Dad was on his feet, mom was focused on Ivy, who was shrieking, while the rest of the people in the room, Rose excepted, were trying to untangle themselves in the space between the armchairs and the now-broken front window. Rose stood behind the couch, her back to the kitchen door, watching it all impassively.
“By the bonds of sympathy,” I said. “Crafted by the same coalition, drafted by the same beings, equal in weight. I bind this to that and forge a connection of like to like.”
I moved the contract, sliding it off the table and beneath the bookcases.
Ivy continued to scream. When she did speak, it was in gasps, between wails. “Wanna go!” Screech. “Wanna go!”
James was crying. He held his hands in front of him, and there was blood on them. As his mom and dad tried to help him, he flinched away from the more sudden movements of nearby family members. I had to strain my eyes to see in the midst of the chaos, but the cuts were shallow. A lot of the blood came from one short cut at the hairline.
I hadn’t planned on hurting him, not like that. But all the same, damn. I did feel stronger after all that.
Uncle Paul stepped away from Roxanne, leaving her to Aunt Jessica. He grabbed the man purse or soft suitcase or whatever the accessory was supposed to be called, and then looked to the coffee table.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Your son is hurt and you’re focused on something else?” Aunt Jessica asked.
“He’s fine. Just spooked. Rose took the damned contract.”
“I haven’t moved from this spot,” Rose said. “Right mom?”
Caught between loyalty to the group and her charade of wanting to be the dutiful parent, I could see Rose’s mom hesitate.
“Rose honestly hasn’t moved an inch,” she finally said, holding Ivy against her shoulder.
Uncle Paul scowled. “Find it. I’m going to talk to the men in the driveway and ask if they saw something.”
“I’ll come with you,” Rose’s dad said.
Then they were gone, moving right past me as they entered the hallway and turned a hard right.
I saw Aunt Steph duck down, no doubt to search under the coffee table.
I reached between the legs of the bookshelf, grabbed the reflected contract and lifted it up, pressing it against the underside of the bookshelf. Through the bond of sympathy, I held up the contract in the real world.
A good fifteen seconds passed.
“I can’t find it,” Aunt Steph finally admitted.
I relaxed, putting the contract down.
“You need to,” Rose’s mom said. “There’s pertinent details in there for…”
“For you to get me sent away?” Rose asked. “I’m not sure it matters. They’re bending rules like crazy to make this possible in the first place. Which is why it’s not going to stick.”
“We’ll see,” Aunt Steph said. “I need to talk to Paul.”
“Aunt Steph,” Rose said. “One thing.”
I reached the little patch of glass that I could peer through, a porthole into the real world. Aunt Steph was a matter of feet away. Rose’s mother and Ivy were right next to her, apparently joining her on the way out the door.
Rose continued, “Did you consider the fact that they want me out of the house so they can destroy it? Or that if the house just happened to burn to the ground, it might render the area worthless? That everything that our family did in terms of the inheritance might be for nothing?”
“The value’s in the parcel of land. It has nothing to do with the house,” Aunt Steph said.
“You read that contract backwards and forwards. If there’s a problem and it’s judged to be malfeasance on our part, the property goes to the lawyers, not any of us. What’s to say the lawyers won’t just turn around and sell to the city? We’d get virtually nothing if it played out that way.”
“That’s not how it’s going to play out,” Aunt Steph said.
“They’ve pulled strings to get me stuck in a hospital. A local hospital, right? If it’s deemed to be a psychological problem, then I could get stuck in there indefinitely. You’ve been so focused on getting me out of the way like that that you’ve failed to consider the thing at the core of this. There are powerful people in Jacob’s Bell who want us gone. All of us. They want us gone to the point that there’s a ridiculous price tag on the property, that they’d break laws and manipulate the system to get me out of the way, and you don’t think they’d take the simple, expedient route to getting rid of us by simply burning it all down, the first chance they get? You don’t think they’d call in similar favors and pull similar strings, so the police department is a little slower to arrive, or the fire station misses the call?”
If it was as easy as burning the house down, they would have done it already, I thought.
But she’d basically told Aunt Steph what the problem was. If the house was left undefended…
“Ellie and Peter can stay,” Aunt Steph said.
“Don’t volunteer me,” Ellie said.
“Those two don’t know what to watch out for,” Rose said, as if it were very matter of fact.
“I know how to watch my back,” Ellie said.
“If you did it, my children can do it,” Aunt Steph said.
“There’s a chance their lives will be in danger,” Rose said.
“This is that paranoia thing again, isn’t it?” Peter asked.
“Idiot,” Ellie said. “She’s not really paranoid. If she says my life’s in danger, I’m listening to her.”
“Molly died. Do you think that’s a coincidence?” Rose asked.
“That was murder?” Ellie asked. Rose had her full attention.
“It was,” Rose said. “Then it wasn’t. I don’t think it’s anything particular now. Just… glossed over.”
“Don’t fucking use my sister in your games,” Callan said, a distance away.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Rose said. “They alluded to it being suicide. If you think they’re right, that she was the type, and she was in that state, look me in the eyes, tell it to me. I’ll drop the subject of Molly’s death right here and right now.”
Callan looked away. “That doesn’t mean you’re telling the truth.”
“Fine,” Rose said. “Let’s leave it at that, then. Consider it on your own. They’ll put me in a hospital, maybe for the rest of my life if they can get away with it, which they can’t, and they’ll pull some sketchy stuff. You think you’re safe? That this house is? That the money is? You’re really willing to put your kids in the line of fire?”
“Eh,” Peter said, shrugging. “If it comes down to the money or us, mom’ll take the money.”
He sounded so nonchalant about it.
Though they weren’t identical twins, obviously, he bore a striking similarity to Paige. Where Paige was prim, proper, crisply dressed as a matter of habit – no doubt Aunt Jessica’s influence, Peter was all about favorite pieces of clothing that he had sentimental attachments to, wearing them until they were frayed. He had tousled hair that had been lightened to a near-white, and eyes that were exceedingly sharp.