Beth

It is late. My father, sister, niece and nephew have already gone to bed. I should be in bed, but I want to get a head start on the packing. Besides, after the way the day has unfolded, I'm not likely to fall asleep anytime soon.

Some say that ghosts haunt our home. I know all their stories; I have heard them many times.

I'll share one. In 1775, war came to this house during the battle of Lexington and Concord. An irate rebel tore down the door and attacked Thomas Malcolm's son Robert for his loyalty to the King. My father is still proud of Robert's conviction in the face of pressure, and he will regularly show visitors the bullet holes in the stairs where his ancestor was wounded but survived. My father is named after Robert, which he finds enormously gratifying

My bedroom, the Blue Room, is mostly boxed up, but it is where young John Malcolm, at the age of 14, snuck out of a window and climbed down an apple tree to defy his father and brother and join the war, only to have his body brought back to his mother in a hastily nailed rough-hewn pine box, his chest torn open by musket shells and one eye missing, having been run through by a bayonet.

It's the same window Isaac used to speak to me through after he was banned from the house.

I am packing up the dining room. It is my favorite room, not because it is as large or grand as the others, but because my mother's presence is here. Years ago when Father and my sister, Mariah, redecorated the house, I refused to let them change this room. Taken aback by my emphatic insistence, they shrugged and let me keep it as is.

The walls are a deep burgundy accented by gold fleur de lis. The floors are made of wide planked mahogany, and are still well preserved. The trim and coffers are also made of mahogany.

One of my favorite things about this space is the large walnut table that spans the room. I'm not even sure how many generations it has been in the family. It was at this table I tutored Isaac. Sometimes I suspect he was bright enough to figure his studies out on his own, but he just wanted to spend time with me. I still remember the first time we held hands.

Isaac claimed to have learned how to read palms, and he insisted on reading mine. Laughing, I handed over my palm.

"You know I don't believe in this stuff," I said.

"Just wait," he grinned. "I'll make a believer out of you."

He traced the lines of my hand.

"So?" I challenged him. "What do you see?"

He traced my hand and sent a shiver up my spine.

"Well?"

"According to this line, you love cheese pizza and you think mushrooms are gross," he said.

"Faker!" I laughed, trying to pull my hand away. "You already knew that."

"Nope. I'm not finished yet," Isaac held on.

"Fine. What's that line mean?" I ask, pointing to the one that curved around my thumb.

"I'll tell you after we finish my homework."

Sly dog. Still, my hand felt comfortable in his, and when he brushed his thumb over a knuckle, I caught my breath. I was in no hurry to pull away.

So we sat there, my right hand in his left, as he finished his assignment.

He never did finish reading my palm.

Oftentimes we talked about my mother, a subject no one else in the house were willing to speak of.

I never knew my mother.

The day I drew in my first breath, she breathed her last. My mother's labor was long and painful. I emerged, a red faced, squalling baby who seemed to have a personal vendetta against the world. It seems strange I should have left the womb so violently, considering that I grew into such a quiet, obedient child. I wonder if even as a baby I recognized something was wrong.

My mother had hemorrhaged during my delivery. My father, a handsome man who was always immaculately dressed, became lightheaded at the sight of so much blood and nearly fainted, and the nurses had to escort him from the room.

By the time he was allowed back in the room, Mother was dead. He bitterly regretted not being there with her as she drew her last breath.

One of the nurses found a sampler on the side table next to Mother's hospital bed. Mother was three letters short of finishing it when the contractions became too intense, and she had to put it down.

The year I turned 8, I began practicing my stitches. They were atrocious at first, and Mariah teased me incessantly. Ignoring her, I persevered until my fingers bled and ached. The effort was worth it. On my mother's birthday that year, I completed the final words on the sampler. I didn't enjoy the task and will likely never pick up a needle again, but I was proud that it was near impossible to tell the difference between my mother's stitches and mine.

The sampler hangs on the wall in this room in memory of my mother, between a portrait of her and my sister painted by the late Italian artist Pino, and the prized walnut hutch that holds her Wedgwood china trimmed with elegant gold flowers. It reads:

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

I have heard enough stories about my mother to understand why this is quote from author Dinah Craik is her favorite. The goodness of her heart was legend. If anyone in the neighborhood was sick or suffering, my mother would be the first to show up with a batch of chicken noodle soup and a warm hug. If perfection could be wrapped up in one person, it would be in my mother.

I carefully pull a plate out of the hutch, wrap it in newspaper and place it in a box. I can take the portrait and china with me, but the hutch will likely remain. It won't fit into the cramped dining space in our vacation home.

The Malcolm name is an old one, and one we are justifiably proud of. Some would accuse us of being too proud, and they may be right.

In America, there is no place for royalty. We are a people that denied King George III the right to rule over us, boldly declaring that all men are created equal. We purchased that freedom with blood, but that does not keep some men from delusions of grandeur. My father is one of them. To this day, my father maintains the country ought to be run by a king. Then his title might mean something, and he would be given special privileges instead of having to scrape for his daily bread like common rabble.

I finish with the plates and begin wrapping the saucers. It does bring me some comfort to know that this china will go with us, even if we will only use it for small parties. Children aren't easy on china.

There is one thing that each of the grand rooms at Malcolm Estates have in common. My father commissioned a series of mirrors. They are full length, carved in a gaudy baroque style and sheeted in gold. At the head of each mirror, the family crest is carved onto the mantle, along with the lofty family motto in Latin "In ardor tendit", which means "He reaches toward things difficult of attainment."

