The Witch House of Persimmon Point (2 page)

(That's what they call our “gifts” back home. I grew up feeling like my aunt and I were each something of a human anomaly. Why can't the ordinary people be thought of as the anomaly? Damned unfair is what it is.)

But nothing anyone said could deter me. I'm driven when I want to be. Besides, what's the harm in a little conversation with family? So what if they're ghosts?

By the time I was thirteen I was a regular scholar on the history of Haven Port, Virginia, and the Witch House. There wasn't a book or an article I hadn't read. Wasn't a show I hadn't watched. And I was IN LOVE with the idea that I was one of them. My favorite book on the subject was called
An American Haunting: Wild Ponies, Wild Women, and the Invention of Sin in Haven Port, Virginia.

All that research made me feel close enough to that whole, previously unknown part of my life that I decided maybe I'd wait until I was older to visit, like Aunt Wyn said. I figured it'd be easier that way.

But then, as I was about to hit pause on the whole shebang, this big ol' news story broke, and guess what it was about? Yep. Seems a special program was set to air featuring a local journalist who dabbled in paranormal investigation. He was planning to figure out, once and for all, if the rumors were true. And he'd gotten permission from the current owner to do an investigative report.

The Mystery of the Witch House

That man had done a little ill-fated magic himself. He had taken a perfectly intriguing name and managed to make it sound like a middle school reader. BORING
.
Or so I thought. Evidently, America found it fascinating. The interest surrounding the show, some silly show that at the time didn't even have an air date, was overwhelming. Ads were selling by the billion or some such nonsense.

That's when I started to worry.

He could find out the real truth before I could.

Hell no. I couldn't wait. I had to get there. So I moved.

And I spent that whole summer searching for some damn thing I simply
could not put my finger on
. A mystery that refused to be solved until it was good and ready (which, I'll admit, was fairly admirable, if frustrating).

I remember talking to the house and the property and the trees, real polite. I'd say, “I respect your need for privacy, but these damn people are on their way with a bulldozer, so you better just SHOW ME WHAT YOU ARE HIDING!”

I needed to unearth their secrets before anyone else got the chance. Not to make excuses or clear their names. No sir. I promise.

I came to learn all I could about the evil, so I could control their legacy of terror. My family would walk hand in hand with the other great evils in the world, or they wouldn't walk at all. They deserved a seat at the head of the “most fascinating people of all time” table.

Which meant, of course, I would have a seat there, too.

I know … I know. But remember, I was fourteen years old, and fourteen-year-old girls tend to spend most of their time going off the deep end.

That reporter was going to ruin everything, no matter what he found. Exposing the raw underside of a thing drains all the interesting right out of it. And I don't think there's anything worse than being uninteresting.

To be honest, I was more worried they'd find out it was a normal, everyday family. Debunking urban legends should be criminal, I swear. I didn't want some plastic Ken doll from TV telling me my family was virtuous.

Great-grandma Anne summed up the whole thing best when she wrote, “Only foolish people believe in virtue. The imposition of virtue is a manipulative tactic used by those who run the world. If the masses are taught virtues, they don't fight back. Human beings are naturally evil.”

That wonderfully wicked woman had a lifetime of journals right there in that trunk by the window. I read them all the week I arrived, and now I add my own to the collection year by year.

I suppose this will be my very last entry.

It's terribly sad.

So, anyway, I was only fourteen, and I was living on my own, in a haunted house, on a piece of haunted property, telling lies to my people back in Alabama so I could stay. And I searched. I hoped I'd find something. I was counting on it.

I worried it would be something boring, like an adulterous affair with a pious politician, or something typical like that. But I
dreamed
there would be some kind of murderous truth rotting at the bottom of a well.

What I didn't count on was a garden of human bones.

It was downright exciting.

I guess that's why I've decided to write the whole thing down today, a full ten years after those three days where the past and the present collided in one big glorious bang. Because, see … at the ripe old age of twenty-four, adventure has all but left my life.

I'm doomed, really. I've never, ever been a wallowing, sad type of person. But loss affects me now in a way that would have made my younger self ashamed. And it's
weak
. And that's why I can't continue to live.

Like, I never thought I would hear a song about young love and mourn that I won't ever fall in love for the first time again. It's those last firsts that tear me up inside. They're the only things we can't really ever get back.

I'll never make love again for the first time. I'll never see Jack again for the first time.

I guess that's why I'm doing what I'm doing tonight. So I can have another “first.”

Loss makes a person want vengeance against time. Sometimes I think that's what adulthood is all about. A war waged every day against time, and memories, and all the happy endings that didn't come.

That's how my cousin Eleanor Amore (the rightful owner of the Witch House) was when I first met her. Full of quiet vengeance against the lie of a happy ending. Her fairy-tale marriage was over. Her anchor, her one true friend, was dead. She was full of piss and vinegar and sold on the crazy idea that once free of everything she knew, she'd be fine. She'd be able to lay down her weapons and live a peaceful life. No one bothered to tell her there ain't no escape from love. It follows you, haunts you, terrorizes your sleep, ambushes you.

Love waits until you look for it, and then it hides.

 

2

Eleanor in the Brownstone with a Wrench

THE BRONX, NEW YORK

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

6:00 P.M.

Seven-year-old Maj Amore lay under the kitchen table on the clean, worn floor, drawing the very best drawing she'd ever drawn. The two women she loved most, her mama and her Mimi, were talking about grown-up things in a hushed-loud way that made her draw even faster. It didn't matter, Maj already knew a whole lot about what was in store for them when they moved to Virginia. She was drawing it, after all.

