Page 124 of Dream House
“What the hell, Pen?!”I shout.
Her eyes fly open. They brim with irritation. “I’m trying to get centered,” she says through clenched teeth. “It’s hard when I’m so emotionally invested.”
It’s hard to get centered whenshe’semotionally invested? “How do you thinkIfeel?”
“Argh!”Pen yanks me by the wrists and drags me from the kitchen. “C’mon. We need to take out the big guns.”
“B-Big guns?”
“Tarot cards. They’ll help us cut through the interference.”
I follow her upstairs. With the way she’s still gripping my wrist, I don’t have much choice.
Nina’s at work. Livy’s at the library. Lark’s in his room.
Presumably hiding from me.
It’s the calm before the Samhain storm. Pen’s calling it a party to make sure everyone attends, but it doesn't sound like any Halloween party I’ve ever been to. After I take Maisy trick-or-treating, we’re having a ceremonial dinner with mulled wine, deer sausage, and acorn squash—all traditionally Pagan foods that date back centuries—and then we’ll light a bonfire in the front yard for some kind ofreleasing ceremony.
Everyone has agreed to attend, but now I’m having doubts about whether or not Lark will show.
We pass his shut door and turn up the steep stairs to Pen’s attic. Walking through her door is almost like entering the wardrobe in the Narnia books. The shift in environment is enough to induce vertigo.
The scent of woods and water hit me first, as though I’m stepping into the forest primeval, an enchanted wood where I might just as easily encounter a fairy as a fawn. It’s just her essential oil diffuser at work, but it’s disorienting.
The afternoon sun and breeze from her window unit make her hanging prisms splash rainbows along her walls and floor, heightening the sense of being thrown off balance.
And then there’s the music. Pen has her Bluetooth speaker and Spotify going at all hours. Right now it’s some kind of babbling-brook-crickets-and-birdsong playlist.
All of it gives me the feeling I’ve left the modern world—themuggleworld—behind.
I sniff the moist air. “What are you diffusing?” I ask, unable to place it.
“A little arborvitae, a little lavender, a little this, a little that.” Pen shrugs coyly.
I eye her for a moment, hoping that she hasn’t discovered some way to use her diffuser to microdose magic mushrooms.
“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing to the sitting area she has assembled under the north-facing gable window. The one that gives an unobstructed view of St. John’s Cemetery. Four giant cushions, each covered with a navy fabric littered with gold symbols of the Zodiac, flank a low, square table.
At its center is a crystal ball—what Pen calls herorbuculum—and when I hesitate to sit, Pentsks,picks up a flimsy scarf she’s discarded on the foot of her bed, and drapes it over the orb.
When I still don’t move, Pen’s eyes go heavenward, she lets out an enormous sigh, and then she carefully scoops up the crystal ball and relocates it on the bookshelf clear on the other side of the attic.
I might hear her whispering soothing words to it, but I’m not messing around. That thing freaks me out. It has ever since I flopped down in front of it one night at the Pen Pen and saw Nanna’s face staring back at me.
This was years ago. After Maisy was born but before Tyler’s accident, and seeing my grandmother’s reflection where mine should have been scared the crap out of me.
“Now, sit,” she orders, irritation leaking into her tone.
I stick my tongue out at her when she isn’t looking, but I still sit, sinking into the cushion. I cross my ankles and tuck my feet closer to my body, doing my best to ignore the thrum of nerves in my stomach. The Tarot cards don’t terrify me the same way the crystal ball does, but believe what you want to. There’s an energy in this space that is more than just Pen’s decorating choices and her essential oil diffuser.
I know the Tarot reading is going to give me some kind of truth. I just don’t know if it’s one I really want to deal with.
Pen doesn’t so much as sit on the cushion opposite me as float down onto it, her long orange and navy paisley skirt billowing out and spilling onto the floorboards. Her bangles jangle on her wrists as she rubs her palms together and breathes in and out so deeply, I think of one of those vintage fireplace bellows.
I jump when she produces a deck of Tarot cards. Where the hell was she stashing those?
One final deep exhale, and Pen’s amber eyes land on me.
