Page 28 of The Sisters of Crimson House

“How is this a curse?” Charley said, mystified. “I might finally be able to help us for once rather than being the most worthless member of our family.”

Sadie grabbed Charley’s hand, surprising her with her strength. “Don’t ever say that,” Sadie said, her glare fierce. “You’ve kept us alive with your work and sacrifice, not with any Star. You’ve never needed this, and it’s my hope that you won’t need it still.”

Charley stared at her grandmother, shaken. “I just don’t understand why you can’t be happy for me.”

“Because it is a death sentence,” Sadie said, tears falling in earnest. “Your mother and father died, and this did nothing to save them.”

Charley fought the same urge to cry. “Mom and Dad died a long time ago, Sadie. How long are you going to torture yourself over it?”

“As long as it takes,” she said, looking at Charley’s palm with renewed intensity. “You know what I do, child. My gift?” Her voice caught on that word.

Charley shrank from her grandmother’s intensity, but she held firm to her hand.

“Find lost things? See into the past to learn the future?” she offered lamely.

“I see darkness because I am made of it.” Tears spilled down Sadie’s cheeks, her face flushing as her anger rose. “I create things, and I destroy. I touch things and I see the rot. The decay. The hurt and shame in people’s hearts that can lead to terrible things. I see it, and I feel it all with a touch.” She looked at Charley as if her heart would break. “You have remained hidden. That has been your gift, child. But now you are moving into the light. It’s our job to prepare you.”

Prepare me? Charley went very still. She was a child again. Begging for these words. To be seen. Dreaming of being on that stage, not caring for the people who’d passed out around it. Was it just that simple, a slash to the palm finally righting the wrongs of the universe? Sadie’s hand was so tight around hers, Charley could feel her hummingbird heartbeat pulsing through her skin.

Sadie’s voice sounded so far away and so unspeakably sad. “I know that much of what I have done over the years hasn’t made sense, but I hope you will know that it’s always been for you.” With that, she released Charley’s hand and slowly made the long, lonely trek upstairs to the attic.

Fifteen

August 31, 2001

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: An Essay by Charlotte Bryde

I wake up. I remember that I live in a haunted house. I listen for ghosts in the halls, but the only one I can hear is the one that lives in the attic. I make a poached egg for Great Leo and myself, bringing the other to the attic for Sadie, which she sometimes eats but usually just lets go to waste. Leo says this is her way of grieving, that she feels responsible for not being able to save my mom and dad. I tell her that I am grieving too, that she isn’t the only one who lost someone, and Leo tells me she knows that, but there are things I don’t understand. I tell her I would very much like to understand but nobody wants to do the hard part of telling me anything. I would like to know why my parents were kind and died a brutal death. Why Celeste took Miranda away from me. Why they are working in Europe and won’t let me join them. Why I still have to go to high school and write essays like this.

Last week Mrs. Spencer came to the house for the fifth time, asking for Sadie. She kept looking at me weird. Maybe it was that I dyed my hair black since there wasn’t anyone to stop me. That I wear my mom’s MAC Plum Dandy lipstick so that I see her when I look in the mirror. Four times I told her Sadie wouldn’t see her, that Leo told me to tell her that we were officially closed for business. But then she glanced around the lobby like she was casing the place, took my hand and led me to Sadie’s office.

I never go into Sadie’s office.

