Chapter Twenty-One
I don’t hit a single rock on the skate back home. The trees rush by, my leg burns. The wind’s died down enough that I’m no longer blown off course. I am a ghost ship, risen from the Atlantic, captained by the dead and my force of will.
The sky is flat gray but it’s as if my eyes are turning up the saturation. I see red tones brighter, with more clarity. I filter out my doubts, stand tall and strong as a mast.
I have no doubts, only propulsion. Aggie’s house will not be preserved. I will not take its pain into the next generation. I will listen to Sabrina—I will burn it down. That house needs an apology that doesn’t negate the truth with a fresh start. A cleansing. Ellis, Aggie, Sabrina—none of them need to reproduce their pain anymore. This house is done passing their trauma and violence on.
Before I turn onto our road, I consider for a second that I’ve fully lost it. But I am more solid, stable, and sure than I can remember being in this place. I am not afraid. Continuing to live in that house has far worse, inevitable consequences of harm than what I’m about to do. The only choice is to act.
Me and Sabrina will end this together. I know this is her right. A right she wasn’t allowed by Ellis who murdered her in a violent rage, or by Aggie who must have wanted her around as company in that house all those long years alone. She preserved those old columns and antique furniture as decoys. Their extravagant presence consumed any hints at a life that wasn’t proper, any hint of what shouldn’t have been love but was. Each curtain was pulled closed. All that was good in her life was left for the mice and insects to nibble through for decades, until only a photograph remained, slotted into a crack in her bedroom wall. To live without moving on from this history of concealment is to betray myself. I cannot let myself be consumed by this place. All I want is to move past this time into another. All I want is for everyone I love to be free of what holds them captive in the past. I want that to be possible for all of us: a new foundation of care.
As I approach the house, I’m ready to step up on a kitchen chair and grab the matches, ready to set everything aflame as soon as I can get Traci and Jeff out. I’m ready to walk in and burn it all down, with Sabrina by my side.
Except Cole is sitting on the front steps. “What are you doing here?” I ask them and they raise their head from where it’s hanging between their knees. They’re the picture of Sabrina. The picture I couldn’t stop staring at, that I found a friend in. When we make eye contact, I know it’s not Cole blocking my entrance to the house, but Sabrina.
I repeat myself, shorten my earlier question to: “What are you doing?” I thought Sabrina would leave Cole out of this. But again, she’s gotten to Cole before me.
Sabrina speaks through Cole’s mouth. “You’re making the right decision.”
If she thinks I’m making the right decision, then why is she blocking the entrance? Only a few weeks earlier I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between Cole and Sabrina-dropped-into-Cole. But now I can. I know the way Cole holds their face tough when they’re scared and how they hold themself a little less confidently than Sabrina does. Sabrina is older, saw more shit in her lifetime. Watching her move in Cole’s body fills me with a deep sadness. Sabrina embodies and guards in her body a collection of traumas I hope Cole never has to house.
“I want to end this house but not only because of you. And not if you’re going to use Cole to do it.”
Sabrina nods. “You have your own reasons. I have mine. Our common goal is freedom.”
“What does that look like for you?”
“True rest.”
“The reburial wasn’t enough?” I know it wasn’t enough. She’s been trying to tell me so through reaching for fire. I just hoped we might find a different solution.
“I want real death. And all the birth that comes with it.”
“We have to make sure everyone’s safe first.”
Sabrina nods slowly. “I will set the fire if you help my grandchild provide a distraction.”
“Did you even ask them if it was ok to use their body?”
“Of course.” She looks almost offended.
“I don’t want Cole to get hurt. Take me instead if you have to.” I don’t trust Sabrina the same way I used to after I woke up in the woods. What if Cole doesn’t remember agreeing?
Sabrina purses her lips. “That’s not your decision. Cole has already agreed to draw Ellis out.”
“How?” My heart leaps. “Why would Cole agree to put themself in danger?” They’ve already drawn his wrath once, in peaceful sleep. If they’re going to do it fully conscious and ready to fight back, things could get out of hand.
“If I can’t convince you they agreed, then they can tell you.” Sabrina’s voice drops off, and Cole’s body sways. In the moment they drop back into themself, they blink slowly, acclimatizing to being back in their form, and then they see me, and smile their bucktoothed grin. I can’t help but smile back. Knowing they’re in this with me makes me feel safer.
I’m also worried. “You ok?”
“Not bad.”
“You let Sabrina drop into you? She didn’t force you to do it?”