The Malcolms do not align with the belief that all men were created equal. It was a bold declaration that we the American people gave mouth service to, but clearly struggled to live, as they built the nation on the backs of slaves and denied blacks and women the right to vote and to own property. America may have been forged in freedom and formed of high ideals, but there's no denying it was a bloody mess. Still is, in some ways.

Malcolms have traditionally not allowed themselves to be bothered by these uncomfortable truths. They live in a deep seated and sure knowledge of their superiority, and they are disdainful to the inferiority that surrounds them, which to sum it up simply, applies to almost everything and everyone.

You'll notice I refer to the Malcolms sometimes as "we" and other times "they." Most of the time I tolerate the Malcolm name. There is a fierce pride, after all, in remembering the great deeds of the Malcolms who fought in wars long past, or who had the courage to forge a life in a new land. But when my father and sister preen in front of a mirror or belittle everyone and everything around them, the Malcolm name becomes a proud and shallow thing. At these times, I am ashamed to be an Malcolm.

I have finished packing up the dining room. All that remains is mother's portrait and sampler. I reverently remove them from the wall and place them in a box.

I stand and stretch and yawn. I'm physically and emotionally spent. I ought to go to bed, but I can't resist the desire to walk through the house. In only a few short days, this will be someone else's house to enjoy.

The Rose room is so named because the wall is papered in yellow roses (original, I know). It's also the room where beautiful Malcolm debutantes dressed in layers of frothy petticoats and fancy gowns in the hopes of attracting handsome suitors that would become dedicated husbands and fathers. It's in this room where I dressed for Prom and spent hours combing and curling my hair and applying my makeup. I wanted to look perfect.

The Malcolm ladies had danced with those suitors on the gleaming oak floors in the ballroom. As a child I used to swirl around pretending to be one of them. Other times I pretended to be a scullery maid who dressed up and snuck into the ball, attracting the attention of a handsome prince who became desperate to know who I was. One time Mariah caught me, and when I told her what I was doing, she laughed at me.

"Why would you want to be a scullery maid, Beth? Or even a princess?" she asked scornfully with her fists on her hips. "You are better than a princess. You are a Malcolm."

Ah, my sister, supremely confident in her superiority as a Malcolm.

The night of the senior prom, I finally got that dance with my prince. I know Isaac felt bad we got kicked out of the prom, but I didn't care. All I cared about was being with him, wherever that took me. Knowing my father and sister were gone to a concert, I brought him to my house. In the ballroom, I had arranged cream colored candles along the walls. I made Isaac wait in the foyer as I lit the candles, then I covered his eyes. He was patient as I led him toward the ballroom (nearly running him into the wall at one point and giggling as he complained), then told him to look.

The room was perfect, glittering in gold and white and the fragrance of melting wax. I couldn't help but smile at Isaac's reaction. He looked around the room in wonder, then he looked down at me with warm eyes.

"You did this for me?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Yes," I said, thought that may have not been completely true. I had planned for this moment for years, so it was just as much for me as him.

Isaac led me onto the dance floor. I had forgotten to set up music, so Isaac pulled out his battered iPod and we shared ear buds.

If I relax enough, I can still feel his hand at my waist, the heat from his body, his breath in my hair. As the song ended, I gazed into his eyes and saw desire there. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up. He kissed me softly on the temple first, then on my cheek close to my mouth. His hands tightened around my waist, and then his lips met mine, and everything fell away. The candles, the music, the room, the drunken breath, the mocking whispers, everything.

It was just him and me, sealed in a perfect kiss, escaping the world like we'd promised each other.

I don't know how long we swayed like that. I wish I could have stayed in that moment forever.

But of course it couldn't last.

"Beth! What do you think you're doing?" a female voice said loudly.

I pulled away guiltily, though I'm fairly certain I had done nothing to feel guilty about. Blinking in the dim light, I registered who it was.

"Aunt Alice? What are you doing here?"

"Arriving just in time, it seems," my aunt said with her fists on her hips. "Your teacher Mrs. Murphy called. She was chaperoning the dance and told me what happened with those boys. I came over to make sure you were all right, but it seems I'm interrupting something. Can I have a word with you Beth?"

I glanced over at Isaac, who dropped his arm and let me go. I dutifully walked over to my aunt.

"What can you possibly be thinking, dancing alone, with him?!" she hissed. I winced. I knew Isaac could hear every word. "It hasn't even been a week since his mother was caught...doing you know what. Even if he wasn't the son of that woman, I still don't feel comfortable with you bringing a boy into the house all alone. What are you thinking?"

"But Aunt, it isn't like that," I protested. "Isaac was a perfect gentleman."

"Gentleman do not kiss teenage girls that way," she said.

I glanced over at Isaac. His face was carved of stone; he was closing himself off.

"I should go," he said stiffly.

This couldn't be happening.

"No, Isaac. Wait," I said, catching his eye.

"Come with me?" he asked, but there was no hope in his eyes. He knew I was too obedient to just leave.

"I forbid you to leave Beth," my aunt said. "If you do, that boy never enters this house again."

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All right! Prediction time folks. What happens next? 

If you would like to see the painting of Beth's mother and sister, check out the media box above. Below is a picture of the bullet holes in the stairs at Beth's house.

Dedication for this chapter goes out to the my super talented friend  - fellow Wattpadre @JessicaBFry! She is genuinely kind and classy and all around awesome. She is the Watty award winner of "The Mermaid Bride" and author of the popular fantasy series "Tue-Rah: Identity Revealed." Recently she's been posting stories on Radish and I'm excited to dive in!