Crane Estate, 1907

Content warning: death, grief, attempted poisoning, and sibling violence.

“Leave us and go help your cousins tend to the barn,” his grandmother said.

Always the barn. Always helping the cousins. Always hiding something from me.

Silas’ thoughts were screaming at her, but his face only scowled as he huffed and stormed out. Leaving his grandmother and sister to be alone in the study, he had no intention of heading out to the barn as instructed. Down the hall, he looked back down the long empty hallway and pulled a key from his stocking. He slipped into the guest room that shared a wall with the study, locking the door behind him.

The seven Crane cousins had grown up running these halls, but most of them lived on neighboring properties now, coming back only to split the chores between them. Silas and Hazel were the youngest, the ones who had never left. Their parents were gone before either could form a clear memory of them. Grammy had raised them in the spaces the older cousins left behind. The large manor had slowly turned into a repository full of echoes.

Silas had been listening in to their meetings for weeks. He was caught in the guest room once, prompting the added security of a locked door. It only prompted him to steal the key from the not-so-covert jar in the pantry and continue his surveillance with more stealth. In that guest room, next to the empty dresser and behind the big chair, he hid. The familiar smell of the plaster wall hit him as he took a deep breath and pressed his ear up against it.

His grandmother told the same magical stories over and over. His sister asked the same questions over and over. He had heard all these stories in previous meetings.

How does she not know that? She’s so dumb.

He shook his head as he retrieved the rusty nail he kept hidden behind the dresser and started picking away at the wall. Having the idea to make a spy hole came to him two meetings ago when the rain dampened their voices.

He kept his elbow close to his body and worked in small patient rotations. The plaster came away in fine pale dust that he caught in his palm before it could fall.

Why is she telling Hazel all this stuff? So she’s a year older, but I’m almost taller than her and so much smarter.

After grinding the nail into the plaster, he finally bore a hole through and the rusty nail slipped through.

Finally.

He pulled the nail out and peered into the hole. The dark void stared back at him, taunting him. He sighed while pressing his ear back to the wall.

Two sides to this wall. I’ll need to find a longer nail to poke through…

The next day, Silas’ impeccable inventory of the tools in the barn took him to a long screwdriver. When he actually did help his cousins as instructed, they called him Fetcher on account of his tool fetching abilities. He was not particularly fond of the name, but if he argued, they just ridiculed and berated him for it. He chose the path of least resistance and ran with it.

He stuffed his new excavation tool in his pants and slithered back inside the house to hide it in the guest room for future eavesdropping.

His grandmother caught him in the hallway outside the study. She was moving very slowly.

“Silas? Be a good boy and fetch your sissy for me? Then go outside and see what your cousins are working on. I’m sure they’ll need your help.”

With a clenched jaw and pursed lips, he scuttled off to find Hazel.

Their grandmother had grown much weaker lately, in her actions, in her words. She struck up a conversation when he was out of earshot.

“It’s almost time, I can feel it.” After a pause, “I think she’s ready. She’s starting to understand it. I think she’s most excited about the magic.”

Hazel came in ahead of Silas. Their grandmother raised her eyebrows and made eye contact with Silas.

Arms crossed, he huffed, “They don’t need my help, Grammy! They don’t even like me!” He threw his arms to his side and left, slamming the door closed behind him.

She just sighed and focused on Hazel.

“It’s almost time to pass the magic on to you, are you ready?”

“Yes, Grammy.” Hazel gave her grandmother a big hug.

“Not too tight, dear, you’ll crush my heart!” She chuckled.

Silas deftly made his way to his lair, pulled out the long screwdriver and got to work behind the chair. Between each press and twist he would listen carefully.

The screwdriver proved to be a more useful tool than the nail as he was able to dig through in a matter of minutes. Once he was through the second layer of plaster, he peered through the dime-sized holes to see that they lined up perfectly with the view of his grandmother alone in her rocking chair across the large study.

Hazel had gone to get her grandmother a glass of water at her request. The rocking chair made slow creaks as Grammy stared off into the distance.

“Yep, it’s definitely time. I’m too weak to even rock the chair. Thank you for that, by the way…”

Holding his breath, he heard nothing but the rocking creak and his sister’s footsteps making their way back.

Who is she talking to? Silas widened the hole. There was no one else in the room.

Then it started to make sense to him. Some of the things he overheard Grammy tell Hazel drifted through his mind. “The magic is inside me, soon it’ll be inside you. It’s like having a friend when you need one most.” “They are magical beings.” “I can do magic. The magic is inside me.”

He returned his gaze to Grammy.

When Hazel came back, she set the water down on the side table and locked eyes with her Grammy. Her grandmother guided Hazel to kneel in front of her and took both her hands.

With their palms pressed to palms, Grammy smiled and asked, “Are you ready, my darling?”

