The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  Benedict huffed. "Elysium has never managed to sense you, let alone see you. I think we'll be fine."

  She raised a brow. "It's a house of ghost hunters. What if they do see me?"

  "They won't."

  "What if they do?"

  "Then we'll leave." When she didn't reply, he closed his eyes. His mother was dead. The world had changed, and yet, it hadn't. Not really.

  "I have a bad feeling," Emmeline whispered.

  Benedict smiled softly, sadly, because so did he.

  "If we go into that house, we'll never get out again."

  He cracked his lids and found her staring back at him. Her eyes weren't the bright green he had expected. She wasn't angry. She was…worried? "I won't let anyone exorcise you. I swear. I won't leave without you."

  Somehow, she grew sadder, tears gleaming in her eyes and very nearly overflowing her lashes. And yet she smiled, the way that betrayed the age of her appearance and screamed just how deeply she loved him. "I know you won't leave without me. You can't."

  Chapter Five

  Benedict took a cab to the airport. He only packed one bag, small enough to carry onto the plane, but put it in the trunk rather than the seat beside him. Emmeline sat on that seat—even if the driver didn't see her there.

  She leaned forward; another inch and her face would go through the glass partition and into the front seat. She enjoyed snooping because no one but Benedict could see her doing it. She would read every text message and judge every receipt she spotted. She even broke her personal rule of not passing through walls and closed doors when her curiosity got the better of her. There wasn't a neighbor on their floor whose apartment she hadn't nosed around.

  "He has an awful lot of receipts for strawberry smoothies…" Emmeline said, true to form.

  Benedict smiled to himself, turning his head to glance out the window at the traffic. He wore earbuds when he was outside the house for anything but work; it made talking to her and laughing at her easier.

  She sat back and sighed loudly. "Blow off the funeral. Just get on any other flight."

  "Can't," he said.

  The cabby glanced back at him in the rearview mirror, an eyebrow raised.

  Benedict tapped one earbud, and the guy nodded, attention back on the street ahead.

  Emmeline turned sideways to stare at him. "What did she ever do for you?"

  He laughed, smile staying even when the sound faded. "Well, she did give birth to me… and then fed and clothed me. Paid for my very useless education and then threw large sums of money at me to keep me in the family business."

  "Exactly! She did it all for her own reasons."

  "It's not really about her, Em. It's a tradition. It's for the family."

  She clicked her teeth and crossed her arms. "You're going to regret this," she mumbled, and he wasn't sure if it was a warning or a threat.

  He couldn't stare at her long without the driver's gaze narrowing at him in the rearview mirror.

  Soon they were pulling up along the drop-off platform at the airport. Benedict paid with his credit card on the little screen built into the back of the seat in front of him. He tipped generously and got out, holding the door open a few seconds after stepping onto the sidewalk to give Emmeline the chance to slide out after him. He got his bag from the trunk and started toward the crowded doors and snaking lines feeding passengers to automated check-ins and baggage drop-off.

  "Bet you're flying first class…" Emmeline said in a bitter mumble.

  Benedict nodded once. "Always."

  She snorted, keeping step at his side and weaving around people rather than passing through them.

  He had never figured out if she sulked over his first-class tickets because she thought it was excessive, or because she couldn't come with him. She never made it past the boarding ramp, vanishing somewhere along the way. The first time it had happened, he had been glad to be rid of her, but then she had popped up again in baggage claim.

  Now, Benedict hated flying. It was lonely without her. He didn't know where she went or why she couldn't stay with him—and Emmeline had never explained beyond confirming that ghosts don't fly on planes.

  Benedict slid past the lines and right up to the first-class counter. He handed his ID to the man in the blue jacket on the other side of the desk. It took all of two minutes before he had his boarding pass, declining to check his bag.

  He turned and paused, gaze combing through the crowd to find her. Emmeline hadn't strayed far, crouching in front of a stroller to look at the baby inside. It blinked up at her with big, brown eyes, spit bubbles slowly growing on its lips and then popping. It saw her. Babies, along with some animals, did.

