footfalls approach until our bedroom door opens and I manage a shaky smile to greet him.
“What a day,” Israel yawns, tossing his coat onto the desk. “I thought twenty first century America was busy. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I saw today.”
“No? Wouldn’t I?” I reply grimly. “I could say the same to you.”
“Oh? Did you try to talk an old lady out of using leaches so often she’s weak from loss of blood, too?” He grimaces. “Forget spiders – I’m definitely moving leaches into the number spot of creepy things I don’t like.”
“No leaches, just imaginary tea parties with insane sisters.”
“What?” He looks at me in concern. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I found Rose here, here and now. She’s,” I pause. “She’s really…how would we say it in modern terms? She’s really messed up, Is.”
“Messed up how?” he sits beside me on the bed, causing it to sag and me to lean into him.
“In every way possible,” I give a strangled laugh that is more like a sob. “She killed our mother. She knows how to control traveling and she went back in time,” I feel as incredulous as I sound at the words coming out of my mouth, “and pushed our mother off that cliff. She’s mad. I’m not diagnosing her myself; she spent I don’t know how many years in Bedlam.”
I feel, rather than see, Israel take a deep breath and I match my breathing to his. Our chests rise and fall together as we sit.
“How will you tell Noah?” Israel finally breaks the silence.
“I don’t know. As gently as possible, I guess. How do you tell someone their daughter is back from the dead, killed your wife, and seems to want revenge on everyone else?”
“Revenge?”
“She’s been toying with me. Was in my room that night I got the scratches on my arm. It must have been her who locked me in that house and left me there. I thought someone was trying to keep me from getting close to her but it must have been her. Unless of course, it was Luke.”
“Luke? Now what are you talking about?” Israel sounds as baffled as I feel.
“Oh, right. Forgot to mention that lovely part. After our little tea party and after she started throwing dishes at me, guess who walked in?”
“Is this where I say, Luke?” Now he sounds less baffled and more forbidding. “How long have they been…?”
“Together? And believe me, they are together in every sense of the word.” I laugh harshly. “Who knows? But I feel extremely stupid.”
“He wasn’t worth it, Sonnet.”
“Worth what?”
“Worth your love.”
“I didn’t love Luke,” I smile up at him in surprise. “Never did. I found him sweet and funny and fun to be around and maybe when I thought he cared about me it may have gone to my head a little, but no one was falling in love, Is. You don’t have to worry about a broken heart.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Good,” he practically growls. “Then I can stop waiting to do this.” And he dips his head and kisses my lips, soft and sweet and slow. And for a moment at least, everything slows to a wonderful, perfect halt and all is right with the world.
********************
Later, I tell Dad about my time with Rose and about Luke’s betrayal of us. Though my mind still feels cloudy from confusion, and possibly from all the kissing Is and I have been doing, I explain things as best I can and for a long while Dad is quiet as he sits across from me. His tall legs dangle in front of him and his long arms dangle to his side, like a dejected marionette. It is a while before he speaks and when he does, his voice sounds hollow.
“Your mother knew and I knew that Rose wasn’t right. Prue knew, of course, but you were just too young. We hid her as best we could from people; she was so violent even as a tiny thing, barely walking. Old Babba threatened to take her away from us. She had the ‘Sight,’ or at least claimed she did. Seeing into the future and all that. She warned us nothing good would come from Rose, that she would bring nothing but misery and death to us, but naturally we wouldn’t listen. She was our child, our little girl, and we loved her. Sometimes she would seem almost normal, like a typical child, other times she’d