by Rose Szabo
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know you want to say it,” I said. I felt exasperated, but also thrilled; it felt so much like chasing him that I could feel wind whipping past my face. “You wouldn’t have made that face if you didn’t. So why don’t you stop playing with me, and just tell me?”
“The priest was your grandmother’s lover,” he said. “Lusitania is his daughter.”
We both stood there in silence for a moment.
“Are you shocked?” he asked at last.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “What are you saying? Does Grandpa know? How is Father Thomas even still alive?”
“I don’t think Miklos has ever really known what jealousy is,” Arthur said. “Lusitania was one of his favorites. I suspect that helped things.”
I felt suddenly cold. For all his flaws, Miklos had clearly loved Grandma Persephone with every breath. And she’d betrayed him. I wondered what I could have done that made Grandma Persephone think I was the monster.
“Are you alright?” Arthur asked.
“I’m just—thinking.”
He touched my shoulder, and for a moment his usually cool hand flared with a little heat. Then he limped away, leaning on his cane for support, to talk to my mother. Luma caught up to him and grabbed him by the elbow, which he let her take, and Mother swept over to Grandpa Miklos and wrapped him in a damp hug. Rhys flung open the front door, his clothes mud-streaked, a gamey smell hovering around him, his knuckles bloodied dark red, as though he’d been hitting something. He strode up the stairs and disappeared from sight.
Rhys climbing the stairs reminded me that I hadn’t seen Aunt Lusitania in a while. If Arthur was right, and she was ransacking the house, I should find her quickly.
I looked everywhere I thought she might be searching—the parlor, Grandma’s library, the greenhouse—hoping we could talk. Maybe I could convince her I needed the cards more. Finally I came back to the front hall to find Charlie kneeling on the hall table, trying to lift the boar’s head from the wall. I cornered him and glared until he turned around.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
“The cards aren’t behind that.”
He sat down on the table next to the glass bowl of stale peppermints. I crossed my arms.
“Where’s your mother?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” he said. “She knows you’re going to ask her to teach you.”
I blinked. I’d only just thought of it. “How did she know?”
“Because we’re witches and you’re not.”
He was giving up secrets just to taunt me, a mistake he would never have made if he’d been to preparatory school. He had no subtlety. I flicked him hard on the ear. “Ow!” he said.
“Why won’t she teach me?” I asked.
“I’ll scream if you hit me again.”
“I’ll say you’re lying.”
He huffed. “There’s something wrong with you. There’s something wrong with your mother, too. Everyone knows it, but no one would say anything because of Grandma.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“You don’t want me to tell you.”
I ignored the knot of dread in my throat. “Yes, I do. Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me.” I was shocked by the force in my words.
Charlie swallowed. His eyes unfocused, like Grandma Persephone’s when she read the cards.
“You’re not from here,” he said, his voice suddenly vague and deep, as though coming from a long way off. “You’re not of the wolf, and you’re not a daughter of women. You’re like something from the bottom of the ocean. A fish with a light on its forehead that lures other fish in and eats them. Not a real person at all, but you look like one. And that’s why Mother doesn’t like you. She knows you’re not real.”
My stomach churned.
“Well, I don’t like her, either,” I said. I got a little closer to him, put my nose inches from his. “Your mother is crazy, and so are you.”
He picked up the cut-glass candy dish and swung it at me in a shower of peppermints. The dish smashed into my nose. Blood began pouring down my face. I flung up my hand to cover it. Charlie was right, I wasn’t real, and my strange orangish blood confirmed it. I’d hid it in school, any time I got a cut or a scrape. I thought it meant I was like my family, secretly. But I wasn’t like anyone.
I ran from him, my feet slipping on stray peppermints, reached the stairs and climbed up and up, hoping no one in the dining room had seen. I just had to get to the bathroom. Mother was downstairs with the guests. I could stop up my nose and no one would see my strange blood. I flung open the door.
Rhys was in the bathroom stripped to the waist, rinsing off in the sink. I paused in the door, not sure what to do. I wanted to run, but where? Back downstairs? To my room? Out into the rain? Blood was pooling in the hand I held under my nose.
Rhys splashed his face with water and shook his head wildly, making me jump. He caught a glimpse of me in the mirror and turned.
For a moment, he looked confused—horrified, even. Then he grabbed me by the shoulders, and I screamed.
“Who did this to you?” he demanded.
“Char—” I’d spoken reflexively. I stopped myself, but it was too late. “Wait, it’s nothing!”
Rhys let me go, almost tossing me to one side as he flung himself out the door. He was barreling down the stairs by the time I got out of the bathroom. “I said wait!”
I slipped on the wet floor, got up, tried to stay on his heels. He’d had a violent look in his eyes. I had to stop him. Grandma Persephone had told me so.
As I came down the stairs, I realized I was too late. Charlie was still holding the bloodied candy dish, looking a little stunned, as Rhys flew down the stairs and pinned him to the wall with one hand.
“What did you just do?” Flecks of spittle flew from Rhys’s mouth and spattered Charlie’s glasses.
“Rhys, stop!” I said. “Stop it now!”
