(Halloween Story 2017) something borrowed

 “So, uh. You got chosen to be the next crazy lady- sorry, family eccentric?”

She moved to whap her sister with a celebrity magazine on sheer principal. Camila ducked out of the way and flung her hands up.

“Am I wrong?” Camily was laughing. “And you also are honored to spend the busiest week of your life learning ancient family oddities from a houseguest. You must feel so lucky.” She flipped her curls back. She made a striking picture against the chaos visible in the next room, where a half-finished skirt was laying out next to a pile of jewel-toned dresses. The very top one was a somber dark blue that contrasted sharply with the spring-green bridesmaid dress underneath it.

“You're just jealous,” Emely said, with towering dignity. “Great-aunt wants me to get married in the family jewelry, out of the kindness of her heart.” The set the magazine down on the tabletop, but it was close enough to snatch up at a moment's notice.

“Is it family jewelry if she held onto it for 75 years and decided that only you were good enough to wear after her?” Camila gave her a dry look over the kitchen island she had prudently put between them. “It sounds like it is great-aunt Elenor's jewelry and she just likes you best.” She took the opportunity to pull some ingredients out of her fridge.

She took a moment to marvel at how fabulously petty her sister was.

'75 years, huh? Did she just throw that number out there, or did she actually pull out family yearbooks to find out how long it was since Aunt Elenor got married?'

Emely made a 'mas o menos' motion because her sister wasn't entirely wrong. “Eh, she's a little strange. She's 102 years old, give the lady a break. And you have grandma's jewelry anyway, who are you to talk about favoritism?” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

Cousins and aunts and even their mother had also been married in those jewels, sure, but it was Camila who had been told to keep it after the ceremony.

“I'm the girl who the best woman picked,” Camila said loyally. She pushed her shoulders back and held her neck high. “I was obviously the best choice. The loveliest, most helpful and clever and trustworthy-”

“I've always been prettier, grandma probably would have given it to me if I married first,” Emely needled her big sister. It was just a little meaner than it needed to be.  

It was a running joke in the family that aunt Elenor and Grandma were always at odds, two dueling matriarchs of unholy power. It used to be pretty funny, watching them try to outdo one another. But come on, Grandma had passed away and Emely didn't like the joke anymore.

Luckily Camila took her tone in stride. She overreacted with an extremely offended drawing back motion. She indicated up and down her face with wide-splayed fingers. “Prettier, you?” She scoffed. “Ha! Haha! I laugh!”

Emely leaned onto her elbows. “You're not supposed to actually say 'ha' when-”

“Ay, what the hell do you know?” Camila made a rude gesture. “Respect your elders, foolish mortal child.”

Her sister's good-natured cursing rang in her ears the next day when her ancient relative arrived to stay. Great-aunt Elenor hobbled around the house suspiciously, peering at the photos of Emely and her friends and her fiance. She spent an uncomfortably long time assessing a picture of Miguel laughing with his Labrador.

'Maybe she wants to make sure we are going to be photogenic enough to pull off her jewelry.'

Well. Luckily Miguel was handsome and she didn't look too shabby when she did her hair. Emely brushed off her hands and did her best to be a good hostess. She had thought that her great-aunt might disapprove that she and Miguel had been cohabiting before the wedding, so he had agreed to spend the last week with his family. It was better not to shock anybody, especially not well-meaning old folks who wanted to convey their blessings.

And pass down guardianship of amusingly exclusive family jewels, of course. Great-aunt was getting up there a bit. She was probably just worried about what would happen to them after she passed away. If she gave them away while she was still healthy, she didn't have to worry that anyone would fight over them later. It was smart.

Camila didn't understand that great-aunt Elenor was looking to protect her legacy. If it made an old woman feel better to spy on a relative for a week to be sure she was an appropriate keeper of a tiara and some bracelets, well, where was the harm?

