by Ania Ahlborn
“She was scared, Len.” Perhaps if she repeated it, Arlen would come to the same realization Maggie had: this wasn’t Maggie’s imagination. It wasn’t just unshakable guilt. This was real.
But rather than being overtaken by revelation, Arlen shut her eyes instead. She looked ready to speak, but rather than responding, she reached out and placed her hand upon Maggie’s left shoulder. And then, as though at a loss for words, she gave that shoulder a squeeze before turning and stepping into the foyer, just as Hope had done.
Maggie was left staring at the open door, Arlen’s touch tingling upon her skin. She swallowed against the desert of her mouth, breathed heavy, the familiar twist of anxiety snarling up her guts.
Her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans.
Dillon.
She began to reach for it, only to stop short.
Because wafting from inside and drifting upon the wind was that familiar scent. Smoke. The smolder of a candlewick, blown out by a nonexistent breath.
TEN
* * *
ARLEN WAS LESS than pleased when the doorbell chimed, but she stopped short of asking Cheryl Polley to leave. Maggie had forgotten to mention Cheryl’s visit. The thing about Brynn going to church still had her reeling. And then there was the doll.
By the time Cheryl arrived, Maggie was ready to call it a day and forget the whole thing. But Cheryl had made the drive, and it would have been rude to send her away, almost as rude as not telling Arlen they were going to have company. And for that, she felt like an ass, but what was done was done. All she could do was murmur a soft-spoken sorry and give her sister an imploring look—please don’t hold it against me—as she ushered Cheryl through the living room. Arlen and Howie watched from the couch, their viewing of The Blacklist interrupted as the two old friends shuffled upstairs.
The kids were already in their rooms, the girls most likely sleeping while their older brother was reading comic books or playing video games.
“She’s pissed at me,” Maggie told Cheryl as they began their climb. “I questioned her about Bee.”
“Grief is hard,” was all Cheryl said, but Maggie could tell she wanted to say more. Only a few seconds downstairs, and Cheryl had caught the off-putting vibe. Arlen was keeping things eerily normal. There was hardly any talk of Brynn. The kids didn’t seem to be bothered by the passing of their live-in aunt. And when Howie had come home from work, he had given Maggie a How the hell are ya? as though she were visiting for visitation’s sake. Just dropping in. No big deal.
All the normalcy was jarring. But then again, Maggie hadn’t bawled her eyes out when Brynn had found their mother dead in the bathroom, either—pills strewn everywhere, the tub overflowing, their mom’s temple caved in from crashing against the edge of the sink, pink water making a slow creep beneath the door. Even Maggie’s freshman-year roommate, Anessa, had found her lack of reaction odd. Anessa—a psych major—had been a fixer just like Dillon. Are you sure you’re all right? She asked that same question over and over, as if waiting for Maggie’s calm exterior to crack, for the ugly emotions of realizing herself an orphan to turn her into a weeping, inconsolable mess; almost eager for it to happen, if only to be given the chance to tinker with an anguish-stricken mind. Is that why Dillon was texting so often? Was he waiting for her to fall apart? Was he needing her to lose it so that he could put her back together again?
The collapse hadn’t happened after Maggie’s mom died. And the tears weren’t flowing in regard to Brynn’s death, either. Maggie could only muster the profound sadness of having lost both Brynn and her mother years before they were truly gone. With her mom’s funeral, Maggie had spent the days leading up to her trip home looking through the handful of old photographs she had brought with her to school. All of them featured her dad. The Olsens: one big happy family untouched by calamity, alcohol, pills, or pain. In them, Maggie’s mom was always cheerful, her smile as constant as Brynn’s black clothes and perturbed I hate taking pictures scowl.
