Chapter Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
It’s Saturday, and I told everyone I’m not feeling well. I made sure to emphasize how tired I was to Kate before heading upstairs, my head hung low with exhaustion.
It wasn’t totally a lie. I’m not sure I remember the last time I felt rested. Maybe at the beginning of summer, or the beginning of last summer. Before everything changed and slowly got worse until I could barely get out of bed in the morning.
I texted Daisy and Sam and told them I’ll meet them for dinner if I’m feeling up to it. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb, and then I left, hoodie pulled tight over my head. In wide-legged jeans instead of my uniform.
I turn the bike onto a gravel road leading through a copse of autumn trees to reveal a small, yellow ranch-style house.
Beautiful white and pink mums bloom under the large picture window that glares in the light next to a teal door.
I haven’t been to Maureen’s house in years, but there’s still a lingering comfort as I remember long days here as a little girl, kitchen table gossip and pockets full of pilfered strands of multicolor yarn for cat’s cradle.
As I pull up to the top of the driveway, I square my shoulders.
What if I’ve gotten this all wrong? What if the Ouija board meant an entirely different Maureen?
What if it meant nothing at all? Grabbing the heavy cat-shaped knocker, I slam it down in three quick raps.
As I wait, I have half a mind to turn around and flee.
Off campus, the whispers are dull. In their place I swear I can hear my mother saying I’m out of my mind. That I’m reckless. That magic isn’t real and Maureen is a nutcase, too. That we’re going to end up just like Dad. Lost to whatever delusion carried him away from us.
A small dog yaps from behind the door, and Maureen scolds it before swinging it wide open and greeting me through the screen.
One look at her hair piled atop her head, the ash streaked through in thick gray strands, her soft, light-brown face pulled into a wide, surprised smile, and tears are already rolling down my cheeks.
“Harper!” She pushes open the screen and wraps her arms around me.
“Hello, Ms. Vale,” I mumble from my place trapped against her bosom.
She clicks her tongue as she releases me. “Absolutely not, miss lady! You know you call me Maureen. None of that formal nonsense!” She pulls back, eyeing me suspiciously. “I really thought you would’ve come to see me by now.”
Shame thickens in my throat at the pain in her eyes.
She’s right, I should have come here sooner. Power or no power.
She gestures to the open door.
“Well, don’t just stand there catching flies with your mouth, girly. Close those jaws and come in, we have lots to discuss.”
I take a hesitant step over the threshold, and she leads me into the parlor. Her home smells of earthy incense like a garden in the middle of summer. I take in the pink shag carpeting. The yellow couches and the gallery wall of mismatched art and thrifted frames.
“Sit down. Get comfortable. What can I get you? Tea? Water?”
I shake my head as I perch on the edge of a love seat. “I’m okay, but thank you.”
She rolls her eyes playfully, waving her hand in the air. “I’ll grab you some water.”
As she leaves the room through an archway that faces the back of the house, something tugs at my pant leg. The small, tan dog runs circles around the coffee table, its stubby little tail wagging wildly as it stares at me.
“Hey, Petunia,” I coo, scratching behind his ears and laughing under my breath as he flops onto his side, his back legs kicking as he leans further into my touch.
“Oh yeah, he loves attention. He’s such a politician.” I raise my eyebrows in question at Maureen, who’s reentered the room. “He’s a no-good dirty bastard who’s willing to do anything for a scratch in the right place.”
The familiarity of her sass brings genuine laughter bubbling out of me for the first time in what feels like weeks.
“So,” she says as she sits, placing a mug filled with water on the coffee table in front of me. She spreads out her long, violet muumuu and crosses her legs. It’s clear she already knows why I’m here. That she knows something about this agonizing, terrifying thing I’ve been going through.
She looks at me expectantly.
I clear my throat, unsure of where to start. The faint, tart smell of berry tea drifts from her mug, and in the distance a clock ticks.
“First, I guess, I’m sorry for not stopping by sooner. I know you must be hurting, and I should have checked up on you.”
“No, don’t do that. It’s okay, honey. I know you’ve been going through a lot since… well, you know.”
I’m quiet, but she doesn’t try to fill the space. If there’s one memory I wish to zap from my mind forever, it’s my sixteenth birthday.
“Finding her like that…” Maureen looks at the wall. “I can’t imagine. You are so strong, Harper. Just like she was.”
I look down at my hands.
“But that’s not why you’re here to see me,” she says quietly. “Is it?”
