Cursed be the Wicked (17 page)

“Coop?” she says, cutting me off.

“Yeah?”

“You’re stalling.”

She’s right.

I pull the key to my mother’s house out of my jacket pocket as we start walking up to the front door. When we get there, I slide the key into its home and turn the knob. I push the door open and stand there for a minute or two with Finn beside me.

The stale air from inside wafts out along with memories of skidding through this entryway on my way up the stairs after school.

I take a shaky breath, or two, or three, and try not to resemble the eleven-year-old that left so long ago.

I stare down the hallway, toward the kitchen where Mom spent most of her time and the two of us had most of our arguments. Then I lean forward slightly and peek into the living room. I wonder what I’m about to find inside these walls.

“I don’t know what you’re so scared of, Coop,” Finn says.

“You’re right,” I tell her, looking around. “It’s just a house.”

I take a deep breath and squeeze her hand then we go in. Together.

Chapter 11

Haunted House

If stepping inside my aunt’s house had felt odd to me, stepping inside the house I grew up in after so many years away feels even more so. I’ve traveled back in time.

It’s cold, but not so cold that the heat has been turned off, just down. Our footsteps echo as Finn and I enter the front hallway. Floorboards squeak every so often. The noise brings memories to the surface of my mind. I’m reminded of how I used to sneak in, late at night, after escaping from my parents’ arguments, hoping not to wake my mother.

I always failed.

There are cobwebs dangling like fishing nets from the ceiling and corners.

The doorway to the living room is just ahead of us. I peek around the corner and I see the old La-Z-Boy chair Mom used to curl up in at night. Its brown leather is worn now and it leans to one side, broken. I notice more ancient furniture spaced throughout the room and realize my aunt has been renting the place fully furnished.

There’s a small pang inside my chest that builds with every step, the further Finn and I travel into the house. I’m suffocating with memories that should mean nothing to me by now.

Memories of the night authorities brought charges against me for killing my father, the night those charges were dropped, only to have more brought against Mom for the same murder.

Reality hits me. They’ll always bring bitterness and resentment, and I’ll never see them gone.

Like a scar, they might fade, but they’ll always be there.

My attention moves to the staircase and my heart skips a beat or two because for just a split second, I think I see my mother waiting at the top of them, staring down at me with an empty expression. Only, if I’m actually seeing her, that would make her a ghost, and since I don’t believe in ghosts, I know it can’t be true.

She’s gone as quick as I can blink and my heart aches unexpectedly when I realize she’s no longer there.
That she was never there
. I find myself wishing I’d had the chance to say goodbye to her, that I’d had a chance to say anything, really.

“Coop?” Finn says. I assure her, “I’m good.”

We drift inside a bit more. I walk around, half expecting to wake up and find that the past ten years has been nothing but a dream.

“Why do you think she left you the house?” Finn wonders aloud.

“I have no idea,” I mutter as I step down the hall. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing ever since my aunt told me it’s mine.”

Finn hums and I turn to see her watching me. She’s waiting for the honest version of my answer.

“Maybe she felt guilty?” I ask, like she’s quizzing me on this topic. When she doesn’t answer, I try again. “Maybe she needed to make herself feel better by giving something back to me after taking so much away.”

Those are the original thoughts that had crossed my mind, anyway. Considering what I’ve read over the past few days and hearing Finn’s opinion on the matter, I might have one more thought on the matter.

“Or maybe she wanted to tell me something,” I say, taking one more glance up the stairway.

Finn peeks up the stairs as well then forces her eyes away from the landing and smiles. “Why don’t we find out.”

I think about it. What if Mom
did
want to tell me something? What could she possibly have to say after all this time? Do I really want to know?

I nod because yeah, I think I do. “Okay.”

We head into the living room to start with, Finn on one side of the room, me on the other. I find myself looking out into the front yard through the picture window behind our old couch. I see my mother working on her garden. I see my dad working on his truck. I see a young boy running back and forth between them who has no clue what life has in store for him.