Losing her mother wasn’t something that had happened without a wrenching of the heart, but their final blowup had left Maggie bruised. The way she had jerked Maggie backward by the arm just after Maggie had flushed her meds; the ear-splitting way she had screamed before shoving her youngest daughter against the wall, hissing declarations of what a mistake it had been to have her. I should have stopped with Arlen! And then there was the slap, so hard it made Maggie see stars. Stella Olsen’s diamond ring had been rotated with the stone facing her palm—a habit she had adopted to keep that princess cut from getting caught on jambs. That afternoon, it caught Maggie’s left cheek, leaving a jagged scratch nearly two inches long in its wake. Maggie’s dad had given her that ring. Maggie had been at the jewelry store with him when he’d bought it. I don’t know about this stuff, Crazy. You pick it out. You know what she’ll like.
Only a few hours after that ring had slashed across her face, Maggie started packing for Wilmington, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t caved to her mother’s insistence that she go to school across the river. The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography was so close, Maggie could have lived at home for four more years. But now, Maggie was sure she’d be happy to never see her mother’s sloppy, drugged-out face again. She’d wished it before, when the fights had started to get bad: It should have been her, not Dad. But now—
“Maggie?” Cheryl gave her an encouraging smile. “That’s what we’re here to do, right? Deal with grief?”
“Shit.” Maggie paused in front of her bedroom door. “The board. I don’t even know where it is.” She’d meant to look for it, but the doll, and then Hope . . .
Cheryl looked dubious. It was a convenient hiccup, one that would keep them from doing what Maggie had, earlier that afternoon, somehow convinced herself was a good idea. The only way out. Repent. But now, with Cheryl here, she couldn’t rightfully throw up her hands and declare it a bust. Not without at least appearing as though she was giving it a shot.
“Arlen tossed a lot of my crap into the closet, but I didn’t see it there,” Maggie explained. “There’s probably more up in the attic.”
“Then I guess that’s where we’ll start.” Cheryl shrugged, as though the task couldn’t possibly be that difficult to tackle. After all, how much stuff had Maggie left behind?
Apparently, a lot. The girls searched the attic for a better part of half an hour before returning to what had once been Maggie’s room. Together, they went through the remainder of the bedroom closet, but there was no sign of the board.
“Maybe Arlen found it and threw it away,” Maggie suggested. Perhaps, for once, this was a bit of good luck. Not finding the board meant no séance, and quite frankly, that was the last thing Maggie felt like doing tonight.
Except, back in the furthest reaches of her mind, she was still that mystified kid. Despite everything that she knew, there was an inexplicable pull. Because what if you can talk to Brynn? a little voice whispered. You can ask her about the fear, about why she was so afraid. And if Maggie could contact Brynn, she could also reach out to her dad. Dad. She missed him. She’d have done just about anything to hear one of his silly jokes again.
“Earth to Maggie.” Cheryl raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Maggie said. “Maybe we missed it. I’ll look in Brynn’s room.” They hadn’t missed it, but Brynn’s bedroom was one place Maggie had yet to look, and it was certainly a place she wanted to go alone. “Just give me a minute.”
And yet, as soon as she moved down the hall toward Brynn’s room, Maggie was certain that a minute wouldn’t nearly be enough.
Brynn’s room had always been dark, all deep purples and hazy grays. But in the three years that Maggie hadn’t been home, that room had taken a turn from darkly benign toward . . . something else. Perhaps it was the new plum-colored wallpaper, its damask pattern reminiscent of haunted Victorian homes. Maybe it was all of that fabri
c—velvet tapestries so heavy they were bending the curtain rod beneath the bulk of their weight, pooled upon the floor. But more than likely, it was the menagerie of bedsheets that had been thrown over every reflective surface in the room, and there were many.
She could make out a mirrored chest of drawers against one of the walls, its silver exterior gleaming just beneath the skewed hem of a thin white sheet. A wall of mirrors of all different shapes and sizes had been carefully arranged into a mysterious gallery upon the bedroom’s farthest wall. Those same white sheets hung limp across their frames, like a gallery of mounted ghosts. Only one was left exposed.
Maggie’s breath caught in her throat. She pawed at the wall, searching for the light switch, which, when flipped, caused an ornate chandelier to blaze overhead. Shards of fractured light bounced throughout the room like a sea spray of stars. That light brought attention to another sheet, almost certainly having been pulled away from that single uncovered mirror. The sheet, puddled upon the floor, had seemed harmless until Maggie caught a glimpse of what it obscured: broken glass. The carpet hadn’t been replaced. And while Maggie couldn’t see behind that thick velvet curtain, she was sure it was hiding a plywood board nailed to the windowsill. It would be a wonder if Florence didn’t blow it into the room by morning.