I meet her eyes. I’ve yet to speak most of this aloud. I worry that this mystery has been the only thing keeping me upright. Will I still be standing when this is over?
“When Harper passed, I knew to expect your visit. But I must admit that, given the circumstances, I’m finding this more difficult than I expected. You just look so much like her. I—” She touches a shaking hand to her forehead. “I’ve missed her so much.”
There’s no use in trying to stop my tears at this point. Knowing that Gigi would have expected me to come here. And I’ve been so selfish, so focused on my own problems that I needed my possessed best friend to tell me via a Ouija board?
I can’t stand the thought that I’m not making Gigi proud, wherever she is. For every bit of me that is angry with her for leaving, there’s an equal part that’s scared she’s disappointed.
Maureen lifts her teacup to her face, eyeing me over the rim. “Loosen up.” She dabs her nose with a rose-printed handkerchief. “You look like you’re sittin’ on a can of haul ass.”
I wipe my clammy palms against my jeans. “S-sorry, it’s just… I’ve got something to ask you, and I’m not too sure how to, uh, go about it.”
Her face remains neutral even though I speak slowly in the hopes of gauging her reaction.
“Ever since Gigi died, I’ve been having these intense feelings.
At first I thought I was crazy. I thought maybe it was all in my head, but now…
now I think—I think maybe all those stories she’d tell me about magic, about the stars, all the things my mom forbade her to share with me, the things I’d slowly forgotten over time…
I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all true. ”
My hands are going to wring themselves into a bloody mess. “It all started with this incident at Dawson’s… I thought, like, surely… it couldn’t be, you know? But now I’ve got this—this—”
Maureen’s eyes round with sympathy. “Power.”
“Yes! Power! And at first I didn’t understand what was happening, but eventually I just kind of knew, and, well—things happen when I get upset.
The weather changes. It feels like I’ve got lightning in my bones.
Like I’ve got electricity thrumming under my skin, and it just builds and builds until I can’t control it anymore, until it explodes out of me.
“Sometimes I see things that are impossible. Feel and hear things that should be impossible. I’ve tried to explain it away, but it’s no use. I know what I feel is real, and I think Gigi knew it too. That she might have felt it, too.”
I’m crying harder now, the stress of the last couple months pouring out of me “I’m so scared that I can’t sleep at night. I don’t know if you can help me, but we did this séance—”
“What did you just say?” Until now she’s nodded sympathetically, but at the mention of the séance, she sits straight up in her chair.
“We did a séance, and my friend got, like, possessed? Or something? And the spirit board spelled out your name. So I need you to tell me what’s going on, because if I don’t find answers soon, I’m afraid that I—I might not—”
There’s a heavy silence between us.
“I don’t know if I can live with this grief and confusion and pain all the time.
Never knowing when my body might start to betray me, when those pins and needles might come back.
If I’ll be able to control it this time, or if I’ll hurt someone I care about.
I need help.” I’m choking on my words. “Please.”
My head falls into my hands; loud, aching sobs rack my body. The room has grown dark, bundles of clouds rolling over the sun and casting us in shadow.
Now we both know why.
Maureen gets up from the couch and sits beside me. Her wrinkled hand traces light circles on my back as I cry. We sit like this for a long while. Rain pattering against the large window facing the front lawn, the music a fitting soundtrack for my sorrow.
She doesn’t push me further, but she also doesn’t offer more information. Instead, she’s simply there. After Gigi died, I moved right into Black Mountain Academy, and I haven’t had a chance to feel it. The hole in my chest pulsating in her absence.
When I have nothing left to give, I sit up, wiping my tears and snot onto the back of my sleeve and cringing when I realize what I’ve done. Maureen only smiles and hands me a tissue that I take gratefully, blotting my cheeks.
Her eyes are swollen and wet, pitch-black mascara muddying the paper-thin skin beneath them. “I’m so sorry you’ve been going through all this alone. Harper wanted to tell you. Was planning on it. She was gonna sit you down on your sixteenth birthday, consequences from your mama be damned…”
I brace myself against the stabbing pain that shoots through my chest. This is exactly what Gigi said in the dream.
Maureen sighs. “She was planning on writing you a letter to help her get started. She was scared too, you know? Of what you’d think. She worried you might hate her.
“But she knew that you were strong and special and that, whatever came of it all, you could handle it. And now that you’re here, and you’re ready, we have a lot of work to do.”
She rubs her temples. “Before I can figure out where to start, tell me, did she end up writing that letter?”
I nod.
Maureen meets my eyes.
“I guess that means you already know about the Mother.”