It was off limits to me and Miranda, where Sadie conducted her readings before she retired. We turned on the lights, and I tried hard not to cough from the dust as we propped up pillows. It was like a Sadie museum, her giant leather-bound guest journal undisturbed since the final time she’d conducted a sitting. A spiky, gray green fern hunched over itself in the corner like a goblin, somehow still alive out of spite. Mrs. Spencer sat where all the querents sit, and she motioned to me to take Sadie’s seat like I was a guest in her home. “You can do this, right? You’re a Bryde,” she said. “This is what you do.” And then she looked at me like I was supposed to say my lines, like we’d rehearsed this. I told her I was sorry, and that I wasn’t supposed to do this, and then I saw her shoulders sag, her eyes water like she might cry. I didn’t want her to cry. So I took her hand, and she started talking. I didn’t really have to say much. She told me about how hard work was and how difficult it was to be a parent to teenagers, but not me of course. How lucky my parents had been to have someone like me as their daughter. It wasn’t until she started talking about her mother who had died that she started to cry for real. Her mom had been a dementia patient, and she got in Mrs. Spencer’s Toyota Corolla and started driving it to West Memphis, thinking she was sixteen again and late for school. Sadie had helped Mrs. Spencer then. She was able to direct the authorities to the missing car. Sadie was deadly accurate when it came to finding missing people. But the timing wasn’t always on her side. Now Mrs. Spencer just wanted reassurance that her mom was okay on the other side. That her mom was proud of her. That she heard her when she looked up at the Cassiopeia constellation on a clear night and told her she still made wishes on ancient stars. I told her that her mom was indeed okay, just like my parents were on the other side. That her mother was extremely proud of her, and that wishing on stars only made the connection to her mother more powerful, as we are all made out of stardust. She cried harder at this. That was a line my mom used to tell me when I was little that I didn’t think she would mind me borrowing. Mrs. Spencer wiped the tears from her face and gave me a hundred-dollar bill and an extra twenty as a tip because I think she felt sorry for the orphan with the bad dye job. She told me she would be back next week. I am not sure I will hand in this essay, as I haven’t learned anything in class that is paying me in cash for thinking fast on my feet.

Sixteen

October 3, 2008

A cloud of smoke billowed in front of the grand staircase before clearing to reveal Charley in full tour regalia—clingy black dress, tall patent leather stilettos—and desperately trying not to choke on the errant plume that she’d sucked right down into her lungs. “Greetings. I am—aaaah!” Her eyes watered and chest burned while she prayed to the gods to strike Zavier down dead where he stood. Oh, the irony that she might suffocate to death onstage at Crimson House and become one of Zavier’s beloved embellishments. “Ah! Okay! Sorry. Let’s try that again,” she said between coughs, waving away the smoke while trying to stay in character. “I am Charlotte Bryde, mistress of Crimson House, and…” She stopped, surprised to find she was facing down an audience of one.

The man wore a baby-blue polo that was currently doing battle with too-tight khaki-colored jorts and black Converse. He gave a jaunty wave before putting his hands in his pockets, watching her expectantly. She glanced at Zavier, who was big-eyeing Oh my God at her, but she still wasn’t picking it up. The guest gave her a pitying smile as if he forgave her for not knowing who he was.

“Warner Knight, hauntrepreneur and founder of Warner Knight Halloween,” he said with a friendly smile. “Keep doing your thing, though.”

“Oh, of course! Welcome, Mr. Knight,” she said, hoping he couldn’t see the abject panic on her face. Shit. The haunted-house guy. So now she was on on, she thought, watching him mosey around the entryway. She flexed her hand like a gunslinger, her marked palm feeling like a loaded pistol. Miranda, choosing this moment to exit the kitchen with some tea for her monster hangover, stopped short in the entry, clearly delighted to catch her sister in action.

No pressure.

She hadn’t heard her sister come home. She’d been up most of the night, sifting over the previous twenty-four hours’ events, desperate for clues. Once she’d admitted to herself that she was waiting up for her sister, she forced herself to sleep. She wasn’t going to waste another minute of her life waiting on her sister. Feeling Miranda’s eyes on her, Charley shook it off and sauntered up to her guest. “It is my pleasure to read and interpret your future. What questions can I answer?”

“Oh, I’m not here for a reading.” He brushed past Charley to stand on the landing of the grand staircase, running his hand along the banister. “Just excited to finally meet you in person and be in this house. So much history!”

Charley looked back at Zavier, who was still staring at Knight like Jesus had just decided to descend into their foyer.

“Dude,” Charley whispered.

“I know!” Zavier whispered back, giddy.