Page 24 of Dream House
I want to belly laugh, but I won’t. Pen is as thin as a reed but also as straight as one. Now she slumps like a test piece of vermicelli slapped to the wall.
“Hell if I know.”
Her gaze narrows as she comes back to herself. A line forms between her brows and her focus locks on mine.
“Oh my God.”
“What?” My heart thuds, dreading she’s having some kind of damning vision or other witchy warning.
“Three.”
“Three what?”
“Three renters.”
I give her the side-eye. “What about them?”
Pen looks at me like I’m missing the obvious. “The next one’s yours.”
“Excuse me?”
Pen’s gaze goes skyward, and she mutters some kind of incantation or Celtic swear word. “Three is a very powerful number. I should have thought of this before.” She jabs her finger at the stairs. “You have three rooms for rent, all on the same plane. That’s a really powerful draw.”
“So?”
“So, nature abhors a vacuum. The empty space needs to be filled.”
I nod. “Right. No big deal. Three empty rooms. Three tenants.”
“No.” Pen shakes her head. “Don’t you see? There’s also three of us.”
I frown. “There’s four of us. You, Tyler, Maisy, and me.”
Pen hasn’t stopped shaking her head. “Maisy’s a child. Yes, she’s attracting something, but her pull is not as powerful as ours. If there were three children in the household, maybe.”
I start shaking my head now. “You’re making no sense at all.”
She grabs my hands. I stop shaking my head. “The next one’s yours,” she says again.
“You need to stop saying that.” Seriously, it’s making me nervous.
Pen shrugs. “I’m just giving you a heads up.”
“A heads up about what?” My voice comes out a little screechy. Just a little, but still.
“Stella, don’t you see what’s happening?” She frowns at me again.
“Uh, no. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Pen presses her lips together and shuts her eyes as if summoning patience. When she opens them again, the amber of her irises practically flares.
“Nina is for Tyler. Livy is for me. The next one is for you.”
A full-body flush soaks my flesh. It’s like I’ve been dipped in hot fizz or dunked in a barrel of warm beer.
I shove away her words about the next one and challenge her. “What do you mean, Nina is for Tyler?” Even as I question it, I already know what she’s going to say.
“Did you see him at dinner? Were you listening when he asked about her?” Pen knows I was. She also knows, just like I do, that this is different.
