Homecoming
Gotham City Outskirts, The Zatara Estate
10:35 AM
The Zatara estate was small compared to many of the manors and mansions the dotted the upper-class suburbs of outer Gotham. An odd conglomerate of a church and a castle built in the Gothic Revival tradition, like a piece of medieval Europe dropped right in the middle of coastal Jersey. Looking at it through the tinted car window Zatanna felt approximately 23 separate emotions and she didn't like any of them.
Reflexively she began to fish around in her purse pulling out a breath mint wrapped in a saccharine yellow wrapper. A short crescendo of crinkles was followed by a burst of peppermint hitting her tongue. Crumbling the wrapper and tossing it aside Zatanna sighed, it wasn't a cigarette but it was going to have to do. She tightened her hands into little balls fighting the urge to check her phone. She promised herself there would be no work calls. Her adoring fans could deal without the Mistress of Magic for a few days.
The car slowed to a lurch as it came to the top of the hill. She took a moment to realign herself as the chauffeur exited the vehicle and walked towards her door. One deep breath and then another. She eyed her reflection in the mirror. The anxious girl returning home wasn't there in her place was Zatanna Zatara badass bitch: confident, cool, and collected. Turns out a career on the stage was good for something - you got real damn at putting masks on.
The door opened and she stepped out easily into the fresh mid-morning air. Her thigh-high combat boots crunching against the gravel of the driveway. Despite the cloudless day and the sun shining above she had to repress a shiver as she marched toward towards the lard wooden doors of the estate. The house looming above her like a giant eyeing up its prey.
Waiting at the door for her was another giant. Dressed in a simple white ao dai was a hulking titan of a man, large shoulders drew back in perfect posture, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Despite his imposing physicality, there was a softness to his features and his eyes seemed to brighten as he saw Zatanna walking down the path to meet him.
"Still hanging around here Mister Tong?" Zatanna called out to the large man, her facade breaking for a moment as a genuine smile danced across her features.
Her father's former bodyguard and butler return the smile and gave a deep bow. "With all due respect young miss this is my home. Where else would I go?"
"Young Miss?" Zatanna questioned with a raised brow and a curtsey, "I'm not the young girl who played hide and seek with you in the garden Mister Tong"
"No of course not," Tong admitted with a grin. "But you are still far younger than old Tong and as long as that remains true, I shall still refer to you as the young miss."
Zatanna rolled her eyes but the smile remained on her face. As her boots clacked against the stone steps. Tong pushed open the large wooden doors ushering her forward. The grin that had slowly been growing on Zatanna's face died where it stood. She froze there for a minute on the threshold. Unable to move her foot beyond the door, time frozen, the pulse of her heart strong enough to feel in her hands. She bit down hard into the peppermint candy in her mouth, the burst of peppermint as shards of white and red coated her tongue was just enough to force to get her through the door.
Zatanna wasn't sure if it was possibly how it was possible but in her 27 years, she wasn't sure that the house changed. Caught in some unspecified stasis that held every coat and book within its grasp. The same pair of mud-covered boots sat by the door and the same book on the semantic evolution of Swedish sat on the table in the foyer. It had the unnerving and unpleasant effect for Zatanna of immediate drawing her back in time, a time machine composed of old artifacts and perpetual cobwebs.
The pair walked quietly through the halls, the wooden floorboards creaking ever so slightly in protest against Tong's weight. A slow procession passed a seemingly endless array of bookshelves, display cases, and portraits.
"Were you with him when...." Zatanna spoke allowed her whispering tones echoing like a scream in the quiet of the house.
"No," Tong admitted with great pain, "when your father retired for the evening all seemed fine. I did not find him until the morning."
"I see..." Zatanna spoke the words heavy and clumsy coming out of her mouth.
"My deepest apologies young -" Tong started
"No, no" Zatanna answered quickly "it's fine. I was just wondering that was all."
By this time their meandering path brought them to the drawing room. The door was already ajar and the warm glow of light spilling through the crack. Giving one last nod and look to Tong she stepped into the room.ought
There in the center of the room were two chairs and a table. Sitting at one of those chairs was a man dressed in a sharp suit and wearing a trilby hat, his eyes concealed by the shadows of the room as he shuffled through a stack of papers. There next to him sitting on the table was a large bronze urn and one of her father's old antique gas lamps, the flame flickering as it illuminated the space around them. At the sound of Zatanna footsteps, the man in the chair looked up and smiled.
