Elysium appeared unimpressed. "How do you do it?" he persisted instead. "Everyone else has to have some sort of tact, some charm or clever ploy to get a ghost to give up their name. But not you. You're something of a sledgehammer, baby brother."
Benedict noticed that Elysium hadn't turned on any lights or looked for a place to sit, loitering in the foyer instead. "Oh, I don't know if that's so special. You and Mother have never been particularly charming or cunning about it. You usually just wear the poor bastards down. Perhaps bluntness is a family trait."
Elysium stared back at him, surprised for a moment, and then said, "You need to come home for a few days."
Benedict blinked. "See, there's that family bluntness. Why on earth would I go back to the house?"
"Mother is dead."
Benedict wished they had gone into the living room and sat down. His mother, Gloria Lyon, had never been a warm person, not as he had known her anyway. She had another life outside of the family, he was sure; they all did. But the woman he had known had been all business, all about preparing her children to be honorable examples of the family name and history.
"How?" he managed the only question.
"Lung cancer. It developed quickly. She decided against treatment."
Benedict wanted to be angry. No one had told him, but that was about right. He wasn't sure he would have phoned any of his relations if he had been the one dying.
"The family is gathering for the funeral to make sure her soul is at rest," Elysium went on, making it sound as though it would be a particularly large gathering when, in fact, the family had dwindled down to eight members—now seven. At twenty-eight, Benedict was the youngest of his siblings and cousins.
"Okay," Benedict said feebly, not sure what else to ask. He hadn't been a part of a family funeral, not really. The last one had been his Aunt Vendean, and he had been four years old. He vaguely remembered a séance in the parlor, but that could have been any other occasion. His family had a habit of performing séances. It was there version of watching sports.
Elysium lingered a second longer, as though searching for something else to say. Finally, he turned toward the door. "I will be returning to the estate at once, but I booked you on a flight this evening so that you can pack. I'll send you the info."
Benedict rolled his eyes freely while his brother had his back turned. Elysium was the king of micromanaging. He would never leave it up to Benedict to get himself home. At least they weren't flying together. "I suppose you'll send a driver to pick me up, as well?" he asked, his tone an expert imitation of the other man's—minus that elusive authority, of course.
Elysium paused in the doorway, glancing back at him with the smallest of smiles. "A car will be waiting, but I assumed you'd rather drive yourself. Why inconvenience a driver with the trip back from the estate?"
Benedict prickled, irritated that his brother managed to know him so well. They weren't close, more than a decade between them and very little other than their disturbing childhood in common. But Elysium had many tricks, not least of them was the ability to take measure of the people around him.
"I will see you at home, baby brother," the eldest said before turning down the corridor. He took the stairs instead of the elevator.
Benedict waited in the doorway until he couldn't hear the other man's shoes in the stairwell.
His mother was dead.
Lung cancer.
It was almost laughable, wasn't it? That a woman who had combated spirits her whole life, survived houses that had claimed lives, and put the most volatile to rest—would die of something so painfully human?
"Are you okay?" Emmeline asked when he closed the door. She chewed her lip, lingering in the mouth of the hallway.
Benedict nodded stiffly. "We weren't close." She would know that. He had barely spoken to his mother since he left home. He had not been back, and she had not paid him any visits at school or in the city where he settled.
"Still..."
He sighed and sulked past her into the hallway. He pushed open her bedroom door on the way but walked to his own room, falling face-first onto his bed. "We weren't close," he said again, this time wondering why those words were supposed to make him feel better. They just made him feel worse. She was dead, and he didn't even know how to react.
Emmeline crawled onto the bed. It didn't sink under her weight. The covers didn't move. She lay down beside him, looking back at him. If she could breathe—really breathe—he would feel it against his lips. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
They were quiet for a long time. He thought about going to sleep, but his phone vibrated on the table, no doubt with his flight information. He didn't get up to check it. Not just yet. "What was your mother like, Em?" he asked. He never had before. They never talked about her life.
"My mom?" The words broke a little in her throat, like she had forgotten she had one. Maybe she had forgotten. Ghosts were strange things, remains of a person stuck in the world for some cruel reason. "She was nice. Is nice, I guess. She's probably still alive." Her voice got smaller and smaller, eyes glassy. "She worked all the time, and life was hard for her, but we didn't see it when we were kids. She made sure we didn't see it. I think I only saw her cry twice. One time was when her friend moved away. The other family came by our house to say goodbye before leaving town, all piled into their big car and a moving truck. My mom stood there in the street and stared after the vehicles, tears in her eyes. I didn't understand then what it must have felt like, to have a close friend—a person that really knew her and could sympathize with her—leave. Friendship was a given when you were a kid. They came and went and came again, and it wasn't so hard because there just wasn't much to us yet. We didn't need someone to understand us yet because we were narcissists that believed everyone was just like us."
Benedict huffed a laugh. He put his hand on the bed between them. She put her hand beside his, their pinkies almost overlapping. "And the second time?"
"Hmm? Oh. My parents had this blowout argument, and my dad stormed off. He did that. He left, but he always came back eventually. I went into my mom's room and found her lying on the bed, crying. I couldn't have been more than ten years old. I didn't know what to do. She was always the strong one. Everyone else was an emotional mess, but not her. She knew what to do. But there she was, broken-hearted. I asked if she wanted something to eat. I think I wanted to offer her something, to make contact, to comfort somehow, but I was too young to know how. I mean, even my food-making abilities were limited to the microwave or stove-top mac and cheese." She darkened, staring at where their hands lay on the covers. He followed her gaze in time to see the bruises forming. "Do you think she knows I'm dead? Like, feels it? I wonder how much she's cried now…"
Benedict's eyes stung. "I could look her up for you. We could look you up and see if they found out who… That you were…"
"Murdered," she said it. She had never said it before. His gaze flicked back up to her face, expecting to see that ghoulish corpse of a girl beside him. The bloodstains and bruises were gone. Her round cheeks rose in a little offering of a smile, appreciative as though he had done something acutely kind. "No one knows. No one found me." She said the grim truths as though they were soothing.