The Women in the Walls Page 13

  To avoid letting Vanessa think it’s something personal against her, I fake a headache and get upstairs as quickly as possible, lingering at the top of the second floor until I know she’s gone. My stomach heavy, I make my way up to the third floor in the darkness of the parlor.

  When I reach the top, I pause. It’s hard not to go over what happened the last time I was in this hallway, stumbling between my father and Vanessa as they led me away from the attic, hysterical. Panic rises within and I find myself unable to go to the miniature staircase that ascends into the ceiling of the back corner of the house.

  You need to be strong, I scold myself. You need to do this for Margaret. The silence of the third floor presses in from all sides as I struggle to slow my breathing. After a few minutes of standing there in trembles, I feel my foot slide backward toward the stairs. I take a step back, then another, then turn around and go quickly down to the second floor.

  Within minutes I’m sitting on my bed against the wall, resting my head on it, determined to stay awake in case Margaret comes back. While waiting, I fall into a deep sleep, still sitting upright against the wall. I’m awakened when there comes a crash from downstairs, loud enough to make me jump. Then, the sound of footsteps rushing back and forth across the tile flooring, multiple sets of footsteps. A shout.

  I’m too startled to move. I sit with my knees pulled to my chest, listening as the commotion dies down and eventually goes away completely. What is happening? I think wildly as I hear the sound of more footsteps, this time rushing down the hallway outside my door. Is this reality, or hell? For a moment I imagine Gregory Shaw breaking into the house to murder everyone inside.

  My doorknob rattles as somebody tries to open the door. When it’s discovered that the door is locked, there comes a quick, fierce series of knocks. “Lucy,” someone says. I make my way over to open it, my heart racing, my hand over my chest.

  Vanessa is standing in the hall, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “What happened?”

  “It’s your aunt, Lucy,” Vanessa says, her voice shaking. “She’s back. Penelope’s alive.”

  THE WORLD STOPS TURNING.

  “What?” I say, breathless, sure that I misheard Vanessa. “What did you say?”

  “She walked into the house without turning on any lights and accidentally knocked something over in the dining room,” Vanessa says. “My mom and your dad are tending to her now. She was so freaked out, like she didn’t understand where she was. I had to tell you.”

  For the first time since I heard the voice in the darkness of Margaret’s closet, I feel like it’s possible that everything might somehow turn out all right, after all. Penelope is back and I know she’ll tell me everything, especially if I’m straightforward about knowing about the teeth and the poem and the blood on the attic floor.

  I finally manage to speak. “Did she say anything about where she’d been? Why she came back?”

  Vanessa looks down to her feet, shaking her head back and forth. “To be honest, Lucy,” she says, her tone low, “I don’t even think she knows where she was.”

  I stare at her, my mind a whirlpool.

  “She wasn’t injured,” Vanessa says, “but something was...wrong. She was filthy, from her hair to her clothes to her smell. And I’ve never met her before, but I’m assuming she wasn’t usually as disconnected before she disappeared.”

  “Disconnected?” I ask. I can feel my pulse in my ears. But she’s back. “What do you mean?”

  “She wasn’t answering Felix’s questions. She seemed terribly confused,” Vanessa says, her expression troubled. “She would ask weird questions about Margaret but then act like she had no idea who that was a moment later.”

  Does that mean she had something to do with what happened to Margaret? If so, can she free my cousin’s soul?

  “But where did she come from?” I say, hardly able to believe it. “You said she was in the dining room?”

  “We think she came through the kitchen, from outside,” Vanessa says. “There were dirty tracks on the floor, and pine needles all over her feet.”

  Pine needles. I remember the sight of Margaret running in from the forest not ten minutes before she ended up dead. She’d told me that she had gone to see the cemetery in the woods. Just the thought of the place turns my stomach. Has Penelope been wandering the woods this entire time? How did she survive?

