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The Wheeler attic was a mess to say the least. Nancy herself had never actually been to the attic before. It may have been the only room that was hidden from her throughout her childhood. Nancy began to understand why as she stepped off the ladder and onto the attic. It looked like a freaking war zone. Like someone had continued to pile things in top of each other until everything collapsed and scattered on the floor.
“Oh, shit. This is messier than my mind.” Robin huffed out.
“Just remember, we’re getting paid for this.” Nancy grabbed Robin’s hand and pulled her further up.
“I’m not doing it for the money.”
“Then why are you doing this?” Nancy let go of Robin’s hand to grab onto an old lamp. It looked hideous with the flowery pattern on lampshade.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Robin looked into a box of old books.
“I thought it was for the money,” Nancy said with a small smile.
“No, Nancy! You got it all wrong.” Robin opened a copy of Frankenstein. “There is only one reason I will be cooped up in a stuffy attic and that is for quality time with you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Nancy put the lamp down, turning toward her girlfriend. “I’m sorry. I know things have been really busy with me going to college and all that stuff, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m abandoning you. You know I’m not abandoning you, right?”
“Yeah, no, totally. I know, I know you’re not avoiding me or ignoring me or… abandoning me, but you are leaving in a few weeks. And I’m just trying to spend as much time with you as I possibly can. So, let’s get this show on the road. Where are we starting?”
They worked their way through several boxes with the faint notes of Blondie in the background. It was nice. It was even more fun when Robin would sneak a quick kiss off Nancy’s lips. Every single time Nancy would giggle softly under her breath.
“Oh, look at this. Property of Marjorie Wheeler,” Robin read aloud. “Who’s Marjorie Wheeler?”
Nancy didn’t look up from her own box. “My great grandmother’s sister. I never met her, but somehow her stuff ended up at my dad’s.”
“She looks so much like you. That is pretty insane.”
“Huh?” Nancy finally looked up. Robin was holding up a photo album. The woman that was stood next to her great grandmother in front of the old Wheeler estate looked exactly like the image that Nancy saw in the mirror every night. She slowly pulled the album out of Robin’s hands.
“It’s a little freaky. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume you were a 90 year old vampire. Although now that I think about it… Do I know better?” Robin leaned away playfully.
“Very funny. I’m not a vampire. If I was a vampire, I would have surely bitten you by now.” Nancy turned the page. The next couple of photos pictured Marjorie holding on to a girl that weirdly resembled Robin. Nancy removed the picture to check for any information. All that it said was Rhode Island, 1921.
“I don’t know. Maybe you can just resist me.”
“I can never resist you,” Nancy mumbled while staring at the pictures. She wondered if it was possible to fake these. If maybe this was some kind of joke planted by Steve or Mike or even Robin herself. But the photos looked too authentic. They looked too real. And the two women looked exactly like Robin and Nancy.
“Oh, it gets more interesting. Marjorie kept a diary.” Robin held up a smaller notebook. “Is it invading her privacy if she’s dead?”
“How do you know she’s dead?” Nancy asked.
“I may have accidentally read the last page. It’s from 1933. She describes that the end is near.”
“1933? Really?” Nancy tried to do the math in her head. In 1933, Marjorie would have been only 37. That couldn’t be right. “I don’t think it’s an invasion of privacy.”
“You’re just curious,” Robin laughed.
“As if you’re not.”
Robin cleared her throat. “July 4th, 1919— Hey, didn’t we meet on the 4th of July?”
“Technically we met in kindergarten but yeah, I guess. Now, keep reading.”
July 4th, 1919
Henrick took me to the fair. I wasn’t entirely excited to go. My fear that he may propose is too great for me to be alone with him at any given occasion. But he left me no choice, pulling my father into the whole ordeal.
Nevertheless, I’m not upset that I was forced to go. I met someone. A young woman, my age. I ran into her, quite literally, as I tried to escape Henrick. I had been so terribly rude as to ask her ‘who are you?’. But now I do know her name. Her name is Hope and she filled me with it. Her bright smile as I apologized was enough to leave me speechless.
I want to see her again. I need to see her again.
Nancy tried to find a picture to accompany the date but there wasn’t one. Nothing of a fair and nothing of a Henrick. “Is there more?”
“Yeah, she does skip over a couple of months.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to hear it.” Nancy turned back to the picture of 1921. She needed to know what happened in those two years.
March 23rd, 1920
It had taken entirely too long, but I finally saw Hope again. She stumbled into town after a horrendous storm. Her dresses were soaked, and her hair leaked onto our carpets. But I was more than delighted to take her in. She is to stay with us for two weeks.
