Reckoning

8. Homecoming

August 15, 1950

I've been spending more and more time with Hugh recently. He's a good man, very suitable from a coven in Boston called Salldair. Although he is ten years older than I am, we do seem to make a fine match.

Hugh is a professor of Germanic languages at Simmons College in Boston, and he's written several textbooks. This makes him, more or less, an ideal Rowanwand husband. I know that's what mother and father are thinking at any rate. They're very fond of him.

I don't really feel ready for marriage, but I know I must marry. I did fight when they first suggested it, but now I see that I was selfish and foolish. I am nineteen years old. I must accept my responsibilities. Of course, it's unthinkable that I should leave Gloucester. Our family is the head of Ròiseal. As the oldest child I will take over the coven when Mother and Father are gone. That's the way it always has been.

— Aoibheann

Unlike my friendly reception at Sam's door, my entrance into the Curtis house was spooky from the get-go. The woman who answered the door bore only a passing resemblance to Sam. She was about the same age, and her short hair was completely blond. She seemed taken aback by my presence, as if I were standing there naked.

"This is Sarah's daughter, Alisa," Sam said quietly, forgetting any greetings.

"Goddess," she whispered, drawing back, "it's like looking at a ghost."

"This is Ruth," Sam explained to me, indicating the stricken-looking woman. "Ruth and I are cousins."

Ruth regained her composure, but her stare was still a little buggy.

"Nice to meet you, Alisa," she said.

"Is my mother home?" Sam asked, showing me inside.

"In the study…" Ruth replied. Her eyes full of silent questions. Sam nodded, as if to say that he would explain as soon as he could.

Inside the house, everything was alarmingly clean. The dark, heavy wood furniture glistened. The wood floors glowed. There was nothing out of place—no piles of magazines, nothing on the steps, no stacks of mail. Just cool breezes skimming along the austere hallway, looking fruitlessly for some dust bunnies to blow around.

Sam indicated that I should wait for a moment, and then he took Ruth by the elbow and ushered her back into what looked like a colonial kitchen. I saw a brick fireplace there, along with a large wooden worktable. I could hear them talking in low, urgent voices. When they returned, Ruth looked even jumpier then before. With a final look at Sam, she knocked on the wall. I thought this was really weird, but then she reached out and grabbed two little notched in the old paneling. These turned out to be handles to a pair of ancient sliding wooden parlor doors. In opening them, Ruth revealed another room, this one small and intimate, packed closely with antique furniture. She ushered me inside.

There was an older woman working at a large desk. Even though it was a Sunday morning, she was perfectly dressed in a crisp blue blouse and black pants. Her hair was steel gray with a heavy streak of white at the front. It was cut to just above her shoulder and feathered elegantly away from her face. She had silver rings on four of her long fingers. She tapped one of these on the desk as she worked.

"Sam," she said, without looking up, "I need you to…"

She stopped, and I saw her become aware of my presence. It hit her physically, as if her chair had shifted slightly under her, causing her to jolt. She looked straight up at me. Her pale eyes narrow. She didn't look a lot older than my dad, but I knew she had to be about seventy. This was Evelyn Curtis, my grandmother.

A cordless phone fell from one of the tables, causing everyone but Evelyn to jump. Sam reached for it and put it back in its cradle.

"Sarah?" she said, color draining from her face.

"No, Aunt Evelyn," Ruth said softly. "This is Sarah's daughter, Alisa."

Either they own the loudest clock in the world, or it got really quiet in the study. All I heard was the ticking. This, I thought, is my grandmother. Grandmothers are supposed to want to see you all the time, to run and hug you, to give you presents. Mine scrutinized me, taking me in, head to foot.

"I see," she finally said, her eyes squinting in the corners. "Perhaps you should sit down. Ruth, could you bring in some tea?"

"How did you get here?" she asked. "Are you with your father?"

"No," I explained, feeling my skin grow cold all over. "I came on my own. I wanted to meet my mother's—my—family."

She gave Sam a meaningful, and not entirely friendly, look.

"Alisa contacted me a few days ago," Sam said, reaching over and taking my hand. "She took it upon herself to find me. She wants to learn about us."

Evelyn stiffened and drew herself up even straighter. I was quickly grapsing what Sam had been saying to me out in the car and realizing I wasn't nearly as prepared for this as I'd thought I was. Sam gave my hand a squeeze, as if he could feel my confidence dropping.

"I see," Evelyn said again. "Perhaps we could talk for just a moment, Sam."

Sam shifted his jaw, but he nodded.

"We'll just be a minute," he said, turning to me. "Why don't you go have a look at your mother's old room?"

"Sure," I nodded dumbly.

"Turn right at the top of the stairs," he said. "It's at the end of the hall."

I excused myself and slid the study doors behind me. As I walked up the steps, strange feelings started to flow through me—broken, choppy signals, pieces of emotions—leaving me a quivering mess. My mother's house. Here it was, just like she'd described it. The four-paneled doors with the old sliding bolts. The stairs that Sam tumbled down. I even bent down and saw the thick chip that she had taken out of one of the banisters while she was carrying her bicycle down after Sam had stashed it on the widow's walk. It had been painted over, but the mark was still there.

This was my mother's house.

I found the room at the end of the of the hall and cautiously opened the door. In my imagination, I was about to be swept back to the early 1970s. My mother had described her bedroom in her Book of Shadows. The walls were blue, and she had painted yellow stars on them. There was a braided carpet on the hardwood floor. She had bamboo blinds on the windows and paper lanterns lights. Her bed was covered on an old family crazy quilt. She had a portable record player and a desk with a typewriter. There were pictures of her favorite rock stars on her closet doors.

