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I follow him inside, where the room rattles like a broken carnival ride. The tilt, often felt but rarely seen, is now a memory. In its place is a full-on slant that turns the room into an obstacle course. All around us, furniture has started to slide toward the windows, including the bed Virginia still lies upon.
My father grabs her shoulders. I take her legs. Together, we lift and carry her out of the room as the entire house pitches.
Behind me, I hear the empty bed skid across the floor and thunk into the wall.
In the hallway, vases on pedestals crash to the floor and paintings on the walls sway.
Outside there’s a cacophony of bricks raining onto the roof and terrace as, one by one, the chimneys of Hope’s End collapse.
My father and I hurry down the Grand Stairs, trying not to drop Virginia as the steps themselves buck and sway. On the landing, my father hoists her onto his shoulder, freeing my hands to help Lenora.
She refuses to move.
“We need to go!” I shout. “Now!”
Lenora shakes her head. “I’m not leaving.”
Her reply is so nonsensical that at first I think it’s a joke, even though there’s nothing remotely funny about the fact that Hope’s End is collapsing all around us. But when Lenora makes no effort to join me at the doorway, I realize she’s dead serious.
“I can’t leave this place,” she says. “I won’t.”
“Lenora, listen to me,” I say, gripping her shoulders and trying to shake some sense into her. “You’ll die if you stay here.”
A waste of time, words, and breath. She already knows this.
“I had my time away from this place. Now it’s Virginia’s turn.” Lenora touches my hand and gives me a sad smile. “She’s waited long enough. Take good care of her, Kit.”
With a light shove, Lenora Hope sends me away before I can respond. There’s no time for it. I only have enough time to run down the Grand Stairs, skip over the fissures zigzagging across the foyer floor, and join my father and Virginia outside.
He carries her until we reach a place where the ground no longer shakes under our feet. There, my father lowers Virginia onto the grass. I join her, checking for signs of injury. Shockingly, other than the wound on my father’s side, all three of us have made it out unscathed.
I reach for his shirt and say, “How bad are you hurt?”
My father pushes my hand away, gently, slowly, as if savoring the touch.
“You’re a good girl, Kit-Kat,” he says before kissing me on the cheek. “You always have been. I should have told you that more. I regret that now. I regret a lot of things. But you? You’ve always been my pride and joy.”
Then my father turns back to the house and enters without hesitation.
I lurch forward, ready to run in after him, but Virginia grasps my wrist, clinging to it, reminding me she’s still in my care. All I can do is scream for my father to come back as, through the still-open doors, I watch him join Lenora on the Grand Stairs. They don’t look at each other, nor do they reach out for comfort.
They merely sit.
As chunks of ceiling fall around them.
As the stained-glass window over the landing shatters from the strain.
As the entire house shudders through its final death rattle.
The last I see of them is my father and Lenora finally clasping hands as the front doors swing shut.
Then, amid a chorus of groans, creaks, and ear-splitting pops, Hope’s End follows the collapsing cliff and slides into the ocean.
FORTY-FOUR
Music drifts out of Virginia’s room.
The Go-Go’s, which she likes more than I thought she would.