Lydia rolled onto her back and pointed at me while glaring meaningfully at her brother.
‘She gets it. She. Gets. It.’
‘What about you?’ Jackson asked.
‘No idea,’ I replied with uncertainty. ‘I already took my exams but I honestly don’t know what I’ll do now. College next year, I guess.’
‘And she’s a genius,’ Lydia declared as I took a deep drink from my glass, trying to knock back as much as possible at once. I felt the granulated sugar grinding against my teeth then something else, something more solid, catching in the back of my throat.
‘I’ve never been more jealous of a living soul,’ she added with a dramatic sigh. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
I coughed, one hand still holding the glass, the other flat against my chest.
‘Something’s stuck in my throat,’ I choked out as it became harder to breathe.
‘Em?’ Lydia sounded panicked as I dropped my glass, a woody stick rolling back and forth inside as the liquid seeped into the rug. I dropped to my knees, spluttering for air. It was the rosemary. I was choking on a sprig of rosemary.
My eyes watered then closed as the room went black and again I felt that sudden feeling of being pulled backwards. The next thing I knew everything was quiet. I blinked to find I was still in Virginia Powell’s parlour but Lydia and Jackson were gone. In their place I saw my dad, a much, much younger version of him, sitting beside a much, much younger version of Catherine. And right in front of me, just a few inches from my face, was my mother. Blonde, blue-eyed and smiling, just like in the photograph. Except she was really here, breathing, moving, alive. I reached out to touch her but my hand was tiny – small, pudgy fingers that couldn’t quite close the short distance.
‘She’s always trying to grab my locket.’ I heard my mother laugh. ‘My little magpie.’
‘Emily!’
The scene disappeared. I was back in the present, a small sprig of rosemary in front of me on the floor, Jackson kneeling beside me and thumping my back between my shoulder blades. My throat and eyes burned as I sat back on my heels, staring around the room, completely disorientated.
‘You’re OK,’ Lydia exclaimed, slumping down to the floor and crossing herself. ‘Thank the Lord. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to almost unalive you.’
‘Do you need some water?’ Jackson asked, all his attention on me, his arms around my shoulders, holding me steady. ‘Or another Arnold Palmer?Withoutrosemary?’
Whatever I’d seen still hovered at the edge of my vision but when I tried to look directly at it, the whole thing disappeared. This was the same room. The same furniture, the same art on the walls, the same antique rug. It was decorated differently, white now instead of blue, but it was one hundred per cent the same room.
‘This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this house,’ I said in a scratchy, hoarse voice. ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘Probably. When you were a baby.’ Jackson put his hand on my back, the spot between my shoulders throbbing from his life-saving strikes. ‘You don’t look well, Emily, I’m going to get Miss Catherine.’
‘No, don’t,’ I said as fast as I could. I wiped smeared mascara off my cheeks and reached for my locket. Still there. The cool metal soothed my burning hand. My whole body was red hot. ‘I’m fine. I’m great. I just need some fresh air.’ I rose to my feet and floated out the parlour towards the front door, barely able to feel the floor beneath me. ‘I need to be outside.’
‘We’ll go with you,’ Lydia offered, but my hand was already on the doorknob.
‘I’m OK,’ I insisted, already half out the door. ‘Please tell Catherine I’ll find my own way home.’
I stumbled down the front steps and out onto Madison Square, leaving the Powell house and my strange vision behind.
Chapter Five
Lafayette Square was teeming with people by the time I realized that’s where I was. Bell House had drawn me home like a beacon. I stood on the grass, staring up at my new old home, all proud and majestic, but I wasn’t ready to go inside just yet. My mind raced with everything Lydia had told me, everything Jackson said, and whatever it was I’d seen in the strange darkness. Maybe choking on the rosemary had freed a repressed memory. My mother, right there in front of me, speaking and laughing as clear as day, but I couldn’t remember something from so long ago, could I? Mom died when I was a few months old, it wasn’t possible.
I walked in circles that echoed my thoughts, following a path my feet chose for me. Up and down the diagonal footpaths, weaving in and out of the trees. And there were so many trees. Oaks mostly. I’d seen plenty of those before. What I hadn’t seen was the green-grey vines that hung from every branch of every oak, light and feathery and absolutely everywhere. The more I looked, the more I saw, stretching from limb to limb like cobwebs on a chandelier. They swayed above me in a non-existent breeze while the trees held steadfast, nota single leaf flickering. I peered more closely at a low-hanging strand. It looked as though it was made up of millions of tiny feathers. Would it feel so soft to touch? Curious, I reached out and a tendril grazed my skin, making every hair on my arm stand up on end.
Emily …
Someone was calling me. My hand flew to my locket as I whirled around to see who was behind me but there was no one I recognized. A few metres away, a couple sitting on a picnic blanket looked up, the woman’s brow quirking with mild concern but she met my awkward smile with an irritated eyeroll and quickly turned back to her boyfriend.
Emily Emily Emily …
There it was again. I scoured the square for a familiar face, but, even though it was impossible, I knew where the voice was coming from. The vines. Today was a day for impossible things. Holding my breath, I reached for the same tendril, gasping with surprise as it curled around my fingers, wrapping itself around me like a living, breathing, thinking thing. In the same moment, a whole chorus of voices sighed my name, over and over, airy and intangible. It sounded like a radio stuck between two channels that were both playing the same song, one slightly behind the other. Slowly, the static cleared to deliver a message.
Light hides the lies; truth lives in the dark.