The room I found myself in was narrow and sterile, painted a plain off-white, all traces of my mother's handiwork gone. The floor was covered in a plush coffee-colored carpet. There was a neat worktable by the window, a bookcase, and a large cabinet filled with various Wiccan and household supplies. None of the furniture my mother had described remained—not even the old bed. Nothing. It was all gone, all traces of my mother ripped away. I couldn't help but think of what was still going on at my own house, with Hilary and her plans for total home domination.

For the first time on this insane trip, the weight of it all hit me. I was lost. It seemed as if my grandmother wasn't exactly overjoyed to see me. And something just didn't feel right. Everybody was on edge. I had thought that I would find my mother here somehow, or at least some loving relatives or warm memories. But this sterile room made it obvious that there was nothing here for me.

Voices. I looked around. I could hear voices. Was I going crazy now? No, I realized. There was a heat vent in the corner. I was hearing the conversation coming up from below.

"… and it just came down?" Ruth was asking.

"Right down. No warning… well, except for Alisa. It's a good thing she was there."

"How big was it?"

"Big enough," Sam said. "It would have knocked me out or worse."

"Aunt Evelyn," Ruth said, her voice full of fear, "we can't let this go on. It's worse each time. Remember what happened with Brigid and the oven. And now this. They both could have been killed."

What was this? What were they talking about? This was more than just one branch.

"The counsel," Sam added, his voice firm. "Mom, it's time we called them. This is really a matter for them. They have the resources, and they have the specialists—"

"I have worked with specialists," Evelyn cut in, "They did nothing, I am dealing with this…"

The sound of breaking glass caused me to jump, and I turned to see what had formerly been a lamp. Now it was a pile of glass pieces sitting under a cockeyed shade on the floor. I rushed to pick them up. Oh, God. Another telekinetic hiccup. The lamp was clearly unfixable. I was so desperate I tried to spell it back together, but the truth was, I didn't know many spells and certainly not any for lamp repair. There was nothing I could do. The branch, the phone—now I'd gone and broken my grandmother's lamp.

As I fought off tears, a blond girl around my age peeked in the doorway. She had some of Evelyn's regal bearing, but her eyes were more soulful, like Sam's. Her golden hair was coiled on top of her head.

"Who are you?" she asked, looking at me as I stood there, caught red-handed with the lamp fragments. I quickly set them on the nearby bookcase.

"I'm Alisa," I said, wiping my eyes. "Sarah Curtis's daughter."

The girl looked confused, then amazed.

"I know who Sarah is," she said. "She had a daughter?"

I nodded. There I was. Proof.

"Goddess," she said brightly. "That means we're cousins, sort of. I'm Brigid. Ruth is my mom. Aunt Evelyn is my great-aunt." She stopped and cocked her head. "Are you all right?"

I wasn't sure what she was talking about for a second, then I realized that my eyes were probably still a bit teary. And there was the lamp, of course.

"Oh," I stepped away from the broken bits of green glass. "Sorry about the lamp, I, uh… I'm fine. I was just looking at my mother's bedroom, but I'm done now."

"This was your mom's bedroom?" Brigid said, looking around. "I didn't know that. I thought it had always been a workroom."

Brigid, at least, seemed kind of interested in me—this strange new cousin who'd shown up out of the blue, busted a few things, and seemed to know the history of her house. I guessed I'd be curious about someone like me, too.

"Are you staying here?" she asked, shifting a stack of beaded bracelets up and down her arm.

"No," I said, "I'm staying with Sam. We just came over to say hi. I don't know what we're doing now. Sam is busy talking to… my grandmother."

"Big conference talk, huh?" she said with a smile. "Aunt Evelyn can be kind of intense. It takes a while to get to know her. You look a bit freaked out."

I laughed nervously, incredibly thankful that someone seemed to understand something about my situation. "I am," I admitted. "Just a little."

"I'm about to go out," she said. "I'm going to meet my boyfriend, Charlie, for lunch. You're more than welcome to come with me. I promise, I'm not as scary."

Charlie, I thought. That must be the guy from the e-mail.

"Is that Charlie Findgoll?" I asked. "I found the Web site for his shop. I wrote to him. That's how I got in touch with my uncle."

"Oh, right." She nodded. "He told me about that. You made his day. He's always complaining that no one looks at his Web site. You should come with me and meet him."

That sounded really good. Anything to get out of here.

Brigid escorted me back downstairs and boldly slid open the parlor doors. Evelyn, Sam, and Ruth were huddled together by the desk. They stopped talking the moment we walked in, which made me queasy.

"I'm going to meet Charlie," Bridig said, unaffected by the oppressive air in the room. "I thought I'd take Alise. You guys look busy."

"Great," Sam said, seeming very distracted. "That seems like a good idea."

Much as I wanted to avoid the topic, I had to tell them about the lamp.

"I kind off… broke a lamp. I don't know how. It fell off the shelf."

Ruth and Sam exchanged looks.

"What? That old green one?" Sam said. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

Evelyn was twisting her lips in a thoughtful grimace and rearranging the alignment of her desk blotter.

"You're welcome to join us for dinner, Alisa," she said crisply. "If you would like to come back."

If this had been a movie, thunder would have cracked overhead and a horse would have whinnied. I'd never heard such an ominous invitation in my life.

"Thank you," I said, my voice near a whisper.

"We'll call," Brigid said cheerfully, leading me out.

"Six o'clock!" Ruth called to us.

That meant I would have to have to go back—unless, of course, I was prepared to run away for the second time in twenty-four hours.