by Amy Lukavics
“Miranda should take a vacation,” I say, wishing they’d just go. Let him see what it’s like to live like a king without anyone willing to serve him. “After everything that’s happened since she started here, she deserves a break.” I pause. “I think what she probably deserves most is to quit.”
“I tried to convince her of that, actually.” Vanessa sighs in frustration. “She keeps saying that everything here will crumble without her, but I really think she’s just running away from everything back home. The divorce was starting to get really ugly when she applied to live here. I’m pretty sure she’d do anything to get away from it all. That, and she wants to impress Felix.”
We stay quiet for a few moments, looking out over the courtyard that is riddled with dead rosebushes. When the cold season ends, the roses will bloom again, just in time for galas and brunches and cocktail hours for the club that will apparently continue coming here forever. There may be a pretty bow tied on top of it all, I think bitterly, my eyes wandering the length of the courtyard. But to me, it’s still hell.
“Look,” Vanessa says, her voice soft. “I’m sorry to load all of this onto you. This is the last thing you need right now, to hear someone complain about your father and all this stuff that’s out of your control.”
But my whole life has been out of my control, I would tell her if I wanted to tell the truth. No matter how much I wanted to pretend otherwise.
“No,” I say, looking her in the eye. “I’m glad you told me. Keeping stuff like that inside can lead to some pretty horrible things.”
I think of the secrets Margaret kept from me: the picnic basket, the contents of the shiny black wallet, whatever else she knew but never told.
“Yeah,” she agrees, then starts to stand from where she sits against the wall of the house. She brushes dirt off the back of her pants as I stand, too. “Thanks for listening. And, Lucy... I’m also sorry about what I said to you the night Margaret died. About you guys being fucked up.”
The comment had bothered me at first, but compared to everything else that happened that night, it’s practically irrelevant by now.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, suddenly light-headed at the sight of the forest in the distance. “You weren’t wrong.”
“Well, maybe I wasn’t,” Vanessa agrees. “But it’s not like the same couldn’t be said about anybody, really. We all have bad stuff.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I make my way to the door, anxious to get past this strange conversation with the cook’s daughter. We may all have bad stuff, but I’m starting to think that what’s wrong with me may be irreversible, especially since hearing the voice in the closet. Maybe that’s the way it was with Margaret. Maybe our paths are one and the same.
No, I tell myself. You burned that box for a reason. You will not kill yourself like Margaret did.
“Anyway,” Vanessa says, holding the door open for me. “Sorry about that. I think I just needed to get it all out. I know that I, for one, feel like I’m losing it sometimes.”
“You’re not alone.” I head inside, where Miranda is prepping the ingredients for lunch. She stares at Vanessa and me with unblinking eyes. “Hi, Miranda.”
“Hello, Miss Lucy,” Miranda says, shifting her focus to the knife she’s using to chop an onion. She doesn’t look up again. “I hope you’re doing okay.”
“Hanging in there,” I say, feeling awkward about what Vanessa just told me about Miranda having a hopeless crush on my father. What could she possibly see in him besides money? “I just wanted to tell you that Margaret’s dinner last night was very nice. Thank you for doing it in a way that she would have loved.”
It’s not exactly the truth, but the reason last night was horrible had nothing to do with the food, so in a way it isn’t a lie, either.
“Of course, honey.” Miranda looks so surprised at my words, it makes me feel even worse. “It was no problem at all. I only wish I could have done more for Miss Margaret.” She looks down again, her eyes glazed and red. “Vanessa, would you mind starting a soup pot with some olive oil over medium-high?”
“Of course, Mama,” Vanessa says, going for the cupboards right away. “It was...nice talking to you, Lucy.”
She’s a bad liar, but I won’t hold it against her. It wasn’t nice for me, either.
“Okay,” I answer instead of saying you, too. She grins weakly and raises a hand to wave. “See you around.”
Upstairs, my bedroom is cool and dark, since I never opened my blinds after getting up this morning. I’m standing in the middle of it, looking around quietly as I try to figure out a way to investigate Penelope’s supposed witchcraft further. Maybe there was something missing in her room; I didn’t exactly comb it over before because I was only wanting to look at the photographs that Margaret ruined. There could be something else in there. Evidence, maybe.
I sit on my bed with a straight back in silence, my hands in my lap, staring at the gold swirls on the wallpaper and wondering if I could possibly gather the courage to go check out that cemetery in the forest again. But no matter how I look at it, I can’t figure out why it’d be a good idea to visit somewhere that could have potentially had to do with what happened to Penelope and Margaret.
Don’t forget Walter, I remind myself. It’s almost like his death is what set everything into motion.
I can’t believe this. I’m actually sitting here entertaining the fact that my aunt was messing around in something real. But...what if? Things can only be so coincidental.
The thing is, if I’m willing to believe the witchcraft is real, what does that say about Penelope? What were her intentions if she was really swallowing teeth? Was it a ritual of some kind? A curse? Was there someone she was trying to hurt, or was there something she was trying to protect? She was so dedicated to the estate, maybe the ritual had something to do with protecting it.
