Page 113 of Persephone's Curse
“You’re so brave,” she said to him then, and Henry, having of course no idea what she was talking about, nevertheless liked thisimmensely. A strange lady comes into your attic and calls you brave, well, he about fell in love with her.
He gave a little half-shrug, made a noncommittal sort of grunting sound, then, overwhelmed with happiness and peace and the distinct joy of being perceived, disappeared.
She never saw him again.
And then, Christmas Day, almost seventeen years later.
This is what happened in the immediate aftermath:
Our mother, arriving home just as we were leading Evelyn up the first flight of stairs to our attic respite, each of us holding a different part of her, guiding her forward as gently as we could, said, “Why do I suddenly feel so muchlighter?”
I made new cups of tea, reheating the water in the kettle, taking the little circular tray down from the cabinet so I could carry them all upstairs at once.
We sat on the floor in the attic, so quiet that we could hear the clock chime midnight all the way downstairs in the living room.
Clara glanced at our grandmother’s gold watch and frowned slightly. The time was off. She adjusted the delicate gold crown until she was satisfied, then she stared at it for another moment, unclasped it from her wrist, and turned to Evelyn, who sat close beside her.
Evelyn did not say a word, did not move her eyes to meet Clara’s gaze, but she did hold her hand out, and Clara carefully placed the watch back on Evelyn’s wrist and clasped it shut.
Evelyn covered the watch with her other hand, holding it, feeling the cool metal against her skin once again.
Aunt Bea came upstairs to say good night.
We hadn’t talked for so long, it was startling to hear her voice, even if she did whisper (sensing the mood called for it).
“Everyone still awake up here?”
She walked to the window, which we had opened, despite the cold winter air. To let in the smell of jasmine. As much of it as we could get.
There was no way she could see the once-black-slash-now-mended, but she looked up at the sky for a long time, then turned back to us.
“Good night, my little demigods,” she said.
What happened in the days that followed:
Aunt Bea went back to Vermont.
She called me on a Saturday afternoon. I had gone back to the churchyard. I answered the phone amongst the graves.
“It feels like something has happened,” she said. “It feels like something is different.”
“How do you mean?” I asked. Perhaps if one thing had changed about me in the last few months, it was that I had become a slightly better liar.
“My house feels different,” Aunt Bea said. “Your house felt different, too.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, you noticed. All you girls noticed.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Emptier,” Aunt Bea said. “That’s what my house feels like. Like it’s emptier.”
Esme, playing dolls in front of the fireplace.
Henry, introducing himself to our mother.
Every Farthing ghost I had ever seen, gone now, released, never to return.
