“Man, y’all are cold blooded,” she said, shaking her head. She trudged up the stairs. A few moments later she called down to us. “Come on up.”
CHAPTER 6
I climbed the stairs, ducking so I didn’t hit my head on the stairwell’s slanted roof, and emerged in a small room with a conical ceiling.
“We’re in the turret,” I said, peering out a small oval window that overlooked the driveway.
Shelving went around the entire room. Every nook was filled with books, boxes, and a bunch of old furniture. Paintings hung on the walls, but unlike the ones downstairs they all featured the same person—a woman, her skin rendered in the warmest golden brown, her hair and eyes dark. In one gold-framed portrait, she sat at a table scattered with an assortment of strange items. A small fire burned in a dish in front of her as she poured liquid from a cup into the flames. Next to the dish sat a large green toad, an abalone shell, and a coiled red string. The woman stared out at me, her full lips parted, like she was about to say something.
“Do you think she’s related to them?” I asked. “To Circe and the other people in the portraits in the hall?”
Mo studied the painting. “Maybe. She looks a lot like them, like you.”
“We should probably start moving some of the junk out of the bedrooms and get the sheets in the wash so we have a clean place to sleep,” Mom said.
“Good idea,” Mo said. They went to the stairs.
“I just need a minute,” I said.
Mo nodded and ushered Mom down the stairs. I didn’t want to leave yet. Not until I’d had a chance to look at the other painting of the mysterious woman. In it, she was seated next to a man, her right hand extended over a small copper-colored dish, eyes fixed on her work. I could see the painter’s brushstrokes in the red of her dress. The woman looked absolutely focused on whatever was in the dish, and the man next to her sat in rapt attention, his brown eyes wide, regarding her with some mix of fear and intrigue.
I looked around, trying to imagine the people who had lived here before, what they might have been like. It was clear they loved books and had a soft spot for the woman in the paintings. I pictured them standing where I was standing, deciding which books to read and which pieces of old furniture they were going to stow in the turret. A wave of curiosity like I hadn’t felt since I was younger overtook me.
I fished the manila envelope Mrs. Redmond had given me out of my bag and opened it. Inside was a smaller white envelope. My first name was written across the front. I slipped my finger under the lip of the seal. As I pulled it open, a scream cut through the stuffy attic air.
My heart jumped into my throat. I shoved the letter in my pocket and scrambled down the stairs as the scream rang out again. The front door sat open. I raced onto the porch and jumped, bypassing the four steps and landing on the driveway’s cracked pavement. I couldn’t see Mom or Mo anywhere.
A groan sounded from the side of the house. I rushed toward it, skidding around the corner. The toe of my sneaker caught on a rock and I fell face-first next to the big green dumpster.
Mom lay in a heap next to me, newspapers scattered all around her. Mo stood next to the dumpster, doubled over, laughing hysterically.
“I’m gonna piss myself!” she said.
Mom sat up. Bits of grass and leaves stuck out of her hair. She brushed herself off. “It’s not funny!”
I rolled to a sitting position and readjusted my glasses. My knee throbbed and my elbow was scraped up. A cool, tingling sensation spread over my palms and down the side of my neck.
I glanced at Mom. The leaves clinging to her were familiar to me—something I’d used in a bouquet? Some other arrangement maybe. I looked closer.
“Oh no.”
It was all I could say before deep, ruddy splotches bloomed on Mom’s face and neck, her outstretched arms, her bare legs. The spots turned to raised welts and the area around her left eye began to swell.
She clawed at her skin. “What the hell is this? Why am I so damn itchy?”
We’d both tumbled into a tangle of brush. Clusters of leaves