Page 65 of The House on Prytania
I reluctantly began to tap on my screen.Need help asap at cottage.I hit the Send button, then began typing again.The house is bleeding
I’d barely touched the Send arrow before Beau responded.OMW
Cooper and I exited the car and stood in the street, then watched as one by one the windows slammed shut and stayed closed. By the time Beau’s truck roared into the street and stopped at the curb, whatever had been dripping from the window had stopped, the long tongues of liquid sucked up from the wall and swallowed under the sill. All that remained to confirm that we hadn’t imagined everything was the debris scattered in the grass, one of my spreadsheets stuck in the oleander shrub at the corner of the porch.
Despite everything, I still felt relief that Beau had come alone. I wanted to think it was because he and Sam hadn’t been togetherwhen I’d texted him. After greeting us and allowing me to explain what had just happened, he moved toward the porch. He stopped when he saw we weren’t following.
“I need the key, Nola.”
“Sorry,” I said, fishing it out of my backpack. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to go inside.”
“I’m good at a lot of things, Nola, but figuring something out by osmosis isn’t one of them. Otherwise you’d be driving by now.”
Cooper coughed and I gave him what I hoped was a stinging glare. “Whatever,” I said, stomping up onto the porch and sticking the key in the lock. The knob turned easily, and nothing pressed against the door as I pushed it open.
“I think whoever it was is gone,” I said.
Beau stepped into the room and flipped on a light switch. I made a move to follow, but Beau said, “Stay there until I give you the all clear. In the meantime, you can start picking up stuff from the yard. Keep the door open so you can hear me shout if I need you.”
I watched Beau pause at the bottom of the staircase and look up. I saw that the closet door was partially open, filling me with panic. “Don’t go in the closet.”
“Trust me, Nola. I have zero desire to go in there right now.” His index finger began strumming the rubber band on his wrist. With a burst of energy, he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, then disappeared in the upstairs hallway.
Cooper and I began gathering the bits and pieces that had been strewn by unseen hands or just blown out of the windows, and we stacked them by group on the porch. After about ten minutes we had a collection of tape measures, screwdrivers, and boxes of nails, miraculously intact. In another pile we had all the spreadsheets that I’d left tacked to the wall, and in a third pile, a dozen rolls of soggy toilet paper whose origins I didn’t want to know.
“Is this yours?” Cooper stood from behind the oleander bush, holding up a yellow hair ribbon.
“Let me see.” He handed it to me, and I held it up in the lightfrom the porch so I could see it better. The satin between my fingers had long ago lost its stiff newness, myriad creases and wrinkles pressed into it like the papery skin of an old woman. It was still knotted in the middle, stray blond hairs captured where I imagined the ribbon had slid from a ponytail unnoticed. Or had been forcibly pulled.
“It’s not exactly mine, but I’m pretty sure I know who it belongs to.” I smoothed one of the ends between my fingers. The night had turned chilly, and a cold breeze blew through the yard, rattling the papers and making the wind chimes sing. But tonight the chimes had taken on a deeper tone, like the chanting of monks. I examined the ribbon, hoping I’d find something different than the ribbon from the hatbox. Something to prove that my suspicions were wrong. “If it’s the same one, I have no idea how it got here. The last time I saw it, it was in my apartment.”
“And you’re sure it’s the same?”
I nodded. “It would be pure coincidence that an identical yellow ribbon would be found in my yard.”
“Except there’s no such thing as coincidence,” we said in unison. Despite the confusion with which my brain was grappling, a half smile formed on my lips as I recalled the times Cooper and I had heard my dad say that as we stood in the kitchen or sat at our dining table at the house on Tradd Street, trying to work through the clues of a mystery. He’d been the Ned to my Nancy Drew, and the memory swept through me, wrapping me in its comforting warmth.
Beau stepped out onto the porch. “Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”
“Does it matter?” I was too mentally exhausted at this point to care one way or the other.
“Fine. I’ll give you the good news first. The house is clear. Nothing is broken, and there’s no blood or any other substance in the upstairs hallway, or anywhere else that I can see. Whatevervisitorswere here are gone. Or, more likely, are taking a rest. Which brings me to the bad news.”
“Can you wait to tell me tomorrow? I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”
“I could. But knowing you, you won’t be able to sleep because I didn’t tell you, and then you’ll end up texting me and waking me up to find out and then we’re both not sleeping. So let me tell you now.”
I was freezing, but I wasn’t about to suggest going inside to talk. As if reading my mind, Cooper settled his jacket over my shoulders. It still carried his body heat and I snuggled into it, enjoying the warmth and the faint yet familiar smell of him.
“Fine. Go ahead, then.”
“So, the bad news is that it takes a lot of energy to make something move—much more for multiple objects simultaneously. It takes even more to manifest the image of something leaking from a window or dripping down a wall. The only reason why it stopped is that the entity simply ran out of energy.”
“Why is that bad news?” Cooper asked, his Citadel education dictating his need for a clear and concise answer to a situation that was neither.
“Because,” Beau said, his gaze moving to me, “that means that this is a very powerful spirit. Stronger than anything I’ve ever personally encountered.”
“Great,” I said. “So how am I supposed to get rid of it?”
