The Witch House of Persimmon Point Read online

  Her red curls (the only thing most people noticed about her) bounced like tightly coiled springs each time she moved to choose a different color crayon. Her daddy, who was banging things around in their apartment upstairs, had brought a new box over, and it wasn’t the ordinary pack of twenty-four that mama usually got at the dollar store down the street. This one was wider, more impressive. So impressive that Maj was being extra careful to put each one back exactly where it came from, turning the crisp paper wrappers so that she could read the names of the new colors. Each one like a drawing all its own. Cornflower Blue, Periwinkle, Burnt Sienna …

  “You okay down there, Maj?” Her mama peeked in at her.

  “Don’t look! It’s not finished. Did you know that there was a color named Permanent Geranium Lake. It’s a pretty red color. It got retired in 1910.”

  “Crayons get retired?” Mama asked. “How do you know all this? Did you suddenly become a seven-year-old expert on crayon history?”

  “No, but I was looking for it in this box, because I need it, and it wasn’t here, and then I remembered that I used it from the toy box in the attic, and that they were really old, so I asked Daddy and he told me about the crayon graveyard.”

  “Daddy was nice, bringing you those new crayons, don’t you think?”

  “That’s a question inside a question, Mama, and you told me I never had to answer those.”

  “Mimi, please tell me I’m not a terrible mother,” she said, sitting back up.

  But Mimi couldn’t offer any comfort to Mama, because Mimi was dead. Besides, Maj’s daddy had come back into the kitchen, filling it up with his anger and fear. Daddy couldn’t see the ghosts. Mama could see them only when she was tired or sad, and then she always said things like, “I’ve lost my mind completely…” or “What good is a ghost if they can’t wash a dish? I SWEAR.”

  But Maj could see them. And hear them, too.

  Only, she knew she wasn’t crazy, and neither was her mama. They were simply Amores.

  Maj went back to work, because something was trying to tell her a secret. It would be hidden in her picture. All she needed was the right color for Crazy Anne’s geraniums.

  * * *

  Eleanor and her almost ex-husband, Anthony, glared at each other across the kitchen table. She didn’t want him to think the tears in her eyes were over him. He didn’t want to believe they weren’t.

  Eleanor felt Mimi melt away into the air when he slammed the back door. She couldn’t get used to life without her grandmother. The only real mother, the only true support and friend she’d ever had. Sometimes, when Mimi visited with her, she thought her mind was concocting the whole haunting because she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

  But she knew better. An Amore woman wasn’t worth her weight in salt if she didn’t hang out for a while before dancing into the afterlife. Eleanor was almost grateful for the argument Anthony started, yet another tired continuation of all the others they’d had over the years, because it helped her take her mind off the lingering smell of Mimi and her lily of the valley perfume. And at the same time, it helped her become even more resolved about her decision to leave the Bronx.

  “I’m serious, Elly,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “When are you not serious? You are a walking, talking warning sign.”

  “Stop, listen to me. All this stuff about that house … what if the stories are true? It’s irresponsible to up and move there with the baby.”

  “She’s seven.”

  “She’s under the table,” Maj sang out.

  Eleanor and Anthony looked at each other, both ashamed for arguing around her. Again.

  “Time to take a bath, Princess,” said Anthony.

  “But why? I took one last night.”

  “Because your mother should make sure you have a bath every night, that’s why. It’s proper.”

  “Why do you insist on doing that? If you have something to say to me, say it. You don’t have to filter it through her. It’s borderline abusive, you know,” said Eleanor.

  “What are you talking about? You make this shit up in your mind. I was just answering her question.”

  “No you were NOT. You were implying that I don’t bathe her! Which is untrue and mean-spirited and I can’t even believe I’m arguing about this again! Don’t you have a new home to go to?”

  Maj emerged from under the table, scowling.

  “I don’t like it when you say bad things about each other. It’s not right or fair. And you don’t mean it. I can tell,” she said.

