Chapter Thirty-Four. Grace #2
Her aunt rocks backward, a funny look on her face.
“Actually, darling, I know a bit more than you might think. I had a baby girl of my own.” Ella and Rose both let out gasps.
“It was right after William left for France. May 2, 1942. Catherine was stillborn. My little Cate. She would have been the same age as Lou. I like to think they would have been the very best of friends.”
“Auntie!” Rose presses her fingers to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. Father never told us.”
“I didn’t know.” Tears glisten in Ella’s brown eyes. “I never—”
“Of course you didn’t. Rosie was away at school, and Ella, you were still a child.
And your father can’t bear any unpleasantness.
” Mrs. Langford’s jaw goes tight. “You must all pray for Magnolia and her baby. Will you do that for me?” We nod.
“Let me change into my grubbies. Then I’ll go. Of course I’ll go.”
She glances down at her white sweater and pedal pushers, and I realize she doesn’t want to get Maggie’s blood on her nice clothes.
After Mrs. Langford leaves, Ella checks on Lou and reports that she’s napping.
Rose bustles around, making us all toast and tea.
I tease her about knowing how to use the stove, but my heart’s not really in it.
Rose brings everything into the library on a silver tray.
I nibble one of the strawberry muffins Ma made yesterday.
Cooper scarfs two, plus a slice of buttered toast.
!
I feel like I’m about to heave a bomb into a tea party.
“Ella, where is Maggie’s spirit board?”
“What spirit board?” She’s a better liar than her big sister, I’ll give her that.
“I know you nabbed it from Dad’s office, you little phony. Maggie said you two were going to have a séance, but you chickened out.”
“I did not!” Ella huffs, tossing her dark hair. “We had the candles all set up, and we made a salt circle and everything—and then a branch tapped against the window and Maggie practically peed herself. She said it was on account of the baby, but it was not!”
“Perfect.” I give her a big smile. “If you’re not scared, go get it.”
“A séance? What are you talking about?” Cooper looks puzzled.
God, he is going to be furious with me.
Rose spills hot coffee on herself and hisses. “I don’t think now is the right time, Grace.” She looks at Cooper anxiously. I’m not the only one he’s going to be angry with.
But we might not get another chance. And if Daisy deigns to talk to us, we’ll finally know what happened to her. What my father did.
Ella senses the argument brewing and hops up from her armchair. “I’ll go get it now.”
“You want to do a séance?” Cooper’s voice is rich with disbelief. “You don’t believe in any of that supernatural bunk.”
“I do now.” I take a deep breath. “There’s a ghost here, Cooper.
She’s real. It’s not a joke.” His gaze darts from me to Rose and back again, searching for the punch line.
“I’ve been seeing her for months. She shows up in reflective things: mirrors, mostly, at first, but also spoons and windows and the pool and the frying pan.
That’s why I’ve been so jumpy. So angry.
Well, part of the reason, anyhow … It started back in March.
When I broke your nose trying to get at Dad.
She gets in my head and she—she takes my anger and magnifies it, because she’s angry, too.
She’s furious. I’ve never felt anything like it …
But sometimes … sometimes she goes too far. ” I swallow hard, thinking of Stanley.
Cooper searches my face. “You’re kidding. Right? You’re kidding me?”
“She’s not.” Rose’s hands are dying birds, flapping anxiously.
“There was no stray cat. I’m the one who scratched your dad’s face.
He was threatening me. I tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t hear it.
I blinked, and my nail was broken, and his face—” She shudders, remembering.
“I didn’t know what I’d done, because it wasn’t really me. It was her.”
Cooper scrubs a hand through his messy hair. “Look, you lost your temper. I don’t blame you. Dad can be a mean son of a bitch. You don’t need to make up a ghost to account for it.”
I grind my teeth. “We’re not making anything up!”
“I swear it,” Rose says.
“Then how come I haven’t seen her?”
“I don’t think she trusts men,” Rose says. “But Ella and Lou have seen her, too.”
“And Maggie,” I add.
“You’ve been seeing a ghost all summer, and nobody told me?” His voice rises. He leans forward in the leather armchair, his hands white-knuckled as he grips the armrests. He’s mad. Cooper never gets mad. He’s like Ma that way, ridiculously, frustratingly even-keeled.
“I didn’t tell anybody,” I explain, trying to be patient. “I thought I was losing my marbles. I was scared if Dad found out, he would try to beat the demons out of me! It wasn’t till I found out Rose could see her, too, that I knew she was real.”
Rose and I take turns explaining, ending with our visit to Mrs. Wheeler. “The photograph proved it,” Rose says. “Daisy is our ghost.”
“I don’t think she ever left the Harrow Home,” I add. A gust of air sweeps through the room from the cracked-open windows, and I shiver. “I think Dad did something to her.”
“Hold on.” Cooper temples his fingers together. “You think Dad murdered this girl?”
I look him right in the eye. “You know what a bully he is.”
Cooper glances away. He’s quiet for a minute. “Why didn’t you tell me? You two teamed up weeks ago, and you kept it from me.” He stares into the fire. “Did you think I was too soft? Too much of a sissy?”
“No one thinks that.” Rose tries to hold his hand, but Cooper jerks it away from her. “Don’t blame Grace. It’s my fault. I didn’t trust you at first.”
“You still don’t. Would you have told me now if you didn’t have to?”
We’re both silent. “Not until we knew for sure,” I admit.
Cooper looks at Rose, hurt written all over his features. “I would’ve believed you. I would’ve tried to help. I’d never do anything to put you or Grace in danger.”
“I know. But when you grow up with a dad like mine—” Rose shakes her head.
“Or ours,” I add.
“It’s not so easy to trust,” Rose says. “That their idea of help isn’t being locked away.”
“Like my mom.” Ella is holding a long, thin box in one hand and a fistful of tapered white candles in the other.
Where Rose’s face is shuttered, hers is open and vulnerable.
“She was sick. Depressive. ‘An excess of emotion,’ they called it. When I was Lou’s age, Dad sent Mama to Switzerland.
There was an experimental treatment called a lobotomy; it was supposed to fix her.
But they botched it, and now she’s like a child.
That’s why Rosie was scared to tell you. Why I was scared to tell anybody.”
Ella gulps. “I’m the one who killed Stanley. And Mr. McIntosh. Well. Me, and Daisy. I don’t remember it, but I was there. That’s why we’ve got to do the séance today, before I hurt anyone else. Before she does, using me or Rose or Grace or, God forbid, Lou.”
Huh. Ella might look like a wobbly foal, but she has gumption.
“I’m just trying to understand.” Cooper blows out a breath.
“Well, we don’t have time for that,” Ella says, not unkindly. “Where does Auntie keep the matches, Rose?”
Right as she crosses the threshold of the library, there’s a colossal boom of thunder, and the lamps flicker. Once. Twice. Ella’s eyes go enormous.
The third time the lamps flicker, they stay out.
“See? Perfect weather for a séance.” My voice hardly even shakes.