Chapter 7
An innocent-looking study isn’t what I’d expected. The curtains open themselves as I walk in, letting in the warm morning light.
Bookshelves line the wall directly to my left and half of the wall adjacent to that.
The other half is taken up by a desk and chair, which sits underneath the corner of a wide window overlooking the front of the house.
Two armchairs facing each other and framing a small coffee table sit directly in the heart of the protruding window.
The wall on the right is overtaken by even more shelves, with a three-seater sofa sitting a few feet in front of it.
All the books look like ledgers or diaries. Strangely, they remind me of our record-keeping hut back in Maraya, where a sita oerhwu—a practitioner who specialised in visions of past, present, and future—stored, recorded, and referenced written accounts of our village’s history.
Something makes me look up.
The head of my visitor from this morning peeks out at me from the corner of the ceiling. My heart leaps into my throat. That painfully familiar face contorts into something inhuman before it disappears.
I wait, but she doesn’t reappear.
“Okay,” I say, mostly to calm myself.
I step further into the room, closing the door behind me. At the same time, one of the desk’s drawers flings itself open. I hear the wood creak unnaturally, then a book is ejected from the opening, slapping against the wall and landing dramatically on the floor, before the drawer slams shut.
I glance with amusement around me as I make my way to the desk. Both drawers framing the desk on each side are locked. I shake my head.
“Thank you?” I offer bemusedly at the ceiling, not expecting a response as I lean down.
It’s a plain hardcover notebook in A4 size with about five hundred pages—the generic kind most bookshops sell to secondary and university students.
I flip through it. Words in a strange, unfamiliar language but written in the same hand leap out at me.
There are a few hand-drawn diagrams, and even pictures, either cut out from somewhere else or taken specifically for whatever purpose the notebook holds.
Most of the diagrams and pictures are of flowers, herbs, and roots I don’t recognise. Some clear plastic bags, taped to the pages, contain what I assume are seeds and samples.
“I can’t read this,” I say, dropping the book onto the desk.
The drawer on the right rattles. I step back just in time for it to fling itself open once more. This time, an apparently hidden panel at the base of it falls open, and a smaller notebook—hardbound, just like the bigger one—plops unceremoniously to the ground.
I can’t open it. It’s like I’m fiddling with a perfectly flat, rectangular rock.
I notice a thumbprint right in the middle of the plain, yellow-grey paper on the front, dark and rusty with age, like someone had used ink or something else to—
The book drops from my hands, landing on the table with a loud thud that makes me flinch, my heart pounding.
An eshé ward, made with blood—one of the most powerful ways to protect or lock something. I’m not going to be able to read this notebook without access to the blood of whoever had locked it. And a blood ward like this will take too long to unravel on my own, time I know I don’t have.
I turn my attention to the first book. The chair moves as I’m making to sit in it, and then slides forward on its own until I’m pushed nearly against the desk, my hands resting flat on the old, polished wood.
I start with my glasses, activating them as I stare down at the bigger notebook. Nothing. I look around the study just in case; same result.
My ability with the sight isn’t quite up to speed, but should be enough to at least get me something useful.
I murmur a quick incantation for my ancestors’ guidance. It takes a few moments for me to completely open myself, not just to my own eshé, but the thick currents of it I feel around me, spilling sluggishly out of the house’s walls.
I place both hands on the notebook, closing my eyes for a better picture.
The first vision I see is of Genevieve, sitting right where I’m perched.
It looks to be early evening, the setting sun casting its pink-yellow glow into the room.
This must’ve happened fairly recently—possibly a day or two before my arrival—because she looks the same, and has the exact same hairstyle she has now.
The two notebooks are open in front of her—my breath hitches; does that mean her blood had worked to get the smaller one open?
—and her eyes are flying across the pages, moving back and forth between each book, her expression drawn.
My temples throb when I force the vision to speed up, stopping when Genevieve’s stopped, too.
The curtains are closed now, the lights turned on. She’s leaning back in the seat, staring blankly into space. Then she stands. She looks like she’s going to be ill.
My heart throbs viciously. I try to reach out, even though I know it’s not real.
