She was alone.
By herself, standing in the rain that had just begun. He hair was different, now. It was fake; not the brown soft curls she used to have. Now she wore straight, black jaw-length hair that seemed to be a wig. She smiled at me, and I can comfortably say that her smile was one of the most frightening, repulsive things I’d ever laid eyes on. Belphoebe still looked dead. She was supposed to be. She wasn’t here. I was hallucinating.
I closed the door in her face.
I stumbled away from it, down the hallway and toward the guest room. There was an itch on my chest, like something was chasing me, about to catch me. I couldn’t run. My feet kept tripping over each other in an effort to walk fast but slow down. I kept blinking. Nothing went away. The house, the itch - it was all still there.
“Aubrey, is everything okay?” Keziah called from the room. She was still trying on clothes. I didn’t answer her. “Who was at the door?”
I stood in the doorway, waiting for her to look away from the mirror and up at me. In a few seconds, she did. There might have been something on my face, some kind of traumatized characteristic that made her gasp, even jump back a little.
“What is it?” She approached me slowly. “What happened?”
“She’s at the door,” The words slipped through my lips when I wasn’t sure I wanted to release them. “Belphoebe.”
Keziah stared at me for a while. Her eyes searched through mine, looking for answers to the questions I’d probably created in her brain. For a moment, with how alarmed and confused she looked, I thought she was going to believe me. I thought that she was going to understand that there was no way I could make something like this up, that the stress I was clearly under would seal the deal. But she laughed. Right in my face, she burst into laughter, like I’d just told the joke of the century.
“Baby,” She kissed my lips, “you’re drunk. Stop talking about her. Her name makes me uncomfortable. Come help me figure out which pair of underwear I should wear tonight.” She winked at me. I was going to join her, to play along with the solution she’d just proposed and really believe that I was just a drunken, confused idiot and should watch my girlfriend try on underwear for me. But it came again, the ring at the door. This time it was followed by a knock, a real knock, something a dead girl couldn’t do.
I was not that drunk.
I raced out of the bedroom and to the door. Keziah slammed the bedroom door behind me, as if to hide herself from Belphoebe. She believed me now. This was real. It was happening. Madeleine prayed that her presence would always be with us, but I know she didn’t mean this way. Not with me.
I opened the door.
“It’s very rude to slam doors in people’s faces,” She said. “Though I’m sure with how sturdy and heavy this one is, it sure is a pleasure. It creates quite the effect on both ends, I suppose.”
She walked past me and into the house, into my house. I could only watch her. I didn’t remember myself touching the door or pushing it closed, but when I looked it was. Belphoebe took off her tall rain boots and sat on the couch, examining the first floor the way an inspector would study a restaurant kitchen. I felt my heart begin to beat in a way it never had. It wasn’t just fast, but it was growing larger in my chest, rising higher and higher until it would crawl into my throat and pop in my head.
“This is a very nice home,” She said. “What style is this, Gothic Revival?”
“Belphoebe,” It was all I could manage to say.
“No, not Gothic Revival. I can’t remember what they call these.”
“Belphoebe.”
“It isn’t Georgian, I don’t think so.”
“Belphoebe.”
“Aha! It’s Victorian, isn’t it?” She laughed, for so long that she had to struggle to regain her breath. “Little boy Aubrey went for a Victorian steal. How predictable.”
I was cursed. That’s what it was.
The devil girl stood up, walked straight past me and into the kitchen. She opened the fridge, humming a familiar tune, and pulled out the champagne Joshua brought. I hadn’t opened it yet, but she took the liberty, pouring herself a glass that I’d already used.
“So, how are things?” She winked with her lips on the glass. I was going to vomit.
“How are you alive, Belphoebe?” I took two steps toward the kitchen. Two was enough for now.
“I don’t know. I don’t believe in God so there are some things I just won’t understand. The science of it is that when my heart beats, it pumps blood to the rest of my body. As long as that doesn’t stop, I don’t.” She smiled again.
“Bell, this isn’t funny.” I could feel the vomit building in my mouth, the spit collecting in my cheeks.
“Okay, okay,” She rolled her eyes. “I know what you mean, Aubrey. You thought I was dead. See, when I was angry at you in Madeleine’s room, I took it out on myself and banged my head against her bedpost. Two days later, I woke up in the hospital. My aunt had already made provisions to bury me, because the hospital’s monitors made a mistake and said that my heart had stopped. But I was still alive, somehow. I had to do these brain exercises so that they could make sure I wasn’t half brain dead, but I’m fine. I get headaches easily nowadays, though. Aubrey, don’t you think that if I was strong enough to actually kill myself by force, I’d use that strength on your little whore when I was fighting her? To kill her? Where is she, anyway?”
Belphoebe downed the rest of the champagne and pushed past me.
“Bell, stop it,” I called after her. She went for the stairs. “Come back here.”
“I just want to talk to her,” She chuckled, rushing up the steps in a swift motion.
“Please, come back here.”
She was almost at the top of the stairs when she stopped; all on her own, she came to a complete halt, facing the next flight of stairs. Then she turned around and walked down the stiars slowly, a small smirk on her lips.
