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The gate opened with a creak that silenced the shouting still emanating from inside the house. We walked up the garden path, the ocean breeze making every bloom wave in greeting and sending an intoxicating perfume wafting over us. Up close, I could see that the paint on the house was peeling, but somehow that only added to its charm. My mother paused for a moment at the base of the stairs and then turned sharply, marching between the flowerbeds until she reached an azalea bush. Then she reached down and picked up something that was lying in the grass. She held it up so that I could see it; it was a geode. I stared down at the pinkish crystals inside it, like jagged teeth in a smiling mouth.
“Is… there a rock garden?” I asked in a weak attempt at a joke.
“No, this is what came through the window. If they’re already throwing things, I should probably be armed.”
I laughed weakly, but my mother wasn’t smiling. “Wait, seriously?”
Instead of answering me, she crossed to the steps and ascended to the porch, past a trio of rocking chairs and a crooked porch swing. I followed her, tripping over my own feet as I tried to avoid spoiling the blossoms that surrounded me like a carpet. She waited until I stumbled to her side, and then my mother reached up a hand and knocked sharply on the peeling lavender door.
We waited a few tense seconds, then heard footsteps from inside. The door flew open, revealing a startlingly attractive woman with porcelain skin and rippling cascades of jet-black hair. She deigned to bestow one withering glare on us both before slamming the door promptly in our faces again.
My mother looked over at me, expression wry. “That was your Aunt Persephone. And that greeting was actually warmer than I was expecting.”
Before I could shake off my surprise and muster a response, there was an outbreak of angry hisses and scuffling noises behind the door. It sounded for a moment like a fight had broken out between several angry cats. Then the sounds stopped and the door was pulled open again. I had just a moment to see that the woman who had opened it was not the same woman who had just slammed it before she flew at my mother and flung her arms around her, enveloping them both in a cloud of white dust.
“Kerridwen! You came! I knew you’d come! I told her you would and you did! Oh, Kerri!” The words were muffled against my mother’s shoulder.
“Of course I came, Rhi. Get a hold of yourself!” my mother coughed.
“Right, sorry. Oh, you’re all flour-y. Sorry, I’m so sorry,” the woman said, and stepped back from my mother, trying to wave the rest of the flour out of the air and off of my mother’s tank top. As the flour cleared like smoke, I could see her for the first time.
Rhiannon Vesper was average height, with a slight, boyish frame and a mess of honey-blonde curls which she had tied up off of her face with a flour-smudged scarf. The wide blue-gray eyes behind her glasses blinked bemusedly at me for a moment before her lightly freckled face broke into a wide grin that revealed a gap between her front teeth. I could see echoes of my mother in the shape of her narrow nose, the point of her chin, and the freckles that were sprinkled across the apples of her cheeks. Her clothes—a pair of patched jean overalls and a blouse patterned brightly with flowers—were covered in flour and smudges of chocolate.
“Wren, this is your Aunt Rhiannon. Rhi, you remember my daughter Wren,” my mother said.
“Of course I do! Oh, Wren! You’re… do you know, all this time, I was picturing a toddler running around, but that’s just silly, isn’t it?” she said with a trilling laugh that made her sound like a rodent with anxiety.
I had no idea how to respond without sounding rude, because of course it was silly. So I just smiled weakly instead.
“It’s nice to… um… see you again,” I mumbled. I’d almost said, “meet you,” but I knew I must have met her before, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by admitting I didn’t remember her.
“Oh, let’s not stand on ceremony, you’re home now. Come here,” Rhi said, and she pulled me into a hug. She smelled like a bakery, and my stomach rumbled loudly as I breathed in the sugary vanilla scent of her.
“Well, we can’t just leave you standing on the doorstep! Do come in, both of you.” Aunt Rhi stepped back to let us pass, but my mom hesitated.
“I think leaving me on the doorstep is exactly what Persi intended.”
Rhi gave that manic squirrel laugh again. “Oh, she’s just being Persi. Don’t pay her any mind.”
“Oh, I’d love to, but at this point I’d be afraid to turn my back. Is her aim as good as it used to be?” my mom asked, holding up the geode.
Rhi’s face flushed and she smiled sheepishly. “Oh, that. I was hoping maybe you hadn’t seen… well, you know Persi. She always could get a bit dramatic when she was stressed.”
“Or angry. Or tired. Or hungry. Or bored…” my mother added. “You’ll forgive me, but I am rather hoping to avoid actual armed combat today.”
“No combat. Cross my heart. Now, won’t you please come in?”
My mom handed the geode back to Rhi and stepped through the door into the house. I watched her whole body tense up like a coiled spring and then release again, like she’d expected lightning to strike her upon crossing the threshold.
If the garden outside was glorious chaos, it was nothing to the inside of the house. The entryway looked like a jungle as we maneuvered our way through it, crowded with plant stands and hanging plants in macrame hangers. Between the plants were strung twinkle lights and crystals and drying bunches of herbs and flowers. The overwhelming smell of it all hit me like a punch in the gut; Asteria had smelled just the same, the scents of her house clinging to her clothes and curls. My eyes began to sting with the salt of unshed tears.
Rhi led us through the entryway to a large sitting room full of mismatched furniture that all somehow blended perfectly together. A red velvet chaise squatted under a rainbow of cushions. A mustard-colored wingchair perched regally beside a sagging denim loveseat buried in knitted throws. An antique steamer truck plastered with faded travel stickers served as a coffee table, above which hung a ludicrous chandelier made of brightly hued crystals that threw little rainbows like confetti over everything. What little of the walls not covered in ornately framed prints and photographs was plastered with green striped Victorian-era wallpaper. Potted plants crowded the windowsills of windows so old and tall that their sills nearly brushed the floorboards, framed by lacy white curtains and heavy eggplant-colored drapes. A battered gold gramophone crackled away in the corner, adding a soprano’s aria to the air.
But the focal point of the room was undoubtedly the massive stone fireplace. Driftwood and white pillar candles were stacked up in its mouth like mismatched teeth, and the enormous mantel was crowded with knickknacks, statues, books, and more candles. Above it hung a gilt-framed painting of a woman standing on a stormy beach, her hair whipped out in front of her like a flag, a light shining from the lighthouse in the distance. A strange feeling of déjà vuburrowed into my stomach as I stared at it, sure I could hear the ocean in the brushstrokes.
I’d stood where that woman stood. I’d felt that same wind in my hair.
“Won’t you both sit down? I can make us some tea, and we can… can talk over some things,” Rhi said, and there was still an audible tremor in her voice.