  Eleanor waited for Anthony to yell. He never liked it when Maj criticized their completely inept parenting skills. He didn’t like to feel like he was making any mistakes, ever. But this time he didn’t lose his patience, maybe because they were leaving the next day and he didn’t want to waste any time.

  Falling out of love should be easier, she thought. Instead of losing his patience, his damned handsome face broke into that wide open smile of his that broke her heart all over again.

  “This one should be a lawyer,” said Anthony.

  “I will not be a lawyer,” Maj said, her arms crossed in a huff.

  “Oh, no? And what would you like to be, then? An actress, a vet?” asked Eleanor, deciding to follow his lead.

  “Mama, let me ask you something. What is my name?” asked Maj, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head.

  Elly and Anthony look at each other, amused. Maj had just recently begun to flex her genetically inherited sarcasm.

  “Your name,” said Elly, pulling Maj onto her lap and squeezing her tight, “is Elizabeth Amore. You were named after the most wonderful great-aunt and friend in the world. And we call you Maj, because it’s short for Your Majesty.”

  “Yes. That is my name. And that means I’d never want to be a lawyer. Or a doctor, or anything else like that. Ever.”

  “Why, do you fancy yourself a queen?”

  “Of course I do. But I don’t want to be a queen, either.”

  “Then what do you want to be?”

  “Well, I used to want to be a piece of toast with butter and raspberry jam, but now I want to be the ocean. Is it time for the news yet?”

  “Just about,” said Eleanor.

  Maj slid off her mother’s lap, tucked the box of crayons under her arm, picked up her drawing, and left the kitchen.

  Anthony and Eleanor listened for her to switch on the TV.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Anthony said. “That child is getting stranger by the day. You have to say something to her when she says things like that. People will think she’s … she’s … I mean, people already think she’s an oddball.”

  “I know! Isn’t it delicious?”

  “Stop acting like it doesn’t bother you. I’m not wrong about this, Elly. You can act like you’re proud of it all you want, but at the end of the day, you wish she was—”

  “What? What are you about to say? Because I know it wasn’t normal. You wouldn’t say that.”

  “I can’t say anything.”

  “There’s one thing you can say…”

  “What?”

  “Good-bye, farewell, see you next lifetime.”

  “Very grown-up of you. No wonder she is the way she is.”

  Eleanor tried (unsuccessfully) to hide the pain she was feeling as she fought with Anthony.

  If she put all the events of the past two years in perspective, she’d have nothing to be upset about at all, except, of course, their impending divorce, and Maj’s behavioral issues (which along with her move, was the current topic of debate, and which Eleanor believed weren’t issues at all, because her daughter was simply stubborn. Not to mention born with a lot more of the Amore sight than anyone remembered any other member of the family ever having). Other than those two teeny tiny details, everything was, as Mimi would have said, dandy. Eleanor had found success as an artist, her paintings making a modest amount of money, and she’d repaired some damaged relationships (most notabl
y with her mother, Carmen the Actress).

  “Really, if I think about it, all emotions aside, I should thank you. I’ve come into my own, Anthony.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not screaming at me, but I’m going to disagree. When you came to the Bronx eight years ago, you were a lost soul. And now? You’re even worse off.”

  Eight years. Eight years since she’d come to the Bronx, pregnant and on the run. One year of falling madly in love, seven destroying that love bit by bit.

  “Anthony, you’ve got to come to terms with the fact that you suffer from a hero complex. Think about it … you took care of your mother. Then when she died, you took care of Mimi and the rest of the old ones. And then I come back to the Bronx, all broken and pregnant and crazy. And you sweep me off my feet. Saving me. Only, I guess I didn’t need you enough … was that it? Did you need me to stay weak and vacant?”

  Is that why you left? she finished silently.