Thinking about all of it makes my head hurt. There’s no way to know what my aunt’s motivations were, no matter how well I thought I knew her. I rub my hand over my shoulder, trying to loosen some of the tension that is causing my head to ache. I really don’t feel well.
“It hurts,” someone groans from behind me, where the wall is. I jump from my bed with a shriek, turning around only to see that nothing’s there.
It’s happening again. I no longer believe my mind is playing tricks on me, because this can’t be fake, not unless I’ve cracked and spilled my mind like oatmeal onto the floor.
There come more sounds, this time too quiet to hear from where I stand. I move closer, slowly, my hands clasped onto each other as I force myself to breathe. The house makes a great settling sound, and I move the side of my face against the wall to hear the voice inside, rambling in an urgent tone.
“My head is wet,” it says quickly, barely audible through the wall. “It’s wet and sticky and who’s in there with you? Who’s in there in that room with you right now, Lucy?”
I jerk my face to look behind my shoulder, my spine electric at the thought of someone standing behind me. But there is nobody. The shutters on my closet are open. My mouth slacks open as I move my ear back against the wall.
“What did you find in my closet?” the voice demands in the same quick urgency. “Were you snooping in my closet, Lucy? What did you find in there?”
The voice belongs to Margaret.
“MARGARET?” I GASP, my eyes wet. I lean away from the wall, trembling. My body feels hollow, no insides, no muscles, no bones. My head swims, and for a moment I think I’m going to pass out. “Is this real?”
“Please don’t leave me,” her voice says louder than before, clear enough to understand but still muffled by the wall. She speaks as though she’s stuck in endless panic. “You have to be here for me now. You were never there for me and you have to stay, Lucy...”
So this is it. Either I’ve lost my mind or I’
m about to find out firsthand exactly what the hell is going on with this estate. Either way, hearing Margaret’s voice means, unquestioningly, that I will be dead soon.
I start to cry.
“Best friends,” she murmurs sorrowfully. “We were best friends.”
The fear is electric, making my blood hum, making me rock back and forth.
“We were,” I say with a cracked voice, terrified, hardly aware of what I’m saying. “We were best friends.”
“Until we weren’t anymore,” her voice continues, so frantic, so at unrest. “I don’t understand it, Lucy. Why didn’t you believe me? Why did you just let me die...?”
I put my hand against the cold wallpaper. Margaret, it’s my Margaret, I miss her, I love her, she’s dead. I think about how after I found Walter, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was going to die. I could never have imagined anything that started like this, hearing someone dead speaking to me from inside the walls.
My scars itch beneath my clothes. “I didn’t mean to,” I cry, pressing my face against the wall. “I tried to figure out what was happening with you. I’m so sorry about everything, please...”
“My head,” she nearly weeps, loud enough for me to startle and take my ear away from the wall. “It hurts, Lucy, it hurts so bad...”
My pulse intensifies, and I raise my hand to cover my mouth. I think about the grotesquely loud sound her head made when the iron spike of the garden fence came through the back of it, the pieces exploding out into the grass, scalp, skull, brains. I think about the sick gurgle that came from whatever was left.
“Are you trapped here against your will?” I ask, upset all over again about the fact that I couldn’t catch her in time before she jumped out that window. “Why is this happening?”
There comes a pause, followed by several little clicks on the wood. I remember with a shiver how these very sounds had come from behind me in the attic when I was covering my eyes with my hands. It wasn’t Margaret doing it.
My cousin’s whimpers are cut off by a guttural sound from deep inside the wall that reminds me, overwhelmingly, of the song of cicada insects in the summertime: a shimmering veil of clicks made from the vibrating of frail membranes on thickened ribs, softened by the bedroom wall.
When it fades away moments later, I don’t hear anything else. My head is light.
“Margaret? Margaret!” I step back to the wall and put my hands on it, my cheek, my forehead, begging her to come back while I cry all over the wallpaper.
We were best friends, she said to me. Until we weren’t anymore. Why did you just let me die?
Have I gone mad?
No, I try to insist, but can’t deny the confusion. Think about everything else that’s happened. This is real, it’s happening and now you’re all caught up in the web and you’ll never get free. I sit in the silence for an hour, the dread and anticipation building with every breath, but nothing else happens. I finally manage to stand up, my legs and back sore from sitting on the carpet.
Something is causing Margaret’s soul to be trapped in the walls of the house. She was telling the truth about hearing Penelope. Is there a way to help? Or is this just a dead-end spiral to an early grave?
I shudder as I think back on my cousin’s final days. So many signs leading up to what happened, and yet all I could manage to do was sit around and worry about it. If it’s even a little bit my fault that her soul is...in whatever state it is, I have to help her if I can. If I don’t, I’ll never be able to live with myself.
I scour my mind for anything that could help me piece this together. No matter how many ways I look at it, the conclusion is always the same: the start of Margaret’s demise was my aunt’s disappearance. Is it possible that Penelope did this? Gregory Shaw? My father?
