CHAPTER NINETEEN
The family sits in the dining room, speechless. I sit in between the children while Josephine and Etienne sits across from us. Henri stands in front of the door leading to the parlor, as though to protect the charred remnants of Marcel’s piano in case Amelia decides to make a second attempt at destroying the sheet music.
No one is cleaning up the parlor. The splintered coffee table remains exactly where it was when Claude Durand crushed it in his death throes. Now Marcel Lacroix’s piano is a half-charred centerpiece, covered in foam, Vie Apres a la Mort still resting on the burnt sheet music stand.
Amelia hasn’t stopped crying since seeing the undamaged music. I keep my arm around her while she weeps, but like the rest of them, I say nothing.
“Where were you, Mary?” Etienne asks.
“I was in my room,” I reply. “I cleaned trash from the yard, then went upstairs to shower. I came downstairs when I smelled the smoke.”
“Where were you , Etienne?” Josephine asks. “They’re your children. You’re so concerned I’m going senile, but instead of caring for them yourself, you hire a stranger? Don’t try to take the moral high ground here. This wasn’t Mary’s fault.”
I don’t respond to that. It was Josephine who hired me, not Etienne, but perhaps she did so at his insistence. As for the rest, I can’t quite blame myself for Amelia’s choice to set fire to the sheet music while it was still on the piano, but I suppose I can’t quite absolve myself from blame. The children have proven themselves unreliable. I suppose I just didn’t consider how far they could take things.
I can’t quite blame Amelia either. She’s in the middle of the worst crisis of a very young life and doesn’t know how to react. I can help, but I’ve only just arrived. And I was about to leave. I don’t know if I can anymore. If I hadn’t come downstairs when I did, they might have lost the house, and Amelia might have lost her life. Neither Etienne nor Josephine is in any shape to care for the children, and I can’t bring myself to abandon them now that I understand how dangerous their grief is.
Only Gabriel seems unaffected, but of course, he seems that way precisely because he’s affected. He doesn’t seem upset at all that the piano is likely ruined beyond repair. He’s dissociated so much from reality that he probably won’t even realize what’s happening until much later.
I wish I had a place to take the children. They’re not safe here. I may have to try to have them removed. If I can, which considering my lapse in judgment yesterday is probably not likely.
Good God, was that only one day ago? This is ridiculous. So much has happened so fast. No wonder the children are reacting so poorly.
Etienne sighs and rubs his eyes. “Amelia, why did you burn the music on top of the piano? Why not take it outside?”
“I didn’t want to touch it,” she admits in a small voice. “I was afraid it would hurt me.”
He chuckles, more in exhaustion than anger. “How could it hurt you? It’s a piece of paper.”
“You destroy it then,” she said.
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
“Exactly. You can’t.”
“I can , but if I do , then I’m admitting that there’s something supernatural going on here.”
Which he did only a couple of hours ago to me.
“You don’t?” Amelia challenges. “What do you think is going on?”
He sighs. “I think we’re all doing an utterly terrible job of handling grief. Me included. Yes, I’ll admit, I had some thoughts that stretched logic, but I never acted on them. I knew that my mind was lying to me. But this… this could have killed us all.” He shakes his head. “If I give in and tear those notes up, I’m validating dangerously poor behavior from all of us. I won’t do that.”
“You see?” Amelia cries. “It’s manipulating you. It’s trying to keep itself alive so it can keep hurting us.”
“The only person hurting anyone is you,” Etienne counters. “You nearly burned us all alive.”
Finally, I speak up. “Perhaps it’s best we all take some time away from this house. We’ll gain nothing at each other’s throats.”
Etienne sighs. “Right. You’re right. Sorry. I just…” He chuckles and lifts his hands, then lets them drop.
Amelia turns to me, pleading. “Can you destroy it, Mary? Please?”
I blink, and my back stiffens with a fear I don’t entirely understand. “I…”
I am saved from having to give an answer when Josephine’s phone rings. She frowns and mutters, “Why would Audrey want to call me?”
She answers, and I watch her face go from irritation to shock to wooden blankness within a few seconds. She says nothing for a while, and then when she does speak, it's only one-word acknowledgments. "I see. Yes. Of course. Thank you."
Then she says, “Of course. We’ll help with the arrangements in any way we can.”
Etienne sits bolt upright. The children flinch, and even Gabriel appears concerned. Josephine is as straight and stiff and fragile as crystal. Eventually, she says, “Thank you. Please call me if you need anything,” and hangs up.
She drops her head into her hands, grabs a fistful of hair and squeezes until the knuckles turn white. The rest of us watch her warily. Amelia is the one to finally break the silence. “What’s wrong, Grandma?”
Josephine sits up and begins to chew on the nails of her right hand, her left still gripping her hair. The effect is frightening. She looks like a madwoman.
“Grandma?” Amelia begins again, her lips trembling.
“God,” Josephine breathes, dropping both hands to the table.