  “I have to see her,” I say, motioning for Vanessa to step out of the doorway so I can go.

  “I don’t think your dad will let you,” Vanessa says with a regretful tone. “He made a point to tell me not to tell you, to let you rest and that he would fill you in when morning came, but—” she shrugs at me “—I thought you’d want to know now. I knew you would, actually.”

  “He won’t find out that you told me,” I say, gently pushing my way past her. “I’ll just say that I heard the racket downstairs and ask what it was.”

  “Okay,” Vanessa says, clearly relieved. “Thank you.”

  We walk toward the main staircase in the dark, not speaking at first. I feel electrified, buzzed, like I drank an entire pot of strong coffee. If Penelope’s back, that means she wasn’t dead, like everyone imagined. A chilling thought goes through my mind—who had Margaret been talking to, then?

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Vanessa whispers when we’re in the entryway and about to go our separate ways. “I don’t know whether to be happy about this for you or what. It’s just so weird.”

  I know what you mean, I think. “Thanks for telling me about my aunt.”

  “Of course.”

  The house is completely silent, which is unsettling in a way that counteracts the adrenaline rush I was experiencing a moment ago. The crystal chandelier in the parlor looms overhead, a glittery ghost in the dark. I walk through the shadowy room, stepping over a toppled houseplant, the grains from the soil sticking to my bare feet as I make my way across the tile. When I step into the hallway behind the parlor, there is light streaming out from underneath Penelope’s bedroom door. I make my way down the hall, heart pounding, but before I can reach the door, it opens and my father steps out.

  “Hi,” I say, and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asks in a hushed voice. “Please go back upstairs.”

  “What was that sound I heard a few minutes ago?” I say, feigning ignorance. “It freaked me out.”

  “I don’t have time to explain this to you right now,” he insists, his voice a harsh whisper. “I promise I’ll fill you in tomorrow morning, but for now I have to make some arrangements and I’m afraid it absolutely cannot wait.”

  Doctors for my aunt; I can tell by his urgency. Despite the worry in his brow, he seems so much lighter than before; he’s clearly relieved by Penelope’s return. It will mean a lot for the club, and for him. I wonder if he swallows teeth, too.

  “I...” My mind races for a way to force more information. “I could have sworn I heard Penelope’s voice, and now her bedroom light is on.”

  The silence is tense. Finally, my father sighs in frustration. “Yes,” he says, “but she needs medical attention and I don’t want to overwhelm her. I need you to please go back to your room and wait until morning. This is a wonderful thing, Lucy. She’s back. She’s alive.”

  No matter how many times I hear it, I still can’t believe it.

  “Is she all right?” I ask, my voice breaking a bit. “I just want to know what’s going on. Please let me see her, please?”

  He stares at me for a moment. “Seeing you may set her off again,” he says slowly. “She’s very confused and gets spooked easily. We finally got her to rest in bed. Miranda’s in with her now. Just give her a few hours to breathe.”

  My stomach drops.

  “This is
why I didn’t want to discuss this right now,” my father says upon seeing my face. “I don’t want you to be upset, Lucy. You should be happy.” He reaches forward and puts his hand on my shoulder. I don’t remember the last time that we hugged. “We’ve just gone through the worst month of our entire lives and now we’ve been given a gift. It’s so important to be aware, grateful even.”

  He acts as though nothing permanent has happened.

  “Grateful?” I ask, bewildered. “How do you think Penelope is going to feel when she finally realizes that Margaret is dead?”

  “One step at a time,” my father insists, growing impatient. “And tonight is not the night for you to see her.”

  She has to have answers for me about Margaret somehow. There’s no way she won’t know something that can help, even if just in the slightest.

  “Fine,” I say, accepting defeat. Just her presence is making things seem less dire—there’s hope now, lots of it, a light at the end of this tunnel of utter madness. “I’ll go back upstairs and wait to see her until tomorrow. Let her rest.”

