The Brown House

by Christy Sloat

  “What happened, Brylee?” He pulled my face to meet his and I couldn’t hide my tears. They now fell in pools collecting on his shirt. I kissed him as hard as I could. I wanted to remember his lips and never forget how they felt against mine; the softness of them enveloping me, pulling me closer. I ran my hands through his hair, memorizing the way it felt. I wanted to always remember the way it fell in his eyes. Oh his eyes, the deep blue ocean of his eyes. I pulled away from our embrace and he opened them. Upon seeing them I took mental snapshots of how they looked right now. Hungrily I caressed his lips again. He led me to my bed and we fell together upon it. He took off his shirt and lay on top of me. I ran my hands up his back feeling his muscles like a road map. His body, I wanted to remember the deep curves in his back.

  My shirt came off and he looked at me as I lay before him. He looked like he had seen heaven. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I love you so much.” He bent down and kissed my chin. “I don’t want to do anything you are not ready for.” I pulled his face toward mine. I was ready to do this, to be with him. All I heard in my mind was his words. I wanted to remember this night and every night before. I wanted to always hear him saying he loved me. I lived for this moment, for right now. I was here and I didn’t want to be anywhere else with anyone else.

  We lay together afterwards; I rested my head on his chest. I could hear the lovely beating of his heart. It was alive and well, I didn’t want to hear it stop. I couldn’t help the one tear that escaped my eye and fell upon his chest.

  “You okay? Did I hurt you?” he sat me up and looked into my eyes. “Brylee, did I?”

  “No you didn’t hurt me Ephraim. I’m crying because I’m happy. Because I love you and I want to be with you forever.” I didn’t know what it was like to be in love six months ago, but I knew now. I was only a young girl but I didn’t have to be over a certain age to know the feeling. Time for us was running short and it didn’t have an age limit. It didn’t matter that he was only eighteen and Lyn was only sixteen, the curse would take them. The thing was I didn’t know when. Homer said he was able to raise a family, but it took Violet very fast. How much time did I have with him? A year, ten, twenty? I didn’t know.

  “I love you, too. I want to be with you for more than forever. I want to watch you graduate next year then go to college. Then I am going to marry you, Brylee.” I turned toward him and a smile grew where a frown had been.

  “You want to marry me?”

  “Yes, but first you have to go to college.”

  I laughed. I didn’t care about college. Right now I cared about him.

  “How are we going to find the sister’s if I am at college?” I asked him. I don’t know why I said it. Hopefully it wouldn’t take that long.

  “Brylee, we may never find them. You can’t stop your life to look for them. Hell, we don’t even know if they exist anymore.”

  “No, you said you wouldn’t give up Ephraim. We have to find them.” I was really crying now. I was shocked that he was acting this way.

  “I said I have to find them. Not you. I want a life for you,” he said.

  “What is a life without you? You said you wanted to marry me.”

  “I’ll marry you tomorrow if I could. But I can’t stop this curse. I can’t make you give up everything for me.” I stood now. I was angry.

  “No! I will not let you do this without me.” I stomped my foot like an irate child. “We will do this together. And you will not give up, do you hear me? You can’t or you will kill me too.”

  This seemed to snap him out of it. He pulled me back to the bed and kissed my head while he held me. I shivered in his arms.

  “If you give up you kill Lynley, too.” He froze while he held me.

  “Yes, I will not fail either of you. I promise.”

  The next morning I woke up and Ephraim was lying next to me. Cuddled up in my blankets snoring loudly. I had woken before the alarm clock. My eyes were puffy from crying last night. It was the best night of my life and I didn’t expect to cry myself to sleep afterwards. I didn’t want to see him give up. I realized I had to try to push him to keep him going. To keep him focused on saving Lyn and himself. I walked to the bathroom and took a bath. Sadly, I washed away the feel of Ephraim on my skin. When I got out he was getting dressed in the room. He looked like a Greek god in all his glory as the sun shone through the window. It touched every part of his body and I stood in awe of him. He was mine. I would not let anyone take him away from me. Ever!

  “Good morning. You look refreshed.”

  I giggled. “Yeah I am. I just caught sight of you as you dressed. That was refreshing,” I said and he blushed.

  “I just want to make sure you’re okay before I leave.”

  “Okay about what?” I asked.

  “You know, about being together last night. You don’t regret it do you?”

  In no way did I regret being with him. I had done it with a guy I loved with my whole heart.

  “Was I your first?” I asked.

  He blushed again and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah and you?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. I was glad to hear I was his first.

  We hurried and got him out of the house before my parents woke up. I went downstairs and stopped when I saw my mom in the kitchen. She waved a tired hello and then shuffled her feet back to bed. I grabbed a banana and left the house. Thankfully my mom didn’t seem to notice that I had a boy in my room all night. When I got outside I saw Kayla in my driveway sitting on my parent’s car. She smiled when she saw me.

  “Hey!” She waved.

  “Hey back. Where have you been?” I asked. It seemed like forever since I had seen her last.

  “Around. I have been staying in the woods. Sometimes I lose track of time there.” I didn’t know what would help her move on. Whatever it was I was sure I could try to figure it out.

  “Next time don’t be such a stranger. Come around more often. I have to go to school.”

  “Okay well maybe I’ll see you there.” She winked at me and disappeared.

  I met Ephraim by his truck, he didn’t have it running. Snow covered it completely.

