Chapter One #3
‘While that sounds incredible,’ I said, interrupting her and backing away towards the door, ‘I have way too much to do around here. This place is a mess. There’s laundry to take care of, my bed needs to be made – just so much stuff.’
Ashley stood scrutinizing me as I spoke. The hollows under my eyes, the lank red waves that fell around my face, the grey shirt I’d been wearing for the last two, maybe three, days.
‘Em, you need to take a pause,’ she said, firm and decisive. ‘If you carry on like this, you’re going to burn out – and no one in this family wants to hear the word “witch” and “burn” in the same sentence.’
The room seemed to sway around me and I rested one hand on her bed to steady myself.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. It was a lie and not a convincing one. ‘I have to keep going.’
She clucked her tongue dismissively.
‘Last time I checked, it’s a good idea to stay sharp when there’s an apocalypse scheduled.’
‘But that’s half the problem – it isn’t scheduled. We don’t know when it’s coming, only that it is.’ Gnawing on the edge of my thumbnail, I pressed my ten toes into her floorboards, connecting with the house. ‘I don’t want to put anyone in danger,’ I whispered. ‘Not again.’
The words were barely out my mouth when Ashley pulled me into a hug, squeezing me tighter when I instinctively flinched.
‘You weren’t the one who put us in danger,’ she said, sounding frustrated and empathetic in equal measure. ‘You can’t blame yourself for Catherine’s actions, Emily. None of it was your fault.’
‘If I hadn’t come to Savannah, none of this would’ve happened.’
‘And if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass when he hopped.’
She released the hug and I replaced her arms with my own, wrapping them tightly around myself.
‘You can’t say that every time you want to get out of a difficult conversation,’ I told her, smiling in spite of myself.
‘Watch me. Hey, before you go.’ Reaching into the pile of new clothes, she produced a pair of white jeans and a tiny hot pink tube top, holding them up for my approval. ‘What do you think? Does this work for an evening of octogenarian company?’
‘Only if you’re planning to give Mr Chisholm a heart attack.’
Across the room, she considered the potential outfit in her freestanding mirror.
‘That would probably get me home in time to enjoy some barbecue.’
‘I’d laugh if I thought you were joking,’ I said, rummaging in the pile and tossing her a black and white striped T-shirt instead. ‘Ribs can wait until tomorrow and Mr Chisholm lives to see another day.’
Most of the walls of Bell House were covered with exquisite hand-painted silk wallpaper, every room setting a different scene.
The parlour reminded me of Forsyth Park with its grand old oaks, while my bedroom felt more like the little park outside my window, birds and squirrels playing hide and seek among the eternally flowering azaleas, but entering the upstairs hallway was like losing yourself in Georgia’s marshlands.
Tall grasses swayed softly and dozens of tiny critters darted in and out among the reeds, all day and all night.
When I left Ashley to change, ranting to herself about meeting agendas and historic landmark by-laws, the gentle breeze that always blew through, no matter the weather outside, had become a bitter wind, and an unexpected chill picked its way down my spine.
There wasn’t so much as a periwinkle snail to be seen.
Even the cordgrass seemed to pull away from me.
I pressed my hand against the wall but it trembled under my palm.
Something was off and the house wanted me to know.
There were only three rooms on the second floor: mine, Ashley’s and, at the end of the hall, Catherine’s, which had been sealed shut ever since she failed to return home after my Becoming.
Sealed not by magic but by choice. Neither Ashley nor myself had any interest in stepping foot inside.
Beyond my grandmother’s room, the staircase looped around, climbing up to the third floor of Bell House.
Catherine had forbidden me to go up there.
It was dangerous, she said, structurally unsound.
But how could I trust anything she’d told me?
Whatever had sent the marshland creatures scrambling had nothing to do with an unsafe roofing situation.
Without realizing I’d moved, I found myself at the foot of the stairs.
The midnight blue ceiling was directly above me, so dense it looked like velvet with every constellation picked out in silver paint.
Beneath my feet, brass runners held down a lush maroon carpet that led up the stairs to an ornately carved mahogany door.
My parents’ old rooms. The rooms where I’d spent the first months of my life.
For four long weeks, I’d almost forgotten about it.
Too much going on to worry about attic rooms full of lost memories. But now …
A sudden beating of wings broke through the quiet and I spun around to see a stork rising from the marshes, taking to the air on the wall behind me and flying into nothingness.
With one last glance upstairs, I turned and sprinted back along the hallway and all the way down the stairs to the ground floor.
Hanging on the banister, panting, I looked up at the midnight fresco above me.
With my grandmother gone, the house belonged to me, the sole surviving Bell witch.
There was literally nothing to stop me walking right back up there, opening the door to the third floor and finding out what secrets lay inside for myself.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I literally could not move.
My feet were glued to the ground and I wasn’t holding onto the banister anymore, the banister was holding onto me.
It was only when I let go of the notion to visit the third floor that Bell House released me, allowing me back into the parlour to work on my orchid.
It wasn’t Catherine who didn’t want me up there after all.
It was the house.