Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hester House, July 2008
"Please?"
"No!"
"Please Max? Please?"
"It's a boys club house, Ella."
"I can be a boy!" insisted the little girl.
"No you can't!" Teddy stuck his head out of the closet.
Max poked his out, too. "Ted's right Ella, you can't be a boy. You're a girl."
"Please?" she begged. "Auntie Sonia said you had to be nice to me, Max!"
"You have to be ten." Max told her, very matter of fact.
"And you're six." Added Teddy.
"Fine." Huffed Ella. "Hester and I will make our own club house, and it's a girls only club house – so you can't come!" she turned on her heel, arms crossed. "C'mon Hessie."
Hester looked up from her toy truck, big blue eyes blinking slowly. She had her short, curly cinnamon hair in two pigtails. "I wanna stay!"
"Hessie."
Hester got to her feet, pigtails bobbing as she ran after her sister. In the closet Max and Teddy shrugged at each other, returning to their game of cards.
Downstairs Ella tugged on her mother's skirt, rosebud mouth puckered in a frown. "Mamma!"
Amara glanced down at her six year old, Hester plopped at her feet. "Where are the boys?"
"They won't let us play in their clubhouse!"
Sighing, Amara put her recipe book down and rubber her belly; four months pregnant with her third child. Andrew was overjoyed, she was trying to be – this meant a month off at least in the New Year from her job. She had begun a teaching job shortly after Hester was born and loved it; the high school kids thought she was the best art teacher, letting them do pretty much whatever they pleased within boundaries of sculpture, instillation, painting.
"Okay honey-buns, let's get those boys out of the closet."
Five minutes later she had them set up with a list of things they had to find, ranging from feathers to certain books. The boys led Ella and Hester with the list, reading off objects. Amara retreated to find Andrew, wondering if this could buy them a half hour or so to have some alone time.
"We need to find a hairbrush." Teddy said, reading Amara's messy teacher scrawl.
"Let's check in here." Ella tried to open a door, but it was locked – the young witch had no trouble with locks. The door swung open and the four of them peeked inside. "Me first!" Ella cried, pushing through.
"Hey, hold on!" Max said, trying to get in, too; they ended up colliding with the dresser by the door, knocking the siding off.
"Ouch!" Ella shouted. "That hurt, Max!"
Max glared at his cousin. "It hurt me, too dummy!"
"Don't call me a dummy, dummy!"
"A box!" Hester said cheerily, plopping down on the floor and pulling the box to her.
Max saw the box and recognised it immediately, realising where they were. "Hessie, don't!"
Hester looked up, hands on the smooth pearl lid. "Why?"
"We have to put it back." Max said, kneeling by his cousin. "That's what we did last time."
"The side came off." Observed Teddy, running his hands along the dressers white wood. "There's a secret compartment!"
"Oohh!" Hessie exclaimed, inspecting it with him.
Ella looked around them, realising she'd never been in this room before – and this was her house. "Who sleeps here?" she asked, noticing the dust covering all the surfaces.
"No one." Max took the box and placed it carefully back in the compartment, Teddy helping him put the siding back on.
"It's Papa and Auntie Sonia!" Ella cried, peering at the pictures on the mantle. "And Uncle Charlie, Mamma, Grandma – everyone's here!"
"Not us." Hester said, sidling up to her sister. "We left out."
"No one's been sleeping her for a really long time." Max felt shivers run up and down his spine, as if someone was watching him. "It was Mamma and Uncle Andy's Mamma's room."
"Who?" asked Ella.
"Hazel – you know, their Mamma. Uncle Winston's sister?"
"Oh." Ella looked up at the mantle again. "She..."
"Died." Piped up Teddy. "Ten years ago."
Max tried to shake the funny feeling he had. "C'mon, we shouldn't be in here."
The four began to leave, Hester trailing behind. Thumb in her mouth she turned around, pigtail bouncing. Her blue eyes widened as she saw a hazy image of a woman sitting in the white rocking chair.
She brought a finger to her lips, smiling. "Shh little one." She whispered, eyes twnkling kindly.
"Hester!" Ella called. "C'mon, we have to find something sparkly!"
Glancing back at the woman, Hester waved before running out of the room. Hazel knew the little one was going to be special, as all her grandchildren were. Hester did not think of the woman in the rocking chair for many, many years – and when she did, she chalked it up to her imagination. Hester was logical, even for a witch. For many years to come however she would peek in the room, searching for the woman that looked like Ella.
A/N: Happy holidays everyone! I want to tell you about something cool Wattpad has just added, and thats the demographics part of your own works - it's seriously cool! There's a map and it tells you what percentage of your readers are from where. 56% of you are from the US and about 10% are Canadian - shout out to my fellow Canadians! If you're NOT from Canada or the US, do tell me - I am immensly interested! There are some of you in the UK, India, Indonesia, Sweden, all over! It's so cool, totally blows my mind away.
Question: Hazel keeps on popping up, checking in - thoughts on that?
Happy holidays to all of you, I hope to hear where you're from!
Rose