Content warning: mentions of child death, child abuse, blood, and paranormal shit
Chapter 47: If These Walls Could Speak
People gave her nasty looks for wearing a bright yellow sundress to the funeral, but Louisa knew Kelly would have loved it. Ms Beckett seemed to appreciate it, too, as much as a grieving mother could.
Jasper sat beside her in the pew, his icy hand a familiar and comforting pressure as they sat through the funeral service. He didn't say much that day or the days that followed. He seemed to understand Louisa didn't want to speak.
Her father offered to let her skip school for a few days, but in the end, Louisa declined. She was thankful for the distraction her classes provided, especially as October approached and, with it, Homecoming season.
"You'll both be on the committee again?" Katie Hyde all but shouted at Louisa and Rosalie later that week. Even if Louisa somehow missed the frenzied look in her eyes or the seemingly palpable anxiety that oozed out of the girl's body, Louisa knew Katie must be desperate for her help—nobody approached the Cullen's lunch table if they could help it.
To Louisa's utmost surprise, Rosalie nodded. She didn't look pleased about the fact and let out a dramatic sigh, but she let Katie scribble her name down on her clipboard.
"Thank you so much, you two. I really appreciate it. People still rave about Homecoming last year. We meet Mondays and Thursdays after school. Mr Mason said he'd be our faculty sponsor this year." She said all this in a rush, leaving even the vampires vaguely dizzy. "We should be done by four, but as we get closer to Homecoming—"
"Timeout," Louisa said, raising her hands to form a 'T'. "That's going to be a problem for me."
Katie looked as if Louisa had personally shot her dog. "No, no, no. I can't do this without you. Prom was lame because we didn't have you to help!"
She wasn't wrong, and two months ago, Louisa would have jumped at the chance to keep Homecoming from being driven into the ground. "I have to work after school," she explained.
"Can't you request those days off?" Katie asked, her voice shooting up several octaves in her panic. "We need you. We can't do this without you."
"If you're not doing it, I'm sure as hell not," Rosalie said, looking torn between exasperated and excited at the prospect of getting out of Homecoming Committee.
Katie burst into tears.
Louisa got to her feet and gently touched Katie's shoulder. "I'm sorry. It's not negotiable with my employers." At this, Katie began to sob. Louisa shot a panicked look at Jasper, and a moment later, a wave of tranquillity enveloped them. "Maybe there is something else we can do?"
"I'm sure there isn't," Rosalie muttered.
Louisa shot her a glare before turning back to Katie. "I can't do it after-school," she reiterated. "But what if you made a Google Drive or something? I could get to it after work." It wasn't ideal, and it significantly cut into her homework time, which would subsequently cut into her Jasper time and screw up her sleep schedule even more than it already was. But it was only until Homecoming. That was only a month or so away. Louisa thought she could manage that.
Still under Jasper's influence, Katie's sobs subsided into hiccups, and she nodded, looking thoughtful. "If we met on Saturdays too…"
"Absolutely not," Louisa said, nipping that thought in the bud. She wasn't willing to give up that much of her free time. "But maybe on Fridays, we can discuss it over lunch?"
The compromise seemed to please Katie.
"Do I still have to do this too?" Rosalie asked.
Jasper gave her a saccharine smile. "You did volunteer, Rosie," he reminded her. "It would be dishonourable to back out on your word now."
"Rose can do Fridays at lunch with us and work with me remotely," Louisa compromised. "Send me the link to the drive today, and I'll look through what you've got planned when I can."
With the crisis averted, Louisa gently nudged Katie away and retook her seat at the lunch table.
"Stretching yourself a bit thin, aren't you?" Jasper asked mildly as she leaned into his side.
Louisa studiously ignored his raised, disapproving eyebrow and tilted her head back, kissing his jaw. "Don't worry, Babe. I won't neglect you."
As Louisa had suspected, her free time drastically dwindled in the following weeks, and she found herself sacrificing more of her social life than she would have liked—afternoons spent with the Cullens became almost non-existent. The most intimate thing she had done with Jasper was when he explained how integrals worked. She had tried several times to cut back on sleep, but her empathetic boyfriend always gave her a blasé grin before knocking her out with his power.
That was why it was such a treat to finally make an appearance at the Cullen's home on Saturday in late September.
"She finished the third-grade workbook," Louisa explained when Esme asked about Kit's tutoring sessions.
"Has she really?" Esme asked, clapping with delight. "Already?"
