Come When I Call You by Shayna Krishnasamy

Author:Shayna Krishnasamy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Dark Press
Published: 2020-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

For as long as I could remember I’d been concerned with recording, in my mind at least, the before and after of things. My mother had often remarked about the way my eyes zeroed in, taking that mental snapshot, before the party began, and how I always seemed to remember the before so much better—the colour of the wrapping paper and the lopsided bow, the itchy excitement of holding the gift in my hand and wondering, of all the things I imagined were inside, which one it might be. She believed, incorrectly, that I performed this ritual out of some misplaced worry about my absentmindedness, drawn from a single afternoon spent with my maternal grandfather, who had gotten to that age where he forgot everything a moment after you told him—No, Dad. Anna. Not Sandra. An-Na—and who, one of her sisters had remarked, I resembled more than anyone else in the family.

But it wasn’t a need to remember that triggered this odd tick in me, one I felt sometimes entirely helpless to control—though I had, over the years, learned to take my notes on the exact position of chairs in a room quickly and unobtrusively. The real reason I found myself focusing with such determination on that before picture in my mind, the reason I kept to myself for fear of seeming ungrateful or a spoiled sport, is that I saw how completely the moment before something happened—no matter how spectacular that something might be—was always a hundred times better than the moment after.

After was, without fail, a lesser time, in which the present wasn’t quite what you wanted, or even if it was, what you wanted wasn’t quite as wonderful as you’d hoped. Waiting for the guests was so much better than actually having them there, in your house, talking too loudly and spilling things and eating all the good food before you got any. Movies always seemed better in the trailers than they actually were. Outings, trips, desserts, shopping sprees, even a favourite book—nothing ever lived up to the hype, nothing ever satisfied.

Anticipating was so many times sweeter than experiencing. I knew this, even if nobody else seemed to. Nothing could compare to before.

I have a distinct memory of that day at the Manor, the day of the séance, and in particular the moment before the sun went down. It seemed very much to be the end of something, that sunset, which I saw from the window between Nicole and Penelope’s beds, the striking orange and pink and blue furrowed clouds, the glowing disk of the sun which seemed to shoot sparks before slipping behind the roof of Oakley Hall. Lucia was behind me on the bed, bouncing up and down, almost giddy (though I couldn’t imagine why), and Penelope was calling that it was time. There was a bite in her voice—because I was dawdling, my scarf trailing from my hands to the floor—a soldier’s aspect in her, like she was girding herself, not so much insistent as resolute, like we were all going off to war and she was leading.

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