  “It really is best,” my father says and heads back toward his study to make whatever arrangements he’s planning. “Thank you for understanding.”

  I pretend to leave, but when I hear the door of his study close behind him from around the corner, I creep back into the hallway, to the door with the light shining out from underneath.

  “Rest,” I hear Miranda say in a low, soothing voice. “Everything’s okay now, I promise.”

  “How long has it been?” Penelope’s voice says, weak and uncertain. “How did I get back here after all that time?”

  “It’s been nearly a month,” Miranda answers. “Do you know where you’ve been?”

  “I’ve been home,” my aunt croaks. “Haven’t I? I was at home all this time, with my new mother...”

  I bite my lip as I listen. New mother? Penelope’s mother is dead; she has to mean the Mother from the poem I found in the attic years ago. But what is she? Who? I don’t remember the poem verbatim, but I do remember being terrified by it, something about a melody of screams and blood and cracking teeth.

  Teeth.

  Sometimes, people do rituals for gods that they want to honor. Maybe this Mother is Penelope’s god.

  “No,” Miranda says. “You haven’t been at home, not for a long time, and Felix has been worried out of his mind. But that’s okay now, everything is—”

  “Something went wrong,” my aunt interrupts. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.”

  I think about Margaret’s voice from inside the walls, so tortured, so desperate. It’s all my fault that she’s there. I was so sickly selfish, too tangled in my own webs to help her get through hers, or even just listen, for God’s sake. I have to find a way to free her. If I die trying, at least we’ll be together again. I almost can’t take this anymore.

  An angry thought flashes through my mind: it’s not just me to blame. There’s a reason her soul is trapped in the walls in the first place, and Penelope has to know something about it.

  There comes a creak from beside me and I realize my father is about to open the door to his study. He must be done making his phone call already. I sprint down the hall and barely make it around the corner before I hear the door open, followed by the scuffle of slippers on tile.

  I rush back upstairs, adrenaline pumping once again. I pace my room with fervor, trying hard to make sense of what I heard just moments ago. Clearly, something happened to my aunt to cause her to be so clouded and strange. Does this mean she won’t be able to answer my questions about what’s going on? Is she really the one who started all of this? Something is wrong, she said. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. If she’s been doing rituals...

  What if that’s why she disappeared—she was doing a ritual? My mouth slacks open at the thought. A ritual in the forest? At that cemetery, maybe? Margaret and I didn’t see anything when we went out there except for gravestones and the tomb, but I can’t deny the significance of the place—Margaret did visit it an hour before her death and spoke of it like it was somewhere special. It has to be relevant.

  My mind goes wild with theories on how Penelope’s ritual could have gone wrong—she could have messed it up, or someone could have interfered. Or, I think with just as much dread, the ritual could have gone right, and she just didn’t know what she was doing. Or maybe she did.

  Do I even know my aunt at all? Did I ever?

  I promised myself that I would stay here to help Margaret. If I call the police, who knows what they’ll unveil with the country club? It could end with my father in jail and me being taken away somewhere, and then my cousin would be stuck in hell forever.

  Suddenly I can’t stand the sight of my bedroom for another second. The wallpaper, the eerie tension of feeling like I’m being watched, the fireplace where my box still sits in a ruined pile of ash and rummage. I flee from my room, going straight for the bathroom down the hall. I lock the door behind me and crawl into the claw-foot bathtub that’s surrounded by a thick scarlet curtain with gold embroidery. I pull the curtain closed and sit back in the cradle of shining white porcelain, struggling not to scream.

  Stop it, I think as my body starts physically reacting to the panic, my lips trembling and my breath heaving and my eyes open without seeing. Stop it, stop it, stop it. As I sit there shivering, my eyes fall upon the dainty metal basket that hangs over the side of the tub, filled with soaps and salts and...a razor.

