Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

‘Emily, honey, you're home. We were so worried.'

Catherine was on me the second I walked through the door. She pulled me into a hug, my wet clothes soaking her through, and all I wanted to do was pretend nothing was wrong and stay right where I was. But I couldn't. We had to figure out what was happening to me before someone got really hurt. I pushed her away so she could see the determined look on my face.

‘I need to talk to you. Something is really wrong.'

Ashley stood behind Catherine, dutifully waiting with a fluffy white towel in her hands. The moment we made eye contact, she scowled.

‘Alone,' I added.

‘Let me look at you first,' my grandmother muttered, gripping my upper arms tightly, checking me over for any visible injuries. ‘That storm came in so fast and lit up all creation, there's not a dry thread on you—'

‘Catherine, stop!'

The sound of my voice reverberated off the silken walls of the foyer and all three of us looked equally surprised.

‘Something is happening to me,' I said, suddenly tearful and so, so frightened. ‘I need your help before something really bad happens.'

She held me out at arm's length, two anxious lines carved into her flawless porcelain skin, bracketing her unhappy mouth.

‘Emily, you need to go to bed and rest,' she said, words wrapped in barbed wire, sharp and pointed. ‘Ashley, make some tea. I'll bring it up when it's ready.'

‘Rest isn't going to help.' I refused, standing firm. ‘Can't you see something is wrong? I'm blacking out, falling over, I'm hearing voices, seeing people who aren't there. I keep having flashbacks to things I couldn't possibly remember, and whatever just happened in the park, I can't even begin to explain it. At first I thought I'd caught something from the wolf but that doesn't even make sense anymore. Nothing makes sense. Catherine, I'm frightened.'

Ashley flinched when I mentioned the wolf, her eyes flicking over to Catherine, who gave a slight nod, and I watched as my aunt scurried away. The foyer filled with a strange sense of peace, waves of soothing energy smothering my panic but not erasing it completely. I propped myself up against the wall as my legs trembled underneath me and the house seemed to sigh contentedly at my touch.

‘Very well,' Catherine said at last. ‘Come with me.'

She pulled me away from the wall and led me into the parlour, directing me to the loveseat where I sat obediently. The water seeped out of my sodden clothes and into the light-coloured silk but she didn't seem to care.

‘Before we begin, please remember this; you're home, you're safe and nothing can hurt you inside Bell House,' Catherine said, perched on the edge of the coffee table in front of me. ‘Now, tell me exactly what happened in the park.'

‘I was with Lydia and Jackson when the storm hit,' I began, trembling as I searched for the right words to paint the picture. ‘We were in Forsyth Park. The rain was coming down so hard, we tried to shelter under a tree but it was struck by lightning.'

‘My goodness,' she replied, interested but not as shocked as I thought she would be. ‘Then what happened?'

‘The lightning severed this huge branch,' I said, reliving every moment. ‘It should have crushed us, all three of us. We should be dead.'

It was too fresh in my mind, not far enough away to be safely called a memory. Catherine rested her hand on my arm, holding me in place as though I might otherwise float away.

‘And why is it do you think, that you're not?'

I closed my eyes, willing myself to speak. It was time to tell her everything.

‘You're going to think I'm losing my mind,' I whispered. ‘Because it doesn't make sense.'

‘You keep saying that,' she replied, head tilted to one side. ‘How about you let me be the judge of what makes sense and what doesn't?'

Breathing in deeply, I filled my lungs until I thought they would burst then pushed all the air out in one loud exhalation.

‘The branch didn't crush us because the Spanish moss caught it.' I shook my head at the improbability of my own words. ‘It held it up long enough for me to move and push Lydia out the way.'

‘That's all?'

‘No. There was a woman who appeared out of nowhere to tell me what to do then disappeared when we were safe.'

‘I see. Did Lydia or Jackson speak to this woman?'

I shook my head. There was no one to back up my version of events. I pressed my hand against the scratch on my cheek, relieved to find it was still there, evidence at least that I wasn't gaslighting myself. Wiping a mixture of rainwater and tears from my face, I heard a sob catch in my throat as more shattered fragments came back to me. Might as well throw all the fuel on the fire at once.