  Benedict hesitated, unable to walk over and talk to her without alarming the parents currently focused on maneuvering their suitcases, toddler on a leash, and stroller in the snaking line toward the baggage drop.

  He had to walk away and trust that she would follow. A decade with her had taught him that she would—she always did—whether or not she wanted to. But a flutter of panic still rose in his throat when he turned away from her and slipped into the first-class security line. It was short and fast, and when he emerged on the other side, picking up his bag from the conveyor belt of belongings, Emmeline was waiting there.

  Benedict put his earbuds back in, pocketing his phone and wallet.

  She stared straight at him, and he stared back.

  "Did you ever travel?" he asked.

  "Only once," she said. "They put me in a car and drove me to my death."

  He took steps closer to her, the world moving around them in a rush to catch flights or grab that coffee fix before lift-off. "We could go somewhere—anywhere you want, after the funeral."

  Emmeline's lips twitched, but he couldn't tell if it would have been a frown or a grin if she hadn't reined in the gesture. "You're going to miss your flight," she said, voice flat and a storm of electric green gathering in the depths of her dead eyes. She was daring him to go through with it… daring him to get on that plane and drag them both back to his family home.

  He stared at her long enough to see the shadow of bruises skitter across her skin, there one second and gone the next.

  Benedict nodded once. So, this was how it was going to be? She was going to be angry at him for doing what he had to? He set his jaw and turned, walking away from her and into the labyrinth of high-end shops, cafes, and gates. She would forgive him when this was over and they were home again.

  Chapter Six

  Benedict drove down the long dirt road between thick woods. The sun gleamed through the branches, casting shadows on the cornflower blue hood and across the windows.

  Emmeline sulked in the backseat beside his duffle bag. She hadn't said more than a word at a time in answer to him during the ride to the estate. It was almost three hours from the city. He had left the highway an hour ago and taken to the dirt road. Strange, that he could be gone for so long but still know the way without checking for directions.

  He glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. She didn't look angry, but she was far from her usual self. She studied the trees outside with a strange mix of wonder, terror, and familiarity.

  "Em?" he asked.

  She hummed softly in reply, still watching the woods. There were deer out there, hidden in the thick of the trees. His sister, Lucy, had frightened him as a boy with stories of wolves—stories that harkened to fairy tales. She had been so gifted in her terrorizing that Benedict had refused to wear red until he was fifteen and, even then, never in the woods.

  "How did you end up in my house?"

  Her head turned suddenly, and for the first time all day, she met his gaze. "What?"

  "The first time I saw you, you were in my room, crying. But our nearest neighbor is more than an hour's drive, and the highway is almost as far…" He wasn't sure how far he intended to go with this inquiry. Had she been killed in the woods somewhere between the highway and his family home? Had she run from her attacker? Had she w
andered as a ghost until she found him?

  "Oh," she said, sitting stiffly. "I don't remember going to your room. I think I was drawn to you."

  He nodded slowly, but he didn't really understand. He had never understood.

  "Will all your family be there?" she asked. Was she changing the topic?

  "Yeah. We aren't that many, though. No one brings their significant others home. If they have any, they leave them someplace else—someplace away from the estate. No one is family unless they have the Lyon blood." He recalled a heated argument between Lucy and his mother once when she wanted to bring her girlfriend to the house. "So, it was just my mom, her brother, Vernon, and his two kids, and then Elysium, Lucy, Luis, and me."

  They drove out of the woods and into a clearing, the Lyon family home far from the reach of branches. He had thought of it as a castle when he was a boy. Three stories of brick with big windows, balconies, and glass doors opening onto stone-laid trails between rose bushes and gnarled, little apple trees.

  The front doors opened, and two staff members stepped out, waiting for his arrival. Elysium joined them on the landing at the top of the steps.

