Chapter 23
“Elinor.”
A hand is on my shoulder, gently rocking. Topher’s voice is near me.
“Elinor. Are you okay?”
My body jolts and I blink open my eyes. I’m in the living room, sleeping on the couch with Hugo loyally curled up next to me.
Through the living room window, I can see the sky is beginning to lighten, hints of pink glow from above the tree line at the edge of the meadow.
It must be early morning. I look up at Topher, who must have just gotten back from the night shift at the hospital.
He looks exhausted, skin slightly ashen.
“Hi.” I sit up, rubbing my eyes.
“Why are you down here?”
“I had another nightmare. It’s my third actually. It’s messing with my head . . .” I let myself trail off.
His expression is unreadable at first. Then he sits down next to me, shooing a begrudging German shepherd out of the way.
“The one in the woods?”
“Yes. The dreams aren’t all the same. Two were me running through the woods. In the other, I was in the woods, and everything was blurry. In both, I could feel this evil all around me. And there was this woman. She was terrifying . . .” I trail off, unable to finish.
“Oh.” He looks taken aback for a moment. “They are just dreams, El.” Topher takes my hand, his thumb tracing circles on my palm.
“Yeah.”
“What?” He knows my tone too well, knows something else is coming.
I hesitate, knowing how it will sound. “I know this sounds crazy, but these dreams, they feel different. They feel like something I’ve lived through. Which is absurd, I know. In the dream I had last night, I was running through the woods, trying to escape something, or someone.”
“Dreams can be incredibly realistic and vivid.” He shakes his head. “Especially if you have pregnancy hormones in the mix.”
“No, this was different, I mean, I wasn’t even slee—” I stop myself short. I can’t tell him that I fell asleep standing up. That will sound crazier somehow. He’d probably assume I just need to see a doctor.
“Weren’t even what?” His eyebrows are raised.
I sigh helplessly into my hands. “Sleeping that deeply. It just didn’t feel like a typical dream.”
“Do you think it’s something from your past that is resurfacing?”
“No.” I don’t think.
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m scared.” It comes out sharper than I intended.
“Of what?” Topher asks so softly, I feel my heart break a little.
“Of this house.”
“But why?” There’s an edge of frustration to his voice, but I can tell he’s trying to hear me. I take his hands in mine.
“I think it’s haunted.” I let out a short, hysterical laugh.
“Haunted.” He blinks. Once. Twice. He’s probably wondering if this is a dream. He’s been up all night after all. “But . . . but . . . what do you think happened here? What’s haunting it?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “A witch?”
“A witch?” he repeats. “As in, pointy hat and a magic cauldron?”
He doesn’t mean it to be funny—he looks too dazed and confused to be sarcastic—but the words nonetheless make me laugh in a maniacal sort of way. And I sit for a moment, shoulders shaking, silent tears running down my cheeks.
Topher is quiet and looking at me with wild eyes, wondering, I think, what to make of the hysterical mess in front of him.
I wipe the tears from my eyes and sniff audibly. Oh my god, I’m losing it. “Okay, maybe it’s not a witch.” I can’t believe I’m uttering that statement. “But I think something fucked-up happened here.” I look him in the eye, willing him to believe me.
“But don’t you think people would know about it? I mean, you read about the place, didn’t you? Wouldn’t there be some Amityville-type blogs written about it?”
“Yes, but maybe it happened a long, long time ago.” It’s hard to put this into words.
But the visions I’m seeing feel old. Whatever fearsome strength has been growing feels like it has been building for an eternity, and not in a spiraling, chaotic sort of way, but in a controlled, relentless way that feels even more frightening somehow.
I shiver, involuntarily, at the thought. Where have I brought us?
“Maybe we should go back to Cambridge.” The words tumble out before I’ve even processed them.
Topher stares at me a moment before speaking. “You are joking, right?”
I don’t say anything, unsure of what I even think, and just blink uselessly.
His tone is tense. “We literally just moved here. Uprooted our entire lives. We—” He visibly halts himself, tries to rein in the anger rising in his throat, and takes my hand.
“Look. It’s not that I’m trying to be dismissive. But remember, the simplest answer is the most likely. You are under a tremendous amount of stress. You are pregnant, you lost your job, we just made a big move. Plus . . . it’s . . .” He trails off.
“What?” I demand.
Topher sighs. “You’ve been through a lot, Elinor. You lost both your parents, and now your grandmother is really sick. It’s probably not shocking that being here has dredged up a lot of complicated feelings. Remember after your mom died . . . you really struggled. Understandably.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with that,” I start to say, though I realize how feeble it sounds.
Because maybe he’s right. I thought coming here would make me feel closer to my family.
But maybe it’s having the opposite effect.
Maybe I’m too close to a place that, in retrospect, brought a lot of pain to my family.
I pull my hand away, more forcefully than I mean, and Topher looks injured.
“Do you want me to try and switch my schedule around, so I’m not gone at night so much?”
“No.”
Guilt slams me in the chest, makes me sag even farther into the couch.
Topher is under so much stress, working the graveyard shift in the ER.
What am I doing, coming at him with these crazy theories?
Telling him a witch is haunting our house?
And he’s right. We can’t possibly move. We only just arrived.
I’m just going through a weird, pregnancy, stress thing.
“You’re right. I’m fine.”
Topher holds my gaze a beat longer, searching it for how I really feel. I smile and squeeze his hand, wanting us to be okay.
“I’m fine,” I repeat.
Topher nods, kisses my head, and stands up, yawning.
“Okay. I’m going to eat something and then head up to sleep, babe.”
“Okay. Love you.”
He’s nearly out of the room when I suddenly remember there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask him. Don’t do it now, I think. But because I’m overtired or just a glutton for punishment, I ask anyway.
“Topher?”
He pauses in the doorway, scratching at his stubble. “Yeah?”
“Sorry, random question.” I smile awkwardly. “Have you and Julian been meeting up for drinks?”
The question hangs for a moment.
“Uh, yeah, like once or twice. Why?” Topher smiles, but it looks strained.
“Oh.” I realize I don’t know how to respond or what point I’m trying to make. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Another strained smile. “Okay, I guess I forgot. You don’t tell me every aspect of your days, do you?”
This feels a little unfair. “I mean, no, but I guess I would have thought you’d mention it if you were meeting up with our neighbor.” Especially when you hardly have time off and your wife is pregnant, I want to add.
“Look, I know you don’t like the guy, so maybe I just didn’t want to deal with it.” And there goes our fragile calm.
“Deal with what?” I stand, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Um. This?” He looks at me, almost incredulously.
“That’s not fair, I’m not making a big deal that you saw him; I was just questioning why you didn’t tell me.” I laugh, a little drop of venom on my tongue. We can escalate so quickly when we are tired.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine. You are right. Fine. Next time I see Julian, I’ll let you know. No big deal.”
“Okay, thank you,” I say and we stand awkwardly looking at each other a moment longer.
“I’m going to make a sandwich,” he finally says.
“Okay, I’ll take Hugo out.”
“Everything is fine, Elinor. Okay? You are just having stress dreams.” Topher’s tone is softer now.
What he’s saying is logical. And I want to believe it. I will believe it. But I also know, in some primal way, that the house has other ideas.