‘Also, it felt like time slowed down,' I said, searching for any sign that she believed me but my grandmother's perfectly balanced features were inscrutable. ‘Or maybe I was moving super fast, I'm not sure, but it's happened before. Once in Lafayette Square and again when the wolf attacked you. This time it lasted longer.'

‘Is that right?' Catherine said calmly. ‘How very interesting.'

‘It's not interesting, it's terrifying,' I replied, running out of patience. ‘What's happening? Am I losing my mind?'

She moved to sit beside me on the loveseat and pulled my hand away from my face, the scratch stinging sharply when she pressed one careful finger against it.

‘Emily, I told you on your first day in Savannah, no harm will come to you here. I meant that.'

‘You were wrong,' I replied. ‘This feels like harm.'

‘No,' she said. ‘This feels like an awakening.'

She straightened her shoulders, looking as regal as ever but the impassive expression on her face had turned into something else. Pride burned in her emerald eyes, and she smiled, lips curling with admiration.

‘What does that mean?' I asked, twin tides of panic and confusion rising in me, threatening to roll in and wash me away. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, I swear, I'm normal.'

Catherine clucked with distaste. ‘Normal, indeed. What a terrible thing to say about yourself. You, Emily James Bell are anything but.'

Her chin dipped expectantly and my heart skipped several beats ahead of itself. The whispers in the moss, the appearing-and-disappearing woman, the little girl in the window, the tree branch. I closed my eyes, squeezing them until I saw stars, and released all the other things my mind had hidden away from me until I was ready. Catherine and Ashley talking in the library, the painting of the garden, the living wallpaper. The first Emma Catherine Bell. Everything came rushing back and when I opened my eyes, the trees and vines that decorated the parlour walls twisted and turned, growing and flourishing as they snaked along the floor towards me.

Catherine was right, this wasn't normal. I wasn't normal.

‘What about the blackouts?' I gazed down, transfixed as the vines wended their way over the polished floorboards. ‘And why do I feel so strong one minute but the next I can barely stay up on my feet?'

‘Your body is overwhelmed. Your strength is growing. It's a lot for you to cope with all at once.'

‘The hallucinations?'

‘Visions. Of the past and, I suspect, the future.'

‘How do you explain the blonde woman? And the little girl I saw in the window of the Benjamin Wilson House?'

This time, her answer rode on a sigh. ‘Oh, Emily, you already know the answer. What else could they be?'

My mouth made the shape of a word but no sound came out.

‘Ghosts,' I managed to breathe. ‘I can see ghosts.'

‘Honey, you can do much more than that.'

I reached out to meet the encroaching vines as they surged forward, rising upwards when I raised my hand and lowering down when I did the same. This couldn't be happening, it simply couldn't.

‘Ghosts aren't real. They're just stories made up to scare people. Fairytales. It's not real history,' I murmured, a slender trail of ivy wrapping itself lovingly around my ankle.

‘History is written by the victors,' Catherine said. ‘That's the saying, isn't it? But it's not entirely true. Your so-called "real history" is made up of the stories men wanted people to believe. Sometimes the past lives within us, not written or recorded, but handed down from one generation to the next. Our history is alive.'

The room hummed as she turned delicate circles with her wrist, sending the vines into retreat, back across the floor and up into the wallpaper.

‘Tell me, does it feel like a fairytale now?' she asked.

‘No,' I replied, so timid I was barely able to hear myself. ‘It feels very real.'

My grandmother directed the vines up the walls like she was leading an orchestra. Clouds crashed with thunder and every bough of every painted tree trembled.

‘And what do we call a woman whose abilities exceed natural expectations?' she asked, sweeping the clouds away and summoning the sun. ‘A woman who sees things others cannot. Can perform acts others might consider impossible. What name is she given, Emily?'

‘When you said my dad left because he didn't agree with your beliefs …' I murmured.

It suddenly was all so obvious. Power and strength rolled off her and somehow, into me, an unexpected pulse of something rushing through my veins and stealing my words away.

‘Go on, you can say it,' she encouraged when I faltered. ‘You'll feel better when you do.'

‘You're a witch,' I said.

‘Yes, I am,' Catherine replied. ‘And so are you.'