Aunt Elenor took 'my house is your house' seriously. She had Camila and Emely help her unpack her suitcase and arrange her pretties on the dresser as though she was there to stay. Rosaries, candles, a little scratched-up cat statuette, and what looked disconcertingly like someone's bleached baby teeth. Emely pretended not to see Camila's meaningful look. She took it in stride and let the old lady do as she liked. Which involved bossing around Camila quite a bit, actually. Elenor took just a little too much delight in having Camila walk up and down the stairs to get one small thing and then put it back.

On the second day that she was hosting her aunt, she came home from work and her aunt's room was empty. She found Elenor picking through her closet with a contemplative frown.

“Auntie?”

Elenor took a while to respond. She pulled a hanger off the rack with shaking hands and showed it to Emely.

Emely winced, just a bit. That dress was very sexy.

“Is this what young people wear these days?” Elenor sounded more bemused than outraged by the scarlet number and low neckline.

In for a penny. “It is. I wear that kind of dress when I go dancing.”

Elenor shot her a concerned look. “Are you a good dancer?”

Emely put her hands up against that dangerous accusation. “Oh, no. I sort of move and try not to step on anyone.”

Her aunt seemed comforted by this. She put the hanger back with a click. “What music is it that you listen to? I suppose it's the loud type, with young men talking about gasoline and how no one understands them while the background has too many colors?”

'Who has been showing great-aunt music videos?'

She laughed, but Elenor wouldn't rest until she had listened to a selection from Emely's music. About an hour tired her out and sent Elenor down for a nap until dinner.

Emely felt warmly fond while she prepared something that wouldn't be too foreign for her poor old auntie. It felt right. She'd learned to cook at aunt Elenor's house when mama had been busy helping her ailing parents.  

Actually, the whole situation had a pleasant symmetry of tradition and love to it. Her own grandmother had passed away two years ago, bare weeks after Camila's wedding. Elenor was probably just stepping up for her deceased sister-in-law's sake. It wasn't… it wasn't exactly the same, but it would feel a lot better to take this milestone step without that empty spot at the metaphorical table. It was very good of auntie Elenor to take on that role.

'Either that or it's another mysterious part of her rivalry with grandma. If so, I guess at least I'm flattered to be picked to carry on their grumpiness.'

At dinner, Elenor asked when Emely would stop working. She was shocked to her that Emely wasn't going to stay at home after getting married.

“Won't that be difficult?” Elenor almost seemed to be talking to herself. She leaned a little over the table, but she was so tiny that she risked brushing her plate. “Is that what young ladies do now?”

“It would be nice to stay home,” Emely said, just to placate. She didn't want to quit her job. “But with things the way they are, it's just better for both of us to work.”

Elenor peered at her suspiciously. She ate a few bites. “Tell me about your job. What do you do?”

“I'm the manager at a restaurant.” Emely stood to pour her aunt more water. “It's a little place, so I also wait tables. Would you like to go and see it tomorrow? We could have lunch together there.”

“Yes.” Elenor sounded grimly determined. “I'll find my hat. I'll come in with you in the morning.”

In the morning? Really? “Alright,” Emely agreed. “I'll ask Camila to come and pick you up after noon so that you are too bored there all day. I work until 7 tomorrow.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Elenor said. Her ancient face was wrinkled up in practical displeasure. “I can sit quietly. I don't need her to come and push an old lady to hurry.”

She thought about it- having one of her relatives taking up a seat meant for customers all day… 

Ah, well. It wasn't good business, but if it would make an old woman happy- she was the manager, anyway. No one would say anything. And maybe great-aunt would get tired and want someone to take her home.

She really should have known better. Not only did great-aunt stay all day, she also bullied her way into the kitchen to demand answers about the saccharine foreign food that poor Matthew and Steve were inflicting on the general populace.  

Emely felt a rising sense of doom. She thought about the time Aunt Elenor had poured an entire shaker of salt into cake batter to spite an ungrateful birthday boy. It was a family legend at this point. No one had dared tell dear old Auntie that the dessert was terrible, so they had sat and choked down salt until she was satisfied with their suffering.  