She struggled to swallow as she took in the view. Maybe this was why Arlen had warned her children against venturing inside. Those sheets captured the essence of a morgue without a body. She rubbed a palm against her arm, trying to snuff out the goose bumps that were breaking out across her skin. She didn’t want to shrink back, didn’t want to be one of the people Brynn would have snorted at—you’re just like the rest—but the eeriness of that wall of mirrors, the hidden window, the tiny glass shards catching the light like snowflakes . . . it was nearly too much to bear. These were the things Brynn had seen in the last few seconds of her life. These were the walls she had stared at as her timeline ticked down to nothing. These were the images she had been so desperate to shut out that she’d done the unthinkable: an act she herself had once deemed as cowardly, selfish, and weak. But why? What had she been looking for at Saint Michael’s? Why hadn’t she simply told Maggie that she was afraid?
Maggie’s gaze darted to the massive four-poster bed, to what looked like etchings upon one of the posts as crude as school-desk graffiti. She faltered, almost afraid to move. Don’t, don’t, don’t. The air felt thick, alive with a static charge. “Brynn?” The name was a mere whisper, just enough to break the tension of that taut, unnerving silence. If her sister’s spirit were still there, perhaps she’d give Maggie a sign. But Maggie couldn’t stand there forever. Cheryl was waiting. She pushed past her reluctance and stepped farther inside.
The carvings on the bedpost looked like they had been made with the tip of a knife or, more likely in Brynn’s case, a nail file. The possible culprit lay atop a sheeted dresser, next to a few bottles of nail polish, hair spray, and Brynn’s makeup bag. Maggie approached the rough engravings with measured steps, her chest tight, the feeling of not belonging in that room sweeping over her in a rush of newfound anxiety. And still, those crude symbols coaxed her forward, inviting her to discover what it was that had truly pushed her sister over the edge. The entire post was covered in those crooked ciphers, creating a spiral pattern that was as beautiful as it was unsettling: a madwoman’s epitaph.
Except those letters didn’t form Brynn’s last words. Maggie’s steps hitched and stalled, bringing her to petrified stillness. Her mouth fell open in soundless disbelief. Her heart pounded hard enough to send a rush of heat to her face. And then, there was that scent again—the redolence of a just-snuffed-out wick, the lingering aura of soot.
Paralyzed, all Maggie could do was stare, her gaze fixed on the letters that coiled upward in a whorl of alphabet. A B C D . . . on it went. X Y Z. And then three solitary, disjointed words that made Maggie want to scream.
YES. NO. GOOD-BYE.
Tears stung her eyes. The ache of her neck intensified, like bony fingers pressing hard into flesh. And then, as if wanting to see the terror that had inevitably come to rest upon her own face, her attention snapped to the uncovered mirror beside her. Something shifted in its reflection; a darkness darted away from her, as if something had been standing behind her, grinning as Maggie discovered Brynn’s terrible secret. An involuntary gasp tumbled from Maggie’s throat as she spun around to look behind her. And there, in the corner of the room, was a blot of darkness, half obscured by a velvet panel that flanked the window of Brynn’s last leap.
Don’t, don’t, don’t.
And yet, against all reason, Maggie forced herself forward. With arms extended, she shoved aside the curtain, only to find herself stumbling backward. That shadow failed to disappear the way she expected it to, the way it always had when she’d been brave enough to approach it as a child. This time, it didn’t vanish, didn’t reassure her that her dad was right—that all of this was just her imagination spawned by her middle sister’s love of horror movies and Edgar Allan Poe. This time, the chimera slithered across the wall, slow at first, before blasting past her in a rush, leaving a burning stink behind it, scorching Brynn’s wallpaper with an arcing scar of black.
