Awakening

by Jacqueline Brown

  There was no point in trying to learn more, not from Gigi.

  “Okay,” I said, and went back to the laundry room, placing my wet clothes in the washer and grabbing other dirty clothes from the overflowing laundry chute. It was my turn to do laundry anyway. When I returned, the kitchen was deserted.

  ***

  Gigi must have filled my dad in on the day, because at dinner there was silence or there was talk of things going on in town, but not a word about how I spent my afternoon. Avi brought it up once or twice, but Dad or Gigi quickly changed the subject. It was clear Gigi’s mood had not improved. We all knew when she was like that, we needed to keep our distance. Even Dad didn’t mess with her when she was like this, and so our dinner was spent mostly in silence.

  After dinner, Lisieux washed the dishes while Gigi and Dad went into his office. They weren’t going to talk; they were going to pray the Rosary, as they did almost every night. Avi was usually with them. Lisieux and I were sometimes there and sometimes not. They said Mass attendance was mandatory, a devotion to Our Lady was not. It was helpful … but not mandatory. So when we felt like it, we joined in and when we didn’t feel like it, we didn’t.

  That night I may not have felt like praying, but I definitely felt like being near my dad and grandmother, in hopes that I could learn something. I was sure even the smallest of clues would be helpful. The Rosary was beautiful and soothing, but not a word about Luca or Thomas or the inn was spoken, though we did pray for Luca’s continued healing.

  After we finished the Rosary, my dad opened his Bible and began reading silently.

  “Come on,” Gigi whispered as she took Avi’s hand and led her from the room.

  I stayed for a moment and then exited quietly behind them.

  In my room, I left the light off, out of habit. I went to the window because that’s what I always did when I came into my room at dusk. At least that’s what I’d done for the last two weeks, since I discovered Luca’s evening obsession with my house. Tonight, though, I was sure he wouldn’t be there. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the woods, I jumped back. He was there, barely visible in the dark shadows of twilight.

  “Exhausted, huh?” I mumbled to myself.

  He was healthy enough to come stare at our windows. I stepped forward, toward the glass, keeping my body against the stone, barely peeking my forehead and eyes in front of the window. I inched closer to the glass and did my best to follow his gaze. He didn’t move his head up and down or side to side like he would if he were watching the house, but forward and backward, like there was something in the yard he was watching. I stared harder—not at him—at the yard. I placed my fingers and forehead against the cold glass, staring down at the leaves on the grass.

  Why was he watching our yard and why did he pass out? Somehow the two were connected. They were too odd not to be. I was sure it had nothing to do with low blood sugar, but I had no clue to the answers.

  He crouched low to the ground, in the shadows of the trees. A moment later, he was gone … sneaking back to his house.

  Ten

  It rained all night and most of the morning and while I didn’t mind going out in the rain too much, there was no way to do it and not make it seem like I was dying to see Luca. Which I wasn’t. I was, however, dying to hear his explanation for things. I took the morning and caught up on my schoolwork.

  I went downstairs for lunch and ate at the table while I listened to the rain pour like a waterfall from our roof, onto the gravel encircling our house like a moat. The roof was tall and old and gutters couldn’t be added, for some reason or another; hence the gravel which kept the water from washing away the dirt. On the back of the house, there was a sort of stream bed that rolled down into the trees. It was a stream only when it rained, which was fairly often.

  “I’m going out to find earthworms,” Avi shouted when she entered the kitchen, already wearing her raincoat and rainboots.

  Gigi came in a moment later. She must have helped my sister get her rain gear down from the coat closet.

  “What are you going to do with them when you find them?” I asked, between the last bites of a chicken salad sandwich.

  “Feed them to the chickens,” she said with a devilish grin she tried to make look innocent.

  “You’re so mean!” I said in a scolding tone.

  “Says the girl who is eating chicken,” Avi said, sticking out her tongue at me.

