“No. Don’t you get it? Things are going good for us lately. Dad’s happy school’s starting out so well. And we’re nearly done with my room. If I leave and go stay with you, he’ll be all worried and weirded out. I’ve gotta stay.”
“Okay,” Riley said. “You stay. I’ll do a little poking around, see what I can turn up about what your mom might have been up to those last few days. See if I can find out anything about guys she was seeing.”
“So you think maybe she didn’t run off with some guy?”
“I don’t know what I think,” Riley admitted. “But I want you to promise me you’ll stop playing detective, okay? And don’t say anything to your dad. Leave it to me. If I can’t turn anything up in a couple of days, we’ll go talk to the police together, okay?”
“Deal,” Olive said.
Riley took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Now run upstairs and get dressed. I don’t want you to be late for school.”
CHAPTER 33
Helen
S SEPTEMBER 10, 2015
“What happened last night with the propane—that’s some serious shit,” Riley said, voice low so that none of the customers would hear. Helen had driven to the salvage yard after lunch to tell Riley that latest—that now she believed someone had tried to kill her and Nate.
“I know. That’s why I called the police.”
“You called the police?” This time Riley forgot to lower her voice, and a young couple looking at stained-glass windows turned their way.
“Yeah, but I see now that it was a mistake,” Helen whispered. “The cop thought I’d left the stove on, that I was too drunk or flaky or whatever to be remembering right. And I bet word’s getting around town that we called—the kid down at Ferguson’s probably heard it on his scanner, and by now, I bet the whole town knows.”
“So what did the cop do?”
“He didn’t do shit, to be honest. Just wrote up a report. He said there was no evidence of a crime. It was just our word, my word really, and that doesn’t exactly carry a whole lot of weight around here. Shit, even Nate was looking at me like maybe I accidentally turned on the gas and closed all the windows and somehow forgot . . .”
Riley blew out an exasperated breath, pushed her blue bangs away from her eyes. “What if it was Hattie?”
“Hattie?”
“What if . . . what if it was her who turned that gas on last night?” Riley asked.
Helen shook her head. “No, I told you—she’s the one who woke me up, I’m sure of it. And I’ve been thinking. What if it’s not some asshole from town who wants me to go because I’m the new witch of the bog? What if it’s because of the research I’m doing? Maybe there’s something about Hattie’s family I’m not supposed to find out.”
“But what?” Riley said. “What would be worth killing you over?”
“I have no idea. But the one thing I know, the one thing I truly believe, is that I should listen to Hattie. I think she’s guiding me. She needs me to find someone. And I’ve got to hurry. The stunt last night with the gas really drove home that point.”
“I don’t know, Helen. I don’t like this. This is scary shit.”
“I have to keep looking. Try to find Ann’s children. I learned her daughter’s name: Gloria Gray. She was born in 1971, so she’d be forty-four now. I found her birth certificate but nothing else. She just kind of disappears. Fades into the thousands of possible Gloria Grays out there. The newspaper story covering the murder and the woman I met who runs the antique shop said that the children were sent to live with relatives. I need to figure out where they went, who took them in.”
Riley nodded, her face full of worry.
Helen looked at her watch. “I should get back to Nate. He doesn’t know I’m here. I was just supposed to make a quick run for finishing nails and more putty.”
“Just be careful,” Riley implored. “You and Nate both.”
. . .
Helen pulled into the driveway and saw a beat-up red pickup parked there. Then she spotted Nate sitting on the steps of the new house with Dicky Barns. They were each holding a can of beer.
“Oh shit,” Helen mumbled, hurrying out of the truck, carrying the bag from the building supply store.
What the hell was Dicky doing here?
Nate gave Helen a cold glance. “Helen,” he said. “Your friend Dicky brought back your phone.” Nate held it up to show her.
“My phone?”
Dicky nodded. “You must have dropped it last night.”
Helen held her breath.
“When you visited Dicky’s ghost-summoning circle,” Nate said, staring at her. His face was a blank slate.
She said nothing. Nate continued. “Dicky’s been telling me about his weekly gatherings. And about his father. About the white deer and Hattie.”
“I should go,” Dicky said, standing up, draining his beer, and carefully setting the empty on the step. “I just wanted to make sure you got your phone and that you were all right.”
“Thank you so much, Dicky. I’m fine. I’m . . . I’m sorry about last night.”
“No worries. Hope to see you again. We meet every Wednesday at eight,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Thanks for the beer, Nate,” he called as he got into his pickup. They watched him drive off.
Nate reached for the six-pack, cracked open another beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was what the new frugal Nate drank these days.
Helen braced herself for what might come next.
“I have never in my life felt like such a complete idiot,” he said finally, his voice low but furious, enunciating every word too clearly. “Holy fuck, Helen, how do you think it looked when this guy pulls up and introduces himself, tells me he met you at a fucking ghost-hunting circle?”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“You lied to me, told me you and Riley went out for dinner and drinks. Not to mention lying to the cop last night!”
