“Haina would really like us to capture your ceremony tonight.” A pause. “If you’re comfortable with that.”
Siobhan is standing close to Grace and is so tall that she looms over her a little, casts her in shadow. Grace’s First Fly had taken place a few days before. Elly hadn’t been able to watch as she leapt from the roof, could only think of Lakshmi. But Grace had soared through the sky like a comet; unstoppable, burning bright.
“I don’t think I am comfortable with that,” Grace says flatly.
Elly watches from the corner of her eye as Siobhan braces her palms behind her and uses them to hoist herself up so that she’s sitting on the counter. She’s getting flour all over her black jeans, but she doesn’t seem to care. Perhaps she meant this position to be casual, non-threatening, but it makes the muscles in Grace’s neck tighten. Elly can see them from where she’s standing: fat bands of rope under the skin.
“Yeah, I get that. It’s really important we get this footage though, for the film. I know how committed you are to the house, so I’m sure you understand.”
“I don’t really care about the film,” Grace says, but not unkindly – there’s a sort of blankness to her words. “And you don’t know anything about me.”
When Elly thinks about it, she doesn’t know much about Grace either. She knows that she’s an early riser and won’t go to bed until after midnight, and only when she can’t find a single task to occupy her hands any longer. She knows that she likes a teaspoon of honey in her tea in the morning and that she has cracked sores on her strangely shaped hands from all the kneading and scrubbing and working.Grace’s day-to-day life, Elly could recite by rote, but of what brought her to the house in the first place, she knows far less. They have exchanged scraps of information, now and again, made bold by the tedium of work. Elly knows that Grace comes from Belfast. She knows that she once had a wife and doesn’t anymore. She knows that loss carved a ravine deep into her, a space only hard work can fill.
“You said we didn’t have to be on camera,” Grace is saying, “if we didn’t want to be.”
“Of course, of course,” Siobhan says, waving a hand. “And there’s plenty we could do to obscure your identity, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just think—”
“No,” Grace interrupts. The sudden loudness of her voice makes Keiko look up from where she’s simmering stock on the range. Her eyes dart to Elly, wide.
Siobhan is shrugging. Elly wonders how many people have said no to her in her life, and how many times Siobhan has accepted that answer. “Fine. I just think it’s a bit selfish, is all.”
Elly holds her breath. She expects Grace to retaliate, but instead she’s laughing. Siobhan jumps down from the counter.
“You think it’sselfish, do you?” Grace says. “As selfish as using the stories of wounded women for your film? As selfish as invading their private, secret sanctuary and shoving cameras in their faces so that you can get your story?”
“We’re trying to celebrate Hex House,” says Siobhan. There’s a steeliness to her now. “Haina invited us here. She asked us, she askedme, to do this. I care about the house as much as you do.”
But Grace isn’t listening anymore. She’s returned to her dough, and she starts to hum to herself as if Siobhan isn’t even there. Siobhan holds both of her palms up in exaggerated surrender and backs her way out of the kitchen door.
“Back to work, Elly,” Grace says without looking up.
Elly hadn’t realised she’d been staring. Now, she reaches into a cupboard above her head to bring out the bananas for tonight’s dessert. When her fingers touch the skins, she recoils. They’ve gone black and are leaking brown mush all over the wood. They smell putrid, as if they’ve been spoiling for a long time.
“When did these arrive?” she asks Keiko.
Frowning, Keiko puts a finger to her cheek and then her shoulder. The sign foryesterday.
***
In the afternoon, as Elly heads to Haina’s study for her next session, she tries to remember what she knows about the ceremony. She’d meant to ask about it last time, but before she could, Haina had tied a belt around Elly’s neck, tightening the notches until her vision splintered. When she removed the belt, the snowy feathers weren’t only covering Elly’s hands but her forearms, her biceps, her shoulders. She felt as if she could hear the heartbeats of every creature within a one-mile radius. She felt too enormous for the study. When she looked at the glass window, she knew that she’d be able to break straight through it. Haina had seemed almost giddy, scribbling in her notebook.
“It won’t be long for you, Elly,” she’d said. “You areformidable, my angel.”
Elly hadn’t had a chance to ask what she meant before there’d been a knock at the door, Margot, waiting to start her session.
Now, Elly knocks and enters the study, nerves fizzing in her stomach, although she can’t pin them to anything specific. Haina gestures for her to sit down. She looks tired today, more unkempt – her eyes are puffy and stray hairs are escaping her low bun.
“Last time, you said I wouldn’t need long,” Elly says, before they can begin. “Did you mean that my ceremony could be soon?”
Haina smiles. “That’s right.”
Elly looks down at her hands. “But Grace has been here for years. I’ve only been here for…” She stops. How longhasshe been here? Weeks, months? Her stomach is large now, it stops her from bending down or from sleeping very long at night, but there is no other way to tell how long has passed since the night she ran from the cottage.
“It takes some guests less time than others to truly master their hex,” says Haina. “Some women are very unusual, in that their hex has been waiting for a long time to be discovered. That’s you, my angel – you are very special. Very special indeed.”
Elly feels the words settle over her and tries to believe them.Special. Still, anxiety prickles at the underside of her skin. “And what happens?” she asks. “At the ceremony?”
Haina’s smile doesn’t dim, but it does seem to strain at the edges. “Another simple test. Nothing more. Like the First Fly, only, a little bit more difficult. It might seemstrict, all these trials, but I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t let you go until I know you’re strong enough.”
