teeth in the grass
chapter two
The humidity doesn't disappear with the sun, and even though Caroline has opened every window she can force to budge, the interior of the house only cools a scant amount.
Her phone is dead, but given her current lack of access to electricity, she tries to not worry about it too much. It's probably a much-needed break, she reasons as she strikes another match over one of the tall tapered candles she'd found in the back of the pantry.
"A digital detox," she says aloud as the wick catches light. Her magazine-backed Twitter account would be fine going radio silent for a few hours, and it's not like she has much to promote at the moment anyway.
Outside, the crickets chirp and she swears she hears the soft who of an owl nearby. After so much time in New York, with the sharp, vibrant sounds of the city singing her to sleep, the all-consuming quiet is ringing in her ears. It's the kind of quiet that spawns whispers and soft footprints across the floorboards; she moves as though she's risking getting caught, but it's absurd. She's alone in the house.
Caroline catches a glimpse of herself in the candlelight in the long oval mirror in the hallway. "Victorian widow," she laughs to her reflection, "mourning the tragic and unexplainable loss of her third husband." She grasps the edge of her shirt and pulls it out slightly to one side in the imitation of a long gown, pretending to curtsy to herself. She grins at herself before continuing on.
The old hardwood flooring is a symphony of creaking and groaning under her feet as she goes from room to room, opening windows. Mimi's bedroom door is slightly ajar, and Caroline hesitates just outside of it, staring wistfully. She had briefly considered sleeping in there, but she couldn't force her feet to carry her across the threshold.
She had only occasionally slept in Mimi's bed as a child, usually driven there by bad dreams, and she had taken solace in listening to the even sounds of Mimi's breathing until she had drifted off herself. The nightmares never followed.
When she had first arrived, Caroline had automatically dragged her heavy suitcase into her childhood bedroom, habit driving her to start unpacking before she blinked and looked down at the tiny twin bed surrounded by pale pink walls. She had groaned aloud at the idea of spending a summer in such a cramped space.
But now, with the night quickly darkening and the need for a new bedroom more pressing, she can't force herself to take up residence within Mimi's.
"The green room it is," she announces wearily, lugging her bag behind her down the hall and across the balcony that overlooks the foyer. The house is silent except for the soft sound of her footsteps and the bag scraping behind her on the floor.
The green room, so nicknamed for the light spearmint paint coating the walls, is her second favorite room in the house solely because the bed—a much more adult queen—is nestled between two large windows, allowing natural light to flood into the room. Even now with the sun having long slipped beneath the horizon, moonbeams shine their soft, hazy light onto the worn rug that lays across the floor. The windows overlook the small pond in the backyard and Caroline halts next to the bed, letting her bag drop from her fingers as she inhales deeply—
—and promptly coughs as dust, years of dust, stirs around her.
She sends an apprehensive glance down at the bed. The comforter is the one she remembers from childhood, the same pale green as the walls, with fragile lace mapping the edges. Her fingers trace the lace as she stares down at the bed. "How much dust can one bed possibly hold?" she asks the quiet air around her. There is no answer, though she can hear the breeze pick up from the wind chimes outside.
The tall windows framing the bed offer a view of the small pond behind Hawthorne House and the woods that stretch out behind it. Mimi had expressly forbidden her from playing in those woods, Caroline remembers fondly, which naturally meant that she had spent the majority of her summer days tiptoeing through the moss-covered earth, eyes wide at the discoveries that seemed to lay behind each branch. The woods are silent and still now, though the breeze ruffles the tops of some trees illuminated by the light reflected off the sky's half-moon.
With a tiny affectionate smile, Caroline closes the curtains and turns back to the bed. "It's just dust, Forbes," she scolds herself. "You removed a dead animal from the kitchen today, so what's a little dust?"
And, thoroughly chastised, she pulls the comforter back, giving it a few firm shakes just for good measure.
—
To Caroline's badly concealed surprise, Avery Gas and Water is at the front door at eight am sharp the next morning. Both of the men nod to her as though she knows them, but neither seem inclined to try to carry on a conversation, for which she's grateful. She thinks vaguely that their faces may be a bit familiar, but she couldn't name them if her life depended on it and she'd rather not guess.
With electricity and water restored, thank God, Caroline plugs in her phone and laptop while she showers. The water pressure at Hawthorne House must have been upgraded since her last summer visit, she notes gratefully as the hot water slides over her stiff limbs. Her shoulders are still carrying the tension from the drive yesterday, and are only just now relaxing under the heat of the water.
Until—
There's the sound of footsteps, light and swift, from somewhere outside the bathroom door.
Groaning, she pulls back the shower curtain slightly. "Did you forget something?" she calls out, unable to keep a twinge of exasperation from leaking into her tone.
Silence. Her forehead furrows in confusion. "Hello?"
When there is still only silence, Caroline shakes her head as though to clear it. "It's the house settling in," she tells herself firmly, though she quickens her pace with the conditioner, combing her fingers through her wet hair as fast as the sleep tangles will allow. Old houses make noise, she reasons as she towels off and steps onto the bath mat. Besides, they just turned on the water and electricity.
"That's it," she says aloud, relief flooding through her so quickly that she almost has to sit down. That explains the sound—the pipes and the HVAC system haven't been used in so long that they're groaning under the unfamiliar strain! She shakes her head at her jumpy overreaction before wringing out the excess water in her hair into the sink.
As she pads into the green room to get dressed, she wonders if maybe Steven was right, if maybe one of his dogs would be nice company out here in the middle of nowhere.
Not because she's scared, she reassures herself as she slides into her denim shorts and ancient flip flops.
Just for the company.
—
Armed with a fully charged phone and laptop, Caroline sits in the driver's seat of her father's old Subaru and lists out her next move. Fingers flying deftly over her phone's keypad, she types out in all caps: WIFI in her Notes app before cranking the car and heading down the long, shaded drive. The branches of the weeping willow lift in the breeze, fluttering towards the car.
She curbs her inner flirt's impulse to go back to Number Seven on the off chance that a particular bartender might be in residence—the clock in the car dashboard reads ten twenty-six am, and not only is that most likely much too early for someone with a nocturnally-based job, she also very firmly reminds herself that this is a business trip.