'I want to be half that crotchety one day. But I really want for her to not do that here.'

Steve threw his hands up, but Matthew seemed to like the grumpy old woman. He made a decent case for pancakes that settled Aunt Elenor enough to grumble and try them. She shuffled back to her seat with a suspicious glare and a bottle of syrup in her handbag. She surreptitiously tried it at the table and seemed to like it. She ate syrup straight off of a spoon until Lydia ran out a plate of hotcakes.

'I'm just glad to have her out of the kitchen.'

Eating syrup with a side of pancakes only kept auntie in the seat for an hour. She investigated the bathrooms, the register, and unsubtly monitored what exactly the waitresses said to customers. Emely caught her mouthing the script under her breath as she passed by with coffee.

'Family eccentric,' Emely reminded herself. 'You already knew that she was a little unusual. So what if she's pushy? She's 102. She's seen more wars than I've seen horses. She wants to know how things work, and bless her.'

Still it was an especially tiring day at work. Emely kicked off her heels at the door and helped great-aunt Elenor step up into the entryway. The old lady was tuckered out enough that Emely felt she could also sneak in a nap.  

That evening, Elenor broached the subject while they were listening to a dire weather forecast for the next day. “I have decided that you are suitable.” She looked up at Emely with dark, still eyes. “You may wear my jewelry.”

“Thank you,” Emely said. She felt warmth that had nothing to do with the hot chocolate she was nursing. “I know that the set is very special to you. I will do my best to be worthy of it.” Her phone vibrated with a reply from Miguel, but she didn't pull it out to check immediately.  

Great-aunt made an unconvinced sound. “It is special,” she said resentfully. “Very special. You do not understand.”

“I'll do my best,” Emely repeated in a calm tone. It cut off any further grumblings, at least.

There was a small pattering scattering sound. She looked over to see that great-aunt had tossed her precious collection of human teeth on the coffee table. The old lady hovered a hand over them, staring intently.

'I'll use the sanitizer tomorrow,' Emely made a mental note. 'I haven't done a deep cleaning in a while anyway.'

“Come here.” Elenor's shaky hands fumbled with the clip holding shut an aged leather container. “Look at me. No, the photo,” she corrected impatiently when Emely glanced into her face.

Ah. She took a moment to examine it. She had seen pictures like this before- “When you were very young, auntie?” Emely politely studied the black and white paper. “So pretty. I like the bow in your hair. And your smile is the same today.”

“I was beautiful,” Elenor said proudly. Her finger stroked the edge of the frame. “Like you are today. So strange to look at this girl and realize she had almost 80 years of life left in her.” She didn't glance up at the much younger woman. “I love this photograph. I have no pictures of my relatives, you know. We are lucky now.”

Emely thought about the hundreds of pictures of Elenor's contemporaries in middle age and the scattering of portraits they'd sat for in their youths, and then decided not to correct the old lady. Maybe she'd forgotten. Or maybe she specifically meant that there were no photos of the older relatives who had been forgotten by the passage of time.

“We are lucky,” Emely agreed, thinking of the past and the future. “Can you use a computer, auntie?”

“A little bit.” Elenor closed the little box carefully and set it down on the table to give Emely her full attention. She didn't seem to notice it wobble on the teeth. “I can send the emails and read my news. I like the knitting program.”

“The knitting program?” Emely screwed up her forehead. “I don't know what you mean. Is this a youtube series?”

“I don't know what that means. It has all the little boxes.” Elenor waved her hands in front of her face, illustrating something. “You don't know about the knitting program?” She looked almost accusative. “You can still knit, can't you? I can teach you again. No matter what anyone says, it's more useful than sewing.”

“I can still do it,” Emely said, and chose not to say that she hadn't done it in years. “Thank you again for teaching me.”

“Good. Have you made socks? Good, thick socks. You can't sew socks, you know.”

She tried not to look too confused by the question. It probably made sense to her aunt. “No, but I made Camila a hat,” she said instead. “And I have some scarves. I made a baby blanket once, in high school.”

