Page 53 of The Sisters of Crimson House

Charley was just as mystified as Astrid. But she was grateful her sister’s fury was currently focused elsewhere. “Making sure there’s hell to pay in the most creative way possible, I’m guessing.”

Miranda didn’t lose any speed as she opened the front door and disappeared inside the entrance of Briggs-Lafayette, Howard and Peyton not far behind. Charley walked inside, immediately hit with a nostalgia bomb that took over most of her senses. Where Crimson House was a black hole trapping the light, Briggs-Lafayette, named for the architect and general owner, respectively, was gleaming hardwood floors, polished newel posts, and lemon Pledge. The annual Christmas party the Lovells threw, held not coincidentally six weeks after every Bryde Spectacular (like some giant Christmas cleansing spell to rid the place of Bryde mojo, Sadie had liked to joke), was an end-of-the-season ritual she and Miranda had been forced to attend by her parents. Charley was sure they were invited as a formality by the Lovells, who likely seethed when the entire Bryde clan RSVP’d, but RSVP they did, the Addams family walking next door into a candy cane wonderland.

The Briggs-Lafayette House was virtually gift-wrapped within an inch of its life. The Victorians were fond of putting all their things on display, ostentatious showcases of wealth, and the Lovells were keen to follow tradition. Tables were laden with every china pattern manufactured before 1980, and golden candelabras hoisted cinnamon-scented candles. Shiny red and green bows plastered anything upright, including the hosts dressed like peppermint sticks in their matching red-and-green Christmas sweaters. Charley hated it and also hated that it made her sick with jealousy. She shouldn’t envy families that were obsessed with status, particularly ones that dressed like walking Christmas trees, but it was an obsession that would always be more socially acceptable than the cult of dead people on parade next door.

Because it was October now, the foyer was mercifully bare. It was still packed to the gills with stuff—a gorgeous antique grandfather clock just steps from an impressive pipe organ, which was a hairbreadth from an ornate writing desk and corresponding bookshelf. (The books were all props. Charley had checked; most of the spines were still intact and still wearing their price tags.) But Charley was struck by how much larger it seemed without the riot of holiday decorations and the museum-level quality of maintenance. It’s how a house looks when adults are in charge, thought Charley, reaching out to touch one of the books on the shelf.

Her vision doubled; the hands holding the book were now fractals inside a kaleidoscope. She was walking toward the window, holding the book to her chest. So tired. It was a book chosen for a midnight read. Perhaps this would be the song to lull her back to sleep. A noise drew her to the window. She was looking out the window at Crimson House, a black monolith against a sky the color of a bruise. Activity below. A car slowly advancing down the driveway. No lights, just the crunch of twigs snapping underneath tires. Clutching the book to her chest as she jumped back from the window. The driver cutting dark eyes at the window. Impossible that she had been seen. The thrill of fear that she might have. Those people.

Those people lingered in the air like smoke as Charley forcefully came back to herself, bracing against the bookshelf as a wave of nausea overcame her. What the hell had just happened? She caught Astrid’s eye, her friend running a hand over a dining room table nearly buried in gold charger plates. Her friend promptly mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

“It’s like an old lady exploded in here,” she whispered, then narrowed her eyes at Charley. “You look sick for real. You okay?”

Was she okay? She carefully picked up the book and returned it to the shelf. She exhaled, sweat beading on her upper lip. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she had just had a vision from touching a book. As Peyton Lovell. She flexed her hand, studying the lines on her palm. How was this even possible?

“Young lady, I need you to stop what you are doing!” came Howard’s voice from upstairs, jolting them into action. Astrid grabbed Charley’s arm, and with Zavier just behind, the three of them raced up the stairs. Howard and Peyton trailed Miranda, who casually walked down the hallway and headed directly for the primary bedroom like she owned the place.

“Howard?” repeated Peyton, her eyes huge with disbelief that they were now following Miranda as if she’d just invited them on a tour of their own house. Howard and Peyton stopped at the threshold of the bedroom as if held by some invisible force field.