Cole shakes their head. “No. I want to be a part of this.”
“You could get hurt.”
“You could get hurt.”
“Me and Sabrina can do this alone. You don’t have to let her use you as bait.”
Cole has a stubborn look on their face. “If I can’t have a relationship with my grandmother, I can at least bring her justice. You taught me that. Both our families need this. I can’t control what the ghosts decide to do in the end, but if there’s any way I can help stop all this violence so we can heal, I’m in.”
I rush forward and squeeze them. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” they say, but I see how hard they worked to get here, how difficult it was to come to this conclusion. After tonight, if we climb up the mountain again, we won’t see this house’s miniature on the toy landscape below.
“So,” I say, grabbing their hand to pull them over the rotten step. “How’re we going to do this?”
The plan is simple: we recreate the night Cole slept over.
Because Cole comes back inside with me, I’m spared a lecture from Traci and Jeff. Besides, I can tell some sort of eruption took place after I left. The curtains are ripped off the rod and one of the blue velvet antique chairs has two splintered legs. Traci is in the den, scrolling through her phone. She doesn’t look up as Cole and I pass. I wouldn’t have known Jeff was here except for his slate Tesla still in the driveway and the way the door to Traci’s room is shut tight in its frame. His shadow moves back and forth against the floor as he paces.
“It’s cold in here,” Cole notes, sliding their clammy hand into mine.
I sniff the air. “Do you smell that?”
Cole turns their head up to the air and takes a long whiff. They crinkle their nose. “Smells like mildew or something. I thought the mold guys finished up weeks ago?”
It’s as if the walls themselves are decaying. As we get further from Traci and Jeff’s room, the smell abates. My room is torn apart completely. Every drawer, every corner is covered in my belongings.
“Whoa, messy room.”
“This wasn’t me.” Who did this? I grab clothes at random and attempt to stuff them back in my drawers. Not that it matters. Everything I own is going to go up in smoke soon. Putting it all away is a force of habit. I try not to miss anything. When I see Dad’s basketball jersey, I pull it on over my t-shirt, like armor. I’m able to keep my fury under control with Cole here and with the knowledge that the violence brewing in this house will end tonight.
“Ellis?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened? Where were you? I came by and Sabrina told me you were gone.”
“Had a fight with Traci and Jeff.”
Cole looks around the room again, then scans me up and down. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine.” We’ve made our decision. “All of this ends tonight. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.” Our eyes meet and any last uneasiness I have dissipates. We’ll all get out of this place. We’re finally letting go of it. Soon, we’ll all have rest.
We wait out the night watching cartoons from our childhood. It’s all flat. None of the jokes land and neither of us is really paying attention. It’s a miracle we even fall asleep. Even in the face of danger, lying next to Cole, it’s easier than I expect to fall away from consciousness. Next to each other, we’re able to create a little warmth.
This time, Cole doesn’t scream. Ellis’s hands aren’t the only ones around their neck. Jeff’s hands are squeezing the life from them too. At first, I wonder if I’ve woken too late, only because one of Cole’s flailing arms smashed into my nose. It’s streaming blood, coppery, into my mouth. Cole gurgles and attempts to gasp in air with no luck. The life’s squeezing out of them with every passing second.
No time to waste. This time my silence breaks, and I am wrestling with Jeff as Cole struggles beneath him. I realize I’m screaming, “Mum! Mum!” but she doesn’t come running. She can’t be sleeping through this. I manage to break Jeff’s grip and push him onto the floor. Cole gasps for breath, pale at the edge of passing out.
“You want to destroy my home,” Ellis growls through Jeff’s teeth. I grab Cole. We stumble past Traci’s empty room and down the stairs, a mess of knees and ankles.
“Where’s Sabrina?” I ask, half to Cole, half to myself. I thought this was Sabrina’s plan all along. Did Cole know Sabrina using them as bait also meant they’d have the exact same marks around their neck that Sabrina did when she was buried?
Ellis uses Jeff to barrel down the stairs behind us, yelling incomprehensibly. I remember how Jeff’s body reacted in proximity to ghosts last time and I wonder if he’ll be able to withstand Ellis dropping into him.
Cole continues toward the door, with Ellis close behind, and I split off toward the kitchen. As confident as I was earlier that we could do this, now my hands are shaking.
“Mum?” I call out again, into the dark of the house. “Mum, get out of the house!” Where is she?
I climb up onto the counter, and like I’ve done in my dreams before, I reach for the box of matches on the top shelf and fumble them with my numb fingers. The box falls and the matches scatter on the kitchen floor.