  "Everything is going to be okay, Em," Benedict promised one more time. "If anyone sees you, or even feels you, we'll leave."

  She didn't reply, and he pulled up in front of the house.

  The two footmen hurried down the steps, one ready to park the car while the other sought to take his bag. Benedict stopped him before he reached for the trunk and shook his head. "I travel light. It's just the one," he said, pulling his duffle from the backseat. Emmeline looked up at him, a stolen glance now that she was to be unseen. He stepped back, holding the car door open and masking the moment it took her to step out as a chance to stretch his back. Emmeline didn't need him to hold the door—she could pass through walls if she wanted—but it was a habit he would not willingly abandon. It had become his way of acknowledging her even when he interacted with a world that didn't see her. He saw her.

  "You made good time," Elysium called from the top of the stairs.

  Benedict didn't fight when the footman took the bag from his hand. They both knew he could carry it himself, but Elysium ran a tight ship, and there was no reason for Benedict to rock the boat.

  He took the stairs two at a time. "Am I the first to arrive?"

  Elysium's small upturn of lips said it was the opposite. "Uncle Vernon moved into the house a year ago. He lives here year-round now. And Luis was here looking after Mother in her last days," he said, mentioning their other brother.

  Benedict nodded. Luis had always been trying to get Mother's love. It was a finite resource in the Lyon house, and everyone knew Elysium would get all she could spare. Everyone but Luis, that is, who thought he had a fighting chance for her favoritism. Benedict didn't need to wonder if he had earned it in those last days. Their mother had probably favored Elysium even more for not staying by her side. She had been a practical woman and would not have liked the waste of time on sentiment.

  Elysium led the way into the house, the vaulted ceilings dwarfing the tall doors they walked through. It was all as he remembered it: the checkered marble foyer floor, the wide staircase rising up one side and turning into the second floor of bedrooms, and a pair of French doors to the left leading into the parlor. The windows in that room offered so much light that during a summer's day they did not need electricity. The same couches and chairs stood in the same arrangements. A piano occupied one corner with a round table on the other side of the room for séances and readings. The chirping of birds and the occasional flutter of wings stirred in the three cages hanging, one higher than the other, with their brightly colored finches.

  His sister, Lucy, sat at the family séance table playing cards with his cousin, Theodore. Somehow it made sense to see those two being friendly. They had both made spectacles of themselves and the family name. Mother and Uncle Vernon had not approved at first, but they eventually turned a blind eye. Lucy had grabbed up their family history of spiritualism and taken it a small step further, into the occult. She wore black velvet and lace, hanging off her dark shoulders. A thin metal crown ringed her head, pressing down her thick curls. Her long, lacquered, purple nails tapped the backs of her cards. She called herself a witch. Their mother had hated that, but her disapproval had only made Lucy enjoy it more. She read tarot cards for royalty and tycoons now. She rented out castles in Transylvania and held séances. She even had a coven, lining her pockets and devouring her perfect blend of true supernatural and sugary lies.

  She twisted sideways in her seat when they walked in. She dropped her cards and shot to her feet. The deck was worn, the black backs rubbed of color by fingers. He caught sight of the ones she had abandoned; the royalty cards were all skeletons in collapsing garb and falling crowns and swords. "Benny!" Lucy cried, wrapping her arms around him.

  Benedict hugged his sister back. He had seen her in December when she had thrown a particularly large, though macabre, gala for her thirty-fifth birthday.

  "Well, damn, I lost the bet," Theodore said, cigarette bouncing on his lip while he swept up the cards from the table. He didn't look quite as glossy and perfect as he had on that documentary Benedict caught a few weeks ago, no makeup smoothing out his sharp cheekbones or hiding the dark circles under his eyes. "I didn't expect you to actually show up."

  "I didn't know I had an option," Benedict countered.

  "You didn't," Lucy confirmed, patting his cheek before going back to the table. She reached out, and Theodore passed her his cigarette.

