by Ania Ahlborn
And yet, even with Arlen’s harping and Maggie’s gentle suggestions of leaving the place behind, Brynn had stayed. I can’t, she had said. I just . . . I can’t. Maggie couldn’t grasp her sister’s motive. Brynn, it seemed, was as determined to remain in their childhood home as Maggie was committed to never return. But after years of fighting, it seemed that Brynn’s refusal wasn’t something for Maggie to understand. If Brynn wanted Maggie to get it, she would have surely explained—something she never got the chance to do.
Pulling Brynn’s keys into her hand, Maggie stepped back into the foyer and paused at the base of the stairs.
ARLEN IS SENDING ME OUT TO BUY A COFFIN. Send.
ARE YOU SERIOUS? Immediate response.
DEAD SERIOUS. Send. And then a follow-up emoji—the one that was laughing so hard it was in tears.
NOT FUNNY! Dillon, always the serious one. Maggie cracked a smile at her screen, slid her phone into her back pocket, and grabbed the strap of her duffel bag before hefting it onto her shoulder.
. . . but she didn’t make it up the stairs. Hesitating for yet another beat, she paused to gaze at the doors that led out to the pool for a second time. Her heart fluttered to a standstill, her eyes catching what looked to be something running across the flagstones and out of sight. Were the girls out there? Maggie looked back to the kitchen, considered asking Arlen if that wasn’t a bit morbid. Unsafe. Kids around an open pool. The wind. Inevitable rain. And then, was there a stain on the stonework where Brynn had fallen? Who had scrubbed it clean if it was gone? How could Arlen ever allow her kids out there again, and why had they ever been allowed out there at all?
She couldn’t bring herself to approach the doors. But she also couldn’t, in good conscience, not let Arlen know that her kids were out there on their own. Because what if one of them fell in? How would Maggie forgive herself for that?
“Len?” Maggie started to move back toward the kitchen, but she paused when she heard both Hayden and Hope charging down the upstairs hallway.
But . . . Her attention shifted to the double doors once more. Maybe I should . . . No. She looked away with a shudder, readjusted her grip on her bag, and slowly began to ascend the stairs to her old room.
She knew: it was still here. That thing still lurked within those rooms.
SEVEN
* * *
IT WAS STRANGE to hear laughter echo down the upstairs hallway. It felt sacrilegious—something that would anger Brynn’s spirit if only she could hear. But mourning wasn’t meant for children. It was doubtful that Maggie’s gleefully squealing three-year-old niece knew what death was, or understood that after the ambulance that had parked outside the house had driven away, she’d never see her Auntie Bee again. But that was Hayden. Hope, on the other hand, appeared to understand that Aunt Brynn was forever gone; she simply didn’t seem to care.
With laughter continuing to reverberate through the stairwell, Maggie found herself staring at Brynn’s closed bedroom door. Her duffel bag hung heavy off her left shoulder as her fingers extended toward the knob, both wanting and dreading to see the mess that her sister had left. It had been a few days, and while it was possible that Arlen had replaced the shattered window to keep the house secure, it was doubtful there had been time to fix the carpet. It was almost certain that there would be spatter, if not dried pools of rust dotting the rug.
Maggie jerked her hand away from the knob when Hayden came barreling down the hall in a flurry of giggles. She was a burst of sparkles and bright green tulle, swinging a ribbon-adorned Tinker Bell wand back and forth like a hatchet without a blade. Chased by Hope—who was still decked out in her dance leotard—little Hayden was blinded by the joy of her big sister’s pursuit. She didn’t seem to notice Maggie standing there. The toddler ran by in a rush—still smelling of French eyes and chickens—and let out a gleeful twitter at the end of the hall, then disappeared through an open door that must have led into her room.
Hope, however, was more observant. Her laughter stalled and her smile faded as soon as her aunt Maggie came into view. Slowing her steps, Hope approached her aunt with a mixture of hesitation and suspicion. She paused a few feet from Maggie before allowing her brown eyes to flick to Brynn’s closed bedroom door.