A crash comes from the front of the house. “Asha, hurry!” Cole’s strained yell reaches me as I gather up as many matches in my fist as I can and grab the box. Where’s Sabrina?
I dash back to the front of the house. Ellis has Cole cornered in the den, somehow bulking up Jeff’s small frame to seem as broad as he was. Cole is holding a fire poker between them. I can see the vintage Tiffany lamp they smashed on the floor, shards of its jeweled carapace glittering like freshly exposed organs. Ellis is reaching for a knifelike shard of glass, slowly, daring Cole to do harm to Jeff’s body. I’m paralyzed. I need to make sure neither of them gets hurt. I need to burn the house down.
Come—Sabrina’s earthy presence settles behind me. She grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room. May I? I nod, and she drops into me one last time.
She steadies my hand and moves it with the grace of her own toward those ugly, dusty curtains me and Traci just couldn’t seem to get rid of. With my fist of matches, she strikes against the matchbox and a fire lights between our hands. Gently, she places it onto the fabric. It begins its ascent.
“Stay away from me!” Cole’s voice comes to me from a distance.
Sabrina leaves me. I’ll tend to the flames. Keep my grandchild safe. I don’t have time to wait for my body to settle back into itself. Heat and smoke are collecting in this room. I stumble toward the front door, where Cole is turning the doorknob frantically, trying to get out, as Ellis limps toward them as fast as he can, a wide gash in the thigh of his pants. It’s my emergence from the den that draws his eye. Just as he’s about to reach Cole, Ellis notices the fire spreading behind me. Ellis’s connection to Jeff wavers for a moment, before he tightens his attachment to Jeff’s body, and they lurch toward the living room.
“No!” I rush after Jeff as the fire spreads from the curtains to the walls. I try to pull him back by the shoulder, but Ellis snarls and rips Jeff’s body away from my grasp. Smoke is billowing out of the room. The fire’s spreading faster than natural, popping up in places where it shouldn’t be, as if Sabrina is throwing it across the room.
“Asha, come on, you’re going to get hurt!” Cole yells from the doorway.
“Help me,” I shout back, choking on the thickening smoke. “We need to get Jeff out of here!” Sweat evaporates off my face as fast as I can produce it.
Cole hesitates for a moment and then is by my side too. With both of us holding onto Jeff, we’re able to pull his body out of the house. Ellis protests the whole way, thrashing and cursing until the threshold, where he becomes weaker. He gives out one last snarl before Jeff’s body goes limp and Ellis’s ghost pulls away with a pained wail, and races into the flames to fight Sabrina.
It’s too late for him to stop it. The fire’s spread far enough that not even a supernatural force could stop it. Cole and I turn away. The rest is up to Sabrina. We focus on dragging Jeff to the edge of the moat where we drop him. He regains consciousness and scrambles to his feet in the muck.
“I’m sorry.” He’s looking at Cole. Tears are streaking through the ash and dirt on his face. He keeps repeating it.
“It’s okay. It wasn’t you.” Cole tells him, but they keep their distance.
I turn away from them both and begin to run back toward the house, but Cole stops me. “What are you doing?” they ask.
“My mum—”
Cole’s face falls. They let my arm go. I race back toward the house, ready to run into the flames. Why didn’t Mum come when I called earlier? Was she sleeping that deep? I need to get her out. I need her. I need to save her. How could I let this happen? How could Sabrina let this happen? How could Aggie let this happen? I need her.
I call for her through the flames. They’ve engulfed the door now. I fall to my knees.
Then Jeff’s behind me, lifting me up and shouting Traci’s name. “You take the right side of the house, I’ll take the left.” He pushes me gently to the right side of the house and we both walk frantically through the thickening smoke, yelling Traci’s name between coughs.
And then I hear her calling me. I turn, and she’s running up over the hill by the garden, through the patch of poison ivy. And I run to her in the heat of the flames. Jeff joins us as he comes around the other side of the house. We pull each other to safety. Glad to have each other’s lives. It almost escapes my notice that a second, glowing shadow peels off Mum’s as we approach Cole, and floats its way back to the house.
Mum pulls me into a hug as soon as we’re out of danger, on the edge of the moat. “I thought I lost you.” She rocks me. I thought I lost her. “I don’t know how I got outside. I just woke up on the other side of the garden.” I watch the glowing shadow join with the smoke, then evaporate into nothing. Aggie.
As the fire department arrives, the house sighs and collapses in on itself.