Page 81 of Persephone's Curse
“My left hand isno,” she said. “My right hand isyes. We are contacting the spirit world tonight in an attempt to reach someone very close to us.” She looked toward me, expectantly.
“Henry,” I said. “We’re trying to reach our… our Henry.”
“Henry, if you are with us tonight, we implore you to make yourself known.”
I looked around the table. Bernadette’s face was impassive, unreadable. Clara looked a little scared. Evelyn looked sad. I thought I probably looked annoyed. I felt annoyed, and I couldn’t say exactly why. Was I annoyed at Henry, for being so hard to reach? Was I annoyed at Evelyn, for being so melodramatic as to fall in love with a ghost? Was I annoyed at myself (always)?
Just then, a gentle breeze blew through the room. One of the pillar candles flickered and extinguished. A trail of smoke traced its way up to the ceiling.
“We welcome you,” Maybe said.
Clara looked even more scared now. Bernadette a little less impassive. Evelyn more alert, sitting up straighter in her chair.
“We have questions for you,” Maybe said. “But first, will you confirm for us: Is this Henry? Are you here?”
The crystal, hanging from Maybe’s little gallows-like contraption, twitched. We all saw it. It caught the light of the candles (the ones that still burned) and threw thousands of little pinpricks of light all across the room. A miniature disco ball. It was beautiful. I would have spent more time in awe of it had I not been absolutely paralyzed with fear, because the crystal was still twitching, the crystal wasmoving,the crystal wasdefinitely, unquestionably moving,right toward Maybe’s calm, cool, still right hand. The right hand ofyes.
“Thank you,” Maybe said. “We’re so happy you could join us, Henry. Are you safe?”
The crystal twitched back to center, twitched back again to point at Maybe’s right hand.
“We want you to come back,” I said, interjecting before I could stop myself, my voice hitching on the wordback. “Can you come back, Henry?”
The crystal returned to center and made a sort of circular movement. Maybe looked confused for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle. “I think that meansmaybe,” she said. Then, to me: “Also, no more interrupting.”
She returned her attention to the crystal, closed her eyes, took a deep breath.
Across from me, Evelyn shifted in her seat. She was biting her bottom lip so hard I was worried she’d draw blood.
“Henry, will youtryto come back?” Maybe said.
The crystal made its lackluster, noncommittal circle again, and Clara let out a noise of deep irritation and said, “Henry, seriously! If Evelyn could do it, you can do it! Persephone’s footsteps made a doorway; you just have tofindit.”
Maybe made a little face, likewhat have I gotten myself into with this family.
The crystal moved toyes.
If I could, for a moment, anthropomorphize the crystal, I would say that the crystal moved to yes rather cheekily, and Clara, mollified, sat back in her chair.
“Maybe he didn’t know about the doorway,” she said reasonably.
“What doorway?” Maybe asked.
“Nothing,” Bernadette said, at the same time Clara responded, “Oh, a long time ago Persephone came to New York to welcome back the spring and wherever she went, her footsteps left weak spots between here and the Underworld, so our sister found one and went down there to find her ghost boyfriend and they got stuck there for three years and then she finally found her way back but Henry didn’t so we’re worried he’s stuck. He’s a ghost who lives in our attic and then Evelyn fell in love with him and then Winnie banished him. And also there’s this hole in the sky now, can you see it?”
A moment of silence and then Bernadette repeated, rather weakly, “Like I said: nothing.”
“A hole in the sky,” Maybe said. “No, I haven’t seen it.”
“That’s what I figured,” Clara said. “Only we can see it, because we’re descended from Persephone.”
“Are you stuck, Henry?” Evelyn asked quietly, looking at the crystal. “Are you stuck down there?”
The crystal moved toyes(anthropomorphizing again: rather despondently).
“Huh,” Maybe said. “You’re all very weird.”
“Yes, well,” Clara said.
