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You attract them.My eyes widen at the familiar refrain, the words that I had convinced myself were nothing more than a figment of my imagination, though I saw them written in my mirror, and heard them on the whispers of the breeze.
I can’t tear my gaze away from her, yet I’m terrified that the veil will fall away, revealing her face in more horrible detail. Before I can ask her what she thinks I am, the voice comes again.
“You’ve been asking questions. Your mother would do well to educate you.”
“Educate me?”
“Tch, ignorant and incendiary. A dangerous combination. You might ask her for the book. It was my mother’s. Yet look at the good it did me,” she says. At this, she lifts the veil to her chin, revealing a crooked neck, one of the bones snapped clean through. My hand flies to my mouth and I stifle a cry. She drops the veil back into place. “That is what I got for my trouble.”
Despite the pounding of my heart and the coiling of my stomach, her roundabout way of speaking is wearing on my taut nerves. “Why are you here? Did you come just to berate me? Are you a spirit come to try to frighten me away? Because that’s what you are, isn’t it? A spirit?” As soon as my questions tumble out I brace myself. What if I anger her?
But my barrage of questions has no effect. “I have watched you since you were a little girl. I have watched and waited, wondering when you would begin to open your eyes to the world around you.”
The thought of this creature watching me from the shadows makes me feel sick. “If you’ve been watching me for so long, then why did you come now?”
She gives a sigh that lifts the curtains and wilts the flowers on the table. “I will not waste my breath on words you’re not ready to hear. I thought that this place would open your eyes, but I see that I’ve come too soon.”
Frustration overtakes fear. “But Iamready! Something is happening here, to me. There’s something inside of me. You must have come for a reason. I’ve heard your voice in the woods, seen your words on my mirror! If you’ve come to say something to me, then just say it!”
She holds up a single finger, silencing me. “Take this as a warning. If you are not able or willing to control yourself, it will not only be you who suffers the consequences, but those around you as well. If your mother will not educate you, then you must seek out your own answers. You cannot protect yourself if you do not know that of which you are capable. Already you have consigned your sister to a living death. Your ignorance has consequences, can you not see that?”
I didn’t think my blood could go any colder, but at her words, my veins turn to ice. “Wait, what do you mean? My sister Emeline?”
From somewhere far away in the house, a door opens and the sound of Mother and Catherine talking floats down the hallway as if from another world. Yet I can’t break my gaze from the decayed visage of my ancestor.
“You hanged for witchcraft. My mother told me that much. Have you put some sort of curse on me, on us?” If Emeline has returned it must be because of this grotesque spirit. How could it be because of me?
She gives another sigh. “Do not mistake death and decay for evil. Both are the legacy of all of us, the good and the bad alike. I was not a perfect woman in life, but I was not evil either, and I am no different now. I have done nothing to your sister. As I said, you are not ready to hear what I have to say.”
“But I am ready!” I must be ready, for whatever it is. If I’m somehow responsible for Emeline’s return then I have to know. I wanted her back so badly I did not stop to consider that she doesn’t belong here, that it might cost her dearly to stay in this world.
“Who are you talking to?”
I jump at the sound of Catherine’s voice and spin around. “What? No one.”
She gives me a hard look and cranes her neck over my shoulder to see into the dining room. I catch my breath, but when she doesn’t say anything I turn back around. The apparition is gone. If Catherine notices the oppressive stillness that our ancestor left in her wake, she doesn’t say anything.
With a swallow, and legs that aren’t quite ready to move again, I follow Catherine back into the library where she spreads out several parcels, the fruits of their errands. I watch her as she unwraps a paper package containing embroidery threads and a card of new needles. Is this the same day as it was five minutes ago in the dining room standing before the spirit of my ancestor? Is this the same house, the same world, watching Catherine go about her business as if the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen in my life had not just occurred?
“What are you staring at?”
I force an inconsequential shrug. “Nothing. Just looking to see what you bought.”
She scowls. “That mean little shopkeeper wouldn’t take back the damaged silk, so now I’m stuck with it, stain and all.” She’s removed her bonnet and is pulling out her workbasket. I perch on the chair next to her, desperate to draw her into what I just experienced. How can it be real if no one else sees what I see?
But there’s no way to come at it directly, so I just ask, “Do you ever have trouble sleeping here?”
Catherine looks up. “What do you mean?”
I try to sound casual. “Oh, I don’t know. The house makes such strange noises at night, I can’t fall asleep.”
She gives me another scowl and goes back to her sewing. She’s taken one of her best gowns and is embroidering a border of delicate white flowers around the neck with her new thread. It’s a charming addition, and I wonder that I never think of such things. “I sleep just as well here as I did in Boston,” she says. “I already told you the only difference is the sorry excuses for mattresses.”
I open my mouth a few times.I can’t sleep because I have the most awful dreams. But in my waking hours my mind plays tricks on me. I see the strangest things. Not a moment ago I was conversing with the skeleton of our ancestor who was hanged as a witch over a hundred years ago. I feel as though I’m going mad, not knowing what is real and what is not.But I can’t find the right words. It all sounds so ridiculous, and besides, would Catherine even believe me? So I close my mouth, and we sit in silence as she works.
20
THE NEXT EVENINGMother makes a rare appearance in the library where I’m immersed in the final pages ofThe Romance of the Forest.