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“Well, part of me was hoping that Joseph was right, and this time, it would blow over somehow. After all, he was her golden child. Perhaps foolishly, I thought she wouldn’t harm him, but as his lover, you seem to be fair game. Beatrix mostly came to me in dreams. She’d wrap her hands around my throat and hiss: you have—”
“Something I want,” Eleanor finishes.
My mother nods at Eleanor, and a chill runs up my spine.
“Did it ever stop?” Eleanor asks.
My mother nods. “Yes, but only after Henry died.”
The three of us contemplate the weight of my mother’s words.
“Well, I’m not going to let that happen! What the hell are we supposed to do?”
“I’d say that if your attempt to level with her didn’t work, we should go the other direction. We need to get her out— for good,” my mother intones.
She reaches out and grabs Eleanor’s hand, “Show me that book you found. I want to give it a read. And ask Evan if he’s still friends with that psychic in Seattle. Beatrix has messed with my family for the last time.”
Chapter 17
Eleanor
JosephandIspentThanksgiving in Seattle at his aunt’s house. Iphigenia’s older sister, Doris, is every bit as feisty as she is. She pumps us full of snacks when we arrive at her repurposed farmhouse and sends us home with Tupperware containers full of dry turkey that Joseph and I don’t have the heart to tell her we won’t eat.
I spend Thanksgiving happy to explain archival work to a captivated audience and gratefully accepting the baby blankets that Doris knit for us. Still, I'm exhausted when we get back to Idylewylde Hall on Sunday night.
“I’m going to bed,” I tell Joseph with a kiss on his cheek. We’re sitting in the study, enjoying a night by the fire before I return to the library on Monday, and Joseph has to start gathering data for his end-of-the-year report.
“Really?” Joseph asks as he drains the last dregs of his glass of bourbon.
“The fire’s just getting started. I thought we could have a little fun.” He crosses the room over to the armchair where I’m curled up and kisses me fiercely. He tries to get closer, but my bump gets in the way. I’m sixteen weeks along exactly, and I might as well be five or six months along. I’m breathless and constantly aching as my skin stretches further out.
The best part of staying at Doris’ is that I slept like the dead. The week before, Beatrix terrorized my dreams, insisting that something monstrous was growing inside me.
I laugh as I kiss him back. “Yes. We both need to get some sleep. Don’t you have an early morning tomorrow as well?”
“Yes, but I’d like to pretend we’re still on vacation.” He kisses me again, and I pull away, grinning.
“You’ll still have to work tomorrow. I’ll see you in bed,” I kiss him again and wave as I walk away, enjoying how it feels to tease him.
I get ready for bed. When I’m teetering on the edge of sleep, I hear the wheeze of her voice.
“Demons.”
I pull the comforter over my head and try to ignore her. She wrenches it away, tearing the fabric.
“Those children, wrought of wedlock and sin,” she hisses.
“Go away, Beatrix!” I yell. That was another tip I learned from the Paranormal Compendium, which instructed readers to be straightforward with spirits who may be otherwise unwelcome. Beatrix ignores me and inches her palm up along my head, gripping my scalp at the base. My neck snaps back, and I scream.
“Those children are demons, and they will be mine,” she punctuates ‘mine’ by wrenching my head back again. A scream peels back from my throat. The line between dreaming and waking is nonexistent. I don’t know what’s happening. I only know the sour taste of fear in the back of my throat, the sooty mixture polluting Joseph’s pristine comforter, and the unfeeling voids of Beatrix’s eyes, black as night, as she straddles me, screeching.
“Beatrix, we don’t want you here!” I grunt.
“I am the house! The house is me! We are forever intertwined. I will outlive you all!” Her voice is booming as she wraps her arms around me.
“Get off! Get off!” I shriek.
“Eleanor?” It’s Joseph’s voice. I open my eyes. He looks perplexed and alarmed as he loops his arm around my waist, pulling me close.
