Did Theo just make a joke?
His cheeks flush red as he moves to sit on the now clean furniture. “I figured you might need a decent place to sit.”
I’mstill gasping for air as I sit beside him. “Because of myOlympic-level dive?”
He laughs along with me. “Yes. Partly.” He leans back against thesiderest. “I was also sick of seeing this room so empty.”
The living room, or as Theo has referred to it: the front room, is definitely sparse.Since I arrived,there’sbeennothingbut the fireplace tools and a photo of a random woman propped against the wall.
“Who is that?” I ask, pointing to the portrait.
Theo gets up and crosses the room. He picks up thelarge framewith both hands and wipes away a layer of dust from the woman’s face.
“GenevraBleaker. Head of the Shadow Hills coven from 1951 to 2024.” He walks back to the day bed and lays the portrait flat on the floor in front of me. “She was twenty-three when she took over as leader. She was six months pregnant with her daughter.”
“Is that who used to live here?” I ask.
He sits back down, lacing his hands together as he leans his forearms on his thighs. The veins of his arms protrude slightly, and I imagine whatthey’dlook like gripping a bed sheet. Or my hips.
Whoathere.Where in the hell did that come from?
“They did,” he confirms. “For thirteen years.”
I want to ask so many questions, mostly to get the image of Theo’s flexing forearms out of my head, but also because I know this has something to do with the fragile history between him and the current coven.
“Are they related to Simone? Or Calliope?”
He taps his foot, eyes on the floor. “Yes. Genevra was Calliope’s great-grandmother.”
If I take the leap and ask whatI’vebeen wondering since the first day I saw Calliope rushing from the house, I might end up breaking the bridgeI’vemanaged to build with him.But what if this is my only chance?
“What happened?” I ask hesitantly.
The air in the room feels chilly despite the roaring fire. A mask slips over Theo’s face ashe considers whethernowis the time to finally speak on whateverhe’sbeen hiding.
“Genevra’s daughter, Moira, grew up in this house,” he starts with a deep sigh, staring hopelessly into the fire.
I scoot back, making myself comfortableon the daybed so that my back is leaning against the wall. I kick off my shoes and pull my knees to my chest.
Theo shifts so that he’s angled toward me and shifts his eyes to the painting still lying on the floor.
“Around the time Moira started school, I began paying more attention to the family in the house,” he tells me. “Up until then, I spent a lot of my time in the attic. It wasfar enoughremoved that it allowed them to live their lives without my interference, while still allowing me to remain in my family’s home. Ididn’tmean to get involved, but one day, while her mother was cooking, Moira was playing in her room upstairs. I remember the smell of pasta boiling, and baked bread in the oven. Genevra was playing some record of the time, Idon’tremember what it was called, but it was loud enough that shedidn’thear when Moira’s hand got stuck in the air vent.”
Theo’s fingers drum thoughtfully on the green cushions beneath us. “I heard her crying, but no one cameforher. So I went to her room, and found her hand shoved into the floor vent. One of her crayons had rolled into it, andI think shetried to reach for it and got stuck.”
His own hand retreats back into his lap.
“I managed to use some of my magic to bend the grate and pull her out. Shedidn’teven react at first, she was just so grateful to be free.” He smiles to himself, reminiscing on whatever memoryhe’sreliving. “I was going to leave her alone. I hoped that if she told her mother,she’dthink it was just the imagination of achild andforget all about it. But then she spoke to me.”
Theolooksme in the eye. “She said, ‘Are you the ghost that’s been living in the attic?’ I was shocked. Ididn’tthink anyone knew Iexisted. But here was this little girl,maybe sixor seven, andshe’dknown all along.”
My heartfluttersat the thought of such a young child seeing Theo as a friend and not a scary monster.
“Of course,I said yes,” he says. “Then she started asking meallthese inane questions, like ifI’dbeen the one to move her doll from the shelf, or if it was me who made the water go cold in her bath. She said she heard me pacing back and forth in the attic when she went to bed, and that the rhythmic sound helped put her to sleep after her mother told her a bedtime story.
“For many years after that, I became her companion. I played with her when she wanted to host tea parties and made hertoysclap when she gave acceptance speeches for whichever award she was imagining she won, all while wearing hermother’s shoes and giant sunglasses.
“I was her imaginary friend, until Genevra finally saw me for the first time, and I was no longer just a figment of Moira’s mind.”
