Riley stepped back, positioning herself to kick Helen again, but stood frozen, a strange statue in a white dress, eyes focused out on something in the middle of the bog.
The white doe. The animal stood, seeming to hover over the surface of the bog, her white fur as pale and glimmering as the stars above, her eyes an iridescent silver.
The doe was moving toward them, slowly at first, then full-on charging right at Riley, head down.
“Hattie?” Riley said, putting her hands up in front of her, in what Helen thought at first was a stop now protective gesture, but she was wrong—Riley was opening her arms to the deer, calling her closer, waiting to embrace her.
Olive struck Riley on the back of the head with the butