Page 83 of Persephone's Curse
“Maybe,” Maybe said. “For anyone else who may be listening or watching, I now say goodbye to you. May you rest peacefully and easily.”
Maybe stood up and, one by one, blew out each of the candles on the table. Then she opened each of the windows. Then she turned to face us, pulled a business card out of her back pocket, tossed it on the table and said to me, “My Venmo’s on there. Walk me out?”
We packed up her tote bag and headed downstairs.
“Your family is something else,” she said.
“That’s a genuinely very kind way of putting it.”
“But cool. I like how you all just yell at each other and then get over it.”
Because a few moments ago, Bernadette and Evelyn had walked by, holding mugs of tea, talking about their feelings. I heardBernadette apologize for shouting at Evelyn. I heard Evelyn apologize for trying to go through the doorway again without telling us. I heard Clara (unrelated) listening to a YouTube video about John Singer Sargent, top volume, at the kitchen table. It felt suddenly too hot in the house. I grabbed the closest jacket from a hook on the wall—an old wool Pendleton of my father’s—and slipped past Maybe, opening the door.
The night air was frigid. I hadn’t felt air that cold in a long time. Had it gotten this cold last winter? Had it ever gotten this cold before? Had it gotten this cold when Henry was alive, before global warming, before we’d burned a hole in the ozone layer (then, okay, mostly repaired it)?
Maybe followed me. Her breath came out in a misty, gray fog. She shut the door behind her and pulled her hood over her head.
“You can tell that something isn’t quite right out here,” she said quietly. “Where is the hole?”
“Above us,” I said, pointing.
She looked up, then nodded her head slowly, as if digesting all the information she’d learned in the past hour.
“Is there really a ghost?” she said finally, turning back to me.
“Henry,” I said. “He’s always been here.”
“Do you have any… proof?”
“What kind of proof?”
“Video evidence, sound recordings… have you thought about letting anyone come in and look around?”
“Like… are you talking about, like…ghost hunters?”
Maybe shrugged. “Well, yeah. But I probably would have called them something more professional, like paranormal investigators.”
“Why would you need a ghost hunter if the ghost doesn’t need to be hunted? Because it’s sitting on your sofa watching your sister play the piano, and later you’re all going to have a game of Monopoly?”
“Could he… move the pieces?”
“Most nights, yes. Sometimes he was less solid. And he could only ever touch Evelyn. We were never sure why.”
“And you don’t want to have proof of this? This could… I mean, if what you’re saying istrue,this could change everything… Everything we know about science, about life, about death…”
“He asked us not to tell anyone,” I said. And it sounded simple, it sounded like a cop-out answer, almost, but it was also the truth. He had asked us not to tell anyone and so we hadn’t.
“Can your parents see him?”
“Once,” I said. “Our mother saw him once.”
“So it’s just the four of you,” she said. “You must be born under full moons or something.” This last part, I thought, was a joke, because she smiled afterward, but her smile quickly turned into a sort of grimace. “Fuckit’s cold. What was that thing about Persephone’s footsteps?”
“Oh, right. Um. Nothing.”
“No, I’m remembering now… you said something to me in Dark Magic. About being descended from the gods. I thought you were just referring to your incredible cheekbones, but now I’m thinking there’s something more there…”
I touched my face. “Do I really have—”