“A hat? You gave it to her? That's good.” Great-aunt sounded satisfied, finally. “You will knit more soon. That isn't strange.”

“Well, it will get cool in a month or so,” Emely agreed noncommittally. “Many people pick up these crafts when the weather turns.”

“Exactly so.” Elenor stared off into space, watching the dust motes. The man on the weather channel was smiling about all the wind coming. “It all repeats. After a few decades, it's the same again. I'm not sure why we bother. Perhaps I won't.” She fingered the rosary around her wrist. “I should ask forgiveness again.”

Silence stretched out while Emely tried to compose an answer to that. “Auntie?” she asked quietly. “Do you want to go visit a priest tomorrow? We can go to confession before work.”

Elenor turned to look at her, eyes dull.  

Something about way she was being stared at frightened Emely deep in her chest. She stopped breathing on some strange hindbrain instinct. The moment stretched out into white terror. Was Elenor even seeing her?

Then her aunt sighed. The spell was broken. “I'm tired, you know.” She stopped, as if that was enough. “And old. At some point it becomes hard to stop.”

It sounded like she meant something more than regular weariness, but Emely didn't know what to say. So she gave a thin smile and began collecting dishes. She did her best to banish the unpleasant premonition by bustling around. “I'm sorry you don't feel good. Let's go to bed, auntie.” The tv clicked off, the front door was locked, and Emely checked one last time that her aunt was comfortable before she went to call Miguel from her bedroom.

Elenor was dead before morning.

Emely took the day off work and spent the morning phoning relatives. It was a black sort of luck that everyone was already planning to gather for the wedding. Camila swooped in midday and began dealing with the funeral home with the brisk, frightening efficiency she'd gained in the last couple of years.  

She mostly felt numb.  

This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen. 

The ambulance sirens that had taken the body away were still ringing in her ears when Miguel came by and pressed a latte into her hands. She sipped it mindlessly, barely appreciating the taste of sweet almond with extra whip.

“Saturday wed, Sunday dead?”

That roused her. Emely gave Camila an alarmed look.

Her sister pulled an apologetic expression. “Sorry, sorry, backwards.” She had a dull sort of smile. “We'll have the funeral on Friday, since everyone will be here. And then the wedding will go as planned on Saturday.”

“And the wake is Sunday, then?” Miguel glanced up from the pile of sympathy cards he was writing for closer relations. He had engine oil smudged on his nose. “Sunday is the most obvious, but we won't be able to come. Unless we can change our honeymoon plans, but that's almost as complicated as trying to change the wedding date. If you want, of course-”

“Don't bother.” Camila sighed. “Aunt Elenor won't be at the wake. And the family will understand.”  She sounded oddly bitter. “This is dramatic, isn't it?” She leaned back and let her pen hit the table. “This is just like her.”

“She didn't choose to die at an inconvenient time,” Emely snapped. And maybe it was too defensive, because she was thinking about the odd way that auntie had said she was tired just last night.  

Maybe she should have known. She should have asked more questions, worked harder to spend time with the old lady instead of rushing them off to bed so she could call her fiance.  

She'd never be able to talk to her aunt again. Would Elenor have gone more peacefully if she'd been taken to confession at the time, no matter the late hour?

'She was a sweet old lady,' Emely told herself. 'Whatever sins she was worried about couldn't have been that bad. Her soul is resting.'

Her older sister took too long to respond. Then she put her hands up. “Of course not, I didn't say that.” She looked hurt. “Don't get mad at me, Emely.”

Right. She subsided, feeling ashamed. Miguel gave a concerned look between the sisters, a line pressed into his brow. But he stayed out of it.  

Aunt Elenor's funeral was an awful affair. When she went up to offer her condolences to her second cousins, one of them made the incredibly awkward choice to reflexively congratulate her. She bore it with a tight lip and hands clasped too tightly inside her jacket. She noticed that Camila was wearing the dark blue dress she'd had laying out last week. She kept her mind busy by wondering that Camila had actually wanted to wear it for.

