CHAPTER FOUR
CALLIOPE GAVE UP any hope of sleep shortly after midnight. Climbing out of bed, she welcomed the coolness of the wood floor against her bare feet as she pulled on the hand-knitted shawl her grandmother had made nearly a decade ago. The soft yarn had aged and softened nicely over time, and the rich greens and blues brought Calliope closer to the sense of peace she longed for.
The peace that had eluded her since she’d set eyes on Xander Costas.
She stretched her arms over her head, shifted her fingers through her hair and smiled at the tinkling of the tiny bells she planned to remove this morning. Her small room—large enough for her bed, a dresser and an overstuffed bookcase—pushed in on her. Not even pulling open the drapes to look out into the moon-kissed garden eased the constriction building inside her. The only way to slip around the churning was to begin her day.
The wooden door creaked as she pulled it open. A quick check on Stella, sleeping in the larger room across the hall, eased a bit of the worry coursing through her. Calliope stood in the doorway, arms hugging her torso as she wondered yet again how her sister could sleep in such a fashion. Blankets and sheets tossed aside, arms and legs splayed diagonally. Stella’s pillow acted as an afterthought as it teetered between the mattress and nightstand.
The gentle glow of the fairy lamp illuminated her sister’s freckled face. Little-girl snores lightened Calliope’s heart as if magic had tethered the two of them. Calliope could smell bubblegum and flowers as well as excitement and promise from the explosion of color in the room. Cascades of butterflies and flowers dripped from the ceiling, trailed over and around the branches they’d fashioned into a canopy. The weathered desk that had once been Calliope’s was piled high, not with schoolbooks and electronics, but with storybooks, drawing pads and endless stacks of paper with her sister’s story scribbles.
She’d done well here, Calliope reminded herself, as the doubt that crept in during the dark hours attempted to take hold. Stella was thriving, would continue to thrive as long as Calliope possessed breath. She couldn’t have loved her sister any more if the little girl had come from beneath her own heart.
She backed away, ducked her head and walked down the hall.
The doubt wasn’t easily defeated tonight. This time it arrived accompanied by worry, the same worry that descended whenever they were to visit Emmaline Jones.
Calliope attempted to shake off the melancholy that accompanied thoughts of their mother. Calliope had had her share of difficult days, but the one where she’d had to remove Emmaline from the house topped the list. Until recently, she’d been able to bring her home a few times a year, for a week or so, but the last occasion had proved...difficult, forcing Calliope to move her mother into private care.
Emmaline had always been challenging, but Calliope finally had to admit that looking after her mother was beyond her capabilities. She had been for a while. Since before Calliope’s grandmother passed away. Since it became clear Emmaline was a danger, not only to herself, but also to Stella.
Calliope shivered against the memory. The room where everything had changed. Had it really been eight years since her mother had walked these halls? Her mother, who had never truly comprehended all that came with the title. Nature had made Emmaline fragile, but Calliope had learned early on to be strong. And later, she’d learned to be strong for Stella.
Which was why today, as she did every other Saturday, she would make the four-hour round trip in some attempt to keep reality in place for Emmaline. At this point, it was all Calliope had left to give her.
The kitchen, sitting and dining room welcomed her at the end of the hall, as did the four-foot tree adorned with ornaments and hand-strung cranberry-and-popcorn garlands that awaited the flick of a light switch to cast its holiday glow. This area had been the original space of the house, countless decades before, when her grandmother’s father had taken guardianship of the land. The Joneses had been here long before Butterfly Harbor had a name, when their fields and property had been the only boundaries within ten miles of the ocean at the bottom of the hill. There wasn’t another place in the world Calliope belonged. She remembered the first day her bare feet had touched the soil; the day she’d been bonded to all that surrounded her, steadied her. Flitted about her. Even now she could feel the light dancing of a butterfly’s feet against a hand that had reached up to the sun the instant she’d opened her eyes.