29
Aurelia offered to run out and pick up dinner since Antonia refused to leave the flat without Julia.
As she walked to the restaurant, paid for and picked up their order, then walked home, she couldn’t shake the feeling of her limbs being dissociated from the rest of her, of moving her body from a distance.
When Aurelia got back to the flat, Antonia had found some wine and was well onto her second glass by the looks of the bottle. She wordlessly poured a glass for Aurelia, while Aurelia set out plates and silverware for their dinner.
Aurelia took a bracing sip of wine before going to knock on Julia’s door.
“Julia?” she asked quietly.
“I’m not leaving!” Julia shouted from the other side of the door.
“Yes, understood. We have dinner out here when you’re ready to eat.”
The food sat untouched as Aurelia and Antonia stood in the kitchen, leaning against the countertop and staring each other down.
“You know me,” Aurelia began. “Have I ever said anything this outrageous before? Doesn’t it make it more likely that I’m being honest with you?”
“I believe you honestly believe it,” Antonia said sadly.
“I don’t know what to say to help you believe me. I just never planned to tell you, or anyone. Well, anyone other than Oliver.”
“You really haven’t told him?”
Antonia’s voice was gentler than before, and Aurelia felt a tiny bit of tension ease out of her body at the possibility that her sister was on her side again.
“No,” she confessed with a groan. “I was going to tell him before the wedding, but now…”
Aurelia paused, finally taking a moment to gather her thoughts about everything that had happened that day—the past few days, really—and how her world of carefully built secrets and lies was finally crumbling.
She’d wanted to tell someone before—Oliver, Antonia, anyone—but with all her daydreams and plotting about how and when she might do it, she’d never planned for it to go the way it had with Julia, or her sister.
Which meant she had no roadmap for exactly how it would go when she told Oliver.
Antonia crossed the kitchen and stood next to her sister, leaning into Aurelia just slightly in what she knew was a show of support.
“All this time I’ve been afraid to tell someone,” she went on.
“I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me or that they’d think something was wrong with me.
But then Julia could see them and it was like this spark of hope—that it wasn’t just me.
But the phone call this morning… And seeing how worried and upset you’ve been…
I’m even more afraid than before that Oliver will think I’m just as mad as you do. ”
Antonia raised her shoulders, conceding the point.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, or at least try to. And I know it’s hard to believe.”
“It is. But you seem so sure… Why? How?”
“I thought it might be ghosts, or some sort of hallucination, but they come every night. They remember conversations they’ve had with me, with Aunt Marigold, Lucy, and Cristobel. The things they say—I know they’re real. My imagination isn’t that good.”
“You’re a writer. I’d say it’s better than average.”
“Maybe,” Aurelia said, casting around for more evidence. “Oh, my book! The reason I wrote about Count Vronsky was because I met him here, in the shop.”
“Aurelia,” Antonia sighed.
“We talked about his novel, how it ended, and we worked for months coming up with a new ending for him.”
“Okay. Sure,” Antonia said, disbelieving in spite of her words.
“There were other characters in the shop when he was here, and they helped us come up with ideas, too. They were sort of a sounding board for what happened in the book.”
“Just like your writing group,” Antonia said sarcastically, then her eyes widened as her mouth fell open. “Oh no, Aurelia… Please tell me—when you said you were working with a writing group—”
“That was them, yes.”
“Aurelia… This has been going on for years?” Antonia shook her head. “Alright. Well, I’m at the point where I’m not sure whether I should be calling Oliver, or Dad, or whether we should go to a hospital and have them run some tests on you.” Her tone was serious and concerned, all sarcasm gone.
Julia stepped into the hallway.
“They’d have to run tests on both of us,” she said.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“We’re telling the truth, Mum. We’ve seen them. And I’m going to see them again tonight because we’re not going to a hotel. We’re staying here.”
“This little rebellion of yours isn’t helping you or your aunt Aurelia.”
Julia took a few steps back toward the guest room.
“How can we prove it to her? Haven’t you thought of anything?” Julia asked Aurelia.
“I don’t know… I’ve told her about my book, about Aunt Marigold… I told you, Julia, when people can’t see things it’s hard for them to believe, especially when it’s as unusual as this.”
“I wish Biscuit or Fezz could talk. They could tell her.”
“Oh, now the animals can see and hear these characters?”
“They can, yes.” Aurelia rolled her eyes, knowing it was just more fuel for Antonia’s disbelief.
“Maybe Mum can come down tonight and just try it. Maybe she’ll see them too.”
“I mean, we can try,” Aurelia said doubtfully. “But when Oliver comes down, they just disappear.”
“Of course they do,” Antonia said under her breath.
“Actually,” Aurelia said, brightening for the first time in many hours. “He’s heard them.”
“Really?” Julia asked eagerly.
“Mm-hmm. One time I’d just come up from talking with the characters and they were still in the shop. He’d heard their voices—just barely, and not as clearly as I could—but he heard them.”
“So if I go downstairs right now, I’ll hear them, but I won’t see them? You realize this is getting more and more ridiculous?”
“You can’t go down now,” Julia said.
“They don’t appear until midnight,” Aurelia explained.
Antonia laughed.
“They have a fictional schedule to keep?”
“That’s just how it works,” Aurelia said patiently. “They come at midnight and they leave at dawn.”
“Alright, so if I go down to the shop at midnight, I’ll hear them?”
“No. I mean, you can try it, but if you go in just after midnight, they’ll disappear when you walk into the shop. And if you go in before midnight, then they won’t appear at all.”
Antonia opened her mouth to speak, but Aurelia cut her off.
“It’s just the way it works.”
“I can’t believe I’m still having this conversation… but how am I supposed to hear them if I can’t go into the shop?”
“Oliver could hear them from up here, so I think if you stood in the stairwell, near the door, that could work. I mean, I don’t know—I’ve never tried it—but we could see if it does.”
“We might as well try it,” Julia added hopefully.
“So, you two are going to go into the shop, have a chat with some characters, and I’m going to stand in the stairwell and try to eavesdrop,” Antonia said flatly. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t take you both in to be evaluated right now.”
“Because you love us both, we’re telling you the truth, and you should at least try to find a way to believe us.” Julia and her mother stared intently at each other before Julia added, “That’s three reasons.”
Julia’s tone was so earnest and her expression so sincere that Antonia started crying softly.
“You’re both really scaring me, you know that?”
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Julia said, moving to hug Antonia. “I didn’t think it would scare you, but we’re alright. Really. This is exciting! It’s wonderful! Just give us a chance?”
Antonia wiped her eyes and looked at them both, then nodded.
“Well, if we’re going to stay up past midnight, we might as well eat,” she said, and then she gave Julia another hug.