This second visit had helped her recall every step, every thought and every memory of her first.
In those long moments of recollection as she stood in her doorway she was forced to realize that something was different. Someone had indeed been here.
Now, as she stood there taking in every inch of her room with her dancing red eyes she could see a few changes. Recent changes.
Only a few paces from where she stood was a bare spot looking to be longer than she is tall. The dust that had covered this area was swept to the side in a few parts and seemed to have been lifted in others. Almost like someone had sat there.
The bed. It looked like she had left it. Well, almost. She remembered getting up that one morning and something occurred to her. She walked to the bed, purposely avoiding the dustless area and began lifting every pillow and even feeling beneath them with her other hand. Nothing. She lifted the blankets and still nothing. She spun in a circle and plopped on the bed. Armor and weapons clanking in her graceless movement. Where was the letter?
In the hall she could hear the restless footsteps of her slave as he paced the hall. Loud then soft, then loud before going soft again. It echoed into her thoughts as she sat trying to figure out whether she was right or just going crazy.
"In Here! NOW!" Obediently he stepped into the doorway and walked to her. "Sit." Her pet's only response was the clatter of his bones against the floor.
Silence once again. Where was the letter? She began looking on her bed again and under it. The letter wasn't all that was missing. As she placed her had on the foot of her bed to lift her from the floor she realized her gown wasn't there. Where is it? She looked in her armoire. Nothing. She remembered tossing it to the bed just like she remembered leaving the letter near her pillows. So where were they? She even checked the drawer of the bureau she had found her letter in and all that remained was a outline of where it had been for so long.
Now as she looked at the bureau she was faced with the empty bottle of wine she distinctly remembered dropping on the floor. Something was going on and it was beginning to irritate her.
Her favorite gown was gone. The letter she had that Vladdik wrote also gone. But who would want such priceless things? And Why? Common thieves wouldn't want such things. Whoever took them knew their sentimental value.
The smell that lingered in the air was telling her who it was. But why was he here? He didn't know the significance of those items. Apokolipz never shown any interest in her or their past. So it couldn't have been him. Only one man knew what those items would mean but he was dead. Lost in the depths of a mind of a man unwilling to remember. There was no way Vladdik had been here. He was lost to her. Now, he only lived in the memories she and this house held.
Everything she smelled and everything she discovered meant that her senses hadn't been toying with her. Even though she had come to realize Vladdik was dead to her everything here said something completely different.
Apokolipz had been here.Why? How? How did he know of her old home. Her old gown? Why would he take the letter of a man he cared not to know?
"Stand, my pet." Came the purr of her voice.
He stood.
"The Apokolipz has been here..." She circled her minion a few times as her hand reached to the base of her pony tail to scratch it.
"...Vladdik shows him the way."