by Abbi Glines
“Or maybe you’re darker than you want to accept,” was his response.
No, I wasn’t. If I was dark, if my soul was as cursed as my sisters and mother then I’d be like them. I would be a shallow, gold digging bitch with no real affection for anyone. I felt deeply, I cared, I loved, I had emotions they didn’t understand. I could fight off the darkness of my mother’s blood in my veins. That made me less dark than any of them. Less powerful. They had no reason to fear me.
Eleven
The Cigarette
The house was quieter without Geneva commanding attention on a daily basis. I worked double shifts to keep busy. Luckily, Heath hadn’t asked for any more of my shifts, but he had taken on a few of the other servers’. He was almost working as much as I was now. Which only made me more curious as to what it was that had him saving his money. The dollar movie was showing the 1931 Dracula this week, and I went to see it twice to keep from having to go home. Heath had gone to see it with me Wednesday night since the restaurant was slow and closed early. He seemed to understand my need to stay away from my house. He didn’t ask or get nosey like Margo. I appreciated it.
I’d thought Geneva moving out would make things easier at home. I’d been wrong. Leanne wasn’t as awful as Geneva, but she was enjoying dropping Rathe’s name every time I was in earshot. I almost preferred Geneva’s nasty to Leanne’s fake innocent crap. It was hard to forget I’d almost let myself like Rathe when Leanne kept talking about him. Oddly, though, the few times I’d seen him in passing at the apartment, he hadn’t said anything about her, asked about her, or said much to me at all.
The wedding had been almost three weeks ago now, and I didn’t think Rathe had sought Leanne out at all. Not that I knew much about what either of them did on a daily basis. I’d just seen Rathe a handful of times, leaving the apartment with different females when I had been arriving. They weren’t Leanne. That’s all I cared about or at least that is what I told myself. I tried not to dwell too much on any of the females around Rathe. There were other things on my mind that were much more important. Like the vanishing stranger.
This morning I had woken up, stared at the ceiling for an hour, then decided to just ask my mother about the protection spell cast around the house. It was still there. I had stopped every day since the wedding at the spot it began and tested the power there. It remained. Which led me to believe the wedding hadn’t been why it had been put in place. It could have been there for a long time. I just hadn’t noticed it and that was even weirder. Having any kind of discussion with my mother was something I always avoided. Even something as important as this was. The caster had been real. The spell around this house was very real. I was tired of worrying over it and whether the man would return. My mother was the only one who could answer this for me.
If I had work today to distract me, I would just get ready and leave. However, Greta had told me my hours were too high already, and it was only Friday. I had to find something else to do and having talked to Margo yesterday, I knew she had classes today and then a date, with the nice Chip Manasco I’d met at the party.
Standing at the tall gothic style window in my bedroom that overlooked the front yard, I sighed and rubbed my temples. Everything out there seemed normal. The house my father had left to my mother was perfect. If he had lived, if I hadn’t been born to a family of crazy witches, I would have loved growing up here. This house was built in 1823 and the Delvaux’s had spared no expense. My father had added to it and made improvements to please my mother, but the beauty of the original structure remained.
What could have been a storybook childhood was one of horror instead. This house had once been a home for my Delvaux ancestors. Now it was nothing of the sort. I studied the gazebo in the front yard, recalling the way the man had looked more like a retired rock star than a powerful warlock. He had been relaxed and amused by the barrier keeping him out. Nothing had been very intimidating about him until he’d vanished. Giving me one more reason to not relax at this house. This had never been a place where I could enjoy being home the way other people seemed to do.
A door closed down the hall, reminding me of those who lived here and made it the miserable place it was. The day my mother had walked through its beautiful doors, this house that was once so full of my father’s family’s history suddenly changed. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the closing door meant Leanne was coming to find me and torment me more with talk about Rathe. I heard nothing, and my door was still firmly shut.
I started to look back out the window when the slight movement near the bed caught my attention. I already knew who it was before I saw her. I wasn’t startled by the blonde little girl who was watching me. Annabelle Delvaux had been born in this house and in 1910, after only five short years, she’d also died in this house. Annabelle was one of the first spirits I could remember seeing. In my earliest memories, Annabelle had been a friend I played with openly until my mother yelled at me to stop talking to myself like a crazy person.
“Hello, Annabelle,” I said, smiling at her familiar face.
She lifted her small pale hand in a wave.
“Have you enjoyed the peace that has come with Geneva’s moving out?” I asked her, knowing Annabelle didn’t care much for the other females in my family. She wasn’t above doing small things to annoy my sisters. Hiding their favorite lipstick or jewelry, making their bathwater cold, or pulling their blankets off them at night. She was mischievous, and it had always entertained me.
“Yes, it’s more pleasant,” she said in her soft voice that was never more than a whisper.
I nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry to tell you that I’m probably about to make it less pleasant. I need to talk to my mother about something that could make her yell. You may want to go play in the attic for a while.”
