged, “Maybe I will, but I think I’d regret not doing it more, especially since I get to help out one of my best friends.”

“With all due respect, you barely know Celeste. You were friends when you were ten, but you’re both adults, and haven’t seen each other in fifteen years. I’ve seen Lettie grow up, and I know how much she’s changed.”

“I do too. Well, I kind of do, or I guess that –” Opal shook her head and cut herself off before sitting up straight in her chair. Opal was tired, and as much as she wanted the professor to like her, she didn’t really have the energy to deal with his needling, “Dean was my best friend growing up, she was like a sister to me, so when she disappeared, my heart broke. I always wondered what happened, and sometimes the ‘what ifs’ kept me up at night. So yeah, when she came back and literally saved my life, I wasn’t going to let her go again, especially since she needed help, help that I could give.” Opal finally met Quinn’s eyes, fixing him with a stare of her own, “I hated my life and I can’t imagine myself ever wanting to go back again, but the fact of the matter is that my best friend is back, and we can play catch-up for the past fifteen years that were stolen from us on our terms. And if we kill a monster or two along the way, even better.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and Opal found herself refusing to back down. She wasn’t nearly as stubborn as Dean, but something about this man that he wasn’t either.

Finally, he chuckled and lifted his mug, “Now that, I can appreciate.” He took a long drink from his mug, and Opal blinked as his words settled in.

“So…you…you don’t hate me?”

“No, not at all,” Quinn assured, “I apologize if I was a little harsh, but as I’m sure you guessed, I’m rather protective of my little Lettie. She’s like a daughter to me, so you can understand how concerning it is when she picks up someone from her old life and drags them into our world. It’s not a choice most people make willingly.”

Opal nodded, “Yeah, Dean told me that pretty much every hunter has someone that died that got them into hunting. It’s not exactly a great lifestyle.”

“Absolutely not. It’s why I refuse to refer to myself as a hunter. I certainly don’t mind being a part of the community, and I’ve hunted here and there, but I don’t like the idea of travelling all the time, looking for the next hunt. I worked hard for my house and my career, and I’m not the only one.” Quinn sighed and looked out the window, though with the light inside, they could only see their reflections, “I’ve known too many people who had safe, normal lives that they worked hard for, ruined by a creature of the night. They just…throw it all away in some desperate bid for revenge, and they chase that anger all their lives. Most of the time, it destroys them in the process. I was worried you might be something like that, chasing after a pipe dream. It’s good to see you grounded. Lettie needs someone like that.”

“Thanks,” Opal said, sipping her tea. As she did, a thought came to her, “Hey um, is Daisy…I mean was she one of those people? Chasing a pipe dream based on revenge?”

Quinn set his mug down and looked around, as if checking for someone else, but Dean was still asleep, and the three of them were the only ones in the house. Then he took a breath.

“Yes. I don’t like talking about this, especially in front of Lettie, but Daisy is a dangerous woman. She’s an exceptional hunter, don’t get me wrong, but she often takes risky decisions that get people hurt or killed. It’s why she doesn’t often hunt with Lettie, and why she spent so much time here growing up. The worst part is that Daisy had everything – the house, husband, the kid and friends. I didn’t know her much before she married, but I do know that she came from a family of hunters. We were happy for her, and so disappointed when she came back, even more so now that she was dragging her daughter along. Daisy doesn’t even know for sure who or even what killed her husband, let alone where to begin. She’s chasing a shadow, and it’s hurting Lettie. Especially this wild goose chase.”

“I knew her when we were kids,” Opal admitted, “but only as well as you know your friends’ parents, y’know? But she was always nice, drove us to soccer games and bought us ice cream. I know she’s changed, but I can’t imagine it, especially compared to all of the good memories we have of her.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening. Speaking of…” Quinn looked at the clock above the stove and shook his head, “it’s nearly four in the morning. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you, we should both be going to bed.”

“Oh gosh, yeah,” Opal realized, getting up and feeling a wave of sleepiness wash over her, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what time it was.”

“No no, don’t apologize. I know how hard it can be to fall asleep. C’mon, let’s get back to bed.”

Quinn led Opal back upstairs, but he stopped at the master bedroom on the second floor.

“Sorry for being so hard on you before,” Quinn offered with a smile, “but I’m glad we had this chat.”

Opal returned the smile, “Yeah, me too, Professor. Goodnight.”

He nodded before heading into his room, and Opal ascended the stairs. By the time she got back beneath the mound of soft covers, Opal felt a sense of ease wash over her as, gently lulling her to sleep.