The Spite House(59)

“I am.”

Millie motioned for her to come around to the passenger side. “Get on in.”

“Where we going, Miss Steen?”

“Lord, not you too. Your dad called me that, but I’m pulling rank here as the elder. It’s Millie, or Emily if you absolutely must, but none of this ‘Miss’ business.”

“Okay, Millie. Where we going?”

“My place if you’re good with that. Just a quick drive to the northside. I don’t trust anywhere else. Eunice has eyes all around.”

“I see. So you meant that stuff you wrote, then. You think she’s like a dictator or something.”

“You read the article too?” Millie said. “Look, just so you know, some of what I wrote in there, I know how it might have looked on the page. I wrote that for a specific audience, not anticipating all of this, obviously. And I know this is one of those things where if you have to call yourself something, then maybe you’re not really that thing, but I want you to know I’m an ally. You can check my history on that.”

Dess looked at her with scrunched confusion. “Okay.”

Millie sighed. After Dess got in, Millie started the car and made a U-turn to drive back home. She felt her forehead dampen with sweat. Why was she so nervous? Why was she struggling to say the simplest thing?

“Never mind all that,” Millie said. “I’m just in my head about this because I got off to a bad start when I tried to talk to your dad.”

“You’re off to a great start now,” Dess said.

“Funny. I know I must sound foolish to you. ‘Ally.’ Do y’all even still say that, or did you replace it with something new?”

“Y’all?”

“People that are younger than me.”

“I can’t speak for that many generations, Millie,” Dess said, smirking.

Millie let her jaw drop in mock offense but genuine surprise. “Oh, you’re quick. That was pretty good. I think I’m going to like you.”

“If you can tell me something that’ll help my family out then I promise to feel the same way.”

“Fair deal. There’s a lot to get into. Any place you want to start?”

“Yeah, what’s really up with Eunice. I left my sister back with her and Lafonda. Before we get too far, I want to know how far gone she really is. What’s her deal?”

“She’s got an odd history and I think it’s starting to make her crack. She wouldn’t hurt your sister, though. Now that y’all are out of that house I think you’re safe. I’m more worried about your dad still being in there.”

“Why? Can what’s in there hurt him?” Dess said. “Lafonda said that a lady who stayed there before ended up in the hospital.”

“That’s true.”

“But she lived, right?”

Millie said, “As far as I’m aware, yes. Listen, though, there’s a lot to get into, like I said. Let me just start with your first questions about Eunice.”

And so Millie told Dess of the Houghton family history and hex, as told to her by Eunice herself several years ago.





CHAPTER 29



Dess



When they made it to Millie’s house, Dess first asked if she could be excused to use the bathroom. She needed a moment alone to process what she’d heard. She did not question whether Eunice Houghton was really cursed or just thought that she was. That was irrelevant, and she was certainly in no position to doubt someone else’s experiences with the uncanny. What she did question was Millie’s reassurance, as well as Lafonda’s, that Eunice didn’t present a direct danger. Someone under that much pressure, that desperate to live, might do anything. And there was her sister, living proof that death didn’t have to be final. What if Eunice found out about that? What might she do then?

How would she find out, Dess thought, and felt a modicum of relief when she couldn’t think of an answer. Stacy wouldn’t tell. She’d shown no signs thus far of even knowing what had happened to her, much less how she had come back.

When Dess came out, Millie called to her from her living room. She sat in a chair and offered Dess a seat on the couch, where between them, on the end table, sat a bottle of whiskey and a quarter-full tumbler for each of them.

“You don’t look twenty-one,” Millie said, “and you also look more like you’d pick a sports drink over liquor ten times out of ten, but I figured it’d be rude to just pour myself some and not offer any.”

Dess sat down, picked up the glass, sniffed it, and pulled back from the burn that went up her nose. “Ugh, that smells like fuel.”

“Don’t it? That’s basically what it is. I know I can’t run without it.”

They shared a small laugh, then Millie said, “Okay, let’s talk about the house now.”

“Let’s do it,” Dess said.

“The house and that whole area where the land dips between the hills, that belonged to Eunice’s great-grandparents. They gifted it to the Masson family as a bit of penance for the big betrayal and the execution. Pretty much tried to buy their way out of their curse.

“Where that old orphanage is, that was the Masson family’s home. Adler and his wife had a son who fathered two boys, Peter and Lukas. They weren’t quite Cain and Abel, but they were different enough for problems to arise. Luke, the older one, had no affection for family history. Peter, on the other hand, thought living on that land honored his murdered ancestor.”