“Are you going in there, Aunt Magdalene?” Hope’s question felt ominous, as though the answer should have been a resounding no. And yet Maggie slowly nodded in the affirmative. “Uh-oh,” Hope said, responding to Maggie’s gesture.
“What?” Maggie asked.
“Mom said to stay out.” The girl shifted her weight from one ballet shoe to the other, back and forth in a half-hearted temps lié.
That meant Maggie was correct in her assumption, however dark: there were still signs of suicide in there. But she posed the question anyway. “Did your mom say why?”
Then again, maybe it had been cleaned up. Perhaps Arlen had warned the kids to stay away simply to keep them from rifling through Brynn’s stuff. It was a matter of respect. But there was something in Hope’s expression that suggested otherwise, something that assured Maggie that stories had been told, the kind of dark tales Brynn used to tell at the dinner table, about bad guys and boogeymen, of shadows and phantoms.
“You shouldn’t play in there.” Hope twisted her fingers in front of her, as though trying to wrench them free of her hands. “Bad things are inside. It’s why Auntie Bee got sick.”
Maggie furrowed her eyebrows. “Sick?”
“Yuh-huh.”
“Sick how?” Maggie asked. It was only then that she caught a whiff of something strange: smoke, or a freshly extinguished candlewick—faint but undeniably there. It smelled like Brynn’s room, but out in the hall.
Hope shrugged. “I dunno.”
“What—is something burning?” Maggie’s gaze roved the hall, searching for the source of the scent. But she was distracted a moment later.
“I gotta go watch Hay,” Hope said.
“Hold on—” Maggie reached out to her niece, but Hope skittered away, too quick to catch. “Hope, wait . . .”
But Hope disappeared into the same room Hayden had. A beat later, the door slammed shut behind both kids, assuring Aunt Maggie that their conversation was over. No grown-ups allowed.
From downstairs, an aggravated yell. “No slamming!”
Maggie looked back to Brynn’s door. Arlen hadn’t mentioned anything about Brynn being sick. And during their phone conversations, neither had Brynn. Maybe sick had been the only way Arlen knew how to explain suicide to such young kids. Because didn’t you have to be heartsick to take your own life?
But for Arlen to tell them that bad things were in there was a total Brynn move. Bad things, like contagious depression, like a communicable alternative lifestyle. Maggie couldn’t help it. She snorted, imagining Arlen’s reaction if, years from now, Harrison came home with dyed-purple hair, or Hope showed up from college with a ring through her nose and a combat-boot-wearing boyfriend at her elbow.
She reached out to Brynn’s door again, gave it a few light taps. Knock knock. “Did you hear that, Bee?” she murmured into the empty hallway. “Bad things—” She stopped midsentence, her attention diverted to where her own room used to be. And while the hallway was empty, she could swear she’d seen something skitter across the backdrop of the farthest wall. “What . . . ?”
And then, a tap tap tap resounded from inside Brynn’s locked-up room.
Maggie staggered backward. She gawked at the door before her. Had she really just heard that, or was this house playing tricks on her already? Just a loose screw, Crazy.
“Shit.” She whispered the word to herself, though it was unclear whether she was cursing the possibility of her imagination running wild or the fact that the house was still what it used to be: visited. “Shit, shit, shit.”
She turned away from Brynn’s door and fled, just as the girls had, walking just a li
ttle too quickly to where her bedroom had once been.
. . .
With her nerves rattled, Maggie was more than happy to leave the house, even if it was to visit the mortuary. For the third time in her life, she found herself surrounded by caskets. A tall, sad-looking twig of a man in a three-piece suit ushered her into the showroom at the back of the funeral home, every other footfall accented by the softest squeak of his leather shoes. “I’ll give you some time,” he said, not once raising his voice above a hushed murmur. He smelled like coffee and the faintest twinge of cigarettes. When he tried to smile, it made him look pained, like he had a bad stomachache. Finally, he gave up on niceties and left her alone in the showroom of the dead.