That night, she had to go through Aunt Elenor's things to find the jewelry. Emely sat on the bed a long time, feeling sick and sad. Was it disrespectful to wear it? Or was it the only appropriate course of action? It would be more than a little bittersweet to walk down the aisle with Elenor's silver and sapphire tiara, but everyone at the wedding would already know that Elenor had wanted Emely to wear it.

'She was supposed to be there.'

Emely unclasped the leather case, put aside the photo, and carefully laid out a few other treasures before she could access the jewelry case. It was nested in a red cushion that ought to be ancient and hard- but no. Aunt Elenor must have had it replaced recently.

There was a note.

Her heart must have stopped. She heard the radio from downstairs and faint sounds of Miguel making something for dinner. The wind outside was strong and angry, sending twigs and leaves to hit the window wetly.

It was a single piece of neatly torn yellow notepad paper. She picked up and unfolded the note as quietly as possible. It was short and to the patently insane point once she managed to squint through the handwriting.

I decided against it. 10 human lives was enough. My sister is on 11. She won't be pleased.

The signature was illegible, but… of course it had to be from aunt Elenor. No one else would have been able to put a paper into Elenor's personal belongings.

Elenor didn't have any sisters. Not even any long-dead sisters who a confused old woman might have believed was haunting the family.

'Did I read it incorrectly? Or maybe… Did someone else write this to Elenor?'  

Emely sniffed and sat back, wiping at her face.  'Or it could have been a joke. It seems like the kind of thing she would have thought was funny, to leave a cryptic note to be found. She assumed she'd be around to help the joke play out.'

Oddly, that made her laugh. It was by far the most plausible possibility, but perhaps she shouldn't rule out the chance that someone's mysterious sister had done in her 102 year old aunt. Women like that didn't just drop dead of their own accord. Of course it must be a mystery.  

Her wedding the next day was overshadowed by the death in the family. She did choose to wear the tiara and necklace set, which choked up her older relatives. But Emely walked through it in a fugue state, divorced from the day until the actual ceremony. She felt more like herself once the jewels came off for the after-party and reception. The family lightened up, and it felt like a real party. She leaned into Miguel while some of their highschool friends took turns telling stories.

The honeymoon was fantastic. Returning to her daily life was fine. She began to have dreams about being other people that bothered her until she put away the mess from her wedding. She took a long weekend to go help clean out Aunt Elenor's house, because she was the one who had the key.  

A lot of things were already boxed up when she got there.  

...Someone else must have had a spare key.  

She checked the cardboard boxes over- they were all as labeled. The china was neatly packed in the kitchen along with all the cleaners and dry foodstuffs. The fridge had been emptied. The only things left out were huge bins of dried herbs, pretty stones, and some yellow-white powder that stuck to her fingers. Seeing the house like this was… profoundly creepy, actually. Emely palmed her phone through her pocket, but didn't call anyone. There wasn't an obvious suspect- Aunt Elenor's only daughter was already dead, as was her husband. It had to be some cousin or other who had found some time to stop by after work a few times.

'Wouldn't have been that hard. Auntie kept a clean house. Most of her things were already packed away in individual containers.'

She washed all the loose blankets from the living room, and took a rented steam cleaner to the carpets. She ate delivery food on the floor while sorting through absolute troves of old photos and cards from the last century.  

And then she slept in the only bed in the house.  

It was a rough and unpleasant night. When she woke up in the morning her first instinct was to look under the mattress, as though she was going to find a guilty pea. Instead, she found old bankbooks, a sheaf of yellowed letters tied together, and a leather-bound book in absolutely terrible handwriting. She peered at it for a while. Even when she could make out letters, they didn't quite form words. Maybe it was code?  

She had better luck with the yellowed letters bound together. The hand there was familiar from old recipe books- they were letters from her grandmother. Even without a signature, she could tell that.

Emely sat back and read for a long time, fascinated into the glimpse at who the women had actually been.