“I didn’t lie. Not exactly,” Helen said, scrambling. “I just left some parts out because I thought you’d get mad.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he said, voice thick and harsh with sarcasm. “You said you were going for a girls’ night out on the town. I was imagining karaoke and cosmos, not summoning the dead. You went because of Hattie, right? You’re so obsessed with this woman, this woman you’ve never met, who died almost a hundred years ago, that you go and sit down with a bunch of nutjob strangers to try to conjure her up?”
“I thought they might—”
He held up his finger in a but wait, there’s more gesture.
“Tell me about the mantel, Helen,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking. First the beam, then the bricks. I thought it was great at first, that you were incorporating pieces of history into our house, repurposing materials.”
Really? Then why’d you argue with me about it every step of the way? she thought, but stayed silent.
“But it’s weird, Helen. Your insistence on bringing home objects connected to these women who died in terrible ways. So, who did the mantel belong to, Helen? What’s the real story behind it? I wondered when you brought it home but didn’t ask. But now I’ve got to know.”
“I—”
“Tell me the truth, Helen. Please. Or are you just going to lie to me again? It must be getting pretty easy by now.” He looked so crushed.
She felt a horrible weight bearing down on her. Guilt. How had it come to this? How had she become a woman who could do something like this, sneak around and lie to her own husband, the man who was once the great love of her life, the man she once shared every secret thought with.
Because he doesn’t understand, a little voice whispered. He never has.
“Okay. The mantel belonged to a woman named Ann Gray. She was Jane’s da
ughter. Hattie’s granddaughter.”
Nate clenched his jaw. “Yeah, I figured. But let me guess. There’s more to it than that, right? She died in some really horrific way?”
Helen thought of lying. She did. But Nate would look online and learn the truth in a few quick keystrokes. She sighed and nodded.
“It was a murder-suicide. Her husband shot her, then himself.”
He laughed in a sickening I can’t believe this is happening kind of way. “So the mantel—this mantel that you just had to have, that we had to do a major redesign for—for our new home, our new life together that we left everything behind for—it came from the house where the guy shot his wife and then himself?”
“I—” she stammered. “I’m sorry,” she said, truly meaning it. Feeling it in her gut. “I know it sounds crazy and terrible, but it’s not. I didn’t mean to lie. I was just afraid. You get so annoyed, angry even, when I talk about Hattie and Jane.”
“Do you blame me, Helen? I mean, really? Think about it. How is it that they’ve become more important to you than I am?”
“They’re not more important, Nate. How can you think that?”
How could she explain it? This feeling she had, uncovering little pieces of truth about these women and the lives they led. It was like Hattie wanted her to find them. Hattie was guiding her, helping her to bring them all together like this, these generations of Breckenridge women. And now, to save one of them.
“It’s just been this amazing experience,” she confessed. “To make these discoveries. To feel so connected to the past. To find these objects tied to these women, generations of Breckenridge women. It’s like . . . like I was meant to find each object, led to them somehow, and I—”
“Don’t give me this new age–y destiny bullshit,” he interrupted. “You sound like that wacko Dicky talking about all that the spirits have to teach us.”
“I don’t think—”
“You’re turning our house into this fucked-up museum of Hattie’s fucked-up family, all of whom seemed to die in horrible ways! Some people move into a haunted house, but you, you want to build a haunted house, Helen. How fucked up is that?”
He took a few long swallows of beer, tilting the can way back. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at her accusingly.
She’d never seen him this angry, this spiteful. His whole face seemed to change. The dark circles beneath his eyes made them look sunken deep in his skull, small and beady. His hand holding the beer can trembled slightly.
She thought, absurdly, of Ann’s husband. Of what it had taken to break him, to turn him to act in the violent way he had. He must have loved her once, back before something snapped inside him.
Was everyone capable of such evil? Of doing such a terrible thing?
A few months ago, Helen would never have believed herself capable of lying to Nate. And if anyone had told her Nate would talk to her in such an angry way, look at her with such loathing, she never would have believed it.
Other people’s lives were like that. Not theirs. They were different.
They loved each other. He’d written her a poem about the night they’d met, a beautiful poem that had won her over completely. They had their differences, sure, but she didn’t remember him ever even losing his temper before Vermont.
“Shit, Helen,” Nate continued. “Are you going to charge admission at Halloween? Welcome to Helen’s Haunted House: enter if you dare!”
She didn’t speak.
“Do you have any idea how totally fucked up this is? You’re obsessed. It’s a sick, unhealthy obsession. I think you need help. Seriously. And I don’t mean help from Dicky and his spiritualists. I think it might be time for therapy. For someone to help you figure out where this need you have for these things is coming from.”
She didn’t say anything, just stood, concentrating on trying to keep breathing.
“Your father wouldn’t have admired this. He would have been horrified.”
