Chapter Six
Six
I haven’t finished a song since Harper died. Haven’t played or sang more than three times, either. I started writing years before we met in eighth grade, but for four years, she was my partner. Now that she’s gone, it’s like the music is gone. None of the pieces fit together the way they used to.
That hasn’t stopped the itch in my fingers or the flurry of lyrics and notes, which means a lot of nights like this one, hunched over a notebook full of partially finished songs.
The words on the page are blurry fragments sticking together, disordered; trying to force them out is only making my head throb. With a huff of frustration, I toss the pen to the floor, rip the page from the notebook on my lap, crumple it into a ball, and toss it over my shoulder.
Something crackles behind me. I push to my feet, reaching to the side to shut the window on impulse; the wind is stronger here than back home and this wouldn’t be the first time it has sent papers off my desk.
My fingers hit the closed window before my eyes do. Pain sparks in my fingertips, and I wrench my hand back with a curse.
I twist, heart beating like a kick drum, stomach in my throat, and find the sheet of lyrics I crumpled up and threw on the ground spread open on the wood like it was coaxed with a feather’s tip.
A bed creaks across the hall in Margot’s room. Margot.
I step out of my bedroom and into the dark hall, leaning into Margot’s cracked door and nudging it open.
With half-maroon, half-white walls split by gold trim, it is in no way Margot’s style, and the scrunched look on her face when Aunt Paige showed her to her room was incredibly satisfying.
My sister sits cross-legged atop a thick duvet that matches the walls, a novel propped on her lap.
She lowers it so the cover isn’t visible at my entrance, but I don’t need to see it.
She refuses to admit it, but she’s been on a romance-book kick for the last year.
I’d wager my meager bookstore paycheck that the cover has at least one muscular man on it.
Her eyes are hesitant as they meet mine.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She probably means for it to come off as snarky, but there’s a softness riding under her words.
“What are you reading?” I ask. My voice sounds wrong, too. I lean against the doorframe, folding my arms over my chest.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “A book.”
“I figured.”
Margot licks her lips. Dog-ears her page and closes the book, setting it beside her, front cover down.
“Did you need something?” The sourness in her words needles me. And I can’t say I don’t deserve it, even if it does sting.
“Were you in my room just now?” I ask.
All at once, her false confidence turns to real irritation. Her lips turn down, her body stiffens. “If I was in your room, wouldn’t you have seen me?” she asks.
I press my lips together. “Someone messed with my—”
“Well, I didn’t.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, I think I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. The damn walls are always creaking or sighing.”
Margot watches me. Her mouth opens, but it’s like she decides against whatever she planned to say, because she shifts her weight back and reaches for her book.
It’s a clear end of conversation.
And as much as I want to be hurt by the withdrawal, as much as I want to push, Margot isn’t the one who created the divide between us. She spent months stretching her hand out to me. I can’t be surprised she’s finally pulled it back. Now we’re strangers sharing a bathroom.
The only one to blame is me.
“You should get some sleep, too. It’s late,” I say.
“Pot and kettle,” she says. “I can hear you chattering at all hours through the vents.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Thin walls, Jo. I can hear you.”
Unease rushes like cool saline through my limbs. Even the volume on my laptop shouldn’t be loud enough to filter through the walls or vents.
“Go to bed, Margot.”
Margot snorts. “Thanks, Mom.” With that, she’s cracking the book back open. Her eyes don’t move, though; she’s staring at the pages, jaw clenched.
I turn back to the hall. The light from our rooms stripes the bookshelves of the landing in yellow.
Before my eyes start to play tricks on me, I duck back into my room and pull a change of clothes from the bottom dresser drawer. I keep my gaze locked on the ground until I’m safely inside the bathroom.
Margot’s door is shut when I exit the bathroom with a cloud of fog, and her lights are out. The house sits in a thick, heavy silence, and I swear each footstep creaks louder than usual.
My bedroom may be on the creepy side, with wallpaper that should have died with the last century, but the warmth of the floor lamp in the corner is like a safety blanket.
Until the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
On the dresser, the wrinkled page of lyrics sits beside my pen. The page and pen I had left on the bed.
The four steps from the door to the dresser feel like ten miles. Atop the faded wood, the first verse and pre-chorus have been filled in.
In every quiet room I hear echoes of you
And search for phantoms in vain
I’ve no clue how to breathe again
How to let the sun return after the rain
And I’ve built these walls so high
With bloody hands, brick by brick
Forgetting that up above, all along,
there’s been a sky
Half the words and handwriting aren’t mine. Slanted, unsteady chicken scratch that doesn’t match Margot’s pristine scrawl. Harper, though, had notoriously horrible handwriting.
The sharp, hot pain I put so much effort into keeping at bay slams into my chest, a tidal wave against a sandbag. I snatch the paper off the dresser and rip it to shreds, not looking at it until it’s in twenty pieces, the ink indecipherable.
Only when I’m done do I wonder if the words were ever there at all.
I pile up the tiny scraps and toss them in the trash, keeping my gaze off the little spots of black ink I can see.
A delicate sigh fills the room. Paige would say it’s a ghost. My mom would say it’s the old house settling.
I’m not sure what I would say.
I look up and for a second I think I see a face reflected in the window.
I whip my head around, and the room is empty. But it doesn’t feel that way. It’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, out of reach. A presence too intangible to land on.
“Harper?” I whisper, as if I’ll actually get a response, cursing myself even as I say her name.
Of course, nothing. I’m both disappointed and relieved. Even more grateful the whole house is asleep, so no one heard my little lapse in judgment.
I don’t want to find Harper. I’ve lived with this weight on my chest for months. The only thing worse than losing her would be knowing she’s still here, trapped in some limbo.
The same limbo I’m stuck in. Day in, day out. Maybe there is some ghost haunting this house, but it isn’t some century-old resident, not even Harper.
It’s me.