Rhys stopped stock-still, one hand holding Charlie to the wall.
“You moron,” Charlie said calmly. “Now she’s going to make us leave.”
That was when Aunt Lusitania came in.
She saw Rhys holding Charlie, strode up to him, and smacked Rhys on the nose. Rhys cowered back. Charlie sank down again until he was huddled on the hall table with his arms around his knees. He looked at me. Aunt Lusitania saw me then, seemingly for the first time.
“Charlie hit me,” I said, realizing how stupid it sounded.
Charlie glowered. “She called you crazy.”
My father stumbled in through the doorway. “What’s going on?”
Lusitania glanced at me, and there was something so cursory about the look that I shivered. She turned to my father.
“You need to get rid of her,” she said, pointing to me. “Papa won’t do it. Mama wouldn’t do it. But now she’s dead and he’s in pieces because you let this thing back in your house. That leaves you in charge. So be a man for once, Miles, and get rid of her.”
“Grandma Persephone left me in charge, actually,” I said. “Well, she left me the business. And Rhys got the house. So you should really talk to us.”
I didn’t know where it came from; the words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. My father’s face went ashen. I knew he wasn’t going to stand up for me. I just hoped he wouldn’t listen to Lusitania.
“What did you say?” Lusitania’s head swiveled slowly until she was looking at me.
“She said I’m supposed to take care of them,” I said. My own voice sounded strange to me through my smashed nose. “I don’t know how to do that. I need you to teach me magic. So I can protect them. Please.”
I watched her expression change from disgust to rage. She strolled over slowly until she was very close to me.
“They should have buried you out back with the others,” she said. “They should never have let your mother in this house
. I will never teach you anything, and as long as you’re here, I won’t be.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
And then, from behind me, I heard footsteps.
Luma was coming down the hall toward us, growling softly under her breath. I glanced back and saw that her eyes had narrowed to slits. Her mouth was open to show her long teeth. And then from my other side, Rhys slunk into place behind me, growling, too.
For a moment I thought they were closing in on me, that they’d taken Lusitania up on her offer and now they were going to kill me. I turned back to my aunt, ready to tell her I’d get on a train, leave tonight, if she’d just tell them to let me live.
And then she stepped back. She pulled Charlie down from the table, pivoted on her black bootheel, and snatched up her hat from the coatrack.
“No need for the theatrics,” she said to Rhys. “I’ll go. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She slammed the door behind her. My father looked in the direction she had gone, and back at me, and shook his head.
“Really, Eleanor?” he said. Before I could say anything, he slunk out of the room. He had to elbow his way past the citizens of Winterport, who had crowded into the doorways of the parlor and the dining room. Worried faces looked out from all sides as silence descended.
“Sorry,” I said to them feebly, trying to surreptitiously wipe the blood from my lip. “Sorry, everyone. Please, don’t worry about that, it had nothing to do with you—”
One or two began edging toward the door, and the rest followed after. Soon ribbons of black streamed out of the house and down the hill, moving briskly, some sprinting ahead. Behind me, Luma and Rhys whined in my ears.
“They’re running,” Luma whispered to me. “That means they want us to chase them.”
“Can I … go outside?” Rhys asked. “Just for a minute?”
“No,” I said, and I placed a hand on his shoulder to make sure he stayed. Under his sweater I could feel his muscles tensing. Had he threatened Lusitania to protect me? I wondered. Or just because he’d smelled blood and wanted more of it? I gripped his arm more tightly, hoping it would hide the shaking in my hand.
* * *
That night, Father Thomas rang the church bells in the town. I went into the front hall where the sound reverberated through the empty space like the roar inside of a seashell. I brushed aside the thought that the priest and my grandmother might have been lovers and tried to just be content that at least the day was over. I’d gotten through it, and no one had died. Today, that was enough.
And then from the shadows of the hall, I spotted Grandpa Miklos.
He stood stock still, with one hand raised in front of him—I couldn’t tell whether in self-defense, or to point, or to shield his eyes from some invisible sun.
“Grandpa,” I said, “what’s wrong?”
He didn’t seem to see me, even after I’d spoken. “The bells.”
“They’re for Grandma.”
“No!” he said. “No, no…”
“Grandpa.”
“Where I come from,” he said, “the bells tell you it’s time to hide from the crows.”
“Tell me about the crows.”
He balked, saying nothing. “Tell me,” I said again, insisting. I’d been insisting a lot today.
He didn’t look at me. When he spoke again, it was in a quieter voice than before.
“It was in the silent country,” he said. “The crows came sometimes. The flock was a cloud that blotted out the sun. We hid in the church and held the doors and they battered at them and at the windows. We waited and they left. But one day…” He paused and licked his dry lips. “One day I was late.”
He slipped out of speech then. I watched his old body straighten before me until he was pantomiming young Miklos, no older than me, cracking his back and leaning on his pitchfork. And then staring up, and up, and up still, his eyes roaming the giant hollow hall. I realized he was seeing it again, a swarm of crows as big as the house.
“There were a lot of them,” I said.
“I lost my hat, I ran so fast.”