  “It makes me crazy when you start talking all that mumbo jumbo. Complexes and shit. You were the one who started all this, Elly. Don’t forget, you kissed that art dealer, and when I was still willing to forgive you, you kicked me out. Don’t forget, you brought this whole situation on yourself.”

  Eleanor felt the anger and defensiveness rise.

  “Yes. How could I forget? You won’t let me forget. And you always leave out the part where you made living with you after that a complete misery. You wouldn’t even look at me! You never even wanted to talk about why it happened. And look how it turned out. I’m lost again, packing up my life, and there you are living down the block happily with Josephine De’Fazio. Getting all hot and bothered over her perfect vacuum cleaner lines in her perfectly atrocious wall-to-wall carpet from Sears, no less, and probably chasing after her while she washes dishes in her apron, saying ‘It’s so sexy when you clean, JoJo!’ But I didn’t think we were discussing this again. I thought we were discussing the new renters moving in and what time you were picking up the U-Haul and Maj wanting to be toast!”

  “The ocean, Mama!” Maj called from the other room.

  “Calm down,” Anthony said, glancing in Maj’s direction. “You still look pretty when you’re mad.… Is there any of Mimi’s tea left? The one that calms you down? I’ll look. Did you pack all the pots?”

  Eleanor hated that he still had the ability to make her feel better. It was like her heart was betraying her head.

  “I threw that tea away,” she lied. “Besides, there’s no magic strong enough to turn me into Josephine De’Fazio.” She banged her fist down on the table. “And no magic I know of that can make this neighborhood, these schools, these other parents, that priest you like so much, accept Maj for who she is, not who everyone wants her to be. And that includes you, too. You and your idea of normal. Because if that woman is normal … I can’t do this. Why don’t you just leave, Anthony? I’m sure she misses you and is making you some new Jell-O mold as we speak.”

  “First of all, I’m staying in her guest room. Nothing more, nothing less. A man needs somewhere to lay his head, and when you threw me out on my rear end, Josephine was kind enough to offer.”

  I never thought you’d actually leave, she thought for the millionth time.

  “And second,” he continued, “I suppose this conversation is a good example of you … what was that you said a minute ago? Coming into your own?”

  “Mama, come quick! They said the story is coming up next!” Maj yelled from the living room.

  6:30 P.M.

  Eleanor sat on the couch in apartment 1A at 1313 170th street in the Bronx and tried not to look at Mimi’s lonely crochet basket at her feet. All the unfinished things that dead hands leave … She did her best to watch the screen instead of waiting for Anthony to put his arm around her, to tell her how sorry he was and how everything that happened since they were married was his fault.

  Maj was stretched out on the floor, waiting for the news to resume.

  In silence they watched two commercials for pharmaceuticals while staring straight at the television. No one could avoid eye contact the way Anthony could. It was the most aggravating thing.

  “Who buys this stuff anyway,” he mumbled.

  “Daddy! Shhh!” shushed Maj as the interview began.

  * * *

  “We are speaking today with our very own Johnny Colder from Sunday, Today, Tomorrow about his much anticipated special airing right here on WBDM on … well, John, I don’t want to steal your thunder, do you have an air date yet?”

  “First, Brad, I want to thank you for having me today, I never get to mix with the weekday news crowd here at the station! And, as a matter of fact, we do have an air date. To be honest, the amount of interest the public has in watching my exposé of the Witch House—and the family that owned it—has taken me by surprise.”

  “Do you suppose that man knows how ridiculous he sounds?” asked Eleanor.

  “Do you realize that everyone but you sounds ridiculous and stupid?” asked Anthony.

  “Shhhh!” said Maj.

  “So, don’t keep us in suspense, John. When is the big reveal?”

  “As you know, there’s a lot of planning that goes into a live show like this. We all remember the fiasco with Al Capone’s tomb, right?”

  (Shared laughter.)

  “So, in order to make sure we didn’t have similar results, I’ve done extensive research on the house, the property, and the women. I’ve also enlisted the support of the team from the hit show Present and Paranormal. It took a lot of work, but we’re finally ready to dive in. The air date is this Sunday, September sixth.”

