Chapter One
She sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, hunched over an upturned vase.
Okay, so I've got five minutes. Maybe ten, tops.
Shorn of its furniture, the room looked so big and empty. Along the walls, where the dresser and the wardrobe had been, the wallpaper was a different shade, a milky resonance like an afterimage. Light slanted in through the streaked window. She'd looked out over this street-scene - SUVs and Station Wagons nestling in garages, scarlet fire hydrants, Jerry Kipowski's trike upturned in a storm drain - her entire life, and this would be the last time she'd look down upon it.
Once, a long time ago, she'd helped her mother plant a tree out front. The tree was now a puny sapling, strapped for protection to a wooden pole, wilting already.
I've just got to recite it exactly. No pauses, no mistakes. That's all.
Other than the vase, the only other thing left in the room was a dusty copy of Praktical Magick at her side. The book's cover was spoiled, rather unromantically, with a large NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY stamp - well, the library wasn't going to get it back. She felt a little guilty about that; but on the ticket inside the first page, she saw she was the first person to borrow it since November 1954. Twice in 35 years. New York would cope without it.
She double-checked a passage - closed her eyes and recited it. Satisfied, she cleared her throat.
This is it. Last chance.
"Though I know I should be wary- still I venture someplace scary-"
That sounded right. Now the tricky part:
"Ghostly hauntings, undead heartbeats..."
"Julia Deetz! Julia Deetz! JULIA DEETZ!"
Something crashed beneath her, a terrific noise that punched into the world with such violence she was suddenly that little girl again, the girl who'd planted trees. She screeched with fright and rolled herself instinctively into a ball. OMYGOSH OMYGOSH...
""Pumpkin!" A parental voice, but not the one she'd expected to hear. "Are you ready? Will you come and help me pick up all these plates? And don't forget to close the bathroom window!"
She lifted her head and inspected the room. No great flashes of light. No smoke or sulphur. No ectoplasm. Jerry Kipowski was back on his trike, whooping as he careered towards his next accident. Mrs Kipowksi was there, as glamorous as ever, bawling at Jerry to watch out before he brained himself. Jerry, having never known the absence of that nagging advice, bawled back and took it for granted.
She closed the book - it slammed with a heavy thud - and picked it up. She kicked the vase into a corner of the room.
"Coming, father!"
Her father, a man with financial means greater than his physical means, had hired a firm of sarcastic, semi-reliable removal men from Queens to deal with the bulk of their stuff - the Three Stooges had probably already wisecracked their way halfway to Boston or Castle Rock or flip knows where by now. What they'd left - the small, valuable stuff - Charles Deetz had packed up for the car, and mostly made a mess of. They say moving house is one of the most stressful things a person can do: the truth of this was etched into Charles's face.
He knelt over the broken china, fitting pieces together (they made a horrible, skin-itching scrape) and muttering about a tube of superglue that was now missing in action somewhere in New England.
"Hey, Lydia," he said, "you don't happen to know if Delia ever keeps track of her plates, do you? I mean, she can't know exactly how many she's-" He looked up now, at Lydia. "Say, that's an, umm, very interesting outfit you're sporting there, pumpkin."
"Do you like it? I made it myself!" She stuck her arms out so the red poncho could fan across her body. "Do you like the spiderweb pattern?"
Charles was scooping up pieces of broken plate and dumping them into the box from which they'd spilled. He frowned.
"It's lovely, pumpkin ! Just a little, well, rudimentary." He was floundering for a valid-but-inoffensive criticism. Lydia felt a fair amount of sympathy, but also a certain determination. "What if you want to climb a tree," he grabbed at, "or ride a bike?"
"It's okay, father," she said sweetly, "I don't want to do any of those things."
He'd sprung this move on her and, no matter how guilty she felt, she didn't want to cede anything else today.
"This is a chance for you to meet new people today, new friends!" he said brightly. "Remember what we talked about? You can play Goth later on, as soon as we're settled, but for now maybe it'd be sweeter if you changed into one of those dresses I bought you."
Poor father, she thought. She didn't like to do this, but she knew instinctively that this wouldn't be anything like the last battle they'd have. She needed this foothold.