She tilted her head to the side considering it. I knew she enjoyed the attic where the few things that had once belonged to her were stored in a cedar box she’d shown me when I was eight years old. I had cast a spell to protect her things for fear my mother would have the attic emptied of the history nestled away in that seemingly untouched part of the house.
“Do you need me to make a distraction? I can burn her with her cigarette or bump her arm so she spills her drink all over herself.”
I laughed. Annabelle often did those things to my mother when my mother was being mean, although I had told her to stop. I shook my head. “Thank you, but it’s okay. Go enjoy yourself. I’ll handle her.”
She smiled brightly up at me then turned to walk through the wall beside my door. Annabelle didn’t remember her death. I’d asked her when I was younger, and she said she woke up one day in the attic, and when she came to find her mother she wasn’t here. The furniture was different and there were people she didn’t know living in the house. She’d been so scared and had cried for her mother and father and brothers, but no one ever came. Then there were others who she found.
Later in life, I had searched the family history on this house, and I knew that Annabelle had died of influenza. I never told her though. She always seemed sad when she talked about her family. I didn’t want to remind her, and I also figured she didn’t need to know. After her death, there were entries in her younger sister’s journal, located in my dad’s library, that mentioned seeing Annabelle’s ghost. Annabelle just didn’t remember being with her family. All she remembered began years later when they had all passed away.
The others that had been here with her had left when my mother moved inside the house. Annabelle had once told me she missed the others. I had asked who they were, and she mentioned a young boy named Oliver and a pretty lady named Margret. Annabelle had explained, “The darkness made them leave, but my doll is here. I couldn’t leave it. Even when the cold dark floated through the house pushing the others away. I had to stay.”
Her small porcelain baby doll, a blanket that had been hand stitched, and a photo of her fa
mily were all upstairs in her cedar chest. They were her anchor to this place. I knew the others didn’t have that kind of anchor. The home had been Oliver Delvaux’s only residence his nine years on earth. He’d been here before Annabelle. She was his great niece. He’d died from falling off his horse and breaking his neck in 1866. Margret Delvaux was Oliver’s sister-in-law and she had died in 1880 in childbirth at the age of twenty.
I had studied spirits and ways to help Annabelle, and I’d finally accepted that leaving her here where she wanted to be was best. She was happy here with her familiar home and her things. I hoped one day this house would be a Delvaux home again. It was one thing I planned on making happen before I died.
I glanced at the ceiling and hoped she’d gone to the attic to avoid my confrontation with my mother downstairs. “Stay upstairs, Annabelle,” I whispered hoping she had listened.
Straightening my shoulders, I walked to the bedroom door and opened it with determination. Questioning my mother shouldn’t be this difficult. I did all I could to avoid her, so actually going to talk to her was unsettling.
The smell of her cigarette hit my nose by the time I was halfway down the stairs. I didn’t pause at the landing but kept going until I found her lounging in the great room with the television on Real Housewives of Atlanta. She lifted her gaze from the large flat screen to me. She raised her eyebrows, but not one wrinkle formed on her forehead. The hand that held her cigarette was paused on its way to her lips. Most women who smoked as much as she did at her age would show some wrinkles around her mouth at least. The smoothness of her skin made her appear to be in her mid-twenties.
“I can’t think of one reason you’d purposely seek me out,” she drawled with her thick southern accent. “I’m fascinated.” With a smirk, she placed the cigarette to her overly plump lips, which were enhanced by a spell not collagen.
I could come back with something equally as snarky but I preferred to get to the point and not drag this out. We didn’t get along and prolonging our interaction was a bad idea. I had questions, and I was sure only she had the answer to them. Until I found out who that man had been or what he had been, I wasn’t going to relax. Not that I was ever completely relaxed.
“There is a protection spell around this house. One that keeps out only one person or caster. It’s… not typical. And it’s strong.” I stopped and waited for her to show some sign of acknowledgement. She wouldn’t just tell me, but I was hoping for a flicker in her expression, for some sign she knew what I was talking about. I saw nothing.
Not even an attempt to conceal something. She looked more confused than anything. Which was frustrating. I’d hoped, no, I’d expected her to know, possibly lie, but not this.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked, sitting up slowly from her reclined position. She seemed more alert and agitated. Definitely not what I had expected. Crap. She was the one who was supposed to know who the man was and what that spell was around the house.
“The night of the wedding, there was a man out front, and he couldn’t get past a barrier he claimed was there to keep him out. I didn’t believe him but then I felt it.” I stopped again, not sure how much she needed to know. If she didn’t cast the spell, then someone did, and the hell she’d raise figuring it out could lead to a mess. I hadn’t anticipated this.
“There was a man outside during the wedding that was unable to cross a caster line, and you’re just now telling me about this?” Her voice was getting louder with each word out of her mouth. She would be yelling soon. Not abnormal for our conversations.
