Page 30 of Persephone's Curse
We fell into silence, and only then did I realize the music had stopped. Aunt Bea got up and switched the record, and I recognized the first few chords of Buddy Holly’s “You’re the One.” Aunt Bea was abigBuddy Holly fan.
Mom let out a long yawn. “I think I’ll finish the rest of this in bed,” she said, picking up her mug. “Don’t stay up too late, you two.”
“I have you in the back room,” Aunt Bea said, pointing vaguely upstairs and toward the back of the house. “Sleep tight, Sissy.”
Mom cradled Aunt Bea’s head in her arms and kissed her temple. “Love you. Night.” Then she did the same to me. “Love you. Night.”
“Love you. Night,” we echoed, and she picked up her suitcase and trudged slowly up the stairs to the second floor.
Aunt Bea had closed her eyes and was listening intently to the music. Buddy Holly songs were short, and the next one was already starting. It was probably my favorite Buddy Holly song, only because it was Aunt Bea’s favorite Buddy Holly song. It was called “(Ummm, Oh Yeah) Dearest.” Like all Buddy Holly songs, the lyrics were simple, but the message was direct and clear:I love you, I’m sorry, don’t leave me.
I looked at Aunt Bea; she was totally zoned out with that lookshe often got on her face. Like she wasn’t even in the same room with you. Like she was somewhere else entirely.
I took a sip of my tea, which was sweetened with honey and absolutely delicious, then looked over to the right, into the living room. Aunt Bea had lit a fire at some point in the night, but it had almost gone out; the last few coals glowed with a delicate, orange warmth.
I blinked slowly, my eyelids growing heavy as the tea warmed me from the inside out. In one blink, the living room was empty. In another blink, my Aunt Esme sat in front of the fireplace, two small dolls in her hand. She didn’t seem to notice I was there. A little ghost girl lost in her own endless childhood.
I knew Aunt Bea couldn’t see Esme, but was there a part of her that was comforted by her younger sister’s presence? Was there a part of Aunt Bea that had never left this house because she could never leaveher? Was that so horrible a life? Aunt Bea still traveled, still worked, still went to countless art galleries and concerts, still hiked and swam at the local YMCA, still came to visit us in New York every chance she got. Was it really so bad, being tied to a ghost?
But Aunt Bea wasn’t Evelyn.
And Aunt Esme wasn’t Henry.
No, this was completely different.
Aunt Esme paused her game, let her dolls drop from her hands, closed her eyes for a moment before rising to her feet. She spread her little arms out and began to spin in a slow circle, swaying and dancing to the music.
In that moment, as she danced alone in front of the fireplace, I knew this had been Esme’s favorite song, too.
Bernadette woke me up in the morning. She came into my dream first, wrapping her arms around me, squeezing me in a hug, and then she was there in real life, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a mug of coffee, wearing flannel pajama pants and an old, holey T-shirt that had belonged to our father at one point. It was soft and threadbare in places.
“I can never keep a good T-shirt in this house!” he had said on more than one occasion. This one had a drawing of a sailboat on the left side, with the wordsPARK POINT MANORwritten above it andSAILING WITH PROGRESSwritten below it.
“Bernie,” I mumbled happily.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “I don’t think I could have handled another six-hour drive with Mom listening to some boring audiobook.”
“We listened to one about orchids.”
“When she drove me up, it was mushrooms.”
She set the coffee down on the nightstand and threw herself on top of me, smothering me, kissing my hair a million times before settling down and just laying her dead weight on top of me. She smelled nice, like Aunt Bea’s fancy, organic, handmade soap, and her hair was slightly damp, like she’d showered before bed and it still hadn’t dried all the way.
“I missed you,” I said, my voice muffled and small.
“I missed you, too,” she said. “I’m better now. I’m cured. I’ll probably come to college here for the spring semester.”
“Really?” I asked as she sat up, letting me breathe.
“It does make sense,” she said. “Living with Aunt Bea is nice.There’s always fresh bread. She has it delivered from the bakery. And the college is really nice. I’ve been auditing some classes, just walking around. I like this town. It’s pretty here.”
“You had me atbread.”
“Seriously, though. Shut up. I’m trying to open up to you,” Bernadette said, but she was mostly joking, and I was mostly joking, and it felt easy and nice between us, like nothing strange had ever happened involving a dropped wineglass in the kitchen. “Do you ever feel like our house is kind of…” She paused, thinking. “I don’t quite know how to phrase this. Like it’strappedus?”
“Trapped us,” I repeated.
“Like it’s hard to leave, maybe,” she continued. “When I’m away from it, it’s harder to keep everything straight in my head. My thoughts, my emotions. I get… angrier.”
