Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
KENNEDY
Afew hours later, Theo and I gather all the blankets from upstairs and create a pile on the floor of the living room. After prying all the questions out of him I could about the limits of his magic, I’ve convinced him to try washing the blankets.
“Just pretend you’re a washing machine,” I prod.
“That machine that spins the clothes around like a carnival ride?”
“You probably don’t have to mimic that exactly, but you’re thinking big, and I like that.”
He heaves a heavy blanket onto the pile and stops to catch his breath. “It’s been a while since I’ve used any of my body parts like this,” he admits, hands on his hips.
My mind instantly considers what other body parts he might be getting used to again, and I have to force myself to stop.
“You ready?” I step back, giving him space to do his thing, whatever that entails.
Theo zeros in on the pile between us, his jaw fixed from concentration. “I believe my primary focus should be on removing whatever has clung to the fabric, which would basically be a kinetic spell.” He looks to me. “I will need a place to move it.”
I’m not sure what he means at first, but after thinking about it literally, it makes sense. “Oh, you mean the dirt! Okay, hold on.”
I jog to the kitchen and swipe a large trash bin from underneath the sink and take it to the living room. I place it next to the mound of blankets and hold out my hands. “Ta-da!”
The corner of his mouth lifts as he closes his eyes and focuses on his task.
For several minutes, it’s just the two of us standing quietly—me, waiting for something to happen, and him, looking as if he’s in a deep meditation.
But then something extraordinary happens.
The moment Theo opens his eyes, an enormous dark cloud of dirt, dust, mold, and god knows whatever else floats upward and out of the pile.
It hovers in the air for a moment before shifting above the trash can, and then poof, it falls straight down to the bottom of the bin.
“That was incredibly efficient,” I flatly praise him.
He senses my sarcasm and smiles sheepishly. “Thanks.”
Is it just me, or is he holding his head a little higher? Even though he avoids my gaze, there’s a definite gleam in his eye.
I want him to be proud of himself, but if I’ve learned anything about Theo over the past few days, it’s that he doesn’t like to be the center of any attention. So, I break the awkward silence by jumping spread eagle onto the blanket pile while yelling, “Cowabunga!”
Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as cushioned as I thought, and I land hard on my stomach with a thump.
Hands slide beneath my shoulders and lift me up. “Are you alright?”
Now I’m embarrassed. “All good,” I garble. “You said I can’t die twice.”
“No, I suppose not.” Theo helps me to my feet as I adjust my neckline from choking me. “You can still hurt yourself though.”
“Yes, well. What’s a bruise or two if it reminds me of being alive?”
He blows air through his nose and chuckles. “I admire your optimism.”
“Funny. I didn’t know I had that quality.”
Theo steers me away from any tripping hazards and points to a spot on the floor. “Stay here.”
His face screws up in concentration, and I hear a crash coming from the floor above.
Then several bangs against the wall of the staircase.
I turn my head and see a large day bed floating toward us.
It lands beneath the window, and with a flick of his fingers, Theo removes the grime from the fabric and places it in the trash with the rest of his work.
“Holy cow,” I gasp.
“I can’t do that with living things, so no cows unfortunately.”
Silence stretches between us and then I burst out laughing. I lean over, placing a hand on my stomach.
Did Theo just make a joke?
His cheeks flush red as he moves to sit on the now clean furniture. “I figured you might need a decent place to sit.”
I’m still gasping for air as I sit beside him. “Because of my Olympic-level dive?”
He laughs along with me. “Yes. Partly.” He leans back against the side rest. “I was also sick of seeing this room so empty.”
The living room, or as Theo has referred to it: the front room, is definitely sparse. Since I arrived, there’s been nothing but the fireplace tools and a photo of a random woman propped against the wall.
“Who is that?” I ask, pointing to the portrait.
Theo gets up and crosses the room. He picks up the large frame with both hands and wipes away a layer of dust from the woman’s face.
“Genevra Bleaker. Head of the Shadow Hills coven from 1951 to 2024.” He walks back to the day bed and lays the portrait flat on the floor in front of me. “She was twenty-three when she took over as leader. She was six months pregnant with her daughter.”
“Is that who used to live here?” I ask.
He sits back down, lacing his hands together as he leans his forearms on his thighs. The veins of his arms protrude slightly, and I imagine what they’d look like gripping a bed sheet. Or my hips.
Whoa there. Where in the hell did that come from?
“They did,” he confirms. “For thirteen years.”
I want to ask so many questions, mostly to get the image of Theo’s flexing forearms out of my head, but also because I know this has something to do with the fragile history between him and the current coven.
“Are they related to Simone? Or Calliope?”
He taps his foot, eyes on the floor. “Yes. Genevra was Calliope’s great-grandmother.”
If I take the leap and ask what I’ve been wondering since the first day I saw Calliope rushing from the house, I might end up breaking the bridge I’ve managed to build with him. But what if this is my only chance?
“What happened?” I ask hesitantly.
The air in the room feels chilly despite the roaring fire. A mask slips over Theo’s face as he considers whether now is the time to finally speak on whatever he’s been hiding.
“Genevra’s daughter, Moira, grew up in this house,” he starts with a deep sigh, staring hopelessly into the fire.
I scoot back, making myself comfortable on the daybed so that my back is leaning against the wall. I kick off my shoes and pull my knees to my chest.
Theo shifts so that he’s angled toward me and shifts his eyes to the painting still lying on the floor.
“Around the time Moira started school, I began paying more attention to the family in the house,” he tells me.
“Up until then, I spent a lot of my time in the attic. It was far enough removed that it allowed them to live their lives without my interference, while still allowing me to remain in my family’s home.