"Keep it in your pants, Forbes," she mumbles to her reflection in the side mirror as the car rolls to a stop where the gravel drive connects to the road.
For a brief moment, Caroline sits there and considers her options with her foot on the brake and her fingers tapping against the steering wheel. The closest big box store is a Wal-Mart in Greenwood and her phone is struggling to maintain its lone half bar of signal, so she's not exactly optimistic about its connection to Google Maps. She knows—roughly—how to get to Greenwood, and can only hope that there's enough signage to point her in the right direction.
With a determined nod, she eases forward—
—and nearly gets side swiped by a rusty red pickup that's flying down the otherwise empty street.
Before she can stop herself, her palm slams down on the car horn and she lets loose a flurry of curses that would have had Mimi threatening to wash her mouth out with soap. The red truck speeds by, unperturbed, and Caroline glares daggers at its bumper as it vanishes down the road.
"Motherfucker," she mutters one more time, injecting the syllables with as much acid as she can muster, before turning onto the road.
The drive to Greenwood isn't exactly interesting, but Caroline finds her attention arrested anyway. There's nothing around for miles except farmland and forest, broken up by the occasional small church; acres and acres of varying greens that sit stark against the bright blue of a cloudless sky. She rolls her windows down, like she had the day before, and takes a deep breath.
There's something just the tiniest bit different about the scent of the air today: drier, and less floral. She supposes that it's due to the sprawling farmland sweeping past her open window, their silos shiny, modern, and kudzu-free. She'd bet her left tit that none of the homes anchoring those estates had even a whisper of a ghost story.
But as the car speeds down the highway, she notices that there is far less green than she remembers, and far more white signs sitting precariously close to the road, their red letters shouting For Sale. Shaking her head, Caroline gives a low whistle as she flies past the fourth one she's seen since she noticed and started counting. "Climate change is a bitch," she comments aloud to no one.
It's another thirty minutes before she's pulling into a parking spot at the Wal-Mart, and her phone has three glorious bars of service. Fervently, she uses her data and Googles the best modems and routers, saving screenshots to her camera roll before swiping over to her texts.
There are twelve, twelve texts from Elena, and they start out light—checking to see if she arrived safely, how did it go after seeing the house after so long, was it weird being back in Avery; until the last message, which is just a huffy call me, bitch with an angry red-faced emoji. Wincing, Caroline taps the phone icon next to Elena's name.
"She lives," Elena greets instead of a hello. "I was this close to asking Natalie if she'd heard from you."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Caroline protests as she gets out of the car. "It's been…" she pauses, searching for the right word. "Weird," she says finally.
"Well, duh. You're back in a place with a lot of memories, but you've grown up a lot since you were last there, so it's bound to be disorienting for you," Elena says practically, and Caroline can hear the sounds of pots clanking in the background.
"Little late for breakfast, Gilbert," she comments lightly and when Elena snorts, Caroline can see her friend in her mind's eye, standing over her stove and whisking furiously at a pan full of eggs.
"Listen, Forbes. This is brunch, for myself, since my favorite brunch buddy has abandoned me to traipse around the middle of nowhere with the best assignment to come out of Town and Home since they discovered dry bars."
"Man, I'd kill for a dry bar," Caroline says wistfully, snagging a cart and wincing at the bright fluorescent lights. She didn't even bring a hair dryer with her, resigning herself to let her hair run wild. Although—she perks up as the article idea strikes: How to Embrace Your Frizz in the Mississippi Humidity. Though she'd have to, you know, actually embrace her own frizz. She makes a note to stop in the shampoo aisle.
She's pulled from her thoughts at the sound of something rattling and pictures Elena shaking a whisk at her. "Well, I'd kill for your feature," Elena snips back, before sighing into the phone. "Okay, it's out of my system. I'm done being bitchy and jealous, I promise. Tell me everything!"
And she doesn't know why, but the first thing that comes out of her mouth is, "There's a hot bartender in town. I think he's new."
"Really? You said nothing new ever comes to that town!"
Caroline shrugs, loading her cart up with a few frozen dinners. She should pull out some of Mimi's cookbooks, she thinks as her gaze wanders over to the produce section, and finally learn how to cook something that isn't mashed potatoes. "Well, something new did."
"Okay, and? Don't be a tease, Forbes, I need details."
Details—
"Hot, British, bartender," she recites, and she is struck by how much she doesn't want to talk about him despite being the one to bring him up mere seconds ago. "That's all I got."
She can practically see Elena deflate through the phone. "Fine, then the next time you call me, you better have more information—"
"Such as?"
"I dunno, Care, maybe like what his ceiling looks like? Use your imagination!"
And for the life of her, she doesn't know why she's being so cagey about Klaus the British bartender who wears button downs in eighty-degree weather, but she does know that she's done talking about him. "Who got the scarves feature?"
The distraction works. "Freaking Savannah. That bitch wouldn't know an Oxford comma if it walked up to her naked in Times Square and asked to go to Olive Garden."
Caroline makes a sympathetic noise. "Sorry, 'Lena."
She can almost hear Elena attempt a dismissive shrug. "It's fine, I guess. Whit gave me a bunch more copy-editing to do, and she mentioned that Christina MacNeil—you know, up in the editing department?—is leaving to go write for some Instagram influencer's DIY blog, so I might...I dunno, I was thinking I might apply for her job."
This quiet admission stops Caroline cold in the cereal aisle. "In editing? But Elena, you're such a good writer!" Elena doesn't say anything in reply, so she rushes on, "Let me get my Wi-Fi hooked up tonight and we can FaceTime and figure out who we have to kill to get you an article, okay?"
Elena heaves a sigh that tugs at her heart. "Yeah, okay. That sounds good, Care." Her tone brightens. "Tell me about the house!"
Caroline pauses before pulling cans of soup into her cart. "Get this," she says in a low, conspiratorial voice; in her mind's eye, Elena leans forward eagerly in her seat. "Steven thinks it's haunted. Can you believe that? Like, with actual ghosts!"