  I slowly chewed the last bite of sandwich, wishing Avi hadn’t reminded me what I was eating. “Yes, but I don’t take joy in their suffering.”

  “I don’t take joy in suffering, I take joy in feeding our chickens a yummy treat,” Avi said defensively, throwing up the hood of her raincoat and opening the door. The clean smell of the rain freshened the kitchen.

  “No, Jackson, you have to stay in,” Gigi said as she blocked Jackson from following Avi. “If you go outside now, you’ll be covered in mud.”

  Avi kissed him on the head while Gigi held his collar. “Stay,” Avi commanded, and then shut the door. He whined, staring at the closed door, wagging his tail, hoping to be let out.

  “How was your sandwich?” Gigi asked.

  “Fine, until Avi started talking about chickens,” I said, placing my crumbled napkin on the empty plate.

  “It is tricky. We eat meat which sustains us, but a creature died for us to eat it,” she said, coming to sit with me. “That’s life … sacrifice and death are very often part of it.”

  “That’s kind of a lot for a Tuesday,” I said, wishing I could go back in time and decide to either eat lunch earlier or later, whatever it took to avoid Avi’s talk of eating chicken and Gigi’s talk of sacrifice and death.

  “That’s how life is. One minute it’s all sun showers and flowers, the next it’s death and destruction,” she said, her tone nonchalant. “That’s the way it goes.”

  “Umm, okay,” I said, deciding my lunch was officially over. I swiveled in the chair, getting to my feet.

  “We need to talk about yesterday, Siena,” Gigi said, tapping her hand on the table, my signal to sit back down.

  This was what I wanted—to learn more, to ask questions—but at the moment I didn’t want to deal with any of it. I wanted to go back up to my room and finish my history report. Instead, I sat.

  Gigi said, “You put yourself at risk yesterday.”

  “I told you I wasn’t going to go inside the inn. For the record, it didn’t look like it was going to fall down. It smelled disgusting and the porch was partially rotten, but the rest of the structure did look very stable, like Thomas said.”

  Gigi rubbed her fingers on the table, studying me as she did so. “It is not the physical structure of the inn that makes it unsafe. It is the spiritual structure,” she said, her eyes unwavering as they stared into mine. “It’s haunted.”

  “Haunted?” I repeated, almost choking on the word.

  “Quite,” she said. Her eyes were expressionless, as if daring me to disbelieve her.

  “Dad believes that?” I said, shocked at the prospect of my practical, analytical father believing in spirits going bump in the night.

  “Your father’s relationship to that place is complicated,” she said, “but your mother believed it and so do I.”

  “How is it complicated?” I asked.

  “That’s not for me to tell you,” Gigi said.

  “Is it for Dad to tell me?” I was trying to understand what she was implying.

  She inhaled deeply, raising her shoulders, and turned her attention to the window.

  “I’m not sure who is the one to tell you. All I know is it’s not me.” Her eyes held the slightest hint of irritation and sorrow; mostly, they showed resolve. For whatever reason, she was not going to tell me about my father and the inn—something made me doubt he’d tell me any more than she did.

  “Regardless of your father … your mother, grandfather, and I knew the inn to be haunted,” she said.

  “My mother believed it?” I q
uestioned, though I already knew that truth. I remembered the fear in her voice when she spoke about the inn.

  “Very much,” Gigi said sincerely.

  My grandmother didn’t lie to me, but what she was saying didn’t make sense.

  “We’re Catholic. We don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.

  Gigi laughed. “We’re Catholic. We absolutely believe in ghosts. I’m not sure why you think we don’t.”

  “You told me they weren’t real!” I said, trying to comprehend this conversation.

  “No, I told you the monster in your closet wasn’t real, and it wasn’t real. This house is not haunted—or not anymore,” she said as an afterthought, “but the inn is, and I’ve never told you otherwise. I don’t believe in lying, you know that.”

