I stared mutely for a moment, once again struggling to unpack all the crazy that was being thrown at me. Was being bananas a requirement to living around here?
“I thought… But…” I regrouped and started again. “Peggy does own the house, right? She just also lives in Europe?”
“Yes, she does. She does own the property, yes. And all the surrounding wood. Wants nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, I see.”
“No, you don’t.”
And that was my cue.
“Okay, well.” I took a sip of my tea to wash down the last of the sandwich, stood, and gave her a pleasant smile. “Thank you for the tea and sandwich. If you wouldn’t mind getting me the key, I’ll go get familiar with the house.”
Niamh watched me stand, her eyes calculating. My smile faltered. My eagerness to check out the house, and get the hell out of this one, was whittling away at my patience.
Finally, she climbed to her feet, leaning heavily on the table to do so. “Sure, yeah, o’course. Let me just go grab it. Wait a minute there, you.” Her body crackled as she finished straightening up, but her walk didn’t seem impeded by old bones.
I wished I could glide half so well. Or was as trim.
Time to get serious about losing weight, toning up, and claiming my body back. If this woman could do it, clearly it wasn’t an age thing. It was a motivation thing. Well, color me motivated.
“Here.”
I jumped and spun for the second time that day. How did these people manage to sneak up on me so easily? Was there something in the water?
Niamh held out a manila envelope. “There’s a few bits and bobs in there for you. If I were you, I’d let the house grow on you first before ye go hokin’ through everything. That is…if it does grow on you. It’s fickle, as I said, and some things you won’t want to find right away.”
That thrill of excitement arrested me again. I could not imagine what things I would not want to find. For so long, life had been on autopilot—wake up, be domestic, go to sleep. Those chains had finally been broken. Although the unexpected could be found behind every door at my parents’ house, it wasn’t exactly exciting - more like quietly horrifying. I had a feeling it would be different at Ivy House. There, the horrifying things would at least be loud.
I took the envelope, feeling the weight of the key inside.
“And don’t let that Earl give you any grief, either, the silly el’ sod. He hasn’t had a master in so long, he’s grown fat and lazy. It’s about time he earned his keep.”
If Earl lost any more weight, he’d float away.
I paused for a moment, remembering something earlier in the conversation. “You knew I was here before, when I was a kid. Why—how is that?”
A little smile crawled across her lips. “I’ve lived here a long time. A lot of the town has. We’ve seen the grape-bearing weeds grow up around us, the town change from honest folks to handsy tourists. I remember wondering if Peggy had been right about Diana, only to see her and her parents legging it out of the house three days after arriving. Three of you were running. One was being dragged. You. That’s why you stuck in my head. I hadn’t noticed you before that.”
Memories drifted in as Niamh led me to the door and gently shoved me out. I did remember being dragged, but that was by Diana. I couldn’t recall her parents being in much of a hurry. They were upset that Diana was upset, sure enough, but not because of the house.
Right?
“I’m headed to the pub at eight. Meet me out front if ye want to go. I can introduce you to the locals,” Niamh said as I crossed the street.
I gave her a noncommittal wave before meeting Earl—Mr. Tom—on the stoop, exactly where I’d left him. The rock Niamh had thrown had rolled up against his polished black boot. He must have stood there, unmoving, for at least an hour.
“Did you get the key?” he asked, eyeing the envelope.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He didn’t move out of the way. “Are you sure? If she didn’t approve of you, you would not have left with the key.”
“Yeah, it’s…” I shook the envelope. “It’s in here.”
“Are you sure?”
After giving him my best mom look, which promised someone was going to get paddled if this kept up, I opened the flap on the envelope and extracted a huge, mottled iron key that appeared to have come right out of the Iron Age. Liquid pooled in my bladder as I held it up for inspection. The seal was about to break. Stupid postpartum pee issues.
“I’ll just…” I squeezed things up tight, much too old to do the pee-pee dance. “I need to use the restroom, so I’ll just go ahead and let myself in.”
I didn’t make it a question in case he threw something else weird at me.