  "I heard you've got a new TV special coming out," Benedict said, crossing the floor to awkwardly shake hands with Theodore. They had never been particularly close. Benedict was evasive, and Theodore wasn't interested in anyone not interested in him.

  Benedict made small talk in a room with the three most powerful spiritualists of their time, his relatives, and then glanced up as Emmeline walked around the room. She considered the furniture, the birds in their cages, the old paintings in gaudy frames with the same arched brow and pressed lips as Benedict had worn when examining the Whittle house. He glanced between his brother, his sister, and his cousin, a part of him waiting for one of them to sense Emmeline—to see her, even. But they didn't.

  They talked about Theodore's public persona, the soft, understanding medium and how contrary it was to the asshole they had all grown up with. Theodore enjoyed his own duality. "Honestly, I like coming home," he admitted with a wide-lipped grin. "It's the only place I can really be myself. It's exhausting being that good."

  Lucy laughed loudly, and Elysium and Benedict smiled.

  Emmeline wandered closer, observing them all. "You smile like him," she noted.

  Benedict glanced at her before he could stop himself, masking it by pretending to look about the room.

  She was still watching Elysium. "Do you have the same father, or do you both take after your mother?" she asked, knowing he couldn't answer. Honestly, he wouldn't have known how to even if he could. He had no idea who their fathers were, or who Lucy's was, for that matter. Mother had never said, and he had never heard any of his siblings talk about it. Non-Lyon blood didn't matter. He supposed, though, looking at Elysium, that they did look a lot alike. They were nearly a decade apart in age, but they shared the same build, the same brown skin, dark brown eyes, and delicate jawlines.

  "Have you added Mother's picture to the wall, or do we do a ceremony for that?" Benedict asked, trailing from the parlor through the open double-doors and into the large dining room.

  "No, Aunt Gloria is up there," Theodore said.

  They all followed him, but he only really intended to lead Emmeline. He came to stand in front of the wall of family portraits. The dead were placed here, watching over the living at every meal. It might have felt eerie if the family wasn't all keenly aware when ghosts were actually watching them. That is…all ghosts but Emmeline.

  They were better mediums than Benedict by far, and yet, not one batted an eye a
t the dead girl dancing around them. Were they all faking it like he was? Did they each have a ghost whispering in their ears? Working as their eyes into the spiritual realm? No. If that were the case, Emmeline would see them—and they would see Emmeline.

  "I'm surprised she didn't pick a younger photo," Benedict laughed, pointing up at the portrait hung on the wall. Emmeline came close and leaned up on her toes to examine it. The gilded frame had a plaque with the name "Gloria Andrea Lyon" and her date of birth and death below. It was a good likeness. Severe. Her silver hair was braided over one shoulder, head turned a little to the side, but her hazel eyes fixed on the viewer with a secret pulling at the corner of her lips. He wasn't sure if she meant to frown or smile. She had been a healthy-looking woman in her late sixties, necklaces weighing down her chest and a stiff jacket holding her shoulders back.

  "She was proud to have lived as long as she did," Elysium remarked, standing behind him for a moment to consider the portrait as well. "She said she didn't want anyone looking at this wall in fifty years and thinking at a glance that she had died young."

  "Sixty-seven," Lucy remarked, leaning against the dining table. "You know, in most families, that's still pretty young."

  "Well, most families don't fight ghosts in their spare time," Elysium reminded.

  "And witches," Benedict chimed with a wry smile.

  Lucy shot him a glare. "A nasty spiritualist who got herself possessed… Mother never liked when you called that woman a witch."

  "But the story sounded better that way," Benedict argued, turning his back on the wall of their relations. "You broke your arm that time, didn't you?"

  Elysium smiled tightly, trying not to, maybe. "You were little. I'm surprised you remember."

  "I was terrified," Benedict laughed. "Mother dragged me to an old house with a crazy woman and a bunch of ghosts she'd bound to her."

  "That's not all she did," Lucy reminded. "She was putting souls into dead things to bring them back to life."