"Ms. Zatara, it is my pleasure to finally meet you." The man said with raising from his chair and offering a hand.
"Just, just Zatanna please" Zatanna insisted as she took the hand. It was cold to the touch the handshake itself was firm.
"Zatanna it is," The man responded with a knowing smile "allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mr. Granters I am the executor of your father's estate."
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Granters," Zatanna replied giving the man the same polite smile that any reporter or fan knew from her quite well. Granters motioned towards the seat and Zatanna nodded sitting across from him. Though as she did her eyes couldn't help but fall to the large urn sitting on the table. A pit in her stomach growing larger and larger the more she examined it.
"Is that...?"
"Indeed," Granters replied with the removed sympathy of a man that did this often "I'm sorry that you weren't able to be there. He was very particular in his will that immediately upon death he was the cremated post-haste. To prevent any "nefarious"" forces from having their way with his corpse."
"That sounds like him," Zatanna admitted with a trace of venom in her voice. She looked over to Mr. Granters as she reached over to touch the urn. The man nodding his head and making a small gesture towards it.
Zatanna took the urn in her hands. The metal exterior was cold and was surprisingly heavy for what it was. Though it wasn’t like Zatanna had much of a metric to judge on, this was the first time she was holding something like this. She reached her fingers against the raised engraving, a repeating pattern of stars and moons that ran across the entire exterior
“Zatanna” Granters started stirring the women from her contemplation.
“Yes?” Zatanna asked as she placed the urn back on the table. Granters now had gathered the collected papers from his lap into his hands and was peering them over.
“It’s time to go over the estate,” Granters explained begining to read aloud her father’s will.
Most of the explanation of the will ended up falling on deaf ears. Zatanna was unable or unwilling to focus on the proceedings. Her attention being dragged away again and again towards where she had placed the urn on the table. The very sight of it making her stomach perform minor curls and flips. Somewhere in the middle she brought out another parcel peppermint and placed it in her mouth, trying her best to quell whatever anxiety was starting to build in her chest.
“There is one more thing,” Granters proclaimed as he cleared his throat and pulled the rest of the papers together “your father had left one more thing for you”
Granters rose from his chair and gestured for Zatanna to follow. Together they took a brisk pace through the house. Climbing up old protesting stairs and turning towards the left, the path they followed was one that Zatanna knew well. They stopped at an ornately carved wooden door, the letters G and Z burned into the wood. Her father’s study.
Zatanna turned to look at Granters who nodded his head. She reached for the handle and tested the door.
Well-oiled hinges swung open without protest. Stacks and stacks of bookshelves lined the walls filled and overflowing, the titles of the bindings in dozens of different languages. A menagerie of artifacts lined the walls: jewel-encrusted weapons, maps, and even the bones of some strange animals that defied explanation. There at the center of it all next to a large fireplace was a large desk and atop the desk was appeared to be a stack of books.
Zatanna looked towards Granters for confirmation but the executor was gone. Taken aback at this she looked down the hallway to her left and then to her right.
“Mr. Granters?” She called out her voice echoing down the hall to no response.
A thud from her father’s study made her address the room. The curtains about the center window fluttered like a breeze had just passed through despite the windows being closed. And there in the center of the room, a book had fallen off one of the shelves. Tentatively Zatanna stepped into the room with the tepidness of a child entering a haunted house.
The first thing that Zatanna noticed was the smell. It smelled like him, the air carrying the faint order of the cologne that he specifically had imported in from Italy. A lingering remnant somehow managing to cling on despite everything. She kneeled down to pick up the book that had fallen, the cover pulling away from the binding from use and age. The writing seemed to be in a language that Zatanna herself couldn’t read. A strange series of interlocking runes and twisted tentacles creating a series of indecipherable geometric patterns. She carried the book over to the desk placing it on the corner.
There on the desk was a large stack of leather-bound journals and atop of them was a white envelope with her name on it. The only thing inside was a folded piece of parchment. Looking once and twice around the room unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched Zatanna pulled out the parchment. And there was a letter written in her father’s hand.
La mia bella orchidea,
If you are reading this letter than I fear you are in grave danger
