RoseBlood(2)

I nibble on the end of my braid. “It just doesn’t feel right. Why did it take over a hundred years for anyone to rebuild or inhabit that place again?”

Mom presses the brochure to her thigh, signaling the end of our debate. “Just quit being so negative and focus on the positive. They’ve had a lot of rain here, so the leaves are changing early. Look out your window and enjoy the beginning of fall. That should remind you of home.”

I glance at my lap and make a marked effort not to see the jeweled leaves: the browns and oranges, the yellows as bright as the dandelions that overtake my flowers every spring, until I make my way out with a bucket and spade to dig them up. I’d rather not be reminded of what I’m missing at home right now, or of what I’ll be missing in six months when warm weather settles in Harmony, Texas, and I’m not there to take care of Dad’s garden.

Gardening is one of the two things that reminds me most of him. I inherited his green thumb but also his talent for music. Although I could never master the violin like he did. My instrument is something entirely different, and it masters me. Which is the real reason I’m being sent away, although Mom won’t admit it.

My braid drapes across my left shoulder, the end tapping the belt loops on my jeans in time with the car’s movement. I tug the silvery ribbons woven within, relieved I plaited the unruly waves this morning before our shopping spree. Otherwise, I’d have no control over them in this dampness. I pull my handmade knitted cap lower, wishing I could disappear inside.

If I were going anywhere but a music conservatory, I’d be more cooperative. Something happened in Harmony recently . . . something I have reason to run from. Something Mom doesn’t even know about.

But to send me to RoseBlood? She’s so desperate to fix me, she hasn’t stopped to consider the hell she’s sentencing me to.

“They found a skeleton in the deepest basement, floating in the water. A skeleton, Mom. Do I really need another reason to be scared of water? This weather . . . it’s an omen.”

“Right.” Mom scoffs. “Any minute you’ll start preaching about auras and visions.”

Tension knots in my shoulders. My dad and my grandma spoke of auras a lot, as if they could see them. And since I see rainbows when I sing, I used to think that ability passed on to me. There was a time I was convinced—if I focused hard enough—I could see halos of color around other people’s bodies. I made the mistake of telling Mom once. She took me to the eye doctor, and I ended up recanting the claim in order to get out of wearing glasses I knew I didn’t need. Now, I’ve convinced myself to stop looking for them. It’s not worth the hassle or the confusion.

“Consider this,” Mom continues, “every time you fall back into her way of thinking, you give her power over your life.” Mom’s voice falters on the obvious effort not to mention my grandma’s name. “I know she’s working to be a better person, so we’ll cut her a little slack. She talked your aunt into paying for your tuition. The least we can do is let her try to make amends since she’s dying. Just don’t let her get inside your head again.”

I press my lips tight. Suffering from congestive heart failure has to be horrible and painful, and I should at least feel something for Grandma Lil. But I remember images of my black hair swirling in dark, deep water as I tried to escape the wooden crate keeping me submerged; I remember her wrinkled, weathered hands on the other side of the planks tightening their grip to hold me under. And because of that, any sympathy eludes me.

I shudder. Yeah, Grandma’s got a lot to make amends for, no doubt.

“After all of these years of no contact,” Mom continues, “for them to reach out like this because you’re having so many problems? It gives me hope we can be a family again. Your dad would’ve wanted that. It wasn’t easy for Lottie to get your transfer moved to the top of the list. She was afraid to show favoritism. But she’s doing it as a favor to us. Let’s make an effort to show our gratitude when we get there. Okay?”

The famed Aunt Charlotte: retired sixty-something French prima donna and Dad’s older sister. I get the feeling this is more of a favor she’s doing for her incarcerated mom—so the old woman can save herself from continuing imprisonment postdeath, in purgatory.

I run my palm across the seat, the leather plush and foreign to my hand. Like nearly every woman in Dad’s family, Charlotte was a ballerina in the Paris Opera company. As a result, she snagged herself an aristocratic husband. It was love at first sight when he saw her dance. Now that she’s a wealthy widow, her generous donations have earned our family a spot among the boarding school’s most elite beneficiaries. Which explains my acceptance as a student without the usual three-month consideration period.

Nothing like nepotism to earn you a place in the hearts of your peers.

Hopefully the other students won’t know my aunt sent this limo to pick us up at the hotel this morning and drive us around shopping all day; that she is paying my tuition for the year; and that she wired Mom nine hundred and fifty euros last week—the equivalent of a thousand dollars, give or take—to help buy my uniforms and dorm accessories at the posh boutiques here.

I’ve never met her, other than through ten years of spotty, one-sided phone conversations with my mom. Charlotte’s never visited America, and I’d never been to Paris until now. According to Mom, she used to call once a month to talk to Dad. Until he got sick enough to land in hospice care; then she stopped. She didn’t even come to his funeral, so I can’t help but question her motives.