The vision morphs suddenly, without my permission. An elderly woman is perched in the chair this time, bent over the notebook, scribbling furiously. The curtains remain closed but I can hear it storming outside, the room lit in warm candlelight.
Startled, my hands fly off the book, ending the vision. I glance around the room, but it remains the same. I don’t look above me, at the corner of the ceiling where the head of the shannko had briefly appeared.
When I get my bearings, I touch the notebook again, closing my eyes.
The vision is the same but different; it’s bright outside this time, the curtains wide open.
The same old woman is sipping on a mug of tea, the hand holding the pen poised over the pages, resting against the edge of the open book, possibly taking a break after she’d just finished writing something down.
I take my hands off the book again, opening my eyes.
It’s the woman from the window. From this morning, in the guest bedroom, and just now, when I’d first stepped into the study.
Genevieve’s grandmother, from the look of it.
Or someone even older. The eshé had been conflicting, hence my confusion about it being a simple, neutral spirit or an evil one.
Something about it feels simultaneously as ancient as the house as it does brand new, like the person had literally just died a few days or weeks ago—months, at most.
I wonder if I should ask Genevieve. She’s repeatedly stated she’s the only one here; does that mean the shannko hasn’t manifested to her or tried to contact her at all?
It doesn’t make sense, especially not if this is her home.
I realise she hadn’t said anything to that effect last night, so I can’t be sure.
I flip back to the beginning of the notebook.
There’s what must be a table of contents. I’d noticed during my first flip-through the chapter headings are highlighted, with each corresponding chapter in the book highlighted in the same colour for easy reference since the pages aren’t numbered.
It’ll take an expert—or at least someone more patient and better at scrying—to figure out the code; I’m not about to bother.
I understand why the house had given these to me: to help me find out the identity of the shannko, and perhaps uncover a few secrets written down by said shannko, who seems to be one of the previous owners of the house.
Somehow, attempting to read the book feels like a violation. If this is indeed Genevieve’s home, I don’t want to read it without her permission. Then again, if this is her home, how had she only just found out it was sentient?
One thing I can do right now is try a stronger call to the shannko. Now that I have a firmer image of her, I can make the call specific to just her alone, instead of the general one I’d used to attract any and all spirits within the vicinity of the house.
I leave the study with a bit of trepidation, but the house doesn’t stop me. I snort to myself, wondering just how Genevieve or the previous owners had managed it when the building suddenly took a mind of its own.
In the short distance, the bottom of the stairs seems to loom, the reminder of this morning making my breathing speed up. Afraid the house will forcibly turn me around again, I don’t look down the hall for too long.
I return to the study with my trunk, plopping it down in a corner of the room and unlocking it.
Time to hopefully get some real answers.
I get dressed as quickly as possible. The noises in the bathroom had eventually stopped, though I can’t quite look at the door, my eyes sliding unfocused over it every time I accidentally glance in that direction.
I check on the upstairs windows. The bars are still sealed, and the balcony doors remain one thick panel of impenetrable glass.
The oppressive energy when I walk underneath the door of the attic feels like it has increased.
It makes the monster’s teeth itch, makes it whine with discomfort.
Unlike the day I’d first gotten here, I ignore it.
Rosemary’s back. I’d locked in on her scent and heartbeat the moment I’d left the bathroom, inhaling helplessly, using her presence as an anchor. It makes my stomach ache and my mouth water. I should have been satiated; I’m trying not to, but I’m beginning to remember last night in bits and pieces.
Chasing an animal through the dense trees. Catching it. Sinking my teeth in tough, lightly furred skin, ripping through flesh, tendon, and bone with savage pleasure—
The beast’s hunger should’ve been quelled.
But the longer I keep my senses honed in on Rosemary, the more ravenous the beast gets, like it hadn’t eaten at all.
I know I should try and focus on something else, but fuck, I can’t, she smells so—and the sound of her heartbeat—it’s a siren’s song keeping me enthralled, making me follow the hint of her presence all the way down to—
What the hell is she doing in here?
I practically fling the study door open, then come to an abrupt halt.
Rosemary’s in the middle of the space facing the windows overlooking the front of the house, sitting cross-legged on the floor. In front of her is a calabash sitting in a spread of dirt, six cowrie beads sunk to the bottom of the bowl’s clear water.