Miranda finally stopped her advance next to the four-poster bed, staring at the opposite wall. Charley crept up to the doorway as Howard whirled on her.

“What is she doing?” he yelled.

“No clue,” shrugged Charley. It was the truth. The house had never been of interest to them when they were young, precisely because of the Lovells and the other prissy adults all wearing Christmas sweaters and fake smiles. She’d never been upstairs during the forced-march Christmas parties, both Charley and Miranda snagging as many cookies as they could eat from the dessert table. But maybe Miranda had been poking around, bored, upstairs? It was anyone’s guess what had compelled Miranda to invite herself over to the Lovells’ bedroom.

“Brandishing your poker from the looks of it,” said Zavier, who had a better view. Miranda examined the length and heft of an iron poker that had been perched in a holder next to an ornate metal-screened fireplace. Without warning, she swung the poker into the wall with a deep thud. Howard and Peyton screamed while Miranda pummeled away, plaster and paint chips flying.

“I’m calling the police,” yelled Howard, marching down the hallway, leaving Peyton to do an odd circle in place, seeming unsure if she wanted to continue watching the spectacle or run to her husband for safety.

Charley gave Peyton a wide berth, unsettled to be in such close proximity to the woman whose memory had drifted up from a book and into her brain. Psychometry. The word came to her like a whisper. This was Sadie’s gift, touching an item and seeing its journey. But she had never mentioned it being so terrifyingly immersive, like a 3D movie inside her body. The judgment, the fear she had felt watching the neighbors through Peyton’s own eyes as someone had departed Crimson House under the cover of a moonless night. The satisfying thud of metal into drywall brought her back to the present as she watched her sister continue to attack the Lovells’ bedroom wall.

Miranda tossed the poker aside and began pulling out chunks of drywall. She placed her arm inside the hole she had busted into the wall before pulling free a metal box.

“What?” said Zavier, articulating the moment for everyone.

Miranda brushed the dust from the box carefully, a measured contrast to her violently demolishing the wall. Not bothering to open it, she turned and walked back toward the doorway just as Howard returned, announcing that the police were indeed on their way. Miranda stopped at the door’s threshold and stared at Howard. Her eyes were wide and spooky black, like she didn’t have irises, just holes in her face. Charley shivered. She knew those eyes. Miranda thrust the box at Howard, who took it, looking equally surprised that he was now holding it. Then the light shifted, and Charley watched in real time as Miranda returned to them, shuddering so hard that she fell into the doorframe.

“She wants you to open it,” Miranda said weakly as Zavier moved to hold her up.

“‘She’?” sputtered Peyton as everyone now looked to Howard, who was staring at the box. Surely feeling like he had no other option, Howard unlatched the metal clasp and opened the box. Peyton screamed, and the box fell to the floor.

It was a good thing Howard had called the police, as finding a human skull in the walls of one’s home typically required an investigation.

***

Charley marveled at the pivoting on display. Howard and Peyton had about thirty seconds to reel through a multitude of horrors and disgust before concocting a cover story on the fly about how they may have overreacted when calling the police. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all. Just a dispute between neighbors that Howard assured the police they could work out on their own. Charley studied this from her condemned front porch, Miranda hovering in her periphery like a bad dream.

“How did you know?” Charley asked, watching her sister as she sat curled into an ancient rattan chair.

Miranda ran her finger along a spiderweb stretched from the arm of the chair, lazily spooling it around her fingernail. “I didn’t,” said Miranda. “Meriwether Wilson did, though. She whispered to me what Mr. Lafayette did to her in that house. That was her head in the box.”

“What did she say?” asked Charley, not wanting to know the answer. Her sister might be a liar. Her sister was most definitely a stranger. Her sister had just pulled a dead woman’s head from a wall and whispered to it.

Miranda gave Charley a wicked smile. “She told me death is coming for us all.”

Twenty-Eight

Eviction. The word held poetic resonance. This house that had rotted for decades before her family rescued it from demolition. The house they had lovingly restored and filled with magic only to abandon it to a teenager who had used everything in her meager tool kit to keep it running. Now, under Charley’s watch, they were going to take it away from her.