Page 24 of Tangled at the Root
I leave the study with a bit of trepidation, but the house doesn’t stop me. I snort to myself, wondering just how Genevieve or the previous owners had managed it when the building suddenly took a mind of its own.
In the short distance, the bottom of the stairs seems to loom, the reminder of this morning making my breathing speed up. Afraid the house will forcibly turn me around again, I don’t look down the hall for too long.
I return to the study with my trunk, plopping it down in a corner of the room and unlocking it.
Time to hopefully get some real answers.
I get dressed as quickly as possible. The noises in the bathroom had eventually stopped, though I can’t quite look at the door, my eyes sliding unfocused over it every time I accidentally glance in that direction.
I check on the upstairs windows. The bars are still sealed, and the balcony doors remain one thick panel of impenetrable glass. The oppressive energy when I walk underneath the door of the attic feels like it has increased. It makes the monster’s teeth itch, makes it whine with discomfort. Unlike the day I’d first gotten here, I ignore it.
Rosemary’s back. I’d locked in on her scent and heartbeat the moment I’d left the bathroom, inhaling helplessly, using her presence as an anchor. It makes my stomach ache and my mouthwater. Ishouldhave been satiated; I’m trying not to, but I’m beginning to remember last night in bits and pieces.
Chasing an animal through the dense trees. Catching it. Sinking my teeth in tough, lightly furred skin, ripping through flesh, tendon, and bone with savage pleasure—
The beast’s hungershould’vebeen quelled.
But the longer I keep my senses honed in on Rosemary, the more ravenous the beast gets, like it hadn’t eaten at all.
I know I should try and focus on something else, but fuck, Ican’t, she smells so—and thesoundof her heartbeat—it’s a siren’s song keeping me enthralled, making me follow the hint of her presence all the way down to—
What the hell is she doing in here?
I practically fling the study door open, then come to an abrupt halt.
Rosemary’s in the middle of the space facing the windows overlooking the front of the house, sitting cross-legged on the floor. In front of her is a calabash sitting in a spread of dirt, six cowrie beads sunk to the bottom of the bowl’s clear water.
Her trunk is on the far left side of the room, open. Amusement sparks in my chest. It literallylookslike an oerhwu’s trunk, filled with even more candles in multiple shapes, colours and sizes; numerous glass vials of varying volumes glistening with different coloured liquids; multiple dark green velvet pouches; stacked books and papers—fuck, it even seems to be bigger on the inside, like the interior has been magically expanded to fit all those fantastical looking bits and bobs.
“Are you the only spirit here?”
My eyes snap back to Rosemary. She’s not looking at me. In four points, she’s surrounded by eight candles, two in each corner. On the outer edge, the candles are yellow. On the inner, they’re white. The flames of the white ones flicker.
“Are you the one that called me here?”
My heartbeat speeds up. Who is she talking to? The flames pulse again.
“Do you know why you can’t remember?”
I glance wildly around the room. Fuck. Why is my heart beating so fast? Why am I so terrified?
Who is she talking to?
Slowly, like she can sense my panic, all without looking at me, Rosemary extends her right hand in my direction. It feels like she doesn’t want to take her eyes off whatever is in front of her. A ghost, most likely; one I can’t see.
My blood rushing with trepidation, I take a step closer.
“Shall I help you remember?”
It feels like I’m walking through cobwebs; I shiver helplessly as I step over the invisible perimeter of the candles. Rosemary’s outstretched hand is like a beacon, and like last night, try as I might, I can’t help but reach back.
Our hands connect.
My grandmother appears, her ghostly torso floating a few inches above the calabash.
I gasp, nearly jerking my hand free, but Rosemary doesn’t let me. My grandmother notices my presence at the same time and seems to swell in size—no, she’s rising, lifting higher from the water until she’s standing, though her feet from halfway down her calves fade and disappear before they reach the carved, wooden bowl.
Rosemary stands, too, our hands still joined. The connection must be what’s allowing me to see her. Allowing her, it seems, to seeme.