I want to warn him but it’s too late for that.

A slam from the kitchen startles me out of my thoughts. A gust of wind blows through the room. I look over to see Finn holding up an old wind chime of my mother’s. The sound of the long metal flutes dangling from it sings a familiar song.

“Where’d you find that?” I ask her as I start toward the kitchen to see where the noise came from. Finn points to a box sitting over in the corner of the room. It’s got the word attic written on the side of it. It’s filled with trinkets that look like they’ve been tossed out of the way. Perhaps Liz felt the need to pack some things up recently, seeing as no one wants to stay here. Or has it been up in the attic all along, and she pulled it down for some reason? Was she feeling nostalgic? Did she pull it down for my sake?

I try not to let the possibilities consume me.

When I get to the kitchen, the back door is open. I walk over to where it bumps softly against the counter and lean out to take a quick look around the backyard. No one is there. I check the hinges on the door. They’re a little loose. I swing the door, opening and shutting it a few times easily.

I turn to go join Finn again only to find that she’s standing at the kitchen’s doorway, watching me. I laugh quietly and run a hand through my hair before hooking a thumb over my shoulder at the back door.

“Old houses.”

She tilts her head a little.

“Is that what you’d call it?”

“What else would it be?”

She shrugs and sings, “Oh, I don’t know.”

She’s teasing me, I think, but just in case, I give her my two cent debunk type explanation.

“It’s probably been awhile since my aunt stopped by,” I tell her. “When we opened the front door, we probably forced the back one to fly open somehow.”

Finn continues to stare, so I add a little more for her benefit. Or maybe my own.

“Liz did mention the place has been empty for a while now.”

I move past her and head back into the other room. Finn follows me quietly but I have a strong feeling that she has something else to say on the matter.

I’m glad she opts not to say anything.

In the den, I find myself heading straight for the box Finn had found and I pick it up. As I start weeding through the trinkets in an attempt to avoid eye contact, I search for something only I have no idea what it is I’m looking for until I get to the bottom and see it staring up at me.

I discard the box as I inspect the eye shaped piece of glass. Finn draws near to see, too.

“Is that a nazar?”

I nod.

“It used to hang over my bed.”

“They’re supposed to protect your home from bad luck, you know,” she tells me. I contemplate the
superstition for a moment, and then I slide the nazar into the front pocket of my jeans.

“Yeah well, that’s obviously B.S.”

“Maybe,” she muses, then takes a walk around the rest of the room.

“I’m not sure we’re going to find anything your mom might have wanted you to see in here, Coop,” Finn says.

She’s right. The only place I can imagine she would possibly leave something behind would be, “Her bedroom.”

We’re half way up the staircase and I stop. Finn notices and turns around.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve never been in there,” I tell her. “It feels weird.”

“Never?”

I shake my head. She steps down to where I’m gripping the railing like a vice and puts her hand over mine.

“The door was always closed and locked. I could hear them fighting in there regardless, but they kept it closed anyway.”

Finn squeezes my hand and I look up to find her comforting eyes staring back at me.

“You don’t need permission, Coop.”

“Right,” I tell her, remembering where I am, and when I am. “It’s my house now.”

I lead the rest of the way to my mom’s bedroom. Movement below the door catches my eye just as I reach for the doorknob. As soon as the shadow appears, it’s gone again.

I swing the door fast and wide, expecting to catch whoever is in the house off guard. There’s no one in there.

I look up and eye the window, where the sill is shut tight and the curtains hang still. A bird flying by outside catches my attention. I let out a sigh of relief, laughing when I realize that’s what cast the shadow.

“Is something wrong with you?” Finn asks me.

I shake my head and rub at my eyes, then mumble my explanation. “Just this town.”

Finn glances around.

“It’ll be okay, Coop,” she tells me. “You’re bound to have moments of nostalgia in this old house.”

I shake it off. All of it, and then we begin to rummage through what’s left in the room to see if there’s anything obvious here that might tell me why I’m now the proud owner of this house.

