Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Florence, Now
For thirteen years, Florence had been meticulous about protecting her heart. She didn’t let anyone in because she couldn’t bear the thought that caring for someone would put them in danger. Owen had changed that.
Now, he lay unconscious, crumpled on the floor, the beam beside him. She should’ve known better. She should’ve never opened herself up to the possibility of loss. Or worse, opened someone else up to the possibility of death.
But it didn’t make sense. The curse didn’t come until the thirteenth. Owen should’ve been safe until tomorrow. They all should have. But there he was, the sunlight shining through a hole in the ceiling and casting shadows over his face.
Though Florence wanted to run to him, she had to stop her sister. Evie stood dumbfounded, staring at Angela who, only moments before, had been right where the bulk of the beam lay. Already more wood in the roof was starting to creak.
“Angela,” Evie whispered, horrified, as Angela dropped to her knees beside Owen. Clara ran to Angela and wrapped her arms around her.
“Are you okay?” Clara asked.
Angela pulled her in close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We need to worry about him, not me.” But Florence could hear the fear in Angela’s voice, a tremor that cut through her usual confidence.
Florence closed the space between herself and her sister. She grabbed the candles and blew them out. Then, she threw them to the ground, the spell unfinished. Evie flinched as the floorboards shook, rolling the tapers even further away from the two of them.
“How could you?” Florence’s voice was quiet and low and so much like her mother’s.
Evie flung a hand toward the fallen beam. “I was trying to prevent this! It would’ve worked if you hadn’t interrupted me.”
Florence shook her head. She wanted to let her anger overtake her. To scream and sweep her arm across the altar and scatter the remnants of Evie’s spell. To make her sister feel the weight of what she’d done. But she wouldn’t be her mother, not even now.
She ran toward Owen and Angela.
“He’s breathing,” Angela said. She had one hand on Owen’s chest.
Florence’s own chest gave as she watched it rise and fall. She brushed Owen’s hair back from his forehead, revealing a trickle of blood from where his head had hit the floor. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have let him in.”
But Angela shook her head. “That beam was meant for me.”
Owen’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked up at them, eyes unfocused, and said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“Owen,” Florence breathed, and she almost kissed him. Instead, she pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, then his cheek. “Are you all right?”
He started to sit up then tipped back. Florence caught him before he could fall over, one arm around his back, the other pressed up against his chest.
“Alive,” he said. “Dizzy. Head hurts.”
“It could be a concussion,” Evie said.
He closed one eye and squinted at her through the other. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have come inside.”
The beam had fallen the moment Evie cast the spell. Maybe it wasn’t the curse that had caused it, Florence thought, but whatever magic Evie had found in her mother’s journal.
“If this is anyone’s fault, it’s Evie’s,” Florence said at the same time Evie asked, “How could it be your fault?”
“The house heard us yesterday,” Owen said. “It knows who I am.”
The realization hit Florence square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. No, her feelings for Owen hadn’t put him in danger. But by bringing him here, by mentioning his aunt, she’d risked his life all the same.
“It tried to kill you just like it killed Tillie,” she breathed.
The lights snapped off. Florence glanced at the hole in the ceiling, eyes tracking for more loose beams. The creaking had stopped the moment she blew out the candles, but she still needed to get Owen out of there. If the house had taken revenge once, it could very well do it again.
“Tillie?” Evie asked.
“Grey,” Florence said. “She was Owen’s great-aunt.”
“She’s why I came to Burdock Creek,” he said. “I was looking for my family history.”
“But it wasn’t the curse that killed her,” Florence said. “It was the house. Because her parents killed Helen and Christopher.”
“I’m not following any of this,” Evie said, confusion clear on her face.
Yesterday it had been a theory, but now, in light of what had just happened to Owen, it was a theory Florence was willing to bet on.
“We looked at the police reports from the deaths. We found a letter from Aunt Violet. There’s no other explanation. The house killed Tillie,” Florence said. “And now, it’s forced to kill every thirteen years. That’s the curse Evie—it’s on the house. Not us.”
“No,” Evie said with disbelief. “It wouldn’t. You have it wrong.”
There was a rattling from the pipes in the walls, and Florence tightened her grip on Owen.
“Then how do you explain it dropping that beam on him?” Florence asked.
Evie looked up at the ceiling. “Did you do this?”
The lights slowly came back on, then winked out. Evie crossed her arms. “See?”
“We can’t trust the house,” Florence said.
“Honeysuckle House protected us from Mom, or did you forget that?” Evie asked. “It loves us, Florence.”
“If it wasn’t the house and it wasn’t the curse, it must have been the spell you tried!” Florence said.
This time, the lights came on and stayed that way.
Fear and shame flashed across Evie’s face, and if Florence wasn’t so angry, she might’ve held her tongue. But she was long past that. “If you trust the house, then you can’t ignore it now. The spell did this. You did this.”
“I was trying to save the house—to save all of us!” Evie yelled.
“We need to go,” Angela said. “The house isn’t safe, and we’re all sitting here waiting for the next thing to go wrong. That’s why I told Florence about the spell.”
“You told her?” Evie asked.
“Clara saw your candles, and I was afraid something was going to happen to you,” Angela said. “I didn’t want you to be hurt here all alone.”
“I came here alone so you wouldn’t get hurt,” Evie said.
“A lot of good that did,” Florence said.
“Really, Florence? Can you not? Even if the house did kill Tillie—which I absolutely do not believe—we still have a curse to contend with,” Evie said, her voice sharp. “A curse that, despite our theories, we’re no closer to breaking.”
“You always said if you knew how the curse started you could undo it,” Angela said. “What about the journals?”
“Journals?” Florence asked.
But before Evie could answer the lights started to flicker, and the walls began to shake.