"Zora?" I tapped my chisel thoughtfully, perplexed, on the edge of my tool case.
"Zora was controlling everything. She was supposed to be caring for Cella
but she neglected her criminally. I think she starved her to death after
isolating her from all she loved."
I was staring at Adonie, but still I did hear her last words:
"Except one thing."
"And? It was?"
"This house."
"She died here."
"But she hung on for years. Zora allowed no one else here, cloaking the
refusal in a variety of plausibilities, but she isolated Cella and tormented
her, but Cella held on."
"Stubborn?" I wouldn't have thought it of her, particularly. If she had been like me, then, yes, she'd have held on full of the persistent fires of hatred: You can't get rid of me! You've stuck me here on Earth and you won't get rid of me without a fight you'll remember. I spat these thoughts at whatever I thought might be responsible when I was a teenager. I hadn't thought anything or anyone responsible for many years now though occasionally I had considered how much easier that would have made it. To have a specific source, corporeal or not, to fight, denounce, blame. But I could not believe in any source. There was nothing to blame.