The ladies' relationship had been complicated and near-antagonistic at times. It wasn't always comprehensible with only half the conversation, and their admittedly dramatic turns of phrase. She read their conversations in reverse chronological order for a while- the letter at the top was a rather smug note that Grandma planned to give her jewels away, which she apparently knew auntie would be jealous about.  

God, that had to have been right before she died, before Camila married. The last letter Grandma wrote, probably. And it was a petty little thing taunting her sister in law.  

Emely laughed through sniffles and flipped further back, watching the dates go by. The 90s fell away to the 80s, 70s, 60s 50s 40s 30s 20s 10s -

Wait, what?  

Emely squinted at a yellowed, brittle letter. She wasn't halfway through the pile, but it had reached correspondence from the 1900s. That was… impossible.  She looked at the particularly long letter in her hand and read it all the way through. The end was weird.

I will see you on the other side of it. I'll be the faster next time. Maria has been fine, but I'll pass jewels to the little one soon. I know that this shall make you furious when you know, but you won't know until after. So, there! You know that I laugh at you. You went too soon and missed the better candidate. It's a shame that the old line ended, but this has promise.

She checked the date again. She frowned up at the ceiling. 'Grandma and Aunt Elenor wouldn't have even know each other then, would they?'

They must have. But they would have been under 10. They'd been locked in their rivalry when they were in elementary school?

Emely gave a dubious look to the letters. There were still a lot more left, and if they followed the pattern, they would be keeping reverse chronological order.

The phone rang. She glanced at the screen to see her sister's name flashing. The id photo was from last summer at the pool, when Camila had come out triumphantly rocking a retro bathing suit she'd made overnight because she was magical. Emely watched the sunshine-washed photo flash a moment before she answered. “Hello hello, this is the cable company. Are you calling about an overdue bill?”

There was a pause while Camila presumably checked to see who she had phone. “Ha. Ha ha, I laugh at you.” Her voice cracked, unimpressed and staticky. “Is this my sister, or is this my sister?”

“It's your sister,” Emely said in a tone that implied she was admitting something horrible. “I'm around Aunt Elenor's place still. Someone came by and packed up before I got here. Any idea who that would be?” She pulled out a letter that was presumably very old and checked the date. Jesus and Mary, written in November of 1723? It was not possible. It was a weird and elaborate joke to make, though.

“Ah.” Camila sounded disappointed. “It's my sister.” She sighed into the phone. “And probably auntie packed up herself. She was 102. She knew this was coming.”

“That's so depressing,” Emely said in an undertone. She glanced over the letter. It was difficult to read- these letters weren't in English anymore. She had a lot more practice reading handwriting in English than in Spanish. But it still looked like her grandmother's hand- the letters had the same round quality, the slight tilt to the left, the habit of an inky stab at the end of a sentence.

“When are you coming back?” Camila changed the subject. It sounded like she was rearranging something glass. “I saw that you put away auntie's things back here. I put them back out.”

She frowned into her phone. “Why?”

“I'm impatient,” Camila said.  

That wasn't actually what Emely had meant. She opened her mouth to ask again, and then her eyes caught over a sentence.

'...preparing the next vessel. This one was a mistake. What a tacky, petty little life.”  

She froze under the weight of the same instinctual terror as before. It bit down into her bones and curled inside her heart.  

10 human lives was enough.

This time, she recognized it as fear, the sense that she was in the gaze of a predator. Something old. Something strong. “Camila,” her voice came out calm. Where was that poise coming from?  

She was remembering a lot of small things. Details. Changes.

The lies spilled easily. Persuasively? Hopefully, dear god in heaven and the holy ghost believe me.

“Thank you for the call. I'll come back as soon as I can.”

I decided against it.

“That's for the best.”

Emely nodded, remembering things she should have thought about. New hobbies. Bolder personality. “Thanks.”

“I'm waiting,” the thing wearing her sister said.

She stared around the room, at the high windows and cold floor and boxes packed in preparation for a move that someone had decided not to make at the last moment.

“I know.”