"Is that supposed to be impressive?" Emmett asked from his spot on the couch. He paused LEGO Harry Potter and turned on the sofa to face her. "She's in the fifth grade."
"She should be in the fifth grade," Louisa corrected, passing the workbook to Esme, who flipped through it faster than Louisa's human brain could comprehend. "Her parents withdrew her from school after she got sick. She technically only has a kindergarten education."
"But surely, she must have been home-schooled?" Rosalie asked, poking her head into the room from the garage. Her golden hair was tied in an effortless messy bun, and she somehow made her grease-stained coveralls look fabulous.
Jasper came to Louisa's rescue, saving her from having to lie to her best friend. "The Mallorys have struggled to employ a tutor suitable for Kit's needs."
Louisa wove her fingers through his and gave them an appreciative squeeze.
Rosalie frowned and ducked back into the garage. When she reappeared seconds later, her coveralls were gone. "Poor little lamb," she said, floating over to the couch and perching on Emmett's lap. "She must be so lonely."
You have no idea, Louisa wanted to say.
"When will you bring her over?"
Rosalie and Esme had been asking different variations of the same question since Louisa began babysitting the girl. Initially, Louisa hadn't made the introduction because she didn't want to overwhelm Kit by throwing her to the wolves (vampires?). But then she had learned that the Mallory family were varying degrees of psychotic, and Louisa was informed that she was, under no circumstances, ever to remove Kit from the Mallory house. If it hadn't been for Alice's orders to play nice, she probably would've orchestrated a jailbreak weeks ago.
"She's been so isolated for so long, her parents don't want her to leave the house," Louisa said at last, hiding her lie within a truth. "Her immune system is non-existent. They don't want her getting sick."
"We're vampires. We can't carry human diseases," Rose replied, unimpressed with Louisa's explanation.
"Not even Carlisle," Emmett agreed with an easy-going grin. "And he loves that stuff."
Louisa laughed and gave him a sarcastic nod. "You're right, Emmett. I'll mention that it's perfectly safe to bring her 'round because you lot are supernatural beings who can't transmit the flu."
Emmett's grin widened, and he let out a booming laugh. Even Rose, still put out by Louisa's explanation, smiled at the sound.
"Speaking of supernatural," Emmett said after composing himself. "Have you seen anything spooky there?"
Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Not this again," she sighed. She moved to stand, but Emmett caught her before she could get too far and pulled her back into his lap. Although her expression was annoyed by the manhandling, she went willingly and curled into his embrace.
"You know you're curious, Petal," he said, tugging on a lock of hair that had fallen out of her bun. "The mysterious girl who moves things when she gets angry…"
"I can move things when I'm angry," Rose retorted, bopping him on the nose.
Emmett snapped playfully at her fingers. "Sure, but you gotta touch 'em," he replied. "Kitty-cat doesn't."
"To be fair," Louisa interjected, pulling Jasper over to the loveseat in the lounge. "She gets mad at me a lot, and she's yet to—"
"Summon the poltergeist energy and attack you?" Rosalie drawled, arching a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
"You can't harness a poltergeist's energy, Rosie," Emmett said, as if this were common knowledge. "They're their own entity."
Rosalie rolled her eyes and gave her husband a fond smile. "Right. Of course," she replied. "How silly of me to forget."
Emmett pecked Rose on the lips before returning his attention to Louisa. "So, have you seen anything odd, Lou?"
"Not seen, no," Louisa replied after considering the question.
"You see!" Rose cried, waving her hand towards Louisa. "Now, can we drop this?"
Emmett wasn't bothered by this. "She said that she hadn't seen anything. She's got four more senses. Plus, she's got her little Spidey-sense."
As the couple bickered, Louisa bit her lip and shot a look at Jasper, who sent her a wave of comfort. She held back a sigh of relief as she slumped into his side and burrowed her face into his shoulder. Jasper chuckled and kissed the top of her head before dragging her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, and his lips trailed down to the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear.
Lust that may or may not have been her own inflamed her nerve endings. She had to remind herself that Emmett and Rosalie were sitting three feet away, watching her expectantly. It took her a moment to sort through her scrambled thoughts and remember what they had been discussing.
Rose flicked Emmett on the nose when he snickered before gently prompting, "The house?"
"I haven't seen anything overtly paranormal," Louisa began as she considered her words. She hadn't seen anything, true, but Emmett hadn't been that far off when he mentioned her psychometry. She had picked something up, but it was less supernatural and more in Alice's 'do-not-discuss' category. "But I can see why my sister doesn't like going over there," she settled on, hoping it was enough to satisfy Emmett. "The house has grown sad."
