Page 7 of Haunting the Deep

“Not when she got older, no. But when I was young and my father was still alive…” His voice trails off without completing his sentence. “You would think this place would be too big for just the three of us, but Mom always filled it somehow. She would be severely disappointed if she saw how we never use this room now.”

I watch him as he sits down on the couch near the fireplace. He hasn’t talked about Grandma since our conversation about what happened in the woods. Does this mean he’s going to want to talk about that now, too? He pats the cushion next to him, and I choose the side that keeps my back to the painting.

He watches me. “What would you think about moving back to New York?”

What?“Leave Salem? Is this because of my sleep? I was having a hard time right after…but it’s way better, I swear. I’m sleeping through the night now.” My words come out faster than I intended.

His forehead knits in concern. “I’m not saying we should go. I’m just checking on you. I want to make sure you’re happy. I know you have friends here.”

“At least one.”

He smiles. “The way Jaxon tells it, the whole school’s fascinated with you.”

“Don’t believe him. He’s an optimist. It’s more like they don’t clear out when I enter the hall.” I look up at my dad. “But seriously, I really like it here.”

“I just want to make sure it’s the right choice. If this place is unhealthy for you, then we’ll go.”

“Funny enough, I feel more myself here than I ever have. And one friend is more than none.”

He nods. “I can do my business from Salem almost as well as I could from New York. I don’t plan on traveling for a while longer anyway.”

He puts his arm around me, and I lean my cheek into his shoulder, breathing in his familiar musky aftershave.

He chuckles to himself.

“What?”

“I was just thinking how much your mother hated those parties your grandmother threw.”

“She came to them?”

“Her mother made her. And my mom had a strict dress code, as you might imagine by the decor in this house, and both of our mothers made her conform to it. I used to watch your mom stomp around the lunching ladies and purposefully pull curly strands out of her own braid. By the time theparties were over, her hair would be sticking out every which way, and there would be at least four holes in her tights. Once, she even spilled a cup of tea on herself in order to go home, only to find out my mother had a spare dress her size.”

It’s weird how much I don’t know about my mom. “Were you guys dating then?”

“Nooo.” He laughs again. “It took me all of our teenage years to persuade her to go out with me. And a whole year in a relationship for her to stop calling me ‘Charles the fancy.’ ”

“It’s been forever since we talked about Mom.”

He stares at the fireplace. “This place brings up a lot of old memories.”

“Is that why you always stayed away? Because of Mom’s memory?” I hesitate. “All those times I bugged you to visit Salem…”

He nods against my head. “At first, yes. But then it was because your grandmother was convinced that your mother’s death was part of a curse. She wouldn’t let it go. It became an unpleasant topic. We started fighting and drifting. I didn’t want her spreading her ideas to you. I was trying to protect you.” He stiffens slightly. “Meanwhile, I was the one who put you in danger by marrying—” He stops just before he says Vivian’s name.

I pull back and look at him. “Dad, don’t do that. Please don’t blame yourself.” This is why I can’t ever tell him the full extent of what she did. It’s bad enough that he knows she tried to hang me and put him in that spell-induced coma. If he knew he’d gone straight into the arms of the very person who killed my mother and my grandmother, I don’t know what he’d do.

He ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough going on right now.” He stands up. “You hungry? Mae brought over a box of her spring pastries. They’re little flowerpots made out of chocolate, mousse, and meringue.”

I stand up. “I definitely need to eat that.”

“I thought you might.”

We make our way into the hallway, and the old floorboards creak. The familiar faces of our ancestors look out from the portraits lining the walls. I wish my grandmother was still alive to tell me their stories. I find her handwritten note cards describing family furniture all over the house and shoved in the back of drawers with old diaries, but it’s not the same.

I scan each portrait as we pass, some beautiful, some old and serious-looking. Wait.

I stop abruptly. This can’t be right. “Dad?”