If so, how is the house involved? Is Penelope’s soul still trapped in the walls like Margaret’s? Does the history the country club has with the estate play a role in this...haunting, if that’s what it is? Who can I trust, if anyone?
The situation is so overwhelming that it makes it nearly impossible to do anything except sit in a twitchy, paranoid heap near the wall where I heard my cousin’s voice, hoping every moment that she’ll come back and tell me something that will help me figure out what’s going on and how I can help her. I think about my box, dead and melted in the fireplace, and the wallet in Margaret’s closet, very much alive.
After the sun has gone down, there is a knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I call without standing up.
“It’s me,” Vanessa’s voice answers from the other side of the door. “You’re not in bed yet, are you?”
I stand up, cringing as I realize that my legs are asleep. I go to the door and open it to find Vanessa standing there. “I didn’t see you eating dinner with your father, and then you never came down to get something afterward. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t hungry or anything.”
Suddenly I remember how withdrawn Margaret was before she went off the deep end. She skipped meals, acted reclusive. I can’t let myself fall into that same pattern if I want a chance at breaking this cycle. “I could eat,” I answer, forcing myself to sound as normal as possible. “I guess I lost track of time.”
I’m not sure what I thought waiting around would accomplish, especially after so many hours of silence. The memory of talking to Margaret feels so far away, like it was in a different world. I need to force myself to be proactive through the fog of confusion and fear.
“Are you all right?” Vanessa asks as we walk down the hall toward the stairs. “You don’t look so well. Did something happen since we talked this morning?”
Like hell I’m even going to try to explain any of this to Vanessa. There is no way she’d be able to offer any sort of support or belief.
“Not really,” I say. “I just think the weight of everything is finally starting to catch up with me. I might be overly exhausted.”
“I hope my complaining earlier didn’t have anything to do with it.” Vanessa trails behind me slightly as we go down the stairs. “Although, how could it not?”
“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Seriously. It was nice to think about something else for a while.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she says. We head through the empty dining room and into the kitchen, which smells richly of garlic and tomato.
“You missed spaghetti night,” Vanessa says with phony enthusiasm, taking a plate from the oven and setting it on the counter. “And we even made meatballs.”
“Thanks for keeping a plate for me.” I look at the plate, piled high with noodles and sauce and a big hunk of garlic bread. “That looks really good.”
“It’s fine.” Vanessa shrugs, then heads to the fridge, where she pulls out a bowl of salad. “I set this aside, too.”
“Great,” I say, grabbing my food and taking it back with me to the dining room. Vanessa follows, sitting across from me at the table. Before hearing Margaret’s voice, I would have wanted her to stay away, but now I can’t help but admit that being around someone else feels nice, safe. While I eat, she looks around the room with her arms crossed over her chest.
“It must be so weird to eat all of your meals in an epic dining hall,” she says as I dip my bread into the sauce. “This place is almost like a castle.”
“Kind of,” I say, taking a moment to give the place a quick look-over. “I guess I don’t really notice the size of it anymore. I wish I could live somewhere smaller, cozier.”
Somewhere that isn’t haunted.
“That’s what I like,” Vanessa says. “Cozy is good. Warm, comforting, safe.”
“Where’s your mom?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“In bed already,” Vanessa answers. “Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s working on the lists for the holiday party while she’s lying down. Sh
e just will not give it a rest. I try not to worry, but it’s hard.”
“I’d worry, too,” I say, nearly delirious in my exhaustion. “Things around here aren’t right, and she looked so tired the last time I saw her. It’s almost like—”
I pause, realizing what I’m about to say. “Actually, never mind.”
“No, what?” Vanessa wants to know. “You have to say it now! You’ve passed the point of no return.”
It’s proving to be harder to keep this all in than I thought it would be.
“I was just going to say that it reminded me of how Margaret looked a few weeks before...you know.” I raise my hands quickly when Vanessa’s eyes widen. “But then I realized that it was a totally inappropriate comparison. Something...happened to Margaret.” I remember waking up to find my cousin standing over me with the pair of scissors. “Miranda’s just strung out.”
Vanessa relaxes a little bit, but I could swear her posture is just a little more rigid than before. I regret planting the idea in her head, awakening whatever paranoia was lingering dormant in her worry. If only she knew what sorts of things were really happening in this house.
After I’m done eating and my plates are in the dishwasher, I try to engage in more small talk with Vanessa, but it’s too hard to focus on anything besides Margaret and Penelope, trapped in the walls. Will I be able to hear my aunt’s voice eventually, too? Is anyone else’s soul trapped?
If I won’t go out to the cemetery, maybe I should take a look around the attic. There may be something hidden in one of the boxes that have been up there since before I found the knife and the creepy poem. The more I think about it, the more nervous I am at the idea: Who’s to say there isn’t a ghost waiting for me up there, ready to push me out the window or worse? Then again, if I haven’t run screaming to my father to be sent away by this point, I must not care that much about what happens to me. At least not more than I do about finding out exactly what’s happening here.