The Face in the House

38

Sunlight filtered through her closed eyelids, turning her world bright red.

It was like a warning--the light was too bright, the day was too harsh—and all she wanted to do was fall back to sleep. After seeing her mom, after breaking down in front of everyone . . . she wasn't ready to face the day. She kept her eyes shut stubbornly against it.

She was almost back to sleep when she heard the familiar dry shuffle of paper on paper. She opened her eyes.

She was surprised to find Owen in her bed, and the sight of him, shirtless, with the suggestion of more bare skin beneath the sheets, brought the memory of last night flashing back to her. Her face burned. She realized she was naked too.

Had she been drunk? She winced against the sunlight. She did feel kind of hungover, but she couldn't recall having anything to drink . . .

She inspected her hand, and found that the black vein had lengthened down toward her wrist. She could still feel a light pulse, a memory of the power that thrummed through her blood hours before. The memory of it left her feeling empty. She wondered when she would feel it again.

Owen didn't know she was awake, she noticed. He was focusing intently, his brow was furrowed beneath the beanie he always wore—even when he wasn't wearing anything else, she noted with amusement—and his eyes scanned the book in his hands.

She went cold. It wasn't a book, it was a diary. Owen was reading Isabelle's diary. She sat up, heart pounding.

"What are you doing?" she said. She hoped he kept her voice cool. There was still a chance he hadn't read past the lovelorn bits.

"Hey, you're awake," Owen said, turning to face her.

There was something desperate in his bloodshot eyes. Not a good sign, she thought. Looks like he's been reading for hours.

He showed her the book as if he hadn't found it on her nightstand.

"Have you read this? Where did you find it? She wrote about Poole, and William Allan, and your ancestors . . ." he trailed off, breathless with excitement. He seemed like he was caught between discovery and fear.

She couldn't bring herself to respond, but he didn't seem to notice. He continued rambling. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Teddy, if what she wrote is true, then Poole has been lying to all of us," he said. "I think he's a fraud, and a murderer . . . Teddy, I think he stole from my ancestor's family . . . I think he might've killed William Allan . . ."

He paused, and something changed in his face. He had trusted her, but her silence had betrayed her.

"You knew," he said, and looked away from her, as if the sight of her disgusted him. "You read this already, and you didn't say anything. Didn't you?"

She dropped her gaze and shook her head. She could feel everything she built crumbling down around her—the business, the friendship, whatever it was they shared.

"Am I right, then? Is he a killer? Is my life, my brother's life, my soul in the hands of a murderer?" he urged, eyes blazing with hatred.

"I don't know!" Teddy said. She felt hot anger rising in her stomach. She had considered him a friend, had considered Malcolm family, almost as soon as they had found their way to Thornewood House. Now, he felt like an enemy. He felt like an intruder who had gone through her things, and was trying to use this information against her.

He brushed her off. "And this darkness we've all felt, that thing that attacked Malcolm. It's him. It's been him, hasn't it? We all put our trust, blindly, into the hands of a monster . . ."

He shook his head, and his eyes looked glassy as his anger dissolved into solemn regret.

"No," Teddy insisted, "It's not him. There's something dangerous in this house, something that even Poole doesn't understand--"

He lifted a hand to stop her. "Don't, Teddy. Just don't."

He stood up, pulled on his jeans.

"What are you doing?" Teddy asked, her heartbeat loud in her ears.

"I need to talk to my brother."

Panic made her limbs go dumb. He was going to convince Malcolm to leave. But where would that leave him? She couldn't move, couldn't yell out. She watched him make his way to the door, refusing to look at her, and the panic fell away to desperate anger. Betrayal pierced her like a scalding rod through the chest. She couldn't let him leave. She couldn't let him destroy the only thing she had worth living for.

She had watched him turn on her, had watched how easy it was for him to dismiss her. It was like he had wanted to find a reason to throw her away, to throw everything away. He wasn't just turning his back on her. He was turning his back on Thornewood, on the house and the magic they were so lucky to witness. She couldn't sit there and watch him destroy her world.

For the first time, she let herself truly imagine what would happen if Malcolm left. Would he tell his parents what happened? Would they come to the house, looking for the body of their son? They'd find it in the basement, wrapped in spiderwebs. There was no way anyone would believe there was a two hundred year old scientist who lived in the basement, who was trying to save him . . .

No. It wasn't an option.

As rage blinded her, she called them unconsciously. They emerged from the shadows all around them.

"What are you doing?" There was hatred and fear in his voice.

She willed the spiders to encircle him. They moved slowly, but she could feel their strength against her will. It was as if they wanted to swarm him. Her hand pulsed with power.

"Are you doing this?! How are you doing this?!" Owen shouted, eyes nearly full-circles.

The raw fear on his face snapped her out of her trance-like rage. Her chest felt heavy, her head cloudy with shame. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She willed the spiders to leave, but they stayed, braced in formation around Owen like toy soldiers.

"Teddy," Owen pleaded. "Please . . ."

She closed her eyes, an attempt to focus her will as hard as she could to try to disperse the growing swarm. Still, they kept coming, covering the floor around Owen. They covered the walls, covered the window like a thick curtain, blocking the bright morning light.

She couldn't get them to leave, so she focused all her energy on keeping them still, trying to give Owen a chance to run. They were strong, she realized, stronger than she ever thought possible. She could feel them pushing against her will, pushing against the invisible barrier, trying to break free, to swarm him, to devour him.

Her strength was failing, they were too strong, too powerful. She thought she could control them, but this proved she couldn't. She could feel her grip on them slipping . . .

She locked eyes with Owen, who was cornered, his back against the bedroom wall. He looked at her like he had never seen her before, like he didn't even know who or what she was . . . like he didn't trust her.

She gathered all her strength for one final push.

"Go away!" she shouted, with all her might, with everything she had. There was a flurry of movement all around her, but her vision tunneled and fell into darkness.

When her vision returned, the spiders were dispersing calmly into the shadows.

Owen was gone.