Finn is checking out the end table on my father’s side of the bed. She’s inspecting it carefully, as though it might jump up and bite her. I’m wading through some old clothes that have been left in the closet.

My brow pinches together when I hear Finn wrestling with a drawer behind me. I look to see her grunting and huffing and suddenly, I’m completely distracted and highly amused. “Need some help?” I’m only asking because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do but in all honesty, this is the best entertainment I’ve had all week.

She fixes her feet against the bottom of the table and pulls again.

“I’m . . .
good
,” she groans and then mutters something to the table.

I grin wider as I start toward her.

“Are you sure?”

Before I can get another step, or make another offer to assist her, her fingers lose their grip from around the handle.

She screams as her feet go flying, along with the rest of her right into yours truly, knocking the wind right out of me.

I let out a cough as we crash into the wall at the back of my mother’s old closet. When we land inside, I try to breathe again.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Finn laughs as she rolls over to face me and my hands move to her hips.

I must be smiling. Or drooling, because Finn’s head tilts a little and she seems concerned.

“Coop?”

She probably thinks I have a concussion. Or maybe she noticed how having her body against mine is affecting me right now. Or maybe it’s affecting her too.

“If you wanted to get on top of me all you had to do was ask,” I let out a small laugh and Finn blushes the most excellent shade of red.

I rather enjoy the fact that I’m the one that can make that happen.

“I, um,” she starts to push off of me which isn’t like her. Maybe I caught her off guard, I don’t know, but I’m not letting her go just yet.

I hold her there, then as an afterthought, I roll us over so I’m hovering and Finn’s eyes never leave mine.

“This isn’t exactly how I planned our second kiss, but I’m willing to go with it if you are.”

“You were planning a second kiss?” she asks with a smile.

I lean in to give her the answer to that question but I stop when I see her notice something above us. I follow her stare to see what’s got Finn so interested just as some plaster falls away from the wall onto my head.

“Ow.”

“What is that?” Finn asks, trying to squirm out from under me. I tear myself away from the warmth of her skin and stand up to check out the hole we just knocked out in the wall. When I see it more closely, I can tell it’s not so much a hole that
we
knocked out, as much as it is a hole that was already
there
.

“It looks like someone tried to patch a hole or something,” Finn says.

“That’s more than a hole,” I tell her, pulling more of the wall down with my bare hands. I peer inside and realize I’m going to need more light for this but one thing is for sure.

“It’s a room,” I say to Finn, turning to see if there’s a working lamp in my parents’ old room. I find one and unplug it. Then I find another outlet, closer to the closet. I turn it on and tilt it so it’s shining in through the opening and start pulling more wall away.

In all the years I spent in this house, I never knew there was a secret room stashed somewhere, which I guess would make sense, considering I wasn’t allowed in here. But you’d think if there was a secret room, I, of all people, would have found it.

Finn helps and when we’re done, I can see the space that was originally cut away can only allow for a small-framed person to get through. This confirms for me the room was my mother’s secret, not Dad’s.

“Why would she have a room like this?” I ask but I’m not really looking for an answer, I’m just talking out loud, trying to work my way through the thought process of a woman who may or may not have been the insane person I once believed her to be.

Not always, at least.

“Do you want me to go in and look around?” Finn asks.

I’m far too curious to not go myself. So I look around the room for something I can use to bash the rest of the wall in.

“What are you doing?”

I don’t answer her, I’m too focused. When I spot something that’s perfect for what I need to do, I smile and grab it.

“Get out of the way,” I warn her when I pull back and get ready to swing the heavy candleholder.

Finn ducks and I swing at the remaining wall. When she lets herself look again, she sees the larger gap I’ve created.

Without another word, I toss the weapon down and slide through the opening. Once I’m in the small room, I’m awestruck despite its simplicity.

The walls are painted a deep purple. A single picture frame hangs directly across from where I stand with a quote inside its borders.