I didn’t mean to get involved, but one day, while her mother was cooking, Moira was playing in her room upstairs.
I remember the smell of pasta boiling, and baked bread in the oven.
Genevra was playing some record of the time, I don’t remember what it was called, but it was loud enough that she didn’t hear when Moira’s hand got stuck in the air vent. ”
Theo’s fingers drum thoughtfully on the green cushions beneath us. “I heard her crying, but no one came for her. So I went to her room, and found her hand shoved into the floor vent. One of her crayons had rolled into it, and I think she tried to reach for it and got stuck.”
His own hand retreats back into his lap.
“I managed to use some of my magic to bend the grate and pull her out. She didn’t even react at first, she was just so grateful to be free.
” He smiles to himself, reminiscing on whatever memory he’s reliving.
“I was going to leave her alone. I hoped that if she told her mother, she’d think it was just the imagination of a child and forget all about it. But then she spoke to me.”
Theo looks me in the eye. “She said, ‘Are you the ghost that’s been living in the attic?’ I was shocked. I didn’t think anyone knew I existed. But here was this little girl, maybe six or seven, and she’d known all along.”
My heart flutters at the thought of such a young child seeing Theo as a friend and not a scary monster.
“Of course, I said yes,” he says. “Then she started asking me all these inane questions, like if I’d been the one to move her doll from the shelf, or if it was me who made the water go cold in her bath.
She said she heard me pacing back and forth in the attic when she went to bed, and that the rhythmic sound helped put her to sleep after her mother told her a bedtime story.
“For many years after that, I became her companion. I played with her when she wanted to host tea parties and made her toys clap when she gave acceptance speeches for whichever award she was imagining she won, all while wearing her mother’s shoes and giant sunglasses.
“I was her imaginary friend, until Genevra finally saw me for the first time, and I was no longer just a figment of Moira’s mind.”
I rest my chin on my knees and wait for Theo to continue. As he gets to his feet, I can tell the story is about to take a turn. Why else would the memory be so difficult for him to recall?
He clenches his fists at his sides, sidestepping the gilded frame on the floor.
“It was years later. Moira was twelve. She’d been interacting with me less as she got older, but that day she wanted to play hide and seek.
Her older sister was upstairs in her room reading Genevra’s magazines.
She got a lot back then—more than just the editorial ones.
” He looks to the ceiling, hopelessness and regret flooding his features.
“When their mother came home from the grocery store, she found me hiding in the pantry. I thought it was Moira, having found my hiding spot. But the look on Genevra’s face told me she knew exactly what I was.
She was Head Witch - she knew a ghost when she saw one. ”
I continue to listen intently as Theo rehashes the difficult memory, fighting the urge to go to him.
“She tried to banish me from the house—used everything in her arsenal—but it only sent me into the void. I was tied to this place, because it’s where I died.” His voice goes quiet. “I still am.”
I drop my feet to the floor and step slowly toward him, no longer able to hold myself back. His hair covering his face like a shield, I reach out to tuck the strands behind his ear. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t acknowledge me either.
“She wanted me gone,” he says somberly. “And when that didn’t work, they packed up and moved away.”
A feeling of deja vu threatens to knock me over.
I know that feeling—like the rug is being pulled out from beneath you.
The thing you’ve grown to care about, the constant you thought would never change, suddenly disappears.
I was the family that left in Theo’s story, and I can almost guarantee that Moira didn’t want to go. Because I didn’t.
“But why?” I ask. It’s the first words I’ve uttered since he started divulging. I hadn’t wanted to interrupt him in fear he’d stop talking altogether. “Why would a witch be so fearful of a ghost in her house? Why did she want you gone so badly?”
Theo faces me, the hair I’d tucked behind his ear falling out of place and back into his eyes. “Finding out a grown man has spent years alone with your youngest daughter? I think you’d be a little upset too,” he says with a scoff.
I shake my head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah, well, she had every right to be angry with me. I was stupid to think I had any right befriending that family. I should have known better.”
Something isn’t adding up. Theo just dumped a huge part of his trauma on me, and I’m so happy he felt he could do so, but still, I can’t shake the feeling that a major detail was left out of that story.
This might have been a part of the history he shares with the Shadow Hills coven, but it’s certainly not all of it.
But I won’t pry. As long as Theo is willing to talk, I have to be willing to listen. He’s come this far. Sooner or later, I hope to earn his full trust and hear the rest of the story.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, placing a hand on his back. I rub small circles below his shoulder blades, and I notice goosebumps rising along the back of his neck.
“I shouldn’t have gotten involved,” he chides himself.
“It sounds to me like you gave that little girl a friend when she needed one. You probably made wonderful memories for her. I bet she still remembers you.”
“She’s dead,” he states heavily, and I’m taken aback.
“Oh…I’m sorry.” I swallow hard. “When?”
“Last year. But this all happened over fifty years ago.”
If Moira and her mother are no longer alive, what’s stopping him from going into town? I seriously doubt Calliope or the rest of her family is still holding a grudge for something so trivial. If he’s that afraid to face the people of Shadow Hills, there’s got to be more to it.
I don’t think I’m going to be getting anything else out of him tonight, so I change the subject. “So that’s who I have to thank for the lovely decor in the bedroom.”
Theo visibly relaxes. “Genevra had unique taste.”
I thought the antique bed and vanity were from Theo’s time, but clearly Genevra’s style clung to the past. Other than the updated appliances in the kitchen, the rest of the house screams Victorian era.
I grab the portrait from the floor and place it back against the wall, this time facing the opposite way. “Sorry, G. This place is about to get a serious home-makeover.”
Theo opens his hands at his sides. “What did you have in mind?”
I beam. “I can’t wait to tell you.”