“I assumed you were the one to cast it. It’s powerful and it’s dark. I don’t know of anyone else in this house who could cast something like that. I wasn’t hiding it from you. I just thought you knew.” I was getting defensive even though I knew that was not the right way to handle the woman. She saw it as a weakness and would only get nastier the more defensive I got. I couldn’t explain myself and get anywhere with her.
“And you woke up this morning, three weeks later, with the burning urge to ask about it?” She snapped at me annoyed. She stood up then walked across the large room toward the front windows. I knew she was trying to sense it, the draw of the spell. I waited, now more concerned than before. I started to tell her about the man when her body went rigid. She didn’t move and neither did I as I watched her.
What was only moments felt like an eternity when she finally turned around to face me. The look in her eyes was one so foreign it took me a moment to read it correctly. My mother had never shown any fear. Seeing it now was unique and slightly terrifying.
“That’s not a caster spell,” she said softer than normal.
“What is it then?” I asked growing frustrated.
She lifted her shoulders then dropped them. “I have no fucking clue,” was her unexpected response. How did she not know what it was and what could place a barrier like that other than a caster?
“Seriously? What else could it be? It’s keeping a man out for a reason. One specific man. There is magic in it. I felt it, you can feel it,” I was making solid points, but she just shook her head.
“That’s not magic,” she said.
That made no sense. Of course, it was magic. “How can it not be magic?”
She turned back to look outside and then crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. My mother had never looked fragile or weak until this moment. Oddly enough, I didn’t care for it much. She was shallow, beautiful, wicked, and powerful. I was comfortable with that knowledge. But I realized, in that moment, that seeing her appear weak bothered me. I didn’t want her to be vulnerable and that shocked me more than anything else we were discussing. She had never shown me love or motherly affection, yet I had wanted her to. Most of my childhood I’d ached for it, even when I knew she was evil. She was my mom. It had to be that inner little girl who was bothered by my mother appearing weak and vulnerable.
I stood there watching her and processing these new feelings while trying to decide on whether to tell her what the stranger said, how he had looked, how he had vanished into thin air, or keeping it all to myself. When she didn’t say anything after several minutes, I made my decision.
I said nothing more. She was not strong enough to handle this. I hadn’t ever felt the need to protect my mother and now that I was choosing to do it made me worry about my own darkness. Was it growing inside me and I didn’t notice it? My mother was not one to inspire compassion. How could I care about her after all she had done? Either the cursed blood we shared was getting thicker in my veins or it was the goodness of my father allowing me to care for her still. I hoped it was the latter.
“It’s time you accept who you are. If the three of you were joined then you’d have the power to read this. Understand it,” she spun around and pointed her finger at me. That vulnerable moment gone. The vicious monster I knew she could be was, once again, flashing in her eyes. “If there is danger out there, we won’t know because you’re selfish and stupid! We are meant to be unstoppable. All powerful! I had THREE OF YOU!”
I opened my mouth to defend myself when Annabelle appeared. She snatched the cigarette from my mother’s fingers and pressed it against her bare thigh. This was Annabelle’s favorite place to burn my mother. It seemed to hurt the worse. Annabelle had made note of that over the years and went for the leg closest to the inner thigh as possible.
“MOTHER FUCKER!” my mom screamed from the pain. Annabelle giggled then dropped the cigarette on the floor in front of her and was gone. Meanwhile, my mom was holding her thigh and cursing.
“You need to be more careful with those things,” I told her just as I did every time Annabelle burned her.
She shot me a glare then held her hand out for the cigarette to fly back up and into her palm. It was still lit when she took it between her fingers. I could see in her glare that she thought it was me that burned her. She was trying to figure out how
I did it and got away with it. I never moved my lips to cast when it happened. Even though I had tried to tell her about Annabelle when I was younger she refused to believe me. Not because she didn’t believe in spirits. That would be silly, considering what we were. But because when she moved in she had used a spell to send the others away. It just hadn’t been strong enough for Annabelle and her anchor here.
“Oh, a mother and daughter gathering and I wasn’t included,” Leanne said sweetly as she entered the room dressed like she was going out to a club at ten in the morning. “Have you seen my favorite diamond studs?” she then asked me with a pouty frown. “I could have sworn I left them on the dresser last night, but they’re missing this morning.”
I had my guesses on who had moved the earrings. I kept from smiling as I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t seen them.”
“Keep up with your shit,” my mother told her in a less aggressive tone than she had been using with me.
“I see it’s a warm and cozy family chat,” Leanne’s syrupy smile was back.
“It’s over,” mother snapped as she sat back down on the sofa. Our conversation was over and now felt as if it hadn’t happened. She reached for her can of Diet Coke and waved her hand holding the cigarette in my direction. “Go, you’re interrupting my show.”
“Awww so soon?” Leanne asked.
“Both of you go,” mother ordered.
I didn’t need another invitation to get out of there. I wished I hadn’t come to her in the first place. But at least I knew now that she was clueless as to who cast the barrier around the house. She also seemed to no longer care about it or the stranger, which made me wonder if she’d felt the barrier or just pretended to.