The room was mood-lit, which felt both fitting and grossly inappropriate all at once. In the dimness that was probably meant to be soothing but simply came off as bizarre, coffins were lined up in perfect rows of two. In the center, upon raised and dramatically illuminated platforms, the showpieces: funerary boxes gleaming with lacquer and silver-plated finishings, propped open to boast quilted velvet interiors, matching pillows, and memorial plaques. There should have been a sign: SHOW THE DECEASED YOU LOVE THEM! SHOW THEM (WITH YOUR WALLET) THAT THEY WILL BE FOREVER MISSED!
There was a backlit display case with urns of all shapes and materials centered upon the back wall: hardwood boxes carved with praying hands and crosses; brass lidded canisters featuring doves and flowers, one sporting an eagle flying across an etched American flag. Brynn would have loved that one. Patriotism at its best. All the display pieces were spotless and free of fingerprints. The room was so silent, so torpid, it might as well have been six feet beneath the ground.
If it had been up to Maggie, Brynn would have been cremated. Her ashes would have been placed in a simple wooden box until half of them could be spread in Bonaventure Cemetery, while the remainder would be sprinkled beneath the oaks of Forsyth Park—two of Brynn’s favorite places in their hometown. But Arlen had taken it upon herself to make the arrangements, and because Maggie wasn’t bearing any of the financial burden, it felt wrong to put up a fight. Burying a sibling was hard enough as it was. Disagreement would only make it worse. Maggie refused to make this any harder, and so she selected a simple black casket with white satin trim. Elegant and understated, unlike the pink-and-gold nightmare she’d now spotted at the far end of the room. Brynn would have been gleeful had she seen it. Hell, she would have climbed in and taken a selfie.
After Maggie placed a signature on the solemn man’s clipboard, and after he’d expressed his whispered condolences another half dozen times, she stepped out of the building and slipped into Brynn’s black Toyota Camry. She sat motionless in the driver’s seat for a long while, staring at the selection of pendants that hung from the rearview mirror: a cameo of a skeleton bride and a tiny bird skull attached to wooden rosary beads. The dash was swathed in a black velvet cover—a custom job Brynn had commissioned on Etsy, if Maggie had to guess. Vinyl stickers of bands, most of which Maggie had never heard of, decorated the back window. She’d only noticed the bumper sticker after she’d pulled into the mortuary’s parking lot. MY OTHER CAR IS A HEARSE. It would have been funny had the circumstances been different, but now, all it made Maggie want to do was cry.
Distraction came in the form of a soft chime from the depths of her messenger bag. A text. Maggie let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Dillon. Oh God, she still hadn’t responded to any of his countless messages. She was an asshole, and she owed him an apology. Hopefully, he’d say it wasn’t a big deal. There would be tension, but neither one of them would dare bring it up. She breathed out into the windswept heat of the car. Despite Florence crawling toward the coast, it was still in the midnineties. These summer storms rarely brought relief. Jutting her arm into her bag, she fished out her cell.
But it wasn’t Dillon. It was Cheryl.
ARE YOU STANDING ME UP?
It would be nice to see her again. Maggie only wished the occasion hadn’t been so sad. A wedding. A random Wilmington encounter. Hell, even an awkward run-in at a high school reunion would have been better, as if Maggie would ever attend such an event. Brynn, though? She’d been patiently awaiting her ten-year homecoming, looking forward to walking the halls, busting into her old locker, graffitiing the bathroom stalls, and making up her crazy stories around the punch bowl she’d just spiked.
Me? Brynn had said. I can’t wait to see all those losers again. Prim little bitches, empty-headed jocks—they’ll all believe me when I tell them I’ve founded my own chapter of the Church of Satan.
Right, Maggie had replied; it had been during one of their last calls. Because that’s totally plausible.
Yeah, you may be right. I’ll go more subtle, draining cadavers of their juices at the morgue or heading a hazmat crew that removes dead bodies from, like, those houses on Hoarders or something.
Proceed with caution, Maggie had warned. People love that show.
Yeah. You’re right. Digging bodies out of piles of their own garbage will probably get me voted onto reunion prom court. Back to the drawing board.
Or maybe you want to be on prom court. Like Carrie.
There had been a long silence on the line, and then, after a beat: Would it be weird if I brought my own bucket of pigs’ blood? And then, both girls had cackled together like a tiny coven of witches.