An unconscious shiver ran down Louisa's spine at the thought. Her words weren't what she had intended to say, but they explained the eerie feeling in the house rather well. At least to her. Judging by the looks she was getting from the rest of the Cullens (even Esme had drifted closer to listen in), they hadn't made much sense.
Even Rosalie was watching her with morbid curiosity. "What do you mean?" she asked.
Louisa struggled to articulate what she meant to people who couldn't run their fingers over an object and gather its life story. "Objects…they're permanent, aren't they? They never change. They just are. They collect stories and witness history, and endure the passing of time. They remember what we forget," she frowned, a dim part of her recognising that her strange, poetic ramblings probably made little sense to them. And yet, there was no other way to describe the pulsing threads, fragments of life stories, she could sense in things.
After extracting herself from Jasper's hold, Louisa crossed the room and plucked a black lacquer box off a shelf, rolling it between her hands. It wasn't much bigger than a deck of cards, its top exquisitely painted with swirls of reds and gold leaf. "Esme bought this box in 2003 at a flea market in Dayton, Ohio. She felt sad for it because it was the last item at the stand."
Esme clapped with delight and nodded. "Carlisle thought I was being silly," she added.
"Not silly," Louisa said. "But sad isn't really the right word for it. This box was made in 1931 in Palekh, Russia. A man called Dima gave it to his wife, Anya, to celebrate their marriage. He had to save his money for nearly three years to afford it." She tapped the lid and showed it to the vampires. "The Firebird was her favourite story. She loved this box. Her daughter loved it even more though, so in 1952, Anya gave it to her on the eve of her daughter's wedding."
Esme flitted to her side, took the box from Louisa's hands, and cradled it reverently. "How did it get to America?"
"After the USSR fell, Anya's great-granddaughter fled to the US. This box was one of the few things she brought with her. She never had any daughters of her own, but she gave this to her daughter-in-law as a wedding gift. Unfortunately, the box didn't hold the same meaning, and the tradition died with her. It was her son that you bought this from." Louisa paused and sorted through the lifetimes of memories imbued within the box. "I think Anya would be happy to know it's loved once again," she said. "She was rather romantic."
Esme looked up at her with wide eyes full of child-like wonder. "Incredible," she breathed. "You can tell all of that from a touch?"
Suddenly embarrassed, Louisa shrugged. "I cheated a little," she admitted with a grin. "This isn't the first time I've touched it. You don't see a lot of Russian lacquer boxes in this neck of the woods, and I have to admit, I was curious about the history."
"Still!" Esme cried, placing the box back in its rightful place. "To know all of that…"
"The box is a happy one—it practically oozes from it. Some days, I can feel it across the room," Louisa said. She turned back to Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper, who had curiously watched the exchange. "The Mallorys' house is like that, too. But instead of love, it has seen a lot of sadness. I'm not saying it's haunted, but…it's as if the walls themselves weep for what they have witnessed. I'm not surprised that my sister picked up on it."
Louisa bit her lip, her brow furrowed. "I don't know if I buy into your poltergeist theory, Emmett," she said. "But if they are real and they feed off negative energy…well, I think the Mallory house would be the perfect place to stay."
No Stone Left Unturned
It was a rare day that Louisa found herself at the Mallorys' house alone. Usually, Lauren gave Louisa a ride on days when she was supposed to babysit Kit. But with the arrival of October, Lauren had elected to visit Port Angeles with Dottie and a few other friends in the hopes of finding an outfit suitable for Homecoming, which would occur in only a few weeks. The theme was 'Eras,' which the Committee had intentionally left vague to inspire creativity amongst dance go-ers. The Jewish and Catholic Student Associations had already announced a collab to dress up as Joseph and his eleven brothers, whilst the theatre kids, who were preparing for the fall production of Antony and Cleopatra, declared they would all be wearing togas.
Louisa herself had no idea what she was going to wear. Not that she had any choice in the matter, of course. Alice had already announced that she had everything planned, and nobody was to interfere.
Itty bitty baby sister: concept. 1920s. Jazz age.
She paused at the Mallorys' front door, key in one hand, as she attempted to reply to Dottie's text.
You and everyone else. Flappers are so overdone.
Itty bitty baby sister: nononono full on potato sack shaped dress. V nonsexy.