“She’s not up there,” Belphoebe said.
“Yes, she is.”
“No, she isn’t. If she was, you would come and stop me. But all you did was do your pathetic whining from down there. So where is she, Aubrey?”
“Belphoebe, she’s not here.” I said. “We just had a party and she went home with Madeleine and the others. William’s going to drive her back here later.”
Bell looked around the first floor again, and then sat in her spot on the couch. “Fine. I’ll just wait here for her.”
I didn’t have a chance to convince her to just leave, to come back tomorrow when Keziah was here (and when I figured out how to escape the country). For some bizarre reason, Keziah got brave and marched out of the guest room and to the couch.
“Here I am, you witch,” Keziah spat. “I’m right here. You should leave, because if you think that you’re going to put your hands on me again, you’re wrong. We have extensive security here, and you’ll be right in jail. Game over.” We didn’t have a security system, but I gave Keziah mental props for coming up with something that would’ve been a good idea before we actually needed it.
“So you bought a house for her, is that what this is?” Belphoebe asked me, disregarding Keziah. “It’s only you two here. You bought her a house, didn’t you?”
I sighed. “Yes, I did, Bell. She deserved it.”
“She deserved it? What has she ever done for you? Stroked your ego? Your dick? What about me? Don’t you think I deserve a big Victorian mansion, Aubrey?” She screamed.
“What have you ever done for me?” I matched her volume. “You’ve just complicated my life since day one!”
“I could’ve complicated it further by giving you that sweet, precious baby, but I got rid of that.” She walked, almost glided, past Keziah and got her champagne to bring it back into the living room. “I’m always thinking of your feelings, babe.”
Now I was confused. Not even upset, just utterly and terribly confused.
“You two had a baby?” Keziah asked. “You...you had sex?”
“I wasn’t aware,” I said.
“You wouldn’t know. You were drunk out of your mind. It was the night we got home from Cyrus’ house, the night before I gave you that phone number to call to get all of my secrets. You fell asleep on the couch, and then you woke up and started drinking. You came up to my room, your breath reeking of Vodka, and started to kiss me. And then we had sex, and you went back on the couch. I found out I was pregnant much later, and I got the abortion before I fought your whore.” Belphoebe explained. It was a horrific feeling to have a sudden recollection of all of this so long after it happened. I did remember getting wasted, and I did remember feeling Belphoebe’s bare skin against mine.
“But why didn’t I remember the next morning?” I asked myself this aloud.
“That’s how drinking works,” She said. “The more you drink, the less you remember.”
“And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew I could use it against you.”
“So that’s what you’re doing now? You’re using it against me?” I asked her.
“No,” She sipped her glass and shook her head. “I said I knew I could, but I’m not going to. I was going to get the abortion whether you were an asshole or not. I’m sure Mustafa told you.”
“Who’s Mustafa?”
“One of the servants. He’s the one who you went to in his apartment, the one who remained anonymous. He knows a lot, more than me. The only reason he works as a servant is to spy on the events that take place in the mansion. See, he probably told you that all I’m after is money. He was right. I’m in Drake’s mansion because I want the money from his will. He was supposed to give my father a large sum of money for some favor back in the seventies, but it never happened. I want to give my father justice now that he’s dead. I deserve that money. I don’t know if he’ll leave me the money or the mansion. That’s what the newbies are really after: sure, we want the money, but the possibility that we might get the mansion is enticing. That’s why we’re still here. The mansion isn’t just a house. It’s an empire. You’ll have to discover it all on your own. But because it’s such a precious empire, Drake put in his will that if any of us have kids, we can’t get the mansion because he doesn’t want the house to go to children he doesn’t know. If I were to get it, once I got close to death, I’d put measures in place to destroy the entire empire. Only after I’ve done that can I have children.”
I sat down. This information wasn’t easy to register, not on my feet.
“So you’re telling me that Drake’s house comes with some kind of empire, and all of the newbies want it, so you’re willing to jeopardize your possibilities of having kids to get it? Just to destroy it when you’re old?” I asked her.
“Yes. It doesn’t make sense to you now, but if you knew what I was referring to you’d understand.”
“Mustafa has his own apartment but he’s still a servant?” I asked. “You’re telling me that also?”
“It’s true. He’s a part of the empire. He won’t inherit it, but the ones who stay with Drake the longest do inherit something valuable. So even after Mustafa figured out a way to escape the grounds and get his own place, he stayed because he’s smart. Because of the possibility of riches.” Belphoebe’s champagne was finally finished. It seemed that her conversation was, also. What I’d discovered in the short time that she graced our presence was that she was alive, of course, Drake had some kind of kingdom that everyone wanted, and the servants stayed with him because they wanted to be rich. There was still so much that I didn’t understand, a large chunk of the puzzle still missing. I didn’t have the energy to address it. I felt disgusted with myself. I asked Belphoebe to leave, to go to Drake’s house or wherever she came from. She kissed my cheek before going, and waved goodbye to Keziah. I wiped my face and pushed past Keziah. I didn’t have time for her questions. All I could do, all I had left in me, was to go to bed.