  “Labor Day weekend. Fantastic! You heard it here first, folks. Tune in this Sunday and watch as Johnny Colder uncovers the Witch House of Persimmon Point. Ah, Persimmon Point—it sounds so sweet for a location with this dark history. Now, John, for those viewers who’ve been living under a rock the past year, what is it you are trying to find?”

  “Well, besides investigating the myriad of urban legends associated, the main focus is whether or not these women were, perhaps, the most prominent uncaught serial killers in the history of the United States. We have at least a hundred disappearances from up and down the East Coast, spanning almost a hundred years, that can all be linked, in one way or another, to that area. To put it frankly, Brad, we’re looking for bones.”

  “There you have it. It’s a must-watch, that’s for sure. Thanks for joining us, Johnny. And good luck.”

  * * *

  “Sunday?” said Eleanor. That only gave her three full days to move into a house that hadn’t been lived in since 1999 before it was on the national news.

  “Do you want me to come down with you so you’re not alone when all those people come? I could make sure everything is running good.”

  “No thank you, Mr. Hero. I can handle it. I’m sure I’ll feel right at home with the chaos.”

  “I can’t believe you signed the papers letting them go dig around there. Once that place is on TV, it’ll bring all the crazies out,” said Anthony, frowning.

  “They paid me, Anthony. Real money. So I didn’t have to sell this building. So instead, you could rent it out and I could try and get Maj out of here. I didn’t know it would be a circus. Honestly, I’m sick to death of you making me feel bad. If you want me to stay, ask me to stay. But I’m the person you get. Messy me. Paint-in-the-hair me. No vacuum required. And this kid here? She’s the one you get. The one your friend Sal down at the Sunoco called ‘the Bad Seed.’ Besides, Mimi willed it to me.”

  “That’s unfair. Mimi left this building to you as well. You don’t even know if she wanted you to go there. Wouldn’t she have told you about it when she was alive if she was hot on the idea of leaving?”

  “That’s low. I mean it. Don’t use my dead grandmother against me. She’s been gone six months, but I’m still in shock, and you’re using her to make me second-guess myself. I don’t know why she didn’t tell us. But I do know this family, and it could have been her s
imply hiding it from us because she didn’t want me to leave her, not here.”

  “That’s not it, Mama. She was hiding it from us because it scared her,” Maj piped up.

  “See, even the kid knows this is a stupid move.”

  “Mama, I—”

  “Maj, go on upstairs to our apartment,” Eleanor interrupted Maj. “I’ll be up in a minute. I need to talk to Daddy. Alone.”

  She waited until the door was shut to say, “It’s stupid? So, what’s the smart move, then? I’m completely out of options. Anthony, I have to get Maj out of the city. We’re on a first-name basis with the school guidance counselors at the public and parochial schools in a ten-mile radius. The way to make her life less about becoming who she isn’t and more about being a wild redheaded impertinent child is to get her out of here. And you aren’t helping. Because you agree with them. Because at the end of the day, she isn’t yours. Not your blood. And you think she’s like him.”

  For a second, Eleanor thought he was going to hit her. But then he bit his knuckles and took a breath.

  “You are not out of options. You want to run. To put distance between me and you and whatever it is that’s wrong with Maj. You don’t want to face anything. So you deserve what you get. But Maj doesn’t. Think about that, Elly. Maj deserves better.”

  “Maj deserves a mortgage-free estate on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with wild ponies and an art deco in-ground swimming pool. And a wraparound porch where her mother can paint. In a state that will let me homeschool her with far less restrictions than New York. That’s what Maj deserves. And that’s what she’ll get. Now, did you fix the faucet upstairs yet or what? And when you’re done, hide the wrench so I’m not tempted to kill you in your sleep and then take apart Josephine’s Electrolux.”