Brynn would miss it, now. There would be no Carrie reenactment at their old high school. And Maggie would miss Brynn.
“I’m sorry, Bee,” she whispered. “I should have come home like you’d asked.” The tears started to well up. She squinted them away, her phone blipping in her hand.
CAN’T STAY LONG, JUST SO YOU KNOW.
She texted Cheryl back.
ON MY WAY NOW.
She didn’t text Dillon, but she would. Later. After she met with Cheryl, after she got some things off her chest.
. . .
Impresso Espresso had once been one of Maggie’s favorite places, with an old fireplace in the corner that crackled with the burning of real pine logs during winters that were never actually cold. She had spent countless afternoons upon the cushions of those cozy couches and armchairs—sometimes laughing with friends; sometimes alone and upset, lamenting. That fireplace was currently dormant, and while the doors were typically propped open in the summer, the wind was too vicious for that now. Some storms passed quickly, but Florence refused to let up.
When Maggie pulled the door open to step inside, Cheryl Polley’s ruddy brown hair blew across the curve of a bare shoulder like something out of a shampoo commercial. But she looked nervous, unhappy to be there, as though meeting up with her former best friend for the first time in years was the last thing she wanted to do. It was disappointing to so readily recognize Cheryl’s lack of enthusiasm, but Maggie understood the source of her old friend’s frown. What happened in the house hadn’t just destroyed Maggie’s family. It had mauled her most cherished friendship as well.
“Cher?” Maggie paused next to the little table Cheryl had selected, close to a window and away from the line of coffee drinkers who came and went despite Florence’s onslaught.
“Hey.” Cheryl rose from her seat and gave Maggie a slightly awkward hug. Cheryl’s white tank top—faded from one too many washes—sported a cross in front of a row of stylized pines. SAINT MICHAEL’S YOUTH CAMP was scrawled around the design. Cheryl had been into religion when they had been younger, but she’d really gone gung ho after the two had fallen out. Now, she was a full-time camp counselor when she wasn’t taking classes at the seminary. Maggie wondered if Brynn knew what path Cheryl had taken in life, and whether, when she had learned it, her eyes had rolled right out of her head.
“You look great,” Maggie said, taking a backward step when Cheryl released her from their embrace “How are you?” She knew the answer to that question before Cheryl had a chance to retake her seat.
“I was fine.” Blunt. To the point. “Until you called.”
She deserved that, but it still stung to hear it.
Sitting down, Maggie peered at the scarred tabletop, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing that came out.
“Are you?”
“Yes, I am, Cher.” Maggie tipped her chin upward to meet her old friend’s eyes. She liked to think that the strength of their former bond couldn’t altogether fade, but Cheryl was making it clear: that was a long time ago. She had moved on.
“Anyway . . .” Cheryl looked away. “This is just a lot to handle. I don’t really know what to say other than I’m sorry for your loss, but I know how much you love that.”
This was true. After Maggie’s dad had his accident, all that free-flowing sympathy had desensitized her. After her mom went, the condolences just felt flat-out strange. But Brynn—well . . . both Maggie and Cher had grown up hearing the whispers. People were almost certainly saying suicide was no surprise. If anything, they were likely shocked that Brynn had waited as long as she had.
“How did you find out?” Maggie finally asked. Were their inner circles already talking? Was Brynn’s demise starring local gossip, too hot to keep quiet?
“Arlen was the source,” Cher said. “She spoke to Father John about the funeral, Father John mentioned it to someone at the rectory, that someone else told someone else. It got back to me, since I’m working at the camp and people know we were close.” Were. “You know how things go around here.” She shifted her weight in her seat, narrowed her eyes at the sweating plastic cup of iced coffee next to her elbow. “But I suppose it’s better that you hear it from me than from someone else.”
“Hear what from you?” Maggie’s attention shifted from Cheryl’s hands to her face. “That my sister is dead? Or that you finally believe me?” A moment later, she was glaring at the tabletop again. What kind of family had so much tragedy? Three deaths in less than a decade, all under the same roof. It was unheard of, like one of Brynn’s weird stories brought to life. Had what Maggie done been so bad? Had she incited something unthinkable?