"You know what Delia says," she said, feeling like some kind of ratfink, feeling already like she'd have to make this up to her father soon. "She says it's good to encourage my creativity."
She didn't like to use Delia as leverage - but it was true. Creativity - such a usefully vague term - was the closest Lydia and her stepmother came to a bond. It was Delia, surprisingly, who'd taken Lydia shopping in the macabre little shops in the East Village (she'd hated every minute, blatantly, but Lydia felt that meant she deserved a little grudging respect); Delia who'd allowed her to experiment with eye-shadow and mascara. It wasn't an entirely frictionless setup they had - Lydia was running out of blank compliments to pay to Delia's bizarre sculptures, and Delia's constant offers of an afternoon in the tanning salon ("you look so pale, dear, the other children at school must wonder what your parents are doing to you!") were becoming a little irksome, but somewhere in their intersecting circles there was a Venn-like island of common ground. And Lydia realised, with a calculation she was dimly horrified to discover she possessed, that she had considerable leeway over Delia.
Charles took the box and stumbled to his feet. His cheeks were pink with effort. He'd conceded. "Well, OK," he said weakly. "Will you go and fetch Percy? And if you see Delia, tell her we're going now."
"Ok, father. No problem."
Delia was in the garden, fussing around a shrubbery she was reluctant to leave unattended (she'd been over that morning to see the Carlins next door, to drop off a bucket of plantfood and elaborate instructions for proper shrubcare). She waved at Lydia and pointed at Prakital Magick. "Is that another one of your Stephen Kings, dear? I do hope you won't read the gory parts out loud again - you know how nervous your father gets when he'd driving."
"Not quite," Lydia said. "I wouldn't do that again."
"That's nice, dear."
Lydia stepped forward and took hold of a shrub leaf. It felt slick and greasy in her palm. This was, in all probably, the first time she'd ever touched this shrubbery, probably the first time she'd ever even considered it, but she felt with a sudden wave of sickly nostalgia that she was going to miss it sorely. "This book, it's for... an experiment. It's a magick book. Magick with a k."
"Sounds fascinating, dear."
This was one of those little things that Delia did. If she wasn't listening to you, she'd say whatever you were saying was nice. If she could hear you but didn't really want to, it was fascinating.
"Dad says the car's ready now."
Delia gave the shrubbery a quick, heartfelt embrace. "OK, dear," she said. "Oh, I'm so glad we're going, honey, I have to tell you. The pipework always rattled, it was always so cold in the kitchen, and there was such a draught! I'm not sad to leave this house."
A cloud passed over the roof, dulling the twinkle of light that played across the slate. Well, Lydia thought, I never knew my parents had a skylight in their bedroom. Wonder what things I won't get to find out about this place.
Delia's expression fell into one of dumb, sad confusion. She'd realised her insensitivity.
"Oh, Lydia, darling, I'm sorry. I know-"
Lydia smiled her thin, wan smile. "It's OK," she said. "Don't feel bad. I know you didn't mean anything by it. Death? It's no biggy."
Delia approached, uncertainly, maybe to pat Lydia on the back, or hug her, or have a girls' talk. Lydia could cope with death but she wasn't sure she could cope with that. Mercifully, Delia vanished indoors as Charles sounded the horn, and Lydia was allowed a minute alone in the house.
She wandered through the empty shell of the house, pulling her poncho tight around her body and trying to remember something, anything. On TV, when characters walked around empty buildings at the end of a series, those memories would rush forward in booming voiceover and grainy special-effect: she believed in TV much less than she believed in magick, but it was still a disappointment when nothing came. An empty shell the house remained. If something had happened at the incantation, any kind of hint or slight movement, she'd have found a way to stay here, for as long as necessary. She'd have chained herself to the pipework if need be. But there was nothing but open blank spaces and a smug kind of silence.
Lydia stood in the open doorway. The cloud had passed over and the sun was out again. Her father beckoned her from the driver's seat. Delia fixed her makeup in the rear-view mirror.
One last look at the hallway, up the stairs, which lead to a window. The sun shone through, brilliant and blinding, burning its way over from the heavens.
"Goodbye, mom," Lydia said, and closed the door.