Page 55 of Persephone's Curse
She nodded, her expression changing to almost… impressed? In that moment I found myself wanting her approval desperately, something I should probably speak to a therapist about.
“Cool,” she said. “Just be careful, you know? The person we call isn’t always the person who answers. Think of it like a big communal home. The phone rings, it’s anyone’s guess who’s going to be on the other side.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
I picked up the box and tucked it under my arm.
I didn’t want to leave the store, which was lowly lit and smelled like lavender candles and was quiet and cramped and cozy. But the employee was slipping quickly back into her state of gentle boredness and itwasgetting really late. My sisters would be worried. (My remaining sisters.) I probably had text messages from them.Practical Magicwas long over. I hadn’t checked my phone in a while.
“Okay, well. Bye,” I said.
“Bye, little medium,” she said, even though she was probably only a few years older than me andlittlewas a stretch.
I left the shop, squeezing the Ouija board box to my side, pulling my phone out of my pocket and sending Bernadette and Clara a quick text, not bothering to read the twenty-eight they had sent me already.
If Henry wouldn’t answer a knock on his closet door, we would simply try another way to reach him.
We spent Sunday wandering around the city.
It was a gray and bleak day and we welcomed it, and we welcomedthe way our fingers grew numb with cold and our feet turned numb with walking and our brains turned numb from the repetitive movement of one foot in front of the other. We avoided the busiest streets, we zigzagged down alleys, we got back to the house around six and ate cereal for dinner, the three of us standing in the kitchen, I think simply forgetting to sit down or perhaps so used to being vertical.
It was already pitch dark outside by the time we washed the bowls out in the sink.
We set up the Ouija board on Evelyn’s floor, pushing her bed against the wall, scooting her nightstand over, making room for the three of us to sit, all crowded around it. Clara lit cream taper candles. Bernadette closed the curtains and threw a square of black silk over Evelyn’s lamp (where did Bernadette acquire a square of black silk? I simply didn’t ask). The result was a room lit much like the magic shop itself. The shadows were alive and moving and I was thoroughly freaked out as I took my seat next to my sisters and stared at the board and planchette before me, made in China, probably, not connected to the afterlife or the underworld at all, probably, a waste of $39.99 (plus tax), but here we were, and I doubted Dark Magic had a return policy for slightly used occult products.
“Okay,” Bernadette said, looking at me. “Take it away.”
“Take it away?”
“This was your idea. Lead us.”
“Lead us?”
Bernadette narrowed her eyes at me. “Come on. It’s not rocket science. Ask a question.”
“Ask a—”
“If you repeat what I just said again, I will be forced to summon up a demon and sacrifice your soul to Hell.”
“I’m wondering if we shouldn’t joke about things like that,” Clara said gently. For the first time, I noticed there was a hardcover book in her lap. The title was visible on the front, written in embossed gold letters:Mythology.
“You brought a book to the séance?” Bernadette said.
“I thought it couldn’t hurt, to do some light reading. If what Aunt Bea says is true… that the Farthing girls are… Well. You know… Persephone had a pretty strong connection to the Underworld… Maybe that’s why…”
“Spit it out, Cece,” Bernadette said, not unkindly.
“Maybe that’s why we’re able to see Henry in the first place,” Clara finished, her words tumbling out before she could change her mind.
It was funny. Between us, we had three lifetimes of seeing a ghost in our attic and we had maybe never once considered the correlation Clara was now presenting.
“But then why can Winnie seemore?” Bernadette asked after a moment.
“Against my will,” I added weakly.
“I don’t know,” Clara said. “But she’s the only one who can…”
“No,” I said, suddenly remembering my conversation with Aunt Esme. “Aunt Esme could see them, too!”