She waits expectantly for Elena to laugh, for her to brush it off as the joke it is. Instead, she hears a sharp intake of breath, followed by a quick murmur in a language she doesn't recognize—Russian-sounding, but not quite. "Elena?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Elena says, and her voice is just a tiny bit shaky. "Sorry, I was just—old habits, I guess." She lets out a breath. "Don't...don't fuck around with that stuff, Care."
Caroline can't help it; an undignified snort escapes her before she can stop it. "You don't seriously believe in that, do you?"
"I don't know," Elena replies, voice low and serious, "but my Bulgarian baba definitely did, and I'm not risking it." There's rustling, and Caroline imagines Elena shaking her head furiously. "I mean, I wasn't exactly thrilled about losing my best friend in this entire godforsaken city for an undetermined amount of time, and by herself to some, like, Deliverance town—"
"That's a little unfair, they're not inbred," Caroline protests, but Elena rattles on as though she hadn't spoken, "—I was already worried about you, and now you tell me your ancestral home is straight out of The Others? Caroline, promise me you'll be careful."
And Caroline is so taken aback by the outburst that she's motionless in the canned goods aisle, mouth opened in surprise. Her first instinct is to crack a joke, to lighten the mood and make Elena laugh, but it fades quickly as she processes just how serious her friend is.
She isn't even all that sure what she's promising—careful how? and of what?—but it seems Elena's peace of mind rests entirely on it. "Okay," she says finally. "I promise I'll be careful."
Elena sighs, and the jittery energy in her voice is not entirely abated. "Get your Wi-Fi set up tonight," she instructs, "and FaceTime me. I want a full virtual tour of the house." Some of her earlier enthusiasm has washed away, but they both pretend not to notice.
"I will," Caroline promises and they say their goodbyes, leaving her standing motionless next to the soups, under the world's worst fluorescent lighting, wondering what exactly she's missing. "Ghosts aren't real," she whispers insistently to the cans of Campbell's chicken and stars.
And with that, she makes her way determinedly into the gardening aisle.
She will revive Mimi's vegetable and flower gardens if it kills her.
—
It's a little overwhelming, just how many variations of seeds stare back at her in the gardening section. It's rows and rows of small boxes and packets, and no matter how hard she scours her memory, she can't remember if Mimi planted bell peppers or banana peppers—
"Caroline?" a familiar female voice calls out hesitantly. "Caroline Forbes?"
At the sound of her name, Caroline straightens and drops the small box of bell peppers into the cart before turning. There, hovering hesitantly behind a stack of large clay pots, is Bonnie Bennett.
Bonnie Bennett, whose phone number was the only one from Avery that had survived the Great Purge of 2016, who she still occasionally sent a saw this, thought of you! text—Bonnie Bennett, who had been her best friend every summer for the better part of a decade and who had sent a beautiful spray of white flowers to Mimi's funeral. With the whirlwind the last few days has been, it hadn't even crossed her mind that she should give Bonnie a heads up that she was back in town.
A pinprick of guilt needles at her, but she pushes it away and summons her sunniest smile as she opens her arms for a brief hug. "Oh my god, Bonnie! Hi!"
Bonnie returns her hug and smile tentatively, her face a bit wary. "What're you doing here, Care?" Her expression clouds. "How're you holding up with Ms. Margaret's death?"
Her great-grandmother's first name catches Caroline off guard; and she is entirely thrown when she feels her eyes start to prickle with tears. Shit. The last thing she wants is to start bawling in the middle of Wal-Mart, but it's as though her circumstances rear forward and slams into her: Mimi's death, the empty house, the layers of fucking dust covering everything because no one had taken bothered to take care of it for so long, as though no one had taken care of Mimi in so long—
Bonnie's face softens instantly, one hand coming up to stroke soothingly on Caroline's arm. "That well, huh?" she says gently and Caroline manages a watery laugh before wiping at her lashes.
"Wow, sorry," she says, cheeks reddening as she sends a surreptitious glance around the empty aisle. "I think maybe the week just caught up with me. It's been—" she trails off before exhaling heavily. "A lot."
Bonnie tuts sympathetically before glancing down into Caroline's cart, currently overflowing with TV dinners, a mishmash of produce, a large bag of dirt, and a mix of gardening tools. "Caroline," she says slowly, eyes flickering between the contents of the cart and Caroline's face, "did you...move here?"
"Um, technically? Just for the summer, though, for work." She lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I'm on assignment indefinitely."
"And you're staying at Hawthorne?"
Caroline nods and the look that flashes across Bonnie's face is full of something she can't quite put her finger one. But before she can analyze it, Bonnie is looking down at the thin watch on her wrist.
"Listen," she says, voice still gentle, as though Caroline is a deer that might spook at the slightest movement, "it's almost eleven thirty. Would you want to grab lunch? You can fill me on everything that's new with you." Her eyes search Caroline's. "What do you say?"
And she wants to, so badly but—
"I would," Caroline says apologetically, "but I've all this stuff that might thaw in the car—"
Bonnie's eyes drop to her cart. "We'll go to my place," she decides firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Grams made red beans and rice last night, and you know that tastes even better the next day." Knowing brown eyes meet her own. "And she made that jalapeño cornbread that I remember you loving."
Oh god, she does love Grams' homemade cornbread, and how long had it been since she had had cornbread of any kind? Over a decade— "You've twisted my arm, Bennett," Caroline says with a small laugh. "I'm convinced."
Which is how she finds herself in Sheila Bennett's garage, shuffling around her frozen meals in a deep freezer full of food that is far, far more tempting. She settles her handful of small boxes next to a stack of homemade frozen key lime pies; the sight makes her mouth water.
"Those are just plain sad, Care," Bonnie says from the door, shaking her head as Caroline reaches up to pull the top of the freezer down. "Tell me you're not planning on surviving all summer on Lean Cuisines."
Caroline follows her into the kitchen, which is just as she remembers. The wallpaper is still faded roosters and only broken up by wood paneling, the floor is still vinyl that peels a bit where it meets the wall, the appliances are the same ancient cream, and they still creak when their doors are pulled too hard.