  “This house was haunted?” I said, suddenly feeling freaked out, the memory of my mother’s words returning to me. She said there had been a darkness here.

  “Long before you were born. Your grandfather and I had it exorcised. We haven’t had a problem since,” she said with perfect calmness.

  “Why didn’t you have the inn ex-exorcised?” I said in disbelief that we were having this conversation.

  “We tried … it didn’t work,” she said solemnly.

  I put my head in my hand and stared at her. “Is this a joke?”

  “You’re not a child anymore. It’s time for you to understand the world is more than what you and I can see.”

  I shook my head. “No, I think I’m good.”

  Gigi gave me an understanding smile. “I don’t blame you. This knowledge makes life appear much more complicated, but this knowledge merely changes the appearance of life, not the truth of it. Unfortunately, what you don’t know can hurt you. You don’t get a free pass simply because you’re ignorant. Evil thrives in hidden darkness and if you aren’t aware of its existence, you are more likely to make seemingly innocuous choices that could have grave consequences.”

  “Like what?” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Like going inside the inn, Siena. That place is extremely dangerous. You must promise me you will never go near it or allow anyone else to,” she said.

  “I told you I didn’t want to go into it,” I said, feeling like a reprimanded child.

  “Yes, it repulses you. It repulses most of us. Yet it did not repulse Thomas. It, in fact, did the opposite. That is a problem, a concern,” she said gravely.

  “He likes old buildings,” I said.

  “And why does he like them?” she said, sitting straighter, leaning forward. “Is it for the unique historical architecture?” she added with an edge of sarcasm.

  “I-I don’t know,” I said, lying. I thought of his words, about old buildings being creepy, but he was joking.

  “It’s a problem,” Gigi said, leaning back slightly.

  I shook my head. Why did she care so much about Thomas’s interest in the inn? “Does Luca know?” I asked, needing to change her focus.

  She nodded.

  “You told him, but you didn’t tell me?” I asked, feeling hurt that she had shared her crazy beliefs with a practical stranger.

  “I’ve never spoken a word about the evil in that place to anyone but your father and those who have already passed on, may God rest their souls.”

  She always spoke that way of my mother and grandfather.

  “Then how does Luca know?” I asked.

  “I suppose I should let him tell you,” she said, standing. “It’s stopped raining.”

  I stared at her as she took my empty plate to the sink.

  “Siena,” she said without turning to face me, “you don’t have to believe me. You don’t have to believe him. But you do have to stay out of the inn.”

  Eleven

  The sun was out, causing the ground to warm and the water vapor to rise in a thick hovering mist. You couldn’t see it next to you—only in the distance—yet I understood enough about the world to know that simply because I couldn’t perceive the evaporating water at my feet didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  I sloshed my way toward the trail beside the chicken coop.

  “I don’t care what you say, that’s mean,” I said as Avi held a wiggly worm above two hungry chickens.

  “No meaner than eating chickens, cows, and pigs,” she protested.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “Where are you going?” she yelled after me.

  “To check on Luca,” I said, not turning around. I didn’t want her to come with me.

  I trotted down the trail, not sure what I was going to say to him when I saw him. Hi, my grandmother said the inn is haunted, thanks for saving me from … I didn’t even know from what. What can ghosts actually do? Yesterday was a weird day, but today … definitely weirder.

  By the time I reached Luca’s house, my sneakers were caked with mud. I was thankful Jackson was inside the house and I didn’t have to bathe him when I got home. I climbed the three steps to the front door and knocked. A second later, he answered, fully dressed this time.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He seemed to be both pleased and surprised.

  “I came to check on you,” I said.

  “That was nice of you. I’m doing fine. I’d invite you in, but the place is kind of a wreck.” He stepped outside, shutting the door.

  “Cleaning up from a big party?” I teased. If he was anything like his aunt and uncle, he was not into large groups of people.

