Chapter VIII #3
“I can’t leave him alone,” Evelyn said. “You don’t understand—”
“I don’t understand? I DON’T UNDERSTAND?”
“Bernadette, please—”
“I thought you said January first,” I said, and Evelyn looked at me, caught. “You told me January first.”
“She told you what?” Bernadette said, glaring at me. “You told her what? You were really going to go back? You want to go back?”
Evelyn ignored her and turned to me. “I know I told you January first, Winnie, but you don’t understand, I can’t sleep, he doesn’t have anybody, he shouldn’t be alone down there!”
“No wonder you fell in love with him; you’re both insufferable,” Bernadette said to Evelyn, pushing back from the table so abruptly that she knocked a taper candle over. It fell, harmlessly, toward the center of the table, extinguishing itself on the way down.
“I’m insufferable?” Evelyn said, her mouth tight, her eyebrows slanting dangerously downward.
“You’re insufferable and inconsiderate and you only think about yourself!”
“We should all try to remain calm,” Maybe said. “Did I not say that at the beginning of this? I need to add that to my introductions. Aggression, anger, negative emotions … They can all attract things we don’t want here.”
“The only thing I don’t want here is her,” Bernadette said, spitting her words at Evelyn.
“FINE,” Evelyn said, jumping to her feet, storming across the room, stomping her way downstairs.
“Can we talk to John Singer Sargent next?” Clara asked, as if she had not witnessed a single part of the last two minutes. “If nobody has anything else for Henry? No offense, Hen, I’ve just always wanted to talk to him.”
I had never once heard Clara call Henry Hen, but I found it not necessary to bring up at the moment.
Plus, Clara’s request had the added benefit of immediately removing all the tension from the room, which, knowing her, might have been her intention all along.
(Or, knowing her, she might have just actually wanted to speak to John Singer Sargent. It was a bit of a toss-up.)
“All right,” Maybe said. “I would guess everyone is thoroughly séance’d out. What do you say we close the portal?”
“Sure,” Bernadette said, falling back into her seat. “Fine. Whatever.”
“Henry, thank you very much for joining us,” Maybe said.
“Our safe space here, our portal, it will remain open to you, and you only. If you have anything further to tell us, you can send us a message however you are able. Tonight, we’ll all leave paper and pencils on our bedside tables. You are free to speak with us there.”
“Can he really do that?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Maybe said. “For anyone else who may be listening or watching, I now say goodbye to you. May you rest peacefully and easily.”
Maybe stood up and, one by one, blew out each of the candles on the table. Then she opened each of the windows. Then she turned to face us, pulled a business card out of her back pocket, tossed it on the table and said to me, “My Venmo’s on there. Walk me out?”
We packed up her tote bag and headed downstairs.
“Your family is something else,” she said.
“That’s a genuinely very kind way of putting it.”
“But cool. I like how you all just yell at each other and then get over it.”
Because a few moments ago, Bernadette and Evelyn had walked by, holding mugs of tea, talking about their feelings.
I heard Bernadette apologize for shouting at Evelyn.
I heard Evelyn apologize for trying to go through the doorway again without telling us.
I heard Clara (unrelated) listening to a YouTube video about John Singer Sargent, top volume, at the kitchen table.
It felt suddenly too hot in the house. I grabbed the closest jacket from a hook on the wall—an old wool Pendleton of my father’s—and slipped past Maybe, opening the door.
The night air was frigid. I hadn’t felt air that cold in a long time. Had it gotten this cold last winter? Had it ever gotten this cold before? Had it gotten this cold when Henry was alive, before global warming, before we’d burned a hole in the ozone layer (then, okay, mostly repaired it)?
Maybe followed me. Her breath came out in a misty, gray fog. She shut the door behind her and pulled her hood over her head.
“You can tell that something isn’t quite right out here,” she said quietly. “Where is the hole?”
“Above us,” I said, pointing.
She looked up, then nodded her head slowly, as if digesting all the information she’d learned in the past hour.
“Is there really a ghost?” she said finally, turning back to me.
“Henry,” I said. “He’s always been here.”
“Do you have any … proof?”
“What kind of proof?”
“Video evidence, sound recordings … have you thought about letting anyone come in and look around?”
“Like … are you talking about, like … ghost hunters?”
Maybe shrugged. “Well, yeah. But I probably would have called them something more professional, like paranormal investigators.”
“Why would you need a ghost hunter if the ghost doesn’t need to be hunted? Because it’s sitting on your sofa watching your sister play the piano, and later you’re all going to have a game of Monopoly?”
“Could he … move the pieces?”
“Most nights, yes. Sometimes he was less solid. And he could only ever touch Evelyn. We were never sure why.”
“And you don’t want to have proof of this? This could … I mean, if what you’re saying is true, this could change everything … Everything we know about science, about life, about death…”
“He asked us not to tell anyone,” I said. And it sounded simple, it sounded like a cop-out answer, almost, but it was also the truth. He had asked us not to tell anyone and so we hadn’t.
“Can your parents see him?”
“Once,” I said. “Our mother saw him once.”
“So it’s just the four of you,” she said. “You must be born under full moons or something.” This last part, I thought, was a joke, because she smiled afterward, but her smile quickly turned into a sort of grimace. “Fuck it’s cold. What was that thing about Persephone’s footsteps?”
