Chapter One

The House

When Cleopatra Shivani Wetherbone first stepped through the door, she knew her answer right away.

“Yes,” she said, even before the realtor could launch into an introduction.

“But-?” the realtor began.

“I’ll take it.” Cleo gently pressed her fingers against the smooth wood of the windowsill. Dust motes drifted lazily in the golden patch of sunlight. The bush under the window was wild and overgrown, a tangle of pink and yellow and green, snuggled over the edges of the little gravel path they had just left. “It’s perfect.”

“Well.” The realtor cleared her throat, squinted down at her clipboard and tapped her fingers on the paper. “There are several major problems before it's livable. And there’ve been reports of… strange occurrences.”

Cleo smiled as she turned back towards the room. The right side of the window was bordered by two sturdy-looking bookshelves. The fireplace stood next to them, nestled along the extended section of wall.  “That’s alright, I love it.”

“Okay… Do you still want the tour?”

Cleo nodded, stepping towards the narrow doorway in the far corner of the room.

The realtor cleared her throat a second time, flipping through her pages, and hurried after her.

Cleo only half-listened as she drifted from one quaint cozy space to another. The hallway was short, ending in a stairway. A wide arch on the left opened to the small kitchen, and beyond that, through another archway, the back door. Cleo paused to breath in the dusty sunlight twinkling through the windows. It smelled of childhood and adventure.

Back on the other side of the hallway, one door led to a decent-sized bedroom and the other to a bathroom. Up the turn of the stairs, there was another bathroom, a long narrow hallway and three small bedrooms knit tightly around the hallway. 

She had already sorted out each bedroom by the time they headed back downstairs. The narrow long one would just fit her bed and the few forlorn little pieces of furniture she'd adopted. The neat little square room across from hers would be such a cozy writer space for Veronica. And of course, Olivia and Raven would split the bigger room at the end of hall, which would be a vacation compared to where they were now.

Out the back kitchen door, there was a small shed, half lean-to, half stairway carving into the darkness of the earth.

The realtor sniffed loudly as Cleo started down the stairs. “There’s several rooms down there. It’s labeled as the cellar, but it has a… nefarious reputation… a place of evil-doings, occult activity.”

“Yes, I see.” Cleo paused, squinting into the dark for a moment. She sighed and not for the first time that day, she wished her regular realtor had been well enough to show her the house. She climbed back out into the afternoon sunlight. 

"There's quite a bit of land beside the fenced area, which I understand you are hoping for?"

Cleo didn't respond right away. It hurt to drink it all in at once. The fruit trees alongside the house, the wildflowers, the overgrown gardens, the little stone walls, the uneven footpath, the creaky back gate. 

“Yes,” she whispered, more to herself than to the realtor. “This is absolutely perfect.”

She felt the squinting, uneasy gaze of the realtor and offered a smile. “I’ll take it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Most definitely. Would they take half the price?”

“I would have to check and get back to you. It's been on the market for three years, so it is possible.” There was a sharp edge in the woman's voice, as if to say, this is your last warning, this place is dangerous. 

“Thank you.” 

Cleo grinned as she walked slowly back through the house. Veronica would be appalled at that offer. The place was already insanely cheap. But once a barterer, always a barterer, as old Aunt Barthlomew would say. Besides Cleo had a suspicion the repairs would more than make up for whatever she might save in buying the house. 

She pulled her phone out as she slid back into her car and opened the group chat. 

"Found Narnia! Made offer. Fingers crossed." 

Chapter Two

The Shoe

A month and a half later, Cleo pulled into the driveway of her very own house for the first time. She sank back against the seat as she turned the keys and listened as the car's engine rattle into silence. 

"Well, what do you think, Zoey?" she said to the animal carrier buckled in on the passenger seat. The cat inside looked at her with disapproving golden eyes and bleated a long meow so forlorn and sad it sounded like she was saying goodbye forever, this was the end, she was dying, leaving this cruel, cruel world in despair. 

"Alright, alright, I know. No need to be dramatic. I'll get you out." Cleo opened the car door. She hefted the carrier out and waddled up the little stone path. 

Zoey whined when she set the carrier down to fish the keys out of her pocket. 

"I know," Cleo said again. "But I have to unlock the door first. I can't just walk through objects you know... Here we are." 

The main room was piled high with boxes. The movers had brought the majority of her things last week. The only load left was the one stuffed into her car, mostly necessities, or odds and ends she'd thrown into boxes last minute. 

"This is your new home." Cleo sat down on the floor to unclip the carrier door. Zoey stared at her for a moment, then leaned forward, head bobbing to look around the room. One paw cautiously pressed against the floor. She crept out of her carrier, staying close to Cleo, and sniffed the air. 