This was more than she could stand. She barked out a cold laugh. “You’re one to talk. You’ve got your own fucked-up little obsession, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw your nature journal, Nate. You’ve filled the entire fucking thing with notes on that deer. If that’s not an obsession, I don’t know what is.”
He opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but she kept going before he got a chance.
“Have you been keeping track somewhere in one of your little spreadsheets of how many hours you spend looking for your white deer? Of the money you’ve sunk into it—the top-of-the line infrared cameras, the cables, the bags of deer food and salt licks? While you bitch and moan about being over budget. And you haven’t even gotten a single clear picture yet, have you?”
“No, but I will. The deer is real, Helen. An actual flesh-and-blood creature. Unlike these ghosts you’re apparently trying to summon.”
“You know what I can’t help but wonder? If maybe your need to do all this research and gather all this proof about the deer is because part of you worries that maybe, just maybe, Riley was right. Maybe that deer really is the ghost of Hattie Breckenridge. And you refuse to accept that possibility, so you’re determined to prove her wrong.”
“That’s absurd,” Nate said.
“You write about her like she’s a human being, Nate. Like she’s got magical abilities. Like you have some kind of special relationship. Like she’s your fucking mistress!”
He turned from her, reached down, grabbed the remaining three beers. “We’re done here.”
He walked away, down to the trailer, where he slammed the door so hard the whole sad little tin building seemed to shake.
CHAPTER 34
Olive
S SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
“Dammit!” Helen said when she missed the nail, smashed her finger with the hammer.
“You okay?” Olive asked.
“Fine,” Helen said, shaking her finger. “I just need to take a break for a minute.”
Helen looked tired, worried, and, all of a sudden, way older. There were dark circles under her bloodshot eyes and her skin was pale and pasty looking—Olive could see the blue traces of veins underneath.
They were in the house putting up the trim around the last of the windows. Olive was holding the boards while Helen nailed them in place. Then she used a nail set to sink them, and Olive covered the holes with dabs of wood putty.
Nate had gone into town to pick up more caulk and primer. Olive was relieved he’d taken off because things were weird and awkward. Nate and Helen were barely speaking—just giving each other measurements and passing boards back and forth. Olive could tell they were really pissed off at each other. Maybe that was why Helen looked so worn out.
Olive imagined she didn’t look all that much better than Helen—she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. She’d tossed and turned in bed thinking about her talk with Riley at breakfast and how frightened Riley had looked. About her promise to stop looking into things, to stay safe and leave things to Riley. And their plan to maybe go to the police.
When she did sleep, she dreamed it was her own hand ripping the necklace from her mother’s throat. Then choking her.
She woke up damp with sweat, heart thumping. She jumped out of bed, downed three cups of sweet, milky coffee and skipped breakfast entirely—the idea of solid food turned her stomach. On her way to catch the school bus, she stopped by the hollow tree and thought about dumping the necklace back in there but found she just couldn’t part with it.
She’d come to Helen’s straight from school, not even heading home first to drop off her backpack. She didn’t want to be alone. Not even for a minute.
Olive looked at the stack of books on the kitchen counter: Ghosts and Hauntings; Witches in New England; A Guide to Haunted Vermont; Spells
, Hexes, and Curses; A Witch’s Guide to Spell Casting. The one on top was called Communicating with the Spirit World.
She set down the tub of wood putty, reached up, touched the necklace under her shirt. Then she picked up Communicating with the Spirit World, started flipping through it, not really reading, just skimming. She came to a passage that made her stop. She felt goose bumps form on her forearms and a chill on the nape of her neck. She read it out loud, slowly:
A spirit will sometimes attach itself to an object. Often this happens with an item the spirit had a strong personal connection to in life.
A spirit can also attach itself to a living person.
This can become quite troublesome, even dangerous. If you are experiencing missing time, blackouts, or nightmares, or find yourself acting in ways that are not normal for you, it may be that a spirit has taken hold of you.
Helen chuckled. “Pretty crazy stuff, huh?”
“Helen, do you think that’s possible? That a spirit can attach itself to an object or a person? And, like, make them possessed or something?”
Helen smiled. “I think those books have a lot of strange ideas, some based in reality, some not so much. But me, I’ve come to believe there’s more to this world than meets the eye, so I try to take it all in with an open mind.”
“But if there was a haunted object and you carried it around, could it make you do things that you normally wouldn’t do?”
“Some might believe it would. But I think that an object, even a haunted one, can only have the power you give it. You can choose what effect it may or may not have on you.”
Olive thought over what she’d said. She believed her mom’s necklace had some sort of power. But maybe it was also kind of cursed. Maybe that’s where her nightmares came from.
Or maybe they came from something far worse.
“And what about a spirit attaching itself to a person?” Olive asked, her throat dry, voice crackly. “Do you think that ever actually happens?”
Helen leaned forward, brushed a chunk of unruly hair back from Olive’s forehead. “I don’t think that’s anything you or I have to worry about.”
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