She wasn't
too
scared, not really, because she was, at the moment, safe. Cocooned by the four stable legs of the table, her mama's bare paint-spattered feet, and Mimi's sensible shoes, nestled amidst scattered art supplies and crumpled discarded versions of the best drawing ever in the world, two barrettes that always pinched, three stuffed animals who were going to be the critics at her art show after dinner, and one sock. (It was the loose one, stretched from a puppet she'd made at church. She'd been bored, and thought it was a perfectly reasonable idea to remove one sock and have a little fun. But Mimi was angry and said she'd be punished for the sin of … she forgot, and now? She was being punished for whatever it was, because Maj hated when her socks weren't just right. Only, she wished she could take it back, because her toes were getting cold, and she should have listened to her Mimi when she had the chance, and hugged her more, too.)

Her red curls (the only thing most people noticed about her) bounced like tightly coiled springs each time she moved to choose a different color crayon. Her daddy, who was banging things around in their apartment upstairs, had brought a new box over, and it wasn't the ordinary pack of twenty-four that mama usually got at the dollar store down the street. This one was wider, more impressive. So impressive that Maj was being extra careful to put each one back exactly where it came from, turning the crisp paper wrappers so that she could read the names of the new colors. Each one like a drawing all its own. Cornflower Blue, Periwinkle, Burnt Sienna …

“You okay down there, Maj?” Her mama peeked in at her.

“Don't look! It's not finished. Did you know that there was a color named Permanent Geranium Lake. It's a pretty red color. It got retired in 1910.”

“Crayons get retired?” Mama asked. “How do you know all this? Did you suddenly become a seven-year-old expert on crayon history?”

“No, but I was looking for it in this box, because I need it, and it wasn't here, and then I remembered that I used it from the toy box in the attic, and that they were really old, so I asked Daddy and he told me about the crayon graveyard.”

“Daddy was nice, bringing you those new crayons, don't you think?”

“That's a question inside a question, Mama, and you told me I never had to answer those.”

“Mimi, please tell me I'm not a terrible mother,” she said, sitting back up.

But Mimi couldn't offer any comfort to Mama, because Mimi was dead. Besides, Maj's daddy had come back into the kitchen, filling it up with his anger and fear. Daddy couldn't see the ghosts. Mama could see them only when she was tired or sad, and then she always said things like, “I've lost my mind completely…” or “What good is a ghost if they can't wash a dish? I SWEAR.”

But Maj could see them. And hear them, too.

Only, she knew she wasn't crazy, and neither was her mama. They were simply Amores.

Maj went back to work, because something was trying to tell her a secret. It would be hidden in her picture. All she needed was the right color for Crazy Anne's geraniums.

*   *   *

Eleanor and her almost ex-husband, Anthony, glared at each other across the kitchen table. She didn't want him to think the tears in her eyes were over him. He didn't want to believe they weren't.

Eleanor felt Mimi melt away into the air when he slammed the back door. She couldn't get used to life without her grandmother. The only real mother, the only true support and friend she'd ever had. Sometimes, when Mimi visited with her, she thought her mind was concocting the whole haunting because she couldn't bring herself to let go.

But she knew better. An Amore woman wasn't worth her weight in salt if she didn't hang out for a while before dancing into the afterlife. Eleanor was almost grateful for the argument Anthony started, yet another tired continuation of all the others they'd had over the years, because it helped her take her mind off the lingering smell of Mimi and her lily of the valley perfume. And at the same time, it helped her become even more resolved about her decision to leave the Bronx.

“I'm serious, Elly,” he said. “It's dangerous.”

“When are you not serious? You are a walking, talking warning sign.”

“Stop, listen to me. All this stuff about that house … what if the stories are true? It's irresponsible to up and move there with the baby.”

“She's
seven
.”

“She's under the table,” Maj sang out.

Eleanor and Anthony looked at each other, both ashamed for arguing around her. Again.

“Time to take a bath, Princess,” said Anthony.

“But why? I took one last night.”

“Because your mother should make sure you have a bath
every
night, that's why. It's proper.”

“Why do you insist on doing that? If you have something to say to me, say it. You don't have to filter it through her. It's borderline abusive, you know,” said Eleanor.

“What are you talking about? You make this shit up in your mind. I was just answering her question.”

“No you were
NOT
. You were implying that I don't bathe her! Which is untrue and mean-spirited and I can't even believe I'm arguing about this again! Don't you have a new home to go to?”

Maj emerged from under the table, scowling.

“I don't like it when you say bad things about each other. It's not right or fair. And you don't mean it. I can tell,” she said.

Eleanor waited for Anthony to yell. He never liked it when Maj criticized their completely inept parenting skills. He didn't like to feel like he was making any mistakes, ever. But this time he didn't lose his patience, maybe because they were leaving the next day and he didn't want to waste any time.

Falling out of love should be easier
, she thought. Instead of losing his patience, his damned handsome face broke into that wide open smile of his that broke her heart all over again.

“This one should be a lawyer,” said Anthony.

“I will not be a lawyer,” Maj said, her arms crossed in a huff.

“Oh, no? And what would you like to be, then? An actress, a vet?” asked Eleanor, deciding to follow his lead.

“Mama, let me ask you something. What is my name?” asked Maj, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head.

Elly and Anthony look at each other, amused. Maj had just recently begun to flex her genetically inherited sarcasm.

“Your name,” said Elly, pulling Maj onto her lap and squeezing her tight, “is Elizabeth Amore. You were named after the most wonderful great-aunt and friend in the world. And we call you Maj, because it's short for Your Majesty.”

“Yes. That is my name. And that means I'd never want to be a lawyer. Or a doctor, or anything else like that. Ever.”

“Why, do you fancy yourself a queen?”

“Of course I do. But I don't want to be a queen, either.”

“Then what do you want to be?”

“Well, I used to want to be a piece of toast with butter and raspberry jam, but now I want to be the ocean. Is it time for the news yet?”