  He grinned. “No, I was cleaning. Somehow, when I clean I make things worse until I actually finish cleaning. Once I’m done, things are pretty organized.”

  “Are Sam and Jason helping you?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re at work. I felt bad about yesterday, so I wanted to surprise them with a clean house and dinner.”

  “They’ll appreciate it,” I said. “But it’s not like you passed out on purpose.”

  He leaned lightly against the weathered railing. “I still feel bad. When your grandma called Sam and told her I’d passed out, she called Jason and he came home early from work. She was working from here, so she was able to finish out her day, but he wasn’t. I cost him money out of his check.”

  “I’m sure he wasn’t mad,” I said.

  “No, he’s a good guy, but I don’t want to make their lives any harder than I already have,” he said, avoiding my eyes.

  “They love having you here,” I said. It was true. Sam had told Gigi that when he first arrived.

  He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his tattered shorts. “Ahh, I don’t think they love me living here. They love me and all, but it’s not like I came with a trust fund. It’s been a lot for them. I eat a lot and my shoes are getting tight. I keep applying for jobs, but I haven’t gotten anything yet.”

  I lowered my eyes. He wore the same sandals I always saw him in. He was right. His toes had reached the end of the rubber soles. “Is that why you always wear flip-flops?”

  He chuckled. “Partly,” he said, the smile showing in his eyes. “Mostly, because I’m from Florida.”

  My spirits rose, watching him laugh. He was content in this short moment, an emotion I wasn’t sure I’d felt from him before.

  “You’ll lose a toe if you wear those in the snow,” I teased.

  He wiggled his toes. “Yeah, it’s already colder here than winters back home. Jason offered me a pair of his old boots, but they’re about two sizes too small.”

  “You’re at least a foot taller than him,” I said.

  “A foot taller, with no winter clothes,” he said, his expression falling.

  “You feel like a burden?” I asked, staring up at him. “And you always have,” I said, my gut telling me I was right.

  Desolation washed over his face. “It’s never been easy,” he said, picking at the splintered porch rail. “My mom and I always scraped by. Uncle Jace and Aunt Sam do better than my mom and me, but they aren’t my parents—they shouldn’t have to support me.”

  “I don’t
think they feel like that. I think they are really grateful you’re here. When Sam was in our kitchen, completely distraught, telling Gigi her sister died—.” My voice faltered. “Her heart was broken. Then she mentioned you were going to come live with her and even in that moment, when she was so destroyed, there was joy when she spoke about you.”

  “I’ve always loved her,” he said, sniffing. “Her leaving my mom and me was one of the hardest moments of my life.”

  “She lived with you?” I asked.

  “My whole life, until she realized ….” He shook his head.

  I stepped toward him. “Until she realized what?”

  “It doesn’t matter, not anymore,” he said, moving away from the railing. “Will you walk down to the pond with me? It’s my favorite place on your land.”

  “It was one of my favorite places too, until—.” I stopped, realizing what I was about to say.

  He sucked in his breath, his eyes turning bloodshot. “Until I moved in so close to it.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, feeling horrible.

  He offered a sad, dejected smile, and left the porch, going toward the pond. I followed, feeling more awful with every step.

  I spoke as we reached the flat boulder on the edge of the pond. “Sam’s not the only one who likes you being here. My grandma and sisters love having you around.”

  Luca didn’t answer. Instead, he sat, and I did also. Frogs jumped into the water when they realized they were no longer alone. If we were there long enough, they’d eventually get used to our presence and crawl back to the edges of the pond.

  We sat in silence, the wind rustling the leaves, sending down a cascade of red and yellow leaves onto the surface of the spring-fed pond. A bright orange leaf dropped onto Luca’s lap. He held it up, feeling its rough texture.

  “What happened yesterday?” I asked. “Why did you pass out?”

  He dangled the leaf over the pond … and released it. We watched it slowly drift down, landing softly on the water, producing the smallest of ripples.