The key slid into the lock, and something clicked. Not the metal tumbler turning over, but something inside of me. A door opening. A light coming on.
This felt right in a way nothing had in a long, long time. Like it was meant to be. Like my strife had not been in vain, at any point, and the next chapter of my life was, indeed, about to start. I couldn’t wait.
Except first I had to pee.
“Where’s the restroom?” I asked, my nose curling slightly as a side effect of the effort of squeezing all my lower lady muscles.
“Just off to the right, turn left, and straight back,” Mr. Tom said, his words coming out slower than they really needed to.
“Great, thanks.”
“I will wait right here—”
My feet sank into a cushy rug with a dizzying checkered pattern in orange and rust. I passed a beautiful curving stairwell, the steps lined with the same carpet, barely glanced at a wall of paintings, crossed under an arched doorway, and quickly veered right.
The restroom waited where he’d said it would, with a high wooden door in a lovely white frame. I barreled through the opening, whipped around and slammed the door shut without meaning to. I tore at my jeans with harried fingers, and made it just in time.
“Oh mama, that feels good,” I murmured, looking over the large bathroom outfitted with brass and porcelain and oil paintings. What a fine place. Even the bathroom was gorgeous.
The verdict was in—I was excited to have taken this position. Diana thought I was nuts for thinking so, but this was cool. This old house was cool.
If only the neighbor and inhabitants weren’t so weird.
“And who the hell is Edgar?”
Five
Niamh rocked her chair in the silence of the coming night, picking up scents as they wafted by. Every so often, she slowly turned her head until she was looking at the large house at the top of the street.
Edgar stood by the bushes near the porch, waiting. Gloating.
She had come back.
After all this time, after establishing a different life for herself, she’d freed herself up somehow, walked away, and come back.
Edgar had always said she would. He’d read something in her.
When she and young Miss Havercamp—Mrs. Drury now—had found the heart of the house, he’d watched them from the shadows. He’d instantly known the truth. Miss Havercamp wasn’t the heir. It was Jacinta.
Niamh hadn’t been convinced. People changed, especially Janes—non-magical women—Jessie’s age. They were shaped by society. Softened. Had their boldness smoothed out. Niamh had doubted, all those years ago, that Jessie would still be worthy by the time she was twenty. Certainly by middle age.
But lookey, lookey. That old vampire might’ve been right. It wasn’t set in stone yet, of course. The house still needed to assess the new charge. Still needed to see if she was the right fit. But it was a promising start that the house knew just when to prompt Earl to contact Peggy. There was a connection there that wasn’t usual.
Niamh had to own, though, that if Jessie was the right fit…well, that would certainly blow her mind. It would be a lot for a Jane to come to grips with at her age. Of course, it wasn’t that Jacinta was old. Niamh herself was pushing four-hundred. Earl might as well just roll over and die. Edgar was as old as dirt. Literally. He was so old he didn’t even function right. The vampire had turned from a hunter into a gatherer. His clan had shrugged and waved goodbye.
Age wouldn’t matter when the magic was once again unleashed from the heart of Ivy House. Everyone who tended the house, who protected it, would get a dose of power. Of strength.
Of youth.
No, Jessie’s age didn’t matter one lick, but the fact that she’d been blind to the supernatural for forty years would definitely be a problem. Niamh wondered how she’d react to the truth. If she’d believe it if it loomed large enough in front of her face.
Humans were notorious for turning a blind eye to things that didn’t fit their world view. Every so often they got privy to magical people, and then there were mass killing sprees, taking out magicals and non-magicals alike, but that only happened once in a great while. Most of the time, humans were shockingly good at convincing themselves the world around them was as mundane as they were, and that was that. Nothing to see here, folks.
Niamh rocked slowly, feeling the age in her joints. The tightness in her back.
Her four-hundredth birthday had been a tough one. Over the hill and past her prime. Well past her prime. Old even by the reckoning of her species. Past her child-bearing years, past ripping off heads and sticking them on spikes—hell, she was even past a good old-fashioned village raiding party.