Page 11 of A Heart So Haunted
Emma, here, in the foyer. With a rolling suitcase behind her, and a single bag strap thrown over her shoulder. Her jeans hung on her lean hips, and a pastel blue, baby doll T-shirt contrasted perfectly against her vitiligo. Happy, helpful, sunshine-breathing Emma.
“You’re here,” I whispered. Blossoms of light shriveled to worry.
Emma was here.
“You’re not happy.” Her smile faltered.
“No!” I exclaimed a bit too loudly. Could she feel the lie in the air?
I grabbed for her suitcase, spine tense, and shooed away her offer of help. “Just surprised. I didn’t—you said you were going to Florida for a bit?” That was why she couldn’t make the funeral.
“I lied,” she tittered. She squeezed my shoulder before closing the front door. From my peripheral, Sayer emerged at the end of the foyer.
They both squealed with excitement.
I hauled her suitcase into the corner beside the grandfather clock and waited for Emma and Sayer to finish bouncing in place. A dark, roiling feeling started in my stomach. Emma, here. Emma, in this house. The thought of herpressing, if only a little, made my hands shake. I held onto her luggage handle to steady them, then turned.
“You didn’t tell me Emma was coming by,” Sayer said. A shade of hurt flickered in his expression. The two of them, almost identical in height, looked to me.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” she clarified. “I didn’t want Lanny to refuse me.”
“I wouldn’t have,” I countered. And it was the truth. Having another familiar face at the funeral would have been nice. But I shoved the thought down.
Her chocolate eyes narrowed. “I called you twice.”
“We’ve been busy with things,” I said. We stood in a triangle, examining one another, and all I could picture was us as children. At Sayer’s house or here in the backyard, in town at the library with Aunt Denny bent over a child-sized table, reading from a notebook page.
Be wary the beds and the space beneath, Aunt Cadence’s voice whispered.The cracks in the floors and the furnace teeth.
The grandfather clock chimed twice.
“Of course,” she said, a bit solemn.
Keep your eyes from the shadows and tongue so still.
“That’s why I came anyway. To stay for a bit.”
Because once Harthwait grows dark, the monsters become real.
I wish I had that same power now: to tell Emma such a trivial nursery rhyme to scare her away for the night. Or maybe my aunt had secretly wanted to be alone, and that’s why she’d read us those scary stories.
Maybe she hadn’t really wanted us around after all.
“Well, I’m sure.” Emma gave a look, something mixed with empathy and frustration.
“Are you staying?” I asked. That was not the consolation I needed. Even Sayer wasn’t staying in the house with me.
The thought made my guts bottom out. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d looked down and they lay in the middle of the floor.
Emma nodded. Her teeth were white and straight, minus one incisor. It stood a bit higher than the rest, crowded around its neighbors.
Her next words were gentle but honest. Like the grit of sand beneath your fingernails after a long day on the beach. “Vince told me I should come visit for a bit. He said he tried to call but you never answered.” A shrug. Unsaid words settled between the three of us. “I cashed in my vacation and everything! I mean, I’m remote, so I guessit didn’t make much of a difference. But no more flying to meetings!” She said it like I should be jumping in place.
How could I, when my father sent her in his stead as emissary?
He’d never wanted anything to do with me himself.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that it hadn’t changed now.
