by Katrina Leno
Susie and Alana drank in everything, moving slowly. When they got to the piano room, Susie put a hand on the polished wood of the instrument and breathed out loudly.
“This is a 1925 model B Steinway,” she whispered.
“How did you know that?” Jane asked.
“Susie is an amazing piano player,” Alana said. “Play something, Susie.”
“I think I’m going to pass out,” Susie said. “Can I? I mean, am I allowed…?”
“Go for it,” Jane said. “I don’t think that thing’s been touched in years.”
Susie sat down on the bench slowly, almost reverently. She lifted the fallboard to reveal the keys underneath, and Jane had to stifle a laugh when she audibly gasped.
She began to play.
The song started out quiet at first, but gradually rose to a brilliant crescendo. The music seemed to fill North Manor in a way Jane had never experienced before. With sound, with light… It was beautiful.
She finished the song just as the doorbell rang. It could have been five minutes or fifty minutes; Jane was too transfixed to notice.
“Susie, that was…”
“Thanks,” Susie said, getting up from the piano. “My parents gave me money for pizza. To apologize for making us change our plans.”
They walked into the foyer and Susie dug her money out of her backpack as Jane opened the door and took the pizzas from a girl their age.
“Oh, hey, Nettie!” Susie said, straightening up and handing her the cash.
Nettie didn’t reply. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. She took the money and shoved it into her pocket without counting it.
“Nettie?” Alana said.
“When the address came up, I was like…”
But Nettie didn’t say what she was like. She just stared into the house like she couldn’t believe it was real.
“Is something wrong?” Jane asked.
“You guys are, like, staying here?” Nettie continued.
“I live here.”
“Oh, I know,” Nettie said. “I just mean, like, they’re staying here… voluntarily?”
“No, I’m keeping them tied up in the basement,” Jane snapped, annoyed. “I just let them out because I needed help with the pizzas.”
Nettie looked at Jane finally, her eyes focusing, narrowing. “I heard this house makes people crazy,” she said. “You guys should be careful.”
“Okay,” Susie said loudly. “Thanks for the pizzas, Nettie. See you at school.”
She closed the door so quickly Nettie had to jump backward to avoid being hit.
“Well, I’m starving,” Alana announced awkwardly.
“What the hell is her problem?” Jane asked.
“Nettie’s weird,” Susie said, taking the pizza boxes from Jane. “Honestly, who knows.”
“This house makes people crazy?” Jane repeated. “Is she talking about my fucking dead grandmother?”
She felt the anger rising in her body. Her vision went to black.
“Um, are you going to beat Nettie up?” Alana asked, and her words seemed to wake Jane up a little—her hand was on the doorknob, she’d already pulled the door back open a few inches.
Jane looked at her hand. She couldn’t even feel it. Had she opened the door?
She pushed it closed again. “Sorry. No. I don’t… I was just trying to be funny.”
“Oh, good!” Alana said. “You definitely looked like you were going to go beat her up.”
Jane forced a laugh. “No! Gosh. You should see the looks on your faces. Let’s eat, okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Susie said.
Jane swore she saw them exchange a look right before they turned around and walked back to the living room, but she tried not to let it bother her.
“Let me just get plates and napkins,” she said when they reached the living room. She mostly succeeded in keeping her voice light, carefree. “The remote is in that drawer if you want to start looking for movies!”
She left Alana and Susie in the living room and made her way to the kitchen, where she put both of her palms on the cool granite countertop and took big, steadying breaths. It felt like Nettie’s comments had sunk deep into her skin, unsettling and enraging her in a way that made her fingers tingle.
She needed to go upstairs. Just one page, that was what she needed. This had been a terrible idea, inviting Susie and Alana to this house.
She slipped out of the kitchen and took the back way to the foyer, moving quickly. She could be upstairs and back in just a few minutes; the girls wouldn’t even notice.
She reached the foyer and put a hand on the banister—then she heard it.
Delicate piano music coming from the Steinway. A quiet, haunting melody.
She paused to listen, and as she did, she could feel her anger unwinding, loosening. She closed her eyes and let the music wash over her in gentle waves. Each individual note seemed to sink into her body, enveloping her, calming her.
She stepped away from the stairs and walked toward the piano room. She’d never heard this song before; it was so lonely, so sad, it almost brought tears to her eyes.
But when she reached the doorway of the room, she stopped dead in her tracks, the calm in her body replaced with a cold rush of fear.
Nobody was sitting at the piano bench.
Nobody was playing the piano.
The fallboard was closed; the keys were hidden.
Jane fell sideways a few inches, leaning her weight against the wall, suddenly cold, shivering.
No, no. That was impossible. It was Susie; it had to have been Susie. She’d just finished and gone back to the living room before Jane had gotten here.
Her brain was cloudy. She walked to the living room slowly. Susie and Alana were already eating; the pizza boxes were spread out on the coffee table.
“Hey, what song was that?” Jane asked, and she could hear how weird her voice sounded but she couldn’t make it stop, she couldn’t make it sound natural.