And my Grandpa Miklos, lost in his memories, pivoted away from me and sprinted for the front door.
He hit it, and began to beat on it wildly, slamming the heels of his hands against the black wood. I looked around for someone to help, but we were alone.
He yelled wordlessly, his mouth opening and shutting, tears streaming down his face, casting glances over his shoulder as the swarm of crows got closer and closer in his mind.
Why was he acting like this now?
Because of the bells.
There were no bells in the house. I remembered Luma had gotten a toy lamb with a bell once and Grandma Persephone had put her hand over the clapper and cut the ribbon, throwing the bell away without a word. There was no dinner bell, no chimes in the grandfather clock, no doorbells, no Christmas bells, no telephone.
“Grandpa!” I put my hand on his arm. “It’s not real.”
He whipped his head around, a wolf’s head, lips curled back over sharp teeth. He lunged at me, and his teeth snapped shut inches from my face.
I fell backward, caught myself on the staircase, tore up the stairs to my room. I wasn’t sure if he was behind me—my heart pounded so loudly that I couldn’t hear him. I locked myself in my room and shoved the chair under the door. And then I stood there, too afraid to breathe. There was no one to yell, “Miklos! Stop it!” No one to protect me. I was alone.
Toenails clicked on the parquet. They stopped in front of my room.
For a while, he scratched and whined at the door. After he left, it was a long time before I could bring myself to breathe. When I did, it came out in heavy sobs that I tried to keep quiet. I collapsed onto the faded rag rug, clutching my head. I couldn’t do this. Not by myself.
And that was when I realized I might not have to.
I thought about the letter I’d found, from my other grandmother. The one who lived in France and who wrote about how she’d always love her daughter. The paper had smelled like lavender water. And she was Mother’s mother, so she must know about some of this. She must understand something about monsters.
I thought about what Luma had said—that maybe she was like Mother, but all over. But I didn’t care anymore. I needed help.
Eventually, I cried myself out and dragged myself into bed. But I was still too afraid to sleep. So instead I lay in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, imagining my grandmother. When dawn was starting to break over the water, and I heard Luma singing as she padded around in the hallway outside, I finally felt strong enough to climb out of bed.
I stayed in my room with the door cracked, my face pressed to the opening, until Father left his room. When I heard the back door slam, I slunk in and opened Mother’s trunk. The cigar box full of letters was just where I’d left it. I snatched it and I left the room feeling like I’d gotten away with it. And then as I rounded the gallery overlooking the front hall, I felt a cold wind whip over me. Panicked, I peered over the railing at the front hall below, wondering if someone had come in, if I was about to be caught. But the door was shut. No one stood on the parquet below. The only sound was the hollow clacking of the old clock, and the tinkling of the chandelier as the draft swept through it. I breathed a sigh of relief, even as I wondered where the wind had come from. Old houses were like this, I told myself. There were always cracks.
Still, I felt nervous as I looked for a safe, quiet place to write the letter. There was Grandma Persephone’s library, of course. But when I went in there and tried to sit down at her long worktable, I had the distinct impression that I was being watched. I abandoned the library and cut through the laundry, up the winding back servants’ staircases to the third floor and its warren of small identical rooms and corridors. Some of them were furnished, others had single objects in them (a coin lying in the middle of the floor, a chess table with a kind of wooden mannequin seated behind it), and others were completely empty. I c
hose an empty one with a window I could pry open, and settled in to write.
It took me a while to figure out what I was going to say, and longer to remember how to translate it into my clumsy French:
Dear Grandmere,
I am sorry that I do not know your name. This is Eleanor, your granddaughter. I am writing to you because I do not know what else to do. I am sure my mother has told you about our family and what they are like. Well, I have returned home from school, and shortly afterward my father’s mother died. She left me responsible. Our business is failing. My grandfather is sick. My father is angry at me. I would like your help if you can give it to me. I want to invite you to come to visit if it’s not any trouble for you. Or if not, can I write to you for advice?
I am sorry to bother you. I am sure you are very busy. But I read your letters to my mother and it sounds like you miss her. If you do visit, please do not tell her I asked you to come. I don’t know why but she’s against it.
Sincerely,
Eleanor
I mailed it the next day, saying I wanted a walk down to the village. The letter to our other grandmother was expensive to post, and Mrs. Hannafin behind the counter looked at me warily. But I was a Zarrin, so she said nothing.
I waited through a tense few weeks: checking our post office box in town as often as I dared, walking past houses where cold-eyed women stared at me out of their windows until I felt like the girl I’d seen in my dream. And then one day, there was a letter for me. To Miss Eleanor Zarrin, it said in flowing script on the envelope. I snuck it down to the cove and sat barefoot in the sand to open it. The letter inside smelled like honey and lavender. It was written in the same lyrical French as the letters to my mother:
My dear heart,
I was touched by your letter. From what you have told me, I can see that you need a friend. Please take courage and know that I am coming to you as quickly as I can. We can keep it between us that you invited me. I am sure I can find a way to explain my visit to your mother.
I am beside myself with happiness that you have written to me, my treasure. I have longed for the day I could come to you for some time.