Hazel smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

They both closed their eyes and took a deep breath. Their hands began to glow and grew into a crescendo of soft warm light that blinked out after a few seconds.

“Whoa…” Hazel laid her head down into Grammy’s lap as she sat back in her rocking chair.

“Give it time, dear, give it time.” Her grandmother gently petted her head as she fell asleep.

Silas sat back and stared at the wall. He knew what had happened. He heard the magical stories. The magic was in his grandmother, and she must've passed it on to Hazel. He needed to get that magic for himself.

He'd heard Hazel's screaming before he was fully awake the next morning. She ran barefoot on the cold floor, then was gone, the front door banging open in the grey morning. By the time the cousins arrived, Silas had gotten dressed, inspected his Grammy's bed and sat at the top of the stairs. By that evening, the whole Crane family had been alerted of the matriarch passing.

The adults filled every room with their arrangements as Silas sat with his sobbing sister at the top of the stairs. Voices from the parlor, voices from the kitchen, two uncles disagreeing loudly about something. Nobody had asked Silas and Hazel to do anything except exist somewhere out of the way.

At the bottom of the stairs, their uncle yelled out, “Has anyone called for the undertaker yet?” just as two bearded men entered the front door.

“Riggs and Mortis, at your service. Though we prefer the term mortician, now.” They were carrying long boards and big leather tool bags.

“Where is the departed?”

For two days the siblings sat together at the edges of the proceedings, saying nothing, each thinking things the other couldn't know. They moved room to room as instructed and avoided the front parlor as much as allowed.

Hazel drifted between deep sadness with body pulsing sobs and a calm, bittersweet half smile of deep understanding. Silas was stone-faced, calculating. Any tears he shed were leaked out due to his boiling rage within. I must have that magic for myself. I deserve it. It is rightfully mine. The greedy thoughts consumed his every breath.

During one of the family meals, as Silas and Hazel sat perched at the top of the stairs, two of their aunts were discussing the spectacular length of Grammy’s life below them. It brought their conversation to how some were cut short like the mayor’s young wife recently.

“I heard she died of rat poisoning, put in her tea!” One claimed.

“It doesn’t surprise me. A woman with that many admirers was bound to become inconvenient to someone,” the other quipped.

That's it. That's how I get the magic. I need to get rid of Hazel.

Three days after she passed, Grammy’s body was at long last carried to the grave. The big family and community had filled the empty manor with the comings and goings of life and death. Now the space was a silent echo chamber, void of its matriarchal compass.

Silas, too, felt a void. Seething with jealousy, he started wondering why Hazel wasn't showing any signs of magic.

Why hasn't she done anything magical? Because she can't, she's too stupid. All the more reason that I should be the one with it.

It was settled that their eldest uncle and his family would be moving into the manor and taking over care of the two children soon. Silas didn't want Hazel giving the magic to any of their cousins, or them taking it from her. He formulated a plan to get it from her, one way or another.

No one marked his absence. Silas had counted on that. He meandered out to the barn and with his mental catalog, knew exactly where the packets of rat poison were.

There were lots of baked treats and candies left over from the funeral proceedings. He gathered a couple of Hazel’s favorites: Snickerdoodles and Fig Newtons. He scampered off to the guest room and sprinkled the poison powder on the cookies, burying the empty packets in the ashes of the fireplace.

The creaking of the rocking chair in the study began abruptly then slowed to a rhythm. Silas shifted across the floor to the peephole behind the chair. Peering through, he spied his sister cuddled with Grammy’s old blanket in her chair.

Time for magic. Silas made his way to the next room.

“I brought you some of your favorites.” Silas handed Hazel two cookies and had a Fig Newton of his own.

“Ooh, thank you, Silas.” She took them and devoured the snickerdoodle in a couple bites.

They then sat in an awkward silence, not sure of what to say. They had been in this stalemate since Grammy passed. Prohibited from speaking to what was actually drifting in and out of their thoughts, scared of revealing too much.

Why isn't she getting sick? Is the magic protecting her? Silas looked down at his own half eaten cookie with a puzzled face.

“Hazel, what did Grammy give you?” Silas broke the silence.

“She said I'm not allowed to tell anyone, ever. Not even you, Silas.”

“Well, it's not fair that she gave you something magical and I got nothing. You should share it with me. What is it?”

“It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand.”

“It's not fair.”

After a half hour of this impasse, Hazel began lightly twitching. Silas went to retrieve her some water, coming back to her twisting and locking her body, crying in wrenching wails.

“What is happening? Is Grammy's magic making you sick?” Silas asked with a smirk.

She stared fearfully at her brother. Her teeth clenched so tight she was barely able to make words.

Hazel grabbed Silas’ palms with hers. “All right, Silas. I need to give you Grammy’s magical friend. It can't stay in me anymore.”

Silas said nothing as their hands began to emit an amber glow. He just stared wide-eyed at her and squeezed tighter as her hands fell slack in his.