Page 38 of Persephone's Curse
Our brownstone was dark and empty when we let ourselves in the front door. Bernadette went to take a shower, Mom went into the kitchen, and I went to the fourth floor and barged right into Evelyn’s bedroom. She wasn’t there. Nobody else was home, just the three of us, fresh from Vermont. But Henry was there. I could smell the faint fragrance of jasmine, and something darker on the air. And that was when I realized I hadn’t really been looking for my sister at all. I’d been looking for Henry.
And that was when I realized I feltangry,really, really angry—an emotion I didn’t usually feel and was very uncomfortable with.Usually I felt sad or lost or vacant or strange. Anger was new. Anger was hot, crawling up the back of my neck, making my fingertips numb. It had been building since we left Vermont without me even realizing it. It had grown and grown and grown and now it was right on the surface. I could feel my skin rippling, creeping, crawling.
You should help her,Esme had said.
I couldn’t make Evelyn stop loving Henry.
But maybe I could do something else…
“Why do you look so weird?” Henry said, there suddenly, sitting on Evelyn’s bed.
“Aren’t you supposed to knock,” I said, not really a question so much as an accusation, a first blow.
He had a small (sad?) smile on his face. He looked like he had been waiting for something and the something had finally arrived. He looked almost relieved, maybe, like he could finally stop thinking about whatever it was he had been waiting for. I both did and didn’t know what he had been waiting for. I both did and didn’t know that somehow, he had been waiting for me, for this moment, for what I was about to do, for the inevitable conclusion I would come to, for this conclusion, here, now.
“How can I help you, Winnie?” he asked.
It was just a tad rude, the way he said it, but to be fair, I had started it.
“Where is she?” I said, and this, too, came out like a sort of accusation.
“She went out somewhere with Clara,” he replied.
“And you’re in love with her?”
He softened—visibly softened—and nodded. In a small voice, he said, “Yes.”
“But that’s ridiculous, Henry,” I said. “You’re dead.”
I hadn’t meant it to come out so mean, but maybe it was impossible to remind someone they were dead without it sounding very, very harsh, without it sounding almost a little braggy, likeI know you are but what am I.
“Just say what you want to say, Winnie,” Henry said, and he relaxed his stance a little, and I realized that before he had been tense, bracing, and now he was defeated, slumped.
“You can’t be with her. You can’t do this to her. You have to stop.”
“I have to stop,” he repeated.
“Stop,” I confirmed. “Stop showing up, stop answering when she knocks, stop appearing, just STOP.”
The last word came out as a shout. I could still hear the shower going, so I knew Bernadette hadn’t heard me, and hopefully Mom was still downstairs or would assume I was yelling for Bernie.
“Good for you,” Henry said, and he shifted again, back to tense, back to bracing. “You’ve finally found some gumption. Only took you sixteen years.”
“Stop talking like it’s the 1800s. Nobody saysgumptionanymore.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You are,” I argued. “You have to.”
“I’m not leaving her. I wouldneverleave her. That would kill her, Winnie! That would break her heart!”
“It will kill her if youstay!” I said, shouting again. “Don’t yousee that? Don’t you see that if you don’t leave, Evelyn won’t leave? She won’tever leave. You’ve already been stuck in this house for far too long, do you really want Evelyn to be stuck here with you? Do you really want to watch her get older and older, do you really want to watch us all leave her, do you really want to watch her diealone?”
“She wouldn’t be alone,” Henry said, but his voice sounded uncertain now, his resolve was fading. “She’d be with me…”
“What a great comfort that will be. A half-here eternally seventeen-year-old boy who is so selfish, so self-centered, sofucking greedy,that he can’t do what’s right for the girl hesupposedlyloves.”
“I do love her… Of course I love her.”