She tried to cry out, but found herself unable to breathe. What the fuck was that? What had she just seen? She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the singed trail that now decorated the wall—at least, not until she heard that noise. Tap, tap, tap. Her attention jumped across the room, only to fix itself upon the sheet on the floor. Because it was no longer lying flat, hiding the bloodstains her sister had left behind. There was a shape beneath it. A body. Brynn.
Finally, her fear knocked her free of her stasis. A cry tore itself free of her throat as she barreled out of the room, leaving Brynn’s door wide-open in her wake. Throwing herself into the guest room that had once been her personal space, she found it impossible to squelch her own trembling. Half swallowed by the closet, Cheryl started at Maggie’s sudden reappearance.
“Whoa!” Cheryl began to rise from the floor. “. . . Are you— Maggie, what happened?”
“Brynn.” She couldn’t stop shaking. “Brynn.” She knew it was impossible, and yet she’d seen the lump beneath that sheet with her own eyes. And that shadow. She’d lived with those strange shifts of light since she’d been twelve years old, but she’d never seen it up close before. Not like that. Never like that.
“Brynn what?” Cheryl was standing now, her hands lightly clasped around Maggie’s arms.
“I . . .” I saw her. Impossible. Just a loose screw, Crazy. “I did this,” she whispered. “All of this is my fault.” And then she started to bawl.
Cheryl pulled Maggie in for a hug.
“I’m fine,” Maggie whispered into Cheryl’s shoulder, but her words rang hollow. “I’ll be fine.”
“Maggie?” Arlen appeared in the hall, having been alerted by her outcry. Now, clad in a pair of yoga pants and a loose-fitting top, she looked in on Maggie and Cheryl as they embraced. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Maggie shook her head, unable to meet her sister’s gaze. She’d left Brynn’s door wide-open. Surely Arlen had looked inside before pulling it shut. She’d mention the wallpaper, the way it was burned.
“It’s just hitting her, I think. She needs some time,” Cheryl said. “She’ll be okay.”
Maggie continued to hide against her former best friend’s side, waiting for Arlen to ask: What happened to the wall? What were you doing in there? But, nothing. Because it’s gone, Maggie thought. If it was ever there at all. She finally heard Arlen sigh and wander out of the room.
“Wait.” Cheryl took a backward step, giving Maggie a stern once-over. “You’d gone in there before now, right? Into Brynn’s room?”
Maggie slowly shook her head in the negative.
“. . . Oh God, Maggie . . .”
“Forget it,” she said, wiping at her
eyes. “Really, it’s fine. I’m just freaking out.” The anguish had arrived. Brynn was forever gone.
“Are you sure? Do you want me to leave?” Cheryl asked.
“No, no . . .” It was good to have Cheryl here. She didn’t want to be alone.
“Okay, because . . .” Cheryl took a few steps toward the closet behind them, reached inside, and held up the board for Maggie to see.
Maggie was dumbfounded. Save for looking through the clothes, she’d gone through everything in that closet. The majority of the boxes were stacked against the bedroom wall now. There were no hiding spots, no place to miss something as conspicuous as a board game box.
“I guess you were right,” Cheryl said. “We must have missed it the first time.”
No, they hadn’t. The damn thing hadn’t been there when she had looked on her own, let alone when she and Cheryl had investigated together. And yet there it was in Cheryl’s hands. A whisper of a voice told her to calm herself, to take a seat, to open the box and place it across her knees. Reach out to Brynn. Reach out to Dad.
“But it’s probably not a good time,” Cheryl said. “Maybe we should just talk?”
Talk about what, the fact that Maggie had just seen a twisting shadow lurking in Brynn’s room? That Brynn had carved up her bedpost, as though that board had infected her blood? That Maggie hadn’t listened to whatever existed inside that board when it had told her not to go, and the next thing she knew, her father was dead?
“No.” Repent. “Let’s just get this over with.”
She sank to the floor, sitting just like Brynn had taught her—legs crisscrossed—while Cheryl towered over her, box in hand, looking unsure. Eventually, Cheryl joined her on the carpet. She gave Maggie an attempt at a reassuring smile, and then pulled open the lid.
“Let’s prove this isn’t what you think it is,” Cheryl said.