"Not all summer," she defends as Bonnie opens a cabinet and pulls out two tall glasses. "Just this first week, while I get my feet under me. I fully plan on cracking open one of Mimi's cookbooks and giving cooking a go."
Bonnie opens her mouth to reply but she is cut off by the sound of a voice Caroline hasn't heard since she was fifteen. "As I live and breathe," Grams says as she enters the kitchen, "I thought I recognized your voice." She holds her arms out for a hug. "Come here, sugar."
Grams' hold is tight, and it turns out, exactly what Caroline needed. She closes her eyes and lets the feeling of arms around her soothe her frayed nerves.
"Look at you, sweet girl," Grams breathes, pulling back a fraction to look her over. Her eyes, the same amber as Bonnie's, sweep over her. "Too skinny by half, I see. I'll need to give Liz an earful about that, mhmm. Sit, honey, and tell me how you've been."
—
The red beans and rice might just be the best thing she's had to eat in a decade, and she declares that fact loudly. Neither Bennett seems impressed, though she does appreciate their delicate avoidance of just how long it's been since she's been in Avery.
"I already worried about you girls, all alone in big cities," Grams says with a disapproving shake of her head, "and now you tell me they can't even feed you right up there."
Bonnie sighs, and Caroline gets the impression that this is a well-tread argument. "Grams, Nashville isn't the same as New York."
"And New York isn't so bad," Caroline adds before helping herself to another piece of cornbread. "It's never boring." She focuses on Bonnie. "What're you doing in Nashville, Bon?"
It's Grams who answers. "She's getting her PhD in Psychology at Vanderbilt." She beams at Bonnie, who smiles back with a tinge of embarrassment. The pride that is so evident on Grams' face is enough to make Caroline look away, the feeling of missing Mimi suddenly sharp and insistent.
But she pushes it away, determined to not make this about her. "Bonnie!" She leans forward and nudges Bonnie's shoulder with her own, a grin blossoming on her face. "You didn't say anything! That's so awesome!"
Bonnie shakes her head and looks down at the remnants of her food, a blush beginning to fan out across her cheeks. "It's not exactly something you can just drop into casual conversation," she protests lightly, scraping her fork across her nearly empty plate. "'Oh hey, Caroline, haven't seen you in a long time, and oh, by the way…'" she trails off and Caroline laughs.
"Okay, okay," she concedes, holding up her hands. "Valid."
Grams turns her attention to Caroline. "Tell me all about your adventures up in the Big Apple." The words are accompanied by a small shimmy of her shoulders and a saucy grin that make Caroline laugh.
"It's very…" she stops and tilts her head, considering. "Busy. It's busy all the time, like, I could wake up at two twenty-seven in the morning wanting fresh—" she searches her mind for something absurd, "—apple dumplings, and if I wanted to, I could find them."
She doesn't say that while she's loved her time in New York, she's been missing her mother more and more of late. She doesn't say that the bustle of the city sometimes makes her head spin, and as though by taking a break, by resting that she's losing precious time.
But Grams' eyes are sharp, knowing. "Sounds tiresome to an old woman," she says, reaching forward and taking Caroline's hand in her own firm grip. "But you're a good, hardworking girl, honey. And I imagine you're very good at what you do."
Something warm twists in Caroline's stomach at the praise and she beams a little. "The apple dumplings wouldn't be as good as yours, Grams," she says, and she means it. Grams' eyes twinkle at her over her glass of sweet tea.
It's over strawberry ice cream—homemade, with chunks of watery red berry spun into the cream and sugar; Caroline has to bite back an actual moan—that Bonnie says to Grams, her voice casual enough to prick at Caroline's ears, "Care is staying at Hawthorne House, Grams."
Grams' spoon never stops its swirls around her bowl, but there's something Caroline can't quite put her finger on—a pause, an inhale, a twitch of her brow, something—that sends a wave of uneasy energy skittering over her veins. "And how are you finding it, sweetheart?"
Swallowing around the sudden lump in her throat, Caroline looks down at the wood grain of the table, tracing an indentation with her pointer finger. "Um, it's fine," she says vaguely, unable to force herself to give voice to her unease. "Weird, without Mimi."
The smile Bonnie shoots her way is tinged with sympathy, but it's Grams' response that captures her attention.
"I don't know how much Bonnie told you about our family, honey," she says mildly, "but we're a bit...in tune with the natural world." Before Caroline can ruminate on just what that means, Grams continues on, her smile sharp, "If you're the least bit uncomfortable, we could come sage it for you."
Caroline stills, the word sage knocking around in the back corners of her mind.
Elena had once written an article for Town and Home describing what she had termed new age millennial fix-its. The article had detailed various crystals and homeopathic healing methods and, true to her word, Caroline had proofread and edited the piece within an inch of its printed life.
In it, she remembers, Elena had written sage: to cleanse a room or self of negative energy.
The memory, all at once so clear, sends a shiver down her back.
"Sage?" she repeats uncertainly, and her heart begins to thud with unease. "For, like, bad vibes?"
Bonnie nods enthusiastically. "Only if you feel like you need it," she says. "You just seem kind of...uncomfortable, you know?" Caroline doesn't know what look she has on her face, but whatever it is has Bonnie clarifying, "Both times the house has been brought up, your shoulders have slumped forward, and you look down. Like you don't want to talk about it, or like—like something is wrong."
Caroline offers a weak smile. "Putting that psych degree to work already," she jokes, but neither Bennett laughs. Their calm lack of reaction sends a shiver down her spine. "Um, I dunno. It's weird, being there without Mimi, and I guess I—I feel bad that I left things the way I did. With her. With this town." Her eyes sting and she blinks back the sudden desire to cry. "It feels like I made this huge mistake and I'll never be able to fix it because she's gone."
"Oh, honey," Grams says, leaning forward and taking her hand in her own strong grip. "Don't you think another minute about that. Take it from an old friend—Meg knew how much you loved her." Her face is soft, her eyes gentle. "That was never once in doubt, sweet girl."