Still think you should go for regency and live your best jane austen life.
Itty bitty baby sister: dont have stays for platter boobs.
Louisa chuckled and rolled her eyes at her sister before tucking her phone away and unlocking the door. She had learned early on that she needed to keep her phone far away from Kit. In the few short weeks she had been babysitting her, Kit had grown increasingly possessive over Louisa and didn't tolerate anything distracting her. The one time (and only) time Louisa had pulled out her phone, Kit had chucked it down the stairs. It had been relatively unharmed, though it now had the curious habit of short-circuiting whenever it was in the Mallorys' house.
She let herself into the house and resisted the urge to call out for Kit, knowing she wouldn't be heard anyway. She made a mental note to look up ways to announce her presence to a Deaf person and stooped to remove her shoes.
It was only when she was halfway done with untying her laces did she realise that something was off. Like an animal before an earthquake, Louisa knew just…knew that something wasn't quite right. The house was silent—uncommonly so—and an odd energy permeated the air like electricity moments before a lightning strike. Even the hair on her arms was standing on end.
Resisting the urge to sprint out the door, Louisa straightened and began the slow creep throughout the house, senses on high alert as she searched for the source of the disturbance. Nothing was out of place in the den or the powder room off the front hallway, and a quick peek in the closets showed nothing other than the usual assortment of boots and jackets. Mrs Mallory's office was likewise in its usual, impeccably neat state. And yet, with each room she cleared, finding nothing remiss, her anxiety grew.
Louisa was shaking by the time she stepped into the kitchen. She nearly fainted when she saw the kitchen chairs floating eight feet in the air, like the tea party scene in Mary Poppins.
She let out one of the colourful oaths Jasper had taught her as she took in the scene. Everywhere she looked was chaos: the cupboard doors were open, and whilst the dishes remained untouched, the same could not be said for anything else. The cutlery drawer had been dumped onto the ground, where they joined what was left of the glass cups. The pots were arranged in a perfect circle in the middle of the room, like candles in a pagan ritual. In the centre, the pans were impossibly upright, balanced by some unseen force on their handles.
Over the last few weeks, Louisa had entertained Emmett's theories about a poltergeist haunting the Mallorys' house. Not because she had really believed in ghosts, but it was like believing in the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot—fun to consider the idea, even if you knew it was improbable. But standing in the wreckage of the kitchen…Emmett's ideas didn't seem so impossible anymore.
Like any other member of Gen Z in a ludicrous situation, the first thought that slipped through her dissociative haze was pulling out her phone and recording. She took a moment to film a video surveying the damage, so later when she was questioning her sanity, she could look back and remember that, yes, things had happened exactly as she remembered them. She then texted the video to Mrs Mallory.
Not even ten seconds later, her phone rang.
"Delete that video," Mrs Mallory said without any preamble.
Louisa's voice sounded faint as she asked, "What am I looking at?"
If she was expecting words of comfort, she wasn't about to get them. Mrs Mallory sighed. "We changed the locks on Katherine's door again," she explained blandly as if they were discussing a change in Kit's shampoo. "We have to do it periodically. We don't know how she does it, but she figures out how to unlock the doors."
"Kit did this?" Louisa asked through numb lips, watching the kitchen chairs bob against the ceiling. It seemed unlikely, considering the kid was nowhere to be found.
"Katherine," Mrs Mallory corrected. "I take it Lauren didn't explain this when she gave you the keys?"
Louisa shook her head before remembering that Mrs Mallory couldn't see her. "She didn't say a word." Not that Louisa should've been surprised. The Mallorys were good at keeping secrets.
Mrs Mallory sighed again. "Have you seen Katherine yet?"
The question managed to shake her out of her stupor. "I—no," she said, the debris crunching under her shoes as she made her way up the stairs.
"There's a first aid kit in the cupboard under the sink," Mrs Mallory explained. "I'll be home as soon as I can. Under no certain terms are you to remove her from the house."
The blood in her veins might as well have turned to ice at the implication. "What if she needs a doctor?" Louisa heard herself asking.
"Katherine doesn't like doctors." There was nothing more to be said on the subject, and Mrs Mallory hung up without another word.
Louisa stared at her mobile for a full minute before continuing her trek up the stairs. After a quick stop in the bathroom, where she found the first aid kit that Mrs Mallory had described, Louisa approached the locked door at the end of the hall. The electric sensation she experienced downstairs only grew with each step she took. Her heart quivered in her chest (from fear or something else, she couldn't say), and every hair on her body stood on end as if a magnet were drawing them—her—towards the bedroom. With shaking fingers, she stuck the key (shiny and new and untainted) in the lock and disengaged the deadbolt.