“What song?” Alana asked, her mouth full.
“The song you were playing on the piano just now.”
“Oh, before? ‘Clair de Lune.’ It’s Debussy.”
“No, not before. Just now,” Jane pressed.
“Just now I was playing the song of stuffing my face with pizza,” Susie said, laughing.
“No, I mean, on the piano,” Jane said, but she couldn’t make her voice work the way it was supposed to; her words were just a whisper.
“Girl, are you okay?” Susie asked. “You look super pale. Come sit down. I’ll get the plates.”
“Just hungry,” Jane whispered. Or maybe no words came out at all. She sat down in an armchair. She could feel Susie and Alana looking at each other again. She could feel them looking at each other, judging her. She could feel them—
“Here, got you some water,” Susie said, suddenly kneeling in front of her, holding a glass of ice water. How had she gotten the water so fast? How had she gotten the plates and napkins?
“Thanks,” Jane said. She took the glass and had a sip of water. “I think I just… didn’t have enough to eat for lunch.”
“I’ve been there,” Alana said. “Your blood sugar tanked. Do you feel better after the pizza?”
“Yes,” Jane said.
She’d eaten a slice of pizza. The dirty plate was resting on the arm of the chair. There was an aftertaste in her mouth, of cheese and tomato sauce.
The water was ice cold and felt good in her throat, in her stomach. It seemed to return her to the present, to clear the remaining cobwebs from her mind. Susie and Alana were being a little delicate with her but were otherwise normal. Alana was eating another slice of pizza, and Susie was scrolling through movie options. Things were normal. Things were okay.
Jane pulled her phone out of her pocket. She had meant to text Ruth before it got too late, to give her a heads-up that she had people over. She opened her messages and started to type before realizing they’d already texted.
Ru
th had said, Just finishing up dinner sweetie
Jane had said, Take your time, mama. I have friends over. We’re having so much fun!
Ruth had said, haha, since when do you call me mama? Love you honey, glad you’re having fun!
Jane checked the timestamps. Just about five minutes ago.
But she was okay now. She felt better now. She just hadn’t had enough to eat at lunch. Like Alana had said, her blood sugar had tanked.
She slid off the armchair and got herself another slice of pizza.
Susie picked a rom-com Jane had already seen before, but she pretended she hadn’t.
It didn’t escape Jane—that Susie had said she wanted to watch a scary movie, but she picked a romantic comedy now without acknowledging that she’d changed her mind.
This house was scary enough on its own, Jane thought.
Why would anyone want to add to that?
“Can you turn it up a little?” Jane asked a few minutes into the movie.
Susie turned it up.
“Thanks,” Jane said.
But even though it was pretty loud, probably a little louder than it should have been…
Jane could still hear it.
Every few minutes, rising to a delicate resonance.
Piano music.
Susie and Alana slept together in one of the spare bedrooms, and Jane slept in her own bed, grateful to be alone. Her nerves were a wreck by the time she finally crawled underneath the covers. She removed a page from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and ate it under the sheets, her hands quivering with every breath she took.
In the morning, Ruth got up before them and had pancakes waiting, and although Susie and Alana were perfectly polite and seemed fine, Jane knew they’d probably spent the entire night whispering about how weird she’d been, about how creepy this house was, about how they’d never step foot in there again.
She’d slept terribly, anyway, and she tried to engage in the morning conversation and be present, but she just kept yawning.
“Thanks, Mrs. North,” Alana said when she finished.
“Those pancakes were honestly just as good as Sam’s Diner,” Susie added, walking her plate to the sink.
“The highest praise, Susie,” Ruth replied, beaming.
“I should probably get going,” Alana said. “My mom’s making me spend time with my cousins before they leave.”
“Same. I need to start that essay for English, otherwise I’ll never finish by Monday,” Susie added. “Jane, I’ll text you later and we can run to the mall?”
“Sounds good.”
“Thanks for everything, Jane!” Alana said, giving her a quick hug.
“Of course.”
“That movie was kind of awful, but other than that it was fun,” Susie said, hugging her, too. “Thanks, Mrs. North.”
“Nice to meet you girls,” Ruth said.
Susie and Alana left the kitchen, and Ruth raised an eyebrow at Jane.
“What?” Jane said.
“Shouldn’t you walk your guests out?”
“They don’t want me to, trust me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re dying to get out of this house. Can you blame them?”
Jane got up from the table in a huff, leaving her untouched plate and storming out of the room. She just missed Alana and Susie leaving; the front door closed right as she reached the foyer and pounded up the stairs. She walked into the spare bedroom where they’d slept and started ripping the dirty sheets off the two twin beds, throwing them in a pile on the floor.
She started crying as she stripped one of the pillows of its pillowcase, and before she knew it, she felt arms wrapping around her from behind. She turned and let Ruth envelop her in a hug.
“Honey,” Ruth whispered into her hair. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I hate this house,” Jane sobbed. “I hate this town. I hate everyone here.”
