“Why?” I asked.
She sipped her tea, holding the mug tight in her hands. “I never knew for sure. I asked the older people, the ones who I thought may have come out here. They never told me. This was after we moved in here, and they realized I was related. Perhaps if I’d asked before they knew who I was, they would have told me, but I wasn’t interested before then. They were scared of the place, though. That much was clear.”
“Scared?” I said.
She nodded. “Quite. Your dad makes it sound like Luca, Sam, and I are the only ones afraid of the inn. Truth is, everyone in town who was older than me was terrified of it. It’s the reason we got the land for so little. After the bank foreclosed, they practically gave it to us.”
“You bought it from the bank? Your grandmother didn’t give it to you?”
Gigi chuckled. “Are you kidding? She hated us for buying it. She probably hated us more than she hated anyone else,” Gigi said thoughtfully. “So, no, she did not give it to us.”
“Why did she hate you so much?”
“We stole her land,” Gigi said. “And no amount of reasoning could convince her otherwise.”
“Did you kick her out?” I asked, thinking perhaps that was the reason for the hatred.
“Of course not,” Gigi said. “Your grandfather even offered her a room in this house, after it was finished. I didn’t speak to him for two days after he did that. Thank goodness she hated us far too much to live under the same roof as us. She lived at the inn until she died. She rarely left.”
“What about food and electricity?” I asked.
“She was good at fishing,” Gigi said, “and she never had electricity. I suppose you can’t miss what you never had.
“Your grandpa took food to her, and she spit on him. Then he tried leaving food for her. She never touched it. Animals did, but she never did. After that, he stopped trying.”
“She spit on him?” I said, disgusted at the thought.
“She was truly a vile woman, or, as we started to understand, evil.”
I shivered, pulling my blanket around me. “I don’t believe in that,” I said, trying to make my voice sound stronger than it was.
“You don’t believe in evil?” Gigi asked, lifting her pale eyebrows ever so slightly.
“I believe in evil, but I don’t believe in people being evil,” I said, unsure even in my own mind what the difference was. There was a difference; of this, I was sure.
“That’s fine,” Gigi said. “Far be it for me to tell someone what they should or should not believe.” She took a sip of tea and set her mug on the table. “Of course,” she said calmly, “your belief about something does not alter reality.”
“Maybe it’s you whose beliefs are wrong,” I said in a defiant tone I wasn’t used to hearing come from me.
She grinned. “Your voice sounds exactly like my mother’s. I never realized that before,” she said with nostalgia. “Perhaps I am the one who’s wrong or the one who’s crazy, which is what you were actually thinking. If I am, then Luca is the same and so is Sam and so was your mother.”
I did not speak. It wasn’t fair for her to lump my mom in with her and the others—others who were not exactly the picture of sanity.
“But not Dad,” I said, fighting back.
“The ironic thing is he’s the reason we realized she was more than merely an awful old woman. He’s the reason we learned something demonic was going on,” she said slowly, focusing on her mug as if remembering something painful from long ago. “But you’re right,” she said, blinking up at me, “he wouldn’t believe any of it now.” Her voice sounded resolved to a truth that made her sad.
She stood, leaving her tea where it was, and went toward the stairs.
“Good night, Siena. I’ve disturbed you enough for one night,” she said with the same sadness.
I should have asked her what she meant or why she sounded so upset, or a million other questions, but none of those entered my mind until long after she’d left the room and I could hear her footsteps on the floor above me.
I placed my plate and her mug in the dishwasher.
In my room, I went to the window for no reason other than habit. The trees swayed in the heavy wind. The moon was rising above the sea. My eyes focused on it, and then the subtlest of lights caught my eye. I moved closer to the glass.
There was a light in the inn. My body almost spasmed, it shivered so hard. I jumped into bed and pulled the flannel sheets over my head. I was too scared to think, too scared to do anything but lie there trying to fall asleep.
Fourteen
The next day I awoke with clarity—clarity I had lacked the night before. I resolved to think nothing about any of the events of the previous two days. Yes, Luca passed out, and yes, that was weird, but people passed out all the time. That certainly did not prove he could sense evil. It meant he needed to be more aware of his blood sugar and possibly go to the doctor.
Gigi was an amazing grandmother, but she was a bit extreme in her thinking about many things, not simply about ghosts and goblins and whatever other strange creatures she believed in. And the light I’d glimpsed in the middle of the night was merely my exhausted mind playing tricks. Or, at most, a reflection of the full moon off one of the dust-covered windowpanes acting as a mirror. The inn was old and delipidated and physically dangerous, like Dad said. But it was not a spiritual threat. How could it be?
The day was bright and sunny, the wind had calmed down, and there was a fresh carpet of red, gold, and orange leaves covering the lawn. Today would be better, I told myself. I repeated this mantra every morning until Friday, when I woke up and didn’t have to remind myself the day would be better.
Gigi had stopped talking to me about demons. Luca hadn’t been around except at night. Though him staring at the stones of our house now felt normal, so even that didn’t bother me. Thomas and I texted back and forth a few times. He was nice, checking on Luca and apologizing for going toward the inn. It was nice to have someone to text with. It was, I realized, nice to have a friend. I was looking forward to seeing him the next day at the church’s fall festival.
Of course, the fall festival would only happen if people showed up, and they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t know it was happening or where to park. Which was why our kitchen and the hallway leading to my dad’s office were now overrun with neon-colored poster boards.
I was the designated sign maker at our church. It didn’t matter if I volunteered or not; everyone in the church automatically assumed I’d do it. I didn’t mind. I always enjoyed practicing lettering and there weren’t many opportunities to use those skills unless I was making signs or addressing wedding invitations, the other thing I was automatically volunteered for.
“These look great,” Dad said as he stepped over me on his way to his office.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to match the style of writing to the type of vendor.”
“Hmm, yes, I can see that,” he said, studying the sign I was working on.
I knew he couldn’t see it. He never thought about the way he formed letters or even the font he used when typing. He was odd in that way. Or perhaps I was the odd one. I often spent well over an hour picking out the perfect font for my reports.