out onto the front porch. I opened the letter and read the handwritten script.
Dearest Briseis,
I hope this letter finds you well. I realize how strange all this must seem to you, and I am sorry it has come to letters and wills and lawyers. I should have told you these things face-to-face, but it was not meant to be.
I have lived my entire life here in the very house I intend to leave you. I was happy here with Selene. I find it ironic that, even with these gifts, we are not impervious to suffering.
I paused.
“Gifts.”
I hope you will make your home here, because there is no one else this place could belong to. It is yours, by right. There are things that I cannot fully explain. Selene had hoped to save you, but we cannot escape our fate. This was always meant to be.
In the turret, behind the portrait of Medea, you will find a safe. The combination is 7–22–99. More answers will be provided for you there, but you must not, under any circumstances, share the contents of these instructions with anyone. You will have questions, but everything you need to know is contained within these walls. There are, I would imagine, things transpiring in your life that you have questions about—and you may find yourself set apart. Please know that, in time, you will come to understand it all.
Always,
Circe
I stuffed the letter back in the envelope. I was about to run to the turret to see if there really was a safe behind the painting, when the car came up the drive.
Mo parked right in front of the door. “I need a hand, love.”
I helped her bring in two plastic containers of takeout and a paper bag filled with stuff from the pharmacy. We set the food on the kitchen counter and Mo caught sight of the stove.
“Look at that,” she said, smiling. “My great-grandma had a stove like that when I was a kid and even then it was old as hell. You have to start a fire in the middle part to get it going.”
“Like, with wood?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Mo. “That should be fun. Can you do me a favor and pull some of the covers off the furniture in that front room so we can sit and eat? I’d say let’s eat at the table but I saw a mouse skipping across those fancy place settings a little earlier.”
“Gross,” I said. The curiosity about what might be in the turret wasn’t loud enough to drown out the noises my stomach was making. I was starving.
Mo took the stuff from the pharmacy up to Mom and I pulled the drop cloths off the living room furniture. Everything looked like it belonged in a castle in the English countryside, not in a house in upstate New York. The couch and chaise were covered in matching emerald green fabric with yellow begonias stitched on them. There was a coffee table and an ottoman under the other cloths. I washed off some plates and forks from the kitchen and carried them to the front room with the takeout. I hooked up my laptop and put on a movie.
Footsteps on the stairs drew my attention. Mo walked down first, her finger pressed to her lips, signaling for me not to say a word. Mom came down after her, covered head to toe in pink calamine lotion, her bright red bonnet sitting halfway off her head. I laughed anyway and Mo let her hands fall heavily at her sides.
“I know, I know,” said Mom. “Laugh it up.” She lowered herself onto the couch like she was made of glass. Mo got her settled, but she kept switching her position every few minutes, huffing and puffing because she couldn’t get comfortable.
“What was that stuff Grandma put on you when those mosquitoes tore you up last summer?” I asked.
Mom tilted her head back and sighed. “I don’t know, baby, but I wish I had some right now.”
I took out my phone, glancing at the time. “You think it’s too late to call her and ask?”
“She’s a night owl,” Mom said.
Mo raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Owl’ isn’t the right word. Maybe ‘night creature’? ‘Night demon’?”
Mom was trying so hard not to smile. Mo and Grandma loved each other, but they had a funny way of showing it. Grandma was always giving Mo a hard time about putting sugar in her grits, and Mo was always telling her that her wig was crooked.