Ruth guided Jane over to one of the bare mattresses, and they sat down next to each other.
“I hear you, honey, and trust me, this isn’t my favorite place in the world, either. But I’m not sure I’m following. Those girls seem like sweethearts. It sounds like everyone had a great time last night. So what’s happening now?”
“They’re lying. They’re lying because they just wanted to get out of here as soon as they could.”
She was crying so hard now her words were barely decipherable. Ruth put a hand on her face and paused, then moved it to her forehead.
“Oh, honey. You’re burning up. We gotta get you in bed.”
Jane let herself be pulled up and led across the hall to her own bedroom, where Ruth moved the covers back and gently guided her under the sheets.
“I’m fine,” Jane protested weakly, still crying, her face hot and wet with tears. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine, baby. You’re on fire, big-time. You must have caught a virus or something. God, I hope it’s not the flu. We should’ve gotten flu shots before we left California.” Ruth put her hand on Jane’s forehead again and frowned. “Fuck, I don’t have a thermometer or anything. Okay, I’m going to run into town quick, get you some Tylenol and a thermometer. Stay in bed. I won’t be long. Got it?”
Jane nodded, and Ruth kissed her quickly on the forehead before leaving.
Jane rolled over and buried her head in her pillow. She felt a little better now that she was lying down, and she was worried she’d been really rude to Alana and Susie. She felt on her nightstand for her phone but it wasn’t there. Where had she seen it last? At the kitchen table, maybe.
Her ears were thrumming with blood, a steady, oceanlike whoosh that drowned out all other noise. Maybe she really was sick, and everything that had happened last night was because of a fever she hadn’t been aware of. She put her hand to her forehead now and her skin did feel hot.
She needed to text Susie and Alana and say sorry. She should have walked them out. She should have been a better host. She would tell them she hadn’t felt well, that she was sick, and it would all be fine.
She sat up. Her head felt dangerously light. How long had Ruth been gone? How long would it take her to get back? She should just wait for her, she knew it, but she felt terrible about how she’d acted that morning. She would just run downstairs and run back up. It wouldn’t take more than a minute.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up slowly, testing her weight, gently pushing herself upright.
The room swayed around her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then started walking, putting one foot in front of the other slowly. She reached the doorway and put a hand on the wall for support, then pressed onward, down the hall, down the stairs, through the foyer, back to the kitchen.
Her phone was lying on the kitchen table. She picked it up and wrote a message in the group chat.
Thank you for coming over—I’m sorry if I was out of it. I have a fever. I think I didn’t realize I was sick.
She slipped the phone into her pocket and put her hands on the back of a chair, steadying herself.
Thirty seconds passed. A minute. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, in and out.
Her brain turned off, her legs buckled.
She gasped and tightened her grip on the chair.
Had she fallen asleep standing up?
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. It had been five minutes since she’d written the message. No one had replied yet. She needed to get back into bed.
It was a dark, gray morning. The house was cool and shadowy.
She had the chills.
She started walking.
And every step she took, it was like a heaviness was settling itself around her shoulders. Almost like something with weight and shape, something she could brush off.
Except she couldn’t brush it off.
But her feet kept working.
Up and up.
Even as a little warning bell went off in the back of h
er head—
Stop stop stop.
But she didn’t stop.
She kept going.
She reached the second-floor hallway.
All was quiet. All was normal.
And nothing was normal.
Jane knew that, too.
Nothing was normal. Nothing was normal about this house, about this town, about anything in her life.
Her head was pounding. Her skin was burning.
Nothing was normal.
She felt numb. A wave of delicate pins and needles, like coming out of anesthesia.
But still, she pressed on. She walked down the hallway. She opened her bedroom door. She turned on the light.
And she screamed—
Her room was trashed.
The bookcase was overturned, the sheets were ripped off her bed, one closet door hung forward on its hinges, the drawers had been pulled out of the bureau, and her clothes had been scattered everywhere. And on the floor in front of her, written in rose petals, arranged carefully, one next to the other next to the other, were the words: do books taste like roses?
Jane screamed again.
And from some corner of her brain, she heard pounding behind her—
Pounding, pounding, pounding—
Like running feet.
And then someone grabbed her from behind.
And she felt her knees buckle.
And she went limp—
And everything went dark.
But when she was bad
She woke up in a dark place.
A dark, bad place.
It smelled of earth and roses.
And she couldn’t turn her head.
And she couldn’t move her arms.
And there was a weight on her chest. The weight of something heavy. Pressing her down. Down into the earth. Down into the dirt. Was she in dirt? Her nose and her mouth were clogged with it. Yes, dirt. She was in dirt, in the rosebushes, buried. She’d been buried. She opened her mouth to scream but only let in more dirt. Choking with it. Sliding down her throat, grainy and dark.
And she couldn’t turn her head.
And she couldn’t move her arms—
Until she could.
And she came up kicking and flailing.
do books taste like roses?