Her trunk is on the far left side of the room, open.
Amusement sparks in my chest. It literally looks like an oerhwu’s trunk, filled with even more candles in multiple shapes, colours and sizes; numerous glass vials of varying volumes glistening with different coloured liquids; multiple dark green velvet pouches; stacked books and papers—fuck, it even seems to be bigger on the inside, like the interior has been magically expanded to fit all those fantastical looking bits and bobs.
“Are you the only spirit here?”
My eyes snap back to Rosemary. She’s not looking at me. In four points, she’s surrounded by eight candles, two in each corner. On the outer edge, the candles are yellow. On the inner, they’re white. The flames of the white ones flicker.
“Are you the one that called me here?”
My heartbeat speeds up. Who is she talking to? The flames pulse again.
“Do you know why you can’t remember?”
I glance wildly around the room. Fuck. Why is my heart beating so fast? Why am I so terrified?
Who is she talking to?
Slowly, like she can sense my panic, all without looking at me, Rosemary extends her right hand in my direction. It feels like she doesn’t want to take her eyes off whatever is in front of her. A ghost, most likely; one I can’t see.
My blood rushing with trepidation, I take a step closer.
“Shall I help you remember?”
It feels like I’m walking through cobwebs; I shiver helplessly as I step over the invisible perimeter of the candles. Rosemary’s outstretched hand is like a beacon, and like last night, try as I might, I can’t help but reach back.
Our hands connect.
My grandmother appears, her ghostly torso floating a few inches above the calabash.
I gasp, nearly jerking my hand free, but Rosemary doesn’t let me.
My grandmother notices my presence at the same time and seems to swell in size—no, she’s rising, lifting higher from the water until she’s standing, though her feet from halfway down her calves fade and disappear before they reach the carved, wooden bowl.
Rosemary stands, too, our hands still joined. The connection must be what’s allowing me to see her. Allowing her, it seems, to see me.
“Do you remember now?” Rosemary asks urgently.
This time, I hear my grandmother’s words when she responds.
“Yes.” Her voice is a low, inhuman hiss. Her gaze flies back to Rosemary, but her next words come out in static, broken sentences, like a bad connection over the radio. “This house—cleansing—was a—did it—generations—have to—I told her—now we—”
Oh God. Oh no. What is she saying?
I glance at Rosemary. She doesn’t look confused. She doesn’t ask my grandmother to clarify or repeat herself. Her hand is squeezing mine tight. It feels like she’s squeezing my lungs, as well, my chest heaving with rushed, panicked breaths.
My grandmother is becoming hysterical, but Rosemary is still listening intently, not panicking at all.
“—understand?” She snarls the word out. “She—contained—if not—”
The study is growing dark. At first, I think it’s the looming rainfall finally arriving, but when I look up, I can tell the darkness is locked specifically to this room.
“Rosemary,” I whisper, trying to tug my hand out of her grasp. When that doesn’t work, I try to pull us both out of the centre of the candles.
She doesn’t let go, doesn’t budge.
My grandmother is morphing again. Her limbs are cracking and growing, her back arching and extending until she’s towering over us, her eyes entirely black. She’s still talking somehow, spitting words out through a row of sharpened teeth.
“Rosemary!” My supernatural strength has left me; all my attempts to drag her out, away from here—away from this, are failing, like she’s somehow sapping all my energy through our connected hands.
My grandmother’s arched back touches the ceiling. She’s hunched over on all fours, her abnormally long, thin arms stretching all the way down to the floor, her claws scraping against it. All the brown has been sucked unceremoniously from her skin, leaving her gaunt and grey.
The silence when she stops talking feels thunderous. Her mouth stretches into a grin that splits half her face. The smell of something old and rotting fills the air.
Rosemary jerks backward, her breath hitching as she finally, finally seems to realise the danger we’re in.
I turn to say something, once more attempting to drag us both out of the centre of the candles if it means it would break the connection.
My grandmother screams, the sound so loud and horrifying it makes both Rosemary and I cry out and instinctively duck.
The walls of the study contract like a lung on an exhale. The house groans like an animal in pain.
Then Rosemary’s head explodes.