“Oh, right. Um. Nothing.”
“No, I’m remembering now … you said something to me in Dark Magic. About being descended from the gods. I thought you were just referring to your incredible cheekbones, but now I’m thinking there’s something more there…”
I touched my face. “Do I really have—”
“Yes. Persephone? Really?”
“I mean, sure. It’s just a story, probably.”
“Do you really believe that? That it’s just a story?”
“No,” I admitted. “I mean, not anymore. I used to. But it does appear to be the truth.”
“And what about Henry? What’s his deal?”
“The Persephone footstep thing. I think she like, essentially blessed this house or the land or something. My family has always lived here. Henry was sort of adopted by Farthings. He moved in and died in the house and then … never left.”
“Magic,” Maybe said.
“I guess, yeah. Magic.”
“I’m gonna go. I have a lot to think about.”
“Do you want me to call you a car?”
“No, I’ll walk,” Maybe said. “It’s nice to walk, after one of these. I need to clear my head.”
“But are you sure, it’s late and—”
Maybe withdrew a slim canister from her coat pocket. It was the same brand of pepper spray I had. I had no doubt that, with Maybe wielding it, it would actually work as a self-defense tool.
“Well, thanks,” I said. What did you say to someone after they performed a séance in your attic? “I’ll, um, Venmo you.”
“You better,” she said brightly. “I know where you live.” She got serious, then, and for a moment bit at her lower lip, then stopped, then looking up at the sky again, her face clouding over with worry. “John Singer Sargent,” she said.
“What about him?”
“You’re like that painting. The four of you. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Ask Clara to show you.” She looked down at me again, her expression still worried. “You’ll keep me posted? On everything?”
“Oh, yeah,” I promised. “I’ll text you.”
“Great. See you, ghost girl.”
She skipped down the stairs, blending into the darkness, starting off down the street without so much as a final look back at me.
I was freezing but I found I couldn’t move right away.
Instead I stood there, letting the cold rush over me, my own thoughts growing darker and darker with each degree my skin dropped.
If I stayed out there long enough, unmoving, would I become a human statue?
Would I—as my father said whenever one of us pulled a funny face—stay stuck like that forever?
I would never know, as the door opened a moment later and Bernadette popped her head out, wrinkling her nose at the temperature.
“Will you get your ass inside?” she said. “Your face is blue. Like literally blue.”
“Something is seriously wrong with our family,” I said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ll make you some tea.”
I did ask Clara to show me the painting later, while she was brushing her teeth. She pulled it up on her phone and turned the screen around.
“Oh,” I said.
“I know,” she said around a mouthful of toothpaste. “That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to him.”
The next morning I found Evelyn sitting in front of the piano bench, not playing, staring down at her hands resting on the keys.
We had all decided to go to Todd’s for breakfast and I had been sent up to fetch her.
She had been sleeping later than she usually did, these days.
In truth, we all had, and I had the sneaking suspicion it was due to the tear in the sky, that it was somehow leaching our energy from us …
“Evie?” I said, standing behind her in the attic.
“Can you come here?” she said softly, not turning around. “Will you sit next to me?”
She slid over to make room for me, and I sat next to her on the piano bench. She folded her hands on her lap.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Will you play something?”
“I don’t know how to play anything.”
“‘Chopsticks,’” she said. “You know how to play ‘Chopsticks.’”
I wanted to question her, but I also wanted breakfast, and I sensed the fastest way to the latter was to skip the former.
I played “Chopsticks.”
I was far from musically inclined, and even the simple, staccato melody of “Chopsticks” came out rough underneath my fingers.
When I was done I looked at her and said, “Okay?”
“I thought it might be broken,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought maybe there was something wrong with the piano, because … I can’t play.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the piano.”
“But I can’t play,” she repeated.
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s either something wrong with the piano or something wrong with me.”
“You’re not making any sense, Evelyn.”
“Watch.”
She put her hands back on the keys and began to play …
But no sound came out.
The keys moved as they should, and I could hear the heavy, muted thunk of each one dipping down and popping back up, but the piano itself remained silent.
After a few moments of this, Evelyn removed her hands and looked at me, her eyes wide and fearful.
“It’s the tear,” she said. “It’s whatever’s coming out of the tear, Winnie. It’s doing something to me. And Mom, the other night, talking about Henry. I think it’s doing something to her, too.”
“We don’t know that…”
“I know that. I feel this … heaviness … This lethargy. Do you feel it, too?”
“I just feel cold,” I said. “And tired, I guess.”
“It’s the tear. It’s all the tear.”
She turned back to the piano, gave the keys a few more noiseless taps. “This is how I got in,” she whispered.
“To the Underworld?”
“I played this song. A secret song. I don’t even really know how I knew it, it just came to me … And when I tried to play it again, the other night, I couldn’t remember it. And then I couldn’t play anything.”
“We’re going to figure this out, Evelyn,” I said, and she turned her body toward me and looked into my eyes, her own eyes wide and frightened.
“Are you sure? Are you sure?”
And I wasn’t, of course, but I lied to her again.
I was getting so good at lying.