I stand and put my hands on the children’s shoulders. “Gabriel, Amelia, come with me. We’ve put school aside long enough. It’s time we returned to our lessons.”
I’m not really concerned that they’ll fall behind academically, but getting them back into a normal routine might be the best weapon I have against the growing mania affecting this family.
Once more, my best-laid plans are not to be.
“Forget about school, Mary,” Josephine says. “We have another funeral to plan.”
I shake my head, cautioning her not to speak of this in front of the children. She doesn’t get the hint.
“Audrey Durand was found dead in her apartment this morning.”
“What?” Amelia cries.
“How?” Gabriel asks. “What happened?”
It’s a testament to my own fragile mental state that my first reaction to Gabriel’s concern is relief that he shows any. Reason asserts itself, though, and anticipating the worst, I reply before Josephine can, “Now is not the time for that conversation. Children, we must let your father and grandmother talk. I’m sure they’ll answer whatever questions you have when they’re ready, but this is not a time for children. Come upstairs.”
“It’s the music!” Amelia says. “It’s that damned composition!”
“Watch your language!”
“ Fuck my language! That thing is going to kill all of us unless we kill it !”
“No music killed Audrey,” Josephine snaps. “She killed herself. She cut her wrists in the bathtub.”
“Josephine, that is enough!” I cry.
The thunder in my voice shocks everyone at the table. Josephine and Etienne stare at me in shock. The children are also shocked, but I’m sure it’s the news of Audrey’s manner of death that shocks them more than my rebuke of their grandmother.
“Children, go upstairs,” I command. “Now.”
Amelia stands up so abruptly that her chair clatters to the floor. Tears streaming from her face, she brushes past Henri. Henri follows two steps to make sure she doesn’t run into the parlor, but she heads straight for the steps. He turns around and meets my eyes, and I see naked despair in his. I know less about him than anyone in this household, but I can only imagine how hard it is for him to watch a family he’s known for decades fall apart in front of him.
Gabriel carefully puts Amelia’s chair back where it belongs before leaving. The numb expression he’s worn for the past several days is replaced with a look of concern and worry that is far too mature to belong on the face of a twelve-year-old. When he leaves the dining room, Henri squeezes his shoulder, and Gabriel brushes his hand over his.
Henri looks at his employers, both of whom sit wearing pouts that would look far more appropriate on the faces of the two young people who just left the room. A sigh of disgust escapes his list, and then he says, “I’ll clean the parlor, ma’am.”
I half-expect Josephine and Etienne to stop him, but they offer no objection as he steps out of the room and closes the door.
When it's only us inside, I face the two of them with my hands on my hips and say, "The two of you need to get over yourselves now. I understand how difficult these circumstances are for both of you, but you're grown adults, and you need to act like it. Those children are on the verge of lifelong trauma. I've only just arrived. There's only so much I can do to protect them. You're their father and grandmother. You need to stop behaving like spoiled children, angry that Daddy isn't here to make everything better. The truth is that we are all three of us responsible for Amelia's actions today, but I feel no guilt saying that the greater fault lies with you two. They are your priority now. Focus on them . Not your club, not your fear, not your anger, your children . If you can’t do that right now, then you need to let me take them somewhere else until you can.”
Etienne shifts in his seat. “That won’t be necessary, Mary. You’re right. We’ve behaved very poorly lately, and I’m sorry for the impact that’s had on the children. But we’ll compose ourselves. We can’t break the family up. If we do that, we won’t get back together.” He shifts again. “I apologize for our earlier conversation as well. I know I said some things that were very shocking and concerning. I spoke out of turn, and what I said isn’t really how I feel.”
Josephine frowns and narrows her eyes, but she doesn’t address Etienne’s admission. She only says to me, “I’ll keep the worst of my feelings to myself, Mary. But I’ve just lost my manager and his wife within a few days, and a part of me wonders if foul play isn’t involved.”
“Mother—” Etienne warns.
“Oh, hush. She was going to find out eventually.”
I tilt my head. “Foul play?”
“Of course. Audrey didn’t love Claude. What you saw at the funeral was only a show. She had no reason to kill herself now that she’s been handed the life she’s always wanted: money to spare and no one’s feelings to consider but her own.”
Etienne sighs and rubs his temples. “Perhaps you should go tend to the children, Mary.”
“If you suspect foul play,” I reply, “you should call the police.”
“Who do you think I was on the phone with just now?” she replies. “Etienne’s right. Go take care of the children. As you said so eloquently, we must clean up our own messes.”
I leave the dining room, shocked off of my temporary perch of self-righteousness. Audrey murdered? But why? The only people who might have a reason to want her dead are the Lacroixs. And if they’re not responsible, then who is?
I look into the parlor and see Henri pick up the cursed sheet music and toss it into a garbage bag. He meets my eyes, and an unspoken understanding passes between us. There is no curse here. No music is responsible for the pain this family suffers. That is entirely the result of human actions and accidents of fate.
Knowing that only makes me more afraid of what’s to come.