Caroline nods, unable to speak around the lump that has formed in her throat.
But Grams seems to understand. "You let us know, sweet pea. About that sage," she says, giving Caroline's hand another squeeze.
—
It's late when she gets back, and as Caroline stares up at the dark windows of Hawthorne House, something that feels a bit like nerves tugs low in her belly. The night is clear as a bell, and the light of the moon effectively hides the shine of the stars, but it illuminates the kudzu laden trees around her. The flowing branches of the weeping willow are motionless.
There is a pause in her step as she gets out of the car, a lingering pause in her fingers as she twists the car keys around her fingers. She taps the lock button and the horn that sounds in affirmation makes her nearly jump out of her skin. "Jesus," she mumbles under her breath, a hand coming to clasp at her heart.
The cicadas are out, humming from deep within the woods, and it should be comforting—these are the noises of her childhood summers, after all. Caroline can almost hear Mimi's voice, calling her name, telling her to not venture too far into the woods. Don't want you to get got, Mimi would say, her blue eyes fond and crinkling at the edges; and she had always come running back, a whirlwind of dusty legs and messy braids.
The Wal-Mart bag in her hands rustles and it's the only sound other than the cicadas that break the stillness. Caroline could curse her morning self for not at least leaving the porch light on. The darkness is so encompassing that it almost feels smothering, pressing in on her on all sides.
And maybe it's her heightened tension, or a side effect of her conversation with Bonnie and Grams—how did an offer to sage the house affect her this much, Jesus—but Caroline swears she feels something brush across the nape of her neck. Bad vibes.
Before she can think about it, her hand comes up and clasps desperately at the spot—
A fucking spider—she gasps loudly and flicks it away, biting back a dramatic squeal of disgust. "Ewww," she moans quietly, shaking her fingers out and fighting the urge to let her body wiggle like a worm on a hook, lest there be more.
But it was just a spider. Nothing strange about a spider in the middle of the Mississippi countryside, despite her tension and unease. Her shoulders drop and her muscles relax a fraction as she shakes her head.
"You are being an overdramatic wimp, Forbes," she tells her reflection in the screen door firmly. "Grow some ovaries and woman the hell up." She nods to herself once, then grasps at her keys to open the doors and go inside.
As the doors shut behind her, the wind chimes begin to sway softly.
It's overkill and probably going to be hell on her electric bill, but Caroline turns a light on in every room in the house. The echo of footsteps from this morning, easily brushed off in the sunlight, comes roaring back now that daylight has vanished beneath the curve of the earth.
"I need to see," she defends to the quiet air around her. "Last thing anyone needs is to end up in minor med because I tripped over a rug or something."
The air remains silent, and Caroline considers the argument won.
She unloads her groceries into the fridge, relishing the cold air emanating from it for a moment. Next come the bags with the cleaning supplies, which she pushes into the cabinets below the sink.
There are still more bags in the hatchback of the car. She hadn't been able to carry everything in a single trip so she had gathered all the frozen and refrigerated goods first. But now that those are all safely tucked away in the cold, she finds that she really, really doesn't want to venture back out to the driveway.
Then again, her brand-new coffee maker is in there and she needs to bang out at least some semblance of an article by week's end to satisfy Natalie.
Plus, she'd promised Elena a FaceTime date and the router is snuggled next to the coffee maker.
Heaving a sigh, Caroline squares her shoulders and heads out to the car, the keys clutched in the valley between her fingers.
The soft yellow light of the porchlight doesn't reach very far, and when Caroline hits the unlock button the car keys, the headlights light up the night around the car. They're too bright, and for a moment she is blinded, one hand coming up to shield her eyes—
She can practically hear the blood roaring in her ears, but the darkness around the car is empty. "You are such a baby," she scolds herself, not bothering to lower her voice as she makes her way to the hatch. "I mean, God."
Carefully, she slides the bag handles up her forearms, trying to gauge just how much she can fit on each arm when she overestimates the strength of one particularly frayed handle and it breaks entirely, sending her router box tumbling to the gravel. "For fuck's sake," she groans, resisting the urge to literally kick rocks. Instead, she squats down and retrieves the box from where it had landed just under the car next to a tire.
It's on her way back to standing that she sees—thinks she sees—
—a person, a shadow—
Caroline goes still, not daring to move a muscle. She had stood up too fast, she thinks, heart pounding furiously against her ribs. A trick of the light, or she had gotten lightheaded—
"Hello?" she tries to call out, but it comes out in a whisper, and as soon as she says it, she could smack herself. Fuck, she would absolutely be the first one to die in a horror movie.
Maybe it's Hannah Grace, she reasons, or Mary, come to— to what? They hardly seemed the type to bring by a neighborly casserole.
Swallowing hard, Caroline speeds up her movements, though she is careful to not break any more plastic bags.
If anything else falls out, she's writing it off as lost to the kudzu.
—
It's easy to forget, to put the strangeness of the last two days out of her mind, with a load of laundry going in the surprisingly modern washer, a glass of wine in her hand, and Elena on FaceTime.
"Caroline, it's so cute," Elena coos over the small phone screen. "So everything is exactly as your great-grandmother left it?"
"Down to the dead possum I had to clean out of the kitchen," Caroline confirms dryly, taking a long sip of the white wine she had impulse bought at Wal-Mart.
"How very Laura Ingalls of you. Tell me all about the town," Elena instructs, taking a sip of her own wine, a deep burgundy. "Have you run into anyone you used to know? Found out any hot gossip?" She arches one eyebrow dramatically and Caroline laughs.
"I mean, not really? I ran into a guy whose little brother I had a crush on, like a billion years ago—do not look at me like that, 'Lena, Father Time really did not treat him right, poor guy, who knows what happened to his brother—"
Elena giggles around the mouth of her wine glass. "You're like, ten minutes and another glass away from dropping a few bless your hearts, Care."
Caroline shrugs and half toasts her with her wine glass. "When in Rome. Oh, but get this—I also ran into my friend Bonnie, remember I told you about her?"