"What do you think, baby?" Cleo ran her fingers over her cat's back. "Lots of boxes." 

"Meew." 

Cleo smiled, kissed Zoey's head and lay back on the floor, stretching out her legs. Zoey stretched as well then plopped across her stomach. The soft goldenness of the sunlight wrapped around them, warm and dusty.

"I should get up and start unpacking. Or cleaning. Or painting. Or something." 

"Meow." 

"Yeah." Cleo's eyelids drooped. "There's so much to do..." 

Somewhere deep in the house there was a gentle tck-tck... tck-tck... tck-tck... like an old clock on its last leg of life. Birds twittered outside and branches tapped gently against the window in the breeze.

Cleo was just beginning to dream of dandelions and strangely talkative strawberries when there was a loud crash. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and Zoey rolled off her lap. 

"What was that?" Cleo got to her feet, dusted her hands on her skirt and glanced up and down the stack of boxes. "I suppose I should check it out, shouldn't I?" 

Zoey yawned sleepily up at her and curled into a donut. 

"Mmm, you slept all day in the car, baby." 

"MeeOw." 

"Yes, okay, not the same." Cleo stooped to pat Zoey's head, then walked over to the hallway. There was nothing but a few dead bugs in the windowsill of the downstairs bedroom.  Cleo reached for the kitchen light switch and the ceiling light blinked on. A shoe lay in the middle of the floor. She stared at if for a second before glancing around the narrow room. A stack of boxes hugged the wall space by the archway. There were a few boxes piled on the counter. Nothing else out of the ordinary. 

"Hm," Cleo said aloud, squatting down to examine the shoe. It was made of white leather, now crinkled and old. Faded little flowers danced across the band. Cleo set it down next to the backdoor. "One child's shoe. Okay."

Zoey came trotting through the hallway, meowing, and rubbed against her legs. She didn't have any interest in strange shoes today.

Cleo reached down to rub her back. "That was a loud crash for just a shoe. Maybe we should check upstairs too?" 

Cleo smiled to herself as the cat followed her upstairs into the gloomy hallway. 

She'd felt something that first day in the house, something fizzy and strange, curling under her collarbone. She'd heard the rumors about this house. Maybe it was stuffed full of ghosts. Maybe they were malicious and angry. Maybe she should be thoroughly frightened. But the long, rich, family history of psychic knowledge swelled inside her - the stories that had grown up around her childhood, had held her imagination captive, had kept her safe. The world was full of weird things and most of them weren't harmful if you respected them.

Still, just the same, it was comforting to have Zoey with her. 

"This is our room now, okay?" Cleo peaked in at and the mattress on the floor and the boxes stuffed on the armchair. Nothing looked out of order. The other two rooms were empty and untouched. 

Her phone started buzzing as she came back down the hallway.  She tugged it out of her pocket. 7:30pm.

Zoey, who was chasing her tail on the mattress, stopped mid-roll and stared at her. 

"Do you want food? Yeah? Food?" 

Zoey chirruped and raced down the stairs, tail curling up in the air. As Zoey ate, Cleo hauled everything out of her car in the crimson light of the setting sun. When she brought in the box of kitchen utensils, the shoe was in the middle of the floor again. In the distance there was the chug of a clock whirring, and the smell of something cooking, garlic, onions, potatoes. 

Well, someone was having a lovely dinner, she thought to herself, glancing sidelong at the empty stovetop. And trouble with their shoe, apparently. She leaned against the counter and stared out the window at the darkening sky, her limbs suddenly heavy with exhaustion. She'd been so busy the past month with paperwork, and inspections, and packing, and driving back and forth, she'd barely had time to think. The drive today had been longer than usual. She'd stopped so many times to give Zoey a break from the car. And before that there'd been the last-minute hassle of shoving forgotten things in the car, coaxing Zoey into her carrier and a third-round of goodbyes from family. She still had to put sheets on the mattress and set out things for Zoey. And there was so much else to do to make this house home. 

She felt her head nodding and yanked away from the counter, rubbing her eyes open. The shoe still lay there, wrinkled and sad. For tonight, at least, maybe it wasn't anything to fuss over. She'd light a blessed candle in her room and close the door. That should keep her safe.

It was just a shoe after all. 

Chapter Three

Veronica 

It may have been just a shoe, but by golly it was a nuisance as well. It appeared at random, sometimes thrown from the hallway, sometimes just materializing on the floor. And Cleo had tripped over it more than once now. 

 

When Cleo was little, her mother would remind her, "Some people are more sensitive to the odd layers of the world. It's okay if your friends don't see things like you do. And we Shivani's " 

"That's not very dignified of you, hobbling around on one shoe."