March 24th, 1920
It is easy to lose myself in my new company. It also gives me a great excuse to avoid Henrick. He came around the house twice today. Both times Hope demanded my attention. I would much rather spend my life with her than with any man.
June 29th, 1920
Hope kissed me. Or rather, I kissed Hope. I don’t know what overtook me. I do know her lips feel soft against mine and that they tasted of sweet tea with a hint of honey.
She kissed me back. She kissed me again after I moved away. For the first time in my life, I felt something burn under my skin that urged me to touch her. But I refrained. I don’t want to scare her away.
“Nance? Wasn’t our first kiss on the 29th of June?” Robin asked with the first hint of discomfort in her voice.
“Yes. I remember because… Because I wrote it in my diary.”
“You wrote about me in your diary, Nance?” Robin teased.
“Just like Marjorie wrote about Hope,” Nancy admitted, pecking Robin’s lips.
“Look Nance, there is something very uncanny about this resemblance.”
“Yeah, no shit. Look at this picture. This is Marjorie and this is Hope.” Nancy pointed at the picture watching Robin’s mouth fall agape.
September 8th, 1921
We have done it. We have finally escaped and moved to a place where we can see the ocean. It is a rather old Rhode Island house, but it will do for now. I am aware that I have to leave my family into the past.
But they do not understand. They would never understand. They expect me to marry Henrick now that he has finally proposed, but Hope is all that matters to me. She is the person that makes me laugh and smile and it is her I want to kiss. Never Henrick.
This will be our new start. A new story that only features me and Hope and our undying love.
“She is more poetic than you,” Robin laughed.
“And how do you know that? Perhaps I write about my undying love for you in my diary as well?”
“Do you?”
Nancy shrugged her shoulders.
February 13th, 1927
Things have been going amiss. Unexplainable things keep us up at night. This morning the back door was unlocked. Hope has sworn she locked it before bed. I believe her, because the alternative is far too scary to face.
November 1st, 1928
Hope has started hearing things. She talks about children’s voices in the depths of night singing to her. I didn’t want to believe her, hoping she was only performing a cruel joke. But my Hope is not cruel. She would never.
November 5th, 1928
I have now heard the voices myself. Hope was not lying. They sound like children. They sound like me and my brother when we were children. They even sing my mother’s lullaby.
August 8th, 1929
My mother called. When I explained what has happened over the past two years, God has it already been two years? Her only response was that it must be a curse from the Gods. That they punish us for the life we have chosen.
I will not believe that. What me and Hope share is purer than any love I’ve ever heard about. Even the Jane Austin novels cannot portray a more genuine connection. A true God would never punish this. Only a demon could find pleasure in our pain.
January 21st, 1930
Things have been surprisingly calm. For the first time in years, we have been able to sleep peacefully. Neither of us awoke in screams or sweat. We shall take this gift and cherish it.
April 16th, 1932
It is the house. It must be the house. I have insisted on leaving but Hope will not hear it. This is our home, she will not abandon it. And I will not abandon her. She is my everything and I would rather be eaten by this building than to live on without her.
“There is only one entry after it. It just says that she feels the end is near.” Robin checked the pages to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
“Quite the story.” Nancy stared at the house in the picture. “Do you think this is some kind of warning?”
“What do you mean?” Robin had closed the book.
“I mean, these women look exactly like us. We know for a fact one of them has a blood connection to one of us. They fell in love and they were tortured for years before dying long before they should have. And now we have fallen in love.”
“So, we’ll avoid Rhode Island. Problem solved.” Robin shuffled closer, putting her arms around her girlfriend. “And it’s not like we’re exactly the same.”
“I don’t know. I do think you are my only hope and my everything.” Nancy wanted it to sound like a joke, but it can come out completely sincere.
“And you are mine. Nance, we’re not going to end up like them. We are going to live happily ever after, and we’re going to grow old together until you get sick of me.”
“I could never get sick of you.”
“Even better, that just means you’ll turn me into a vampire, and we’ll stay together forever.”
“Is that really what you want?”
“Oh totally.”
“Okay then.” Nancy leaned forward, placing her lips on Robin’s neck and softly biting her right there.
Robin laughed under her breath before a moan slipped past her lips. As Nancy kissed up to Robin’s lips, she forgot all about Marjorie and Hope. It was only when they returned to their duty that she noticed it. The figure hiding behind the windows of the house in the picture. The figure that almost looked like Henry Creel. It was impossible, of course. All of it was entirely impossible.
Nancy took the picture out of the book and closed off the attic. Her girlfriend was waiting.