Hilltop House

Cora, Thirteen

Cora was pretty peeved at her mother. Out of absolutely nowhere, the woman had decided to accept Alan's invitation to join him and Brian for Thanksgiving dinner. There were about a hundred reasons Cora didn't want to go, not least of which was that she hadn't spoken to Brian since he'd taken her to the beach, but her mother had seemed so desperate to get Cora up and doing something, and Cora herself hadn't had the energy or heart to argue. Her mother hadn't had a day off since she'd started her jobs; Cora knew she deserved a holiday close to normal. And even though the girl really didn't want to leave the house, they'd be only a few yards away.

They were supposed to be there at five, so Cora and her mother spent the morning watching the parade on television, the woman making coffee and pulling out some pastries she'd picked up somewhere. It wasn't anything too fancy, but both of them quietly enjoyed the normalcy of sitting on the couch all cozy against the light snowfall beyond the window.

"Can't you make the floors warm up?" Maeve asked her daughter, only half sarcastically. "My feet get so cold walking aground."

"I don't make the floors warm—"

"Yeah, but the house likes you. It does things for you."

"Mom, that's . . ." Cora pulled her feet up under her. She looked squarely at her mother, wondered exactly what to make of her comment. How much did the woman really know? And why did Cora feel somehow as if she'd been discovered, as if her mother had read her poetry? Better to say nothing, really. Not as if it'd be abnormal for her to keep to herself. Besides, even as they sat there in the living room, Cora was perfectly aware of the house around her, of its mood. It was presently calm. It was almost--if she could read it properly--something close to content. It'd receded, lately, or at least sort of toned down. At night, Cora hadn't been overwhelmed with what she could only describe as its attention, and there hadn't been any of the upsetting little things that'd shown its frustrations: no cracking window corners, no rumblings from the floor, no odd noises or falling cabinet shelves. Even the odor of baby powder had dissipated a little (or perhaps Cora had just been acclimating to it). Whatever the case, things were just a little quieter.

Which was why leaving really wasn't a good idea. Cora had tried to talk her mother out of it. They hadn't spent Thanksgiving in any special way in years; why should they start now?

"But Alan says he loves to cook and never has anyone to cook for!" her mother had pleaded. "And, Cora, you know he can make some good food."

That was true. The times Cora had spent over there, Sundays hanging out with Brian, she'd always appreciated whatever Alan had baked or reheated for them, seeing especially as she and her mother usually ate nondescript microwaveable things. So, after passing what felt like an almost normal mother-daughter morning-into-afternoon just hanging out, Cora put herself together a little, dressed up a bit but focused more on warmth, and the two of them walked through the flurries toward the house down the street, store-bought pumpkin pies in hand. The whole three minutes the cold, quiet, walk took, Cora's thoughts moved in strange circles. Leaving the house felt weird, for reasons she couldn't verbalize, and even less comfortable was the prospect of talking to Brian. The last time she'd seen him, she'd given him the silent treatment, and even in the few messages they'd sent back and forth since then, she'd been ninety percent non-responsive and ten percent evasive. She was determined to continue being cold, at least for as long as it took to forgive him (which might be forever). But that would make sitting at a table with her mother and Alan awkward enough.

Lucky for her, no one sat at a table. And Tom and Ann were, shockingly, there, as were a couple other grown people Cora didn't recognize. Alan said he'd even invited Niecey, but she'd turned down the invitation.