There was a gentle whoosh! as she pushed open the door that tugged at her clothes, her braid swinging around her shoulder as if some invisible force was tugging her inside.
Her first thought was that the room shouldn't be so dark. A sliver of pale afternoon light filtered into the room, its path blocked by something large covering the window. Louisa fumbled around for a moment until she found the light switch, but her efforts to bring some light into the room were in vain; something—or someone—had shattered the bulb in the overhead light. The remnants lay scattered across the hardwood floors and crunched under her shoes as she tiptoed farther into the room.
Louisa took in Kit's bedroom by the light from her phone, relieved to find it in better condition than the kitchen. (Then again, considering the few furnishings, this didn't mean much.) The thing covering the window turned out to be the mattress, which had been ripped from the bed frame and was propped up against the wall. What was left of Kit's desk chair joined the broken shards of glass from the overhead light, as did the stack of schoolwork Louisa had left for Kit to complete. The room was in disarray, but the damage was superficial at best. What concerned her, however, were the little bloody footprints that led into the bathroom.
Louisa followed them and found Kit sitting in the bathtub, her knees pulled up to her chest. There was even more blood in the tub, ruby red as it oozed steadily from her feet. Her pupils were blown wide, giving her the appearance of a drugged-up doll, and she shied away from Louisa's light.
It was that action that brought Louisa back to her senses. Regardless of what Kit may have done or was capable of, she was still a child. A neglected and abused child at that. If Louisa was scared by whatever force had caused this destruction, she could only imagine how terrified Kit was to have witnessed it.
Are you hurt? Louisa signed after balancing her mobile on the edge of the bathtub.
Kit stared up at her, her irises a sliver of brown around her pupils. Slowly, she raised her right fist to her chest and dragged it around in a circle. Sorry.
Louisa pressed her lips together and tried to compose herself, but she couldn't stop a few tears from escaping. Shaking her head, she signed, You're safe now, and pulled Kit into her arms.
Kit allowed Louisa to pick her up and carry her back downstairs. It was a small mercy that the kitchen chairs were no longer floating when they entered the kitchen. After clearing a spot on the bench, Louisa set Kit down and inspected the damage. The ragged, bloody mess that was the soles of Kit's feet looked excruciating, and yet Kit merely watched her with those same blank, too-dark eyes. She watched impassively as Louisa sanitised the tweezers she found in the first kit, and she didn't cry when Louisa began to pull out the shards of glass from her skin.
Louisa tried not to think too much about the gruesome work. She was afraid she might cry if she stopped for too long. She was seventeen and by no means qualified to do this. This was a job for a qualified doctor, not a babysitter.
A cold hand rested on her shoulder.
"Why don't I handle this, darling?" Carlisle said, smiling kindly down at her.
Louisa blinked at him, her brain unable to comprehend his sudden appearance. "I'm not—-"
"Alice informed me of the situation," he explained, taking the first aid kit out of her hands before turning to Kit and introducing himself in ASL.
The effect was immediate: the blank expression vanished from Kit's face, replaced by pure malice. What was left of her irises vanished in a flood of black, and her lips twisted into a demonic snarl.
Something moved in Louisa's periphery, and she ducked just as a cast iron frying pan soared past where her head had been just seconds before. It hit the opposite wall with so much force that it embedded itself into the drywall.
A quick glance at Carlisle showed that he, too, had witnessed Louisa's near brush with death. His mouth opened and shut as his yellow eyes flicked between Kit, Louisa, and the frying pan, clearly trying to calculate the probability of what he had just seen. Kit, for her part, looked equally as shocked by this turn of events. The black had receded, and she gaped wide-eyed at Louisa.
I didn't do it, she signed.
Louisa nodded numbly. There was no logical or rational explanation for any of it. Kit had been locked upstairs in her room when the kitchen was wrecked, and she hadn't moved from her spot on the bench. And the floating chairs…
No, Kit couldn't have done any of it. It was physically impossible. But if she hadn't, who, or what, did?
"Hush though, and listen. If you're quiet, you can hear their whispers in the water calling to those left behind." ― LaTanya McQueen
Thank you all for being so incredibly patient and supportive of me, and for believing in this story. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for each one of you. Thank you all so much for sticking with me and reading this story!