  I lean forward and snatch it so roughly that a handful of greasy bath oil beads scatters all over the bottom of the tub, gathering around my legs and feet and making the air smell like peaches. Just feeling my fingers wrapped around the tacky pink handle is comforting; these types of razors can’t do too much damage, anyway, especially if I’m careful...

  “Fuck it,” I say aloud, finally accepting that I can’t do anything more about it.

  I lower the blade to hover over my wrist when a muffled voice cries out from somewhere behind the tiled wall.

  “Please don’t,” it wails, and I recognize the voice immediately as Margaret’s. “Don’t do that, Lucy. Don’t do that anymore. There’s been too much blood already, too much blood and too much death...”

  I drop the razor and grab the sides of the tub until my knuckles are white, as if I’m spiraling out of reality and need some sort of anchor in the storm. After the electrifying moment passes, I weakly roll to the side of the tub and lean my head against the wall, the checkered tile cool on my clammy cheek.

  “Margaret,” I say, beginning to cry. “I’m so sorry, about everything, everything...”

  “You have to fix it,” she pleads, and I hear the sound of her fingernails scratching frantically against the inside of the wall. “If you don’t, my head will never stop hurting!”

  “Tell me how,” I burst. “Tell me what to do.”

  There’s a strange pause then, a silence that draws on long enough for me to wonder if she’s gone. I’m about to take my ear away from the black-and-white tile when I hear it.

  “Your mother, Eva, is in here, too, you know,” Margaret says, her tone low and even. Her words make my heart skip a beat, make me stop crying immediately, make my breath catch in my chest. “And she isn’t very happy with you.”

  “That’s not true, sweetie,” another voice chimes in, terribly equal amounts of familiar and unfamiliar, and my hand flies to cover my mouth. “I just miss you so very much and it’s taking you too long.”

  My mother is trapped in the walls, too, and even more tears come. I wish I could say that her voice brings me comfort, fills that massive gap that exploded into existence once Penelope and Margaret were gone, but all I can feel is despair, more so now that I realize she may have been watching me grow up, seeing who it is that I’ve turned out to be, what I’ve ended up doing to myself. Some dau
ghter, even to a ghost.

  “Too long to what?” I manage to ask.

  “To either save us or join us,” my mother says. There come a series of insect-like clicks and hisses from behind the tile all of a sudden, the sounds of gasps and splintering bone. “Join us.”

  Without trying to speak to them anymore, I lean away from the wall and put the razor back into the basket, then stand, nearly jumping out of my skin when I step on a waxy bath oil bead that explodes with a sharp pop. Without cleaning the mess up, I open the scarlet shower curtain and step out, my stomach in my throat, terrified that any second some invisible force is going to slam me against the bathroom tiles and peel my skin off strip by strip or something worse.

  But nothing happens, nothing stops me from leaving the bathroom, and no more voices await me in my bedroom. Regardless, I pull my bed away from the wall and leave it, exposed, in the center of the room. Sitting straight up, I stare into my fireplace, unblinking, my arms wrapped around myself as I wonder about things like madness and murder and just what can possibly come from swallowing a bunch of teeth.

  I END UP skipping out on sleep altogether, which may not be the greatest choice, but then again, it isn’t much of a choice at all. Every time I come close, I’ll hear some sort of sound—a winded tree branch scraping against the glass, a popping ember from the fireplace, the sighs of the house settling—and be certain that it was Margaret or my mother.

  I can’t decide if they want to protect me or hurt me. Margaret stopped me from using the razor on myself, but my mother begged for me to join them. How else would I join them without dying? I remember how Margaret mentioned that there was some sort of way to free her. I’m doing all of this for her. She deserves for me to either figure it out or die trying.

  Maybe I’ll end up joining them, after all.

  By the time my father comes to get his food for breakfast, I’m already dressed and waiting at the dining room table.

  “I’m ready to see Penelope,” I say as soon as he walks into the dining room, despite the grim expression on his face. “She’s had the night to rest.”