Two thousand miles away, Elena's forehead crinkles. "Maybe?" Her fingers snap and she points at Caroline. "The friend you sent the photos of that exhibit we saw at the Met? The one—" Elena snaps her fingers and points at the camera, "—that cool Greek mythology exhibit we saw last year. Same friend?"
"Yep, that's her," Caroline confirms. "I ran into her at Wal-Mart!"
Elena blinks at her. "Okay, wait. I have one—no, two questions. You didn't text her about the assignment beforehand?" Before she can answer, Elena powers on with a shake of her head, "You're a terrible friend, Forbes. Second—Wal-Mart?"
"Hey, you'd be wise to thank the Walton family for making this particular phone call a reality," Caroline shoots back. "It's not like there's a ton of options within fifty miles, okay?"
Her finger rolls absently around the rim of her wine glass as she continues. "And honestly, I just...Bonnie left for school up in the Northeast after high school, and I half followed her on Facebook, but I just—didn't think that she would be home for the summer. I have no excuse, really, just that there's been a lot going on. But!" she perks up brightly, "I had lunch with her and her grandma. Remember when you wrote that article about millennials and new age medicine?"
"Uh huh," Elena says dryly, "and then I offered to sage your place and you said you couldn't deal with the smell of smoke while having three different candles lit?"
Caroline grimaces. "Right. Right. Sorry. But yeah, Bonnie and her grandmother offered to sage the house."
Elena tilts her head, her hair falling over her shoulder and into her eyes; she brushes it out and fixes Caroline with a look that she knows well. It's her you've been overserved and it's time to go, Caroline look; her patented you don't want to go home with that guy, Caroline, trust me here face. "Caroline," she says firmly, "get the house saged."
Caroline shakes her head and gestures with her wine glass. "'Lena. I promise, it's fine."
"Is it fine? Have you even gone into all the rooms yet?" Elena narrows dark eyes at her. "How do you know it's all fine—" she draws the word out sarcastically, "if you haven't even looked?"
She doesn't answer, but her grimace gives her away.
"Caroline!" Elena chides. "Go explore some! No joke, you might discover some stuff of your Mimi's that you'll want to keep."
With a flourish, Caroline finishes off her glass. "You're right. You're totally right, and I also should really try to write something tonight, or Natalie will have my ass."
"I can look it over for you, if you want," Elena offers. Her smile slips. "Since I'm probably moving into editing anyway."
Caroline leans forward, a stern finger pointing at the camera. "Elena Marie Gilbert," she scolds, "you are not going into editing unless it is absolutely what you want to do. Send me some of the pieces you've written lately. We are getting you a goddamn feature, okay?"
Elena makes a face at her. "If you say so."
"I do say so. Send three pieces by eight am sharp, Gilbert. I mean it, not a minute later."
"I will if you let your friend sage the house," Elena counters, and it startles a laugh out of Caroline.
"Fine," she says with a slight laugh. "I will, I promise."
For a long moment, Elena considers her, her warm brown eyes studying her intently. "Be careful, okay?" she says finally. "I'm serious, Care, and not even about like, the spookiness—" she wiggles her fingers into the camera, "—but like, you're in the middle of nowhere and just—" Elena trails off and sighs. "I just need you to be careful, okay? In fact, I may decide I require nightly check-ins or else I may have to call the local police for a welfare check, just to make sure you aren't like, being held hostage or something. I've seen Misery, you know."
It's on the tip of her tongue to protest, but after a moment's consideration, it does make a certain kind of sense. She is alone, and the house is rural, surrounded on all sides by a dense wood made all the denser by the thick vines of kudzu wrapping around the trees.
"Okay," she agrees, letting her chin come to rest in her palm and blowing her hair out of her face. "I agree to your terms."
"Okay," Elena echoes before giving her a tiny wave. "I'll talk to you tomorrow then?"
"Tomorrow," Caroline confirms, blowing her a kiss before tapping the red phone icon. Elena vanishes with a tiny electric bloop and the only noise in the house is the soothing whirl of the air conditioning.
—
The sun has long vanished when Caroline decides to take Elena's advice and go snooping—though, she rations, can it really be considered snooping if she's opening drawers on what is legally her own property?
"No," she announces to the walls. "No, it cannot."
The walls, for their part, are silent.
She starts on the first floor, avoiding the kitchen since she already knows the only things in the cabinets are the shiny new bottles of cleaning supplies she had just bought at Wal-Mart. Instead she rummages through the secretary desk by the door, finding a box of old photos that she will most definitely be examining later, and a bundle of branches tied together with a faded red ribbon that she sets aside for the trash. There are dried out pens, notepads with scribbles in Mimi's scratchy handwriting that Caroline can't bring herself to discard, and—her heart twists—an old photo of the two of them.
In the photo, Mimi is giving a half smile at the camera, her eyes focused on a young Caroline who is off in mid-run towards a barn kitten that looks to be attempting to escape her small grabbing hands. She has no memory of this moment, but based on the oversized Barbie t-shirt, she guesses she's around five. Her throat constricts and she puts the photo down, determined to continue her trek through the house without crying.
Well. Without crying much, anyway.
But it's in the garage that she strikes gold.
Hidden under a sheet, and what's definitely layers of dust and probably mice poop—ew, she won't think about that—is her old baby blue three speed bicycle.
"Holy shit," Caroline breathes, setting down her glass of wine and lifting the sheet with her thumb and pointer finger pinched together. It looks just like she remembers, though the Daisy Duck decal she'd stuck on one side of the frame when she was eleven has long faded. And maybe it's the wine, but she looks down at her body and back at the bike, considering. She'd hit her last growth spurt around the time she'd been jetting around Avery on this thing with Bonnie Bennett, like they were the heroines in their very own Sandlot.
And after all, her dad had bought her this bike with the intent that it would last her through to the summer before college. No one had expected Caroline to pitch a god-awful hissy fit at fifteen and demand to be sent to cheer camp instead.
"Whaddya say, ole girl?" she croons to the handlebars. "Another go around, you and me?"
She's debating on if the glow of the porch light is enough for her to take the old bike out for a test spin, if she's had too much wine to try or just enough to work up her nerve after her scare earlier; when, from somewhere outside the garage, there's a loud thud. Caroline jumps and releases the sheet in surprise; it floats airily down back over the bicycle.
There it is again. Thud.
A cold rivet of sweat starts to pool at the base of her spine, the soft haze of the wine vanishing in an instant. She is suddenly hyper-aware of just how thin the garage walls are, and just how little light the single bulb hanging over her head is emitting. Caroline reaches for her back pocket and feels a modicum of comfort when her fingers touch her phone.
Not that she has anyone to call other than the police, and what would she even say to them? There was a loud noise outside my garage, and yes, I'm aware I'm currently miles away from civilization but could you please come chase away what is probably just a very large raccoon?
No, she's made of sterner stuff than that.
"Don't be a baby, Forbes," she whispers firmly to herself. "It's just a bigass possum or something. Probably here to avenge its friend from the kitchen." She nods once to the empty air and picks up her glass of wine, toasting the remaining objects in the garage that rest under yellowing sheets before heading back into the house.
—
Later, when she's thinking clearly, she'll blame it on the wine. Two glasses with only a measly Lean Cuisine in her stomach was sure to be at fault.
It's only just past nine pm when Caroline falls asleep unceremoniously into clean, dust-free sheets, surrounded by spearmint walls and with a warm, almost happy feeling uncurling in her belly. The sound of the air conditioning lulls her almost immediately to a relaxed, deep sleep—
— until she wakes up with her heart thudding wildly in her chest and her breathing shallow, as though she had just completed a marathon.
Caroline sits straight up and squeezes her eyes shut tightly, feeling wetness leak out of the corners. She clutches at her chest in a bid to calm her furious heart rate, and slowly, slowly, her breathing evens out. Her panting is loud, breaking the quiet stillness of the room.
Her dream is all a fog, but she thinks she may have been running in it—but from what, from who, she has no idea. It would explain her racing heart, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, and the breathing she is trying desperately to get under control.
She raises a hand to rub at her forehead before opening her eyes and reaching for the bedside lamp—
—and blinks in confusion.
This is Mimi's room.
Her heart rate, having only just slowed back to normal, starts to speed back up.
Slowly, carefully, as though she might explode if she makes too sudden a movement, Caroline slips out of the bed and stares in rising panic at the pale yellow wallpaper—the very much not spearmint green wallpaper. "Don't freak out," she whispers to herself, walking to the door on her tiptoes and peeking out into the hallway. It is empty, and she makes her way across the hall to her room.
The bed is unmade, the comforter tossed haphazardly to the side and Caroline lets out the breath she had been unconsciously holding. "Okay," she says to quiet walls, "okay."
Her phone is still sitting on the nightstand where she had left it plugged into the charger. The clock on the home screen reads 3:04 am and Caroline stands uncertainly next to the bed with it clutched tightly in her hand, unsure of her next move.
She has never slept walked before, but, she reasons, it does make a certain kind of sense. Most of her day had been spent thinking about Mimi, talking about Mimi, and missing Mimi, so it's not really that surprising that her unconscious brain had picked her body up and moved it to be as physically close to Mimi as possible.
But it's disconcerting, waking up where she knows she didn't fall asleep.
Caroline doesn't sleep the rest of the night.
As soon as the clock on her phone hits 6:30 am, she texts Steven. You win, is all it says.
Forty-five minutes later, he calls her.
"Atticus or Finch?" he says without greeting.
Four hours later, she meets him in Birmingham.
"For the record," he says after giving her a big bear hug, "you lasted longer than I thought you would."
She points at him warningly. "I'm not scared," she insists before popping the hatch and helping him carry a large bag of dog food over to the Subaru. It lands with a thud. "I just...really need the company. That house is so big and so—"
"Spooky?"
"I was going to say empty."
Steven shrugs. "To-may-to, to-ma-to." His smile is wide and comforting, and in it, Caroline wonders why she denied herself a stepfather for so long.
"I'm a single girl in a big, otherwise empty house in the middle of nowhere. I've seen The Strangers, okay?"
He laughs. "Well, Finch here is the best dog for the job. Although I should disclose he flunked out of K9 school, so."
Caroline squats down so that she is at eye-level with Finch, who promptly tries to lick her face. "More interested in kisses than crime?"
"Something like that," Steven says, and Finch barks agreeably.
"He's perfect," Caroline says and she's almost positive Finch's tail starts wagging at the words.
When she returns to Hawthorne House, hours later with Finch in tow, the sun is high in the sky, her stomach is growling, and the clock on the dash reads 3:46 pm. Caroline looks over at Finch, with his big brown eyes and serious, soulful gaze, and says, "Whaddya think, my guy?"
He blinks at her before lifting one paw and placing it on her arm. It's strangely comforting.
She lets him out of the front seat and he bounds around the driveway, stopping to sniff and pee. Caroline watches as he yawns and stretches before sitting and looking over at her expectantly.
"I dunno, man," she tells him seriously. "I've never had a dog before."
He barks and stands, tail wagging.
She has to fight back a grin as he follows her up the front porch steps, his ears perking at every tiny sound. The wind chimes flutter and he jumps, letting loose a series of loud barks before he seems to realize that there is no immediate threat.
"You're a good boy," she croons as she opens the door.
Finch sniffs the entire house, and she watches with a hint of anticipation that she'd rather not analyze when he gets to Mimi's door. But he has no reaction, carrying on without a care, and her shoulders relax, a burden she had barely realized she was holding easing a fraction.
"You wanna watch the place for me?" she asks him seriously as she packs her laptop and notes into her tote. He yawns, settling himself on the foot of her bed and laying his head in his paws. She can't help but smile at him. "Good boy," she repeats, scratching him behind his ears before heading down the steps.
—
The parking lot of Number Seven is empty, save for what she assumes is Klaus's car near the side door. Caroline is hardly a car person, but even she knows a nice car when she sees one and her forehead wrinkles in confusion. The mystery of Klaus, she decides with more than a little curiosity, is ever deepening.
The bar is a far cry from when she had been there previously. The afternoon sun is streaming in, and she's impressed to note that in the light of day, the bar is cleaner than most she's seen. And she's seen a lot.
"What can I get for you?" Klaus asks from the bar. He sets aside the glasses he had been cleaning and leans forward onto forearms that are laid bare by rolled up shirtsleeves. It makes her mouth go dry.
"Um, just a sweet tea, actually," she says, her hands resting on the back of one of the high chairs before she motions to a booth behind her. "I've gotta work."
One of his eyebrows lifts ever so slightly at that and he nods. "Coming up," he says lightly, pushing off the bar top to grab a glass.
Caroline settles into the booth, pulling out her MacBook and her notebook, full of half sentences and scribbles of ideas. She powers up the laptop and, with more than a little reluctance, pulls her Airpods out, watching out of the corner of her eye as Klaus moves around the bar.
He catches her looking and she turns away, her face reddening; but when she sneaks a look back, he has a smirk playing around his mouth. She feels one echo on her own face before she scolds herself internally and straightens, staring her laptop screen down with a pointed determination that she doesn't entirely feel.
She has fragments of notes, half-written run-on sentences that trail off with no discernible endings, and a stack of old photographs to go through. It might take most of the night to even get to a starting point.
"Tell me about it," Klaus says, nodding at her computer before sliding over a tall glass of tea; and she sees that he has made himself what looks to be a cup of coffee. He sits down across from her and she feels her eyebrows go up questioningly as she takes her headphones out of her ears.
"Aren't you working?"
He shrugs nonchalantly, and she very firmly does not notice how the motion pulls his shirt across his chest. "Ah yes, the pre-dinner crowd is very demanding," he says, a half smile pulling at his mouth as he gestures around at the empty bar. "You're it, I'm afraid."
She rips open the paper surrounding her straw and takes a long drink of the tea; it doesn't escape her that he watches her like a cat watches a mouse. For a long moment, she chews on the straw—a habit she thought she had left behind in childhood—and wonders about him. Where he came from, why he picked this town, of all places.
What his bedroom ceiling looks like.
"It just got upgraded to a longer assignment, actually," she begins, leaning forward and re-arranging some of her notes. "Apparently, like, a third of the magazine's subscribers live outside of a major metro, so my editor wants me to include like—" she gestures aimlessly with her glass of sweet tea, "—slices of rural life."
He arches an eyebrow. "Apple pie recipes?"
That makes her snort. "Why, you got a good one?"
He grins. "Afraid not, sweetheart." Before she can ponder that, he continues smoothly, "How have the first few nights been, now that you're back in town?"
Caroline has to fight off the blush that she's like, eighty percent sure he's trying to provoke. It's on the tip of her tongue to banter back, and why are you so interested in my nights? But she keeps it to herself—business trip, this is a business trip, Forbes— "A little too quiet for me," she says, stirring her tea and flashing him a smile. "More of a city girl these days."
There's something in his smile, an edge to it, a sharpness to it, that makes her want, inexplicably, to sink her teeth into him. And she thinks he knows it.
Klaus leans forward and she finds herself mimicking the motion, drawn to him. "Go to dinner with me," he suggests, his eyes locked on hers.
Yes forms behind her teeth, but before the word can catch air and take flight, the door to the bar opens and Fisher Hamilton shouts from the entrance, "Get away from him, Caroline!"
It's the conviction in his voice, the terror in his tone, that makes her spine snap straight before she turns.
He looks nothing like the Fisher Hamilton she had seen just days ago. Caroline has to fight a gasp as she stands. She's vaguely aware of Klaus doing the same behind her, both of them moving carefully as though to not spook him.
Fisher's hair is disheveled, his eyes wild with real fear as he stares at them; and he sounds so truly terrified that Caroline takes an instinctive step towards him, away from Klaus.
"Fish," she says slowly, carefully, one hand reaching out as though to steady him, "what's wrong?"
But he only stares at her, eyes wide and afraid, before he drops to the floor in a dead faint.
"Ohmigod," she breathes, rushing over to him; behind her, she can hear Klaus speaking to what she can only hope is a 911 dispatcher. A quick glance over her shoulder confirms it.
She kneels and touches his shoulder hesitantly. "Fisher?" When he is unresponsive, panic begins to unfurl in her stomach. It's been years since she took a CPR course, it was Bonnie who lifeguarded at the community pool every summer, and she can't believe twelve years of watching Grey's Anatomy faithfully is failing her at literally the most crucial moment—
"Roll him to his side," Klaus orders, appearing at her shoulder and kneeling down next to her. "Paramedics are on their way." He gingerly lifts Fisher's head and slides a balled-up spill rag under it.
Caroline watches helplessly as he methodically searches Fisher's pockets, pulling his keys out and gingerly placing them to one side, followed by a small Swiss Army knife.
"Why—"
"Don't want him rolling over onto anything sharp," Klaus says brusquely, his fingers wrapping around Fisher's wrist—to monitor a pulse, she's assuming. Oh God.
The EMTs take longer than she had hoped, and as the ambulance screams towards them, Caroline realizes that her hands are shaking. Klaus notices too, and wordlessly takes them in his own; his fingers are warm and his grip is strong.
"Fuck," she whispers as the paramedics bring out a stretcher, as they throw around words like grand mal seizure. "I had no idea he was even sick."
His hand squeezes hers reassuringly. "I'm going to close for the night," he says quietly. "Would you like a ride to the hospital?"
She exhales heavily. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks."
The press of his palm into the small of her back isn't enough to eclipse her worry, but the feeling of his touch through the thin fabric of her shirt is just distracting enough to take the edge off.
"God," she says softly as she slides into the passenger seat, "I hope Fisher is okay." She hesitates before cautiously pressing forward. "What's a bartender in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi doing with a car like this?"
Klaus turns the key, his expression unreadable. "That," he murmurs as he downshifts, "is a long story." He pauses before allowing, "Perhaps for another time."
"Another time," she echoes, but still she watches him out of the corner of her eye the entire ride to the hospital.
—
tbc.
A/N: feel free to follow me on Twitter (sunnydaisy6) or on Tumblr (little-miss-sunny-daisy).