  “What’s going on?” I asked pointing to the truck. “Did the truck break down?”

  “No school today, babe. Snow day.” I had heard of these snow days but never got to experience them back home.

  “Awesome! No school! What do you want to do today then?” I asked, hoping for a fun filled day.

  “I figured we would curl up on my couch and start a fire. Then we can catch up on some much needed reading,” he said.

  “Reading?” I was confused for a second.

  “Yeah, we have witches to find right?” It wasn’t a fun filled day but it was full of hope. So was our future as long as Ephraim didn’t give up.

  Epilogue

  Springtime in New Jersey was definitely my favorite season by far. I still had not experienced summer, but I was not ready for spring to end. Lyn and I had started a garden in her backyard and it was starting to sprout a little more each day. It was something she taught me that I would always remember. I could see us as old lady’s doing this together. The thought if it made me laugh out loud.

  Lyn set down her watering can. “What is so funny?”

  “I was just imagining us gardening when we are old.”

  She pondered it for a moment then started laughing too. “Yeah that is funny. I could see it now, two old ladies in big sun hats.”

  Seeing her smile was a rare sight, except when we gardened. When we were out here, Lyn forgot about all the stress that the curse had put on her. I didn’t tell her anything about what Ephraim had found in the journals the night before last. I didn’t want to talk about it yet. Late in winter Ephraim made me take a break from them, taking them away until spring. He said it was clouding his thoughts and he noticed I was falling behind on schoolwork. Always the one to remind me how important school was, he was worse than my dad. Once spring hit we star
ted up again. Everett’s journals so far hadn’t given us any help or hope. I hadn’t seen or heard anything from the Brown’s for a while so they weren’t helping us either. Things still happened in the house, but I knew it was just them trying to live in the house that we now lived in too.

  Mom had finished the kitchen and it looked as pretty as the one back home. She was truly happy now. Dad seemed happy too. He worked entirely too much though. I turned toward the house and saw them sitting on the porch with their lemonade.

  “Lyn,” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Got any lemonade?” She threw down her tools and went into the house. She came back out with two cold glasses of pink lemonade. We sat in lawn chairs on her back deck. The sun hit me and a fresh breeze blew past my face. It was so relaxing. Now was the time to tell her.

  “Lyn,” I turned toward her. “We found something in Everett’s journals the other night.”

  “You did?” She smiled and set down her glass, her red hair glowing in the bright sun. I swallowed and took a deep breath. Ephraim wanted me to be the one to tell her. Since she was my best friend he thought she would want to hear it from me.

  “Everett found the sisters in Paris. He asked them for their help and they agreed to do it.”

  She looked at me eagerly to finish.

  “That’s good, right? Go on.” I couldn’t talk and my mouth went dry. I took a sip of my drink to help myself muster up the courage to finish what I was saying. But I didn’t need to finish.

  “He found them and they helped him by using a containment spell on the room. This kept the curse in the room. Then he hid the key in the tree, hoping no one would ever find it. Lastly, to ensure that they never did this to anyone again, he killed them.” Ephraim stood behind us, his horrible words hanging in the air. Lyn’s face fell and she looked shocked. Ephraim had spoken the truth. He had told her what we had found. He told her what I didn’t have the nerve to say. Everett had killed them and they were our last chance. Now we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have any hope.

  “How did he kill them?” she asked quietly.

  “He didn’t go into detail about that. He just said he did it,” I answered. “Lynley look at me.”

  She couldn’t, she was staring out at our garden. At the masterpiece we had created in the earth. I knew what she was thinking, that we would never be able to be old ladies together.

  “We won’t give up,” I told her. “I will do whatever it is I can to help you. You’re my best friend.” Ephraim sat with me. I knew how he felt about it. He had given up like Lyn was doing right now. But for her sake he acted like they still had a fighting chance.

  “Lyn, we will find a way.”

  “You promise, Ephraim?” she asked him.

  “Pinky promise,” he said.

  I stood up, I couldn’t take it anymore I wouldn’t sit here and listen to him lie to her. He was trying to help her, but he wasn’t willing to help himself. He wasn’t willing to find another way. He just wanted to make Lyn happy. Fooling her wasn’t helping her. I took off running into the woods not looking back, but I could hear Ephraim following me. I stopped at the stream, which was now our spot. We came here when we wanted to be alone. I turned to face him.

  “Why are you lying to her? Why don’t you tell her you’ve given up?”

  “I won’t tell her to give up on herself. She doesn’t need to know that there is no hope for me.” He reached out for me, but I pulled away.

  “Brylee, you may be able to find a way to help her have a happy life. But you and I know it’s too late for me.”

  I screamed now, “What about our future?” He looked at me with regret. Regret for telling me we would be together and after college get married. I waited for his reply for what seemed like forever. Once he said it I wished he hadn’t.

  “It’s starting already for me. I can hear them talking to me in my head.”

  “Who?” My voice shook as I asked him. I already knew the answer. I knew who he meant.

  “The voices of the ghosts in your house, Brylee. I can hear the Brown’s.” I pulled him into my arms and I didn’t cry. I would not show him I was scared although I was terrified. He was right, it had already started for him. I didn’t have a lot of time to find a way to save him. I would do whatever it took. I promised him, Lynley, and myself that I would. There was no way I would let him slip away from me, not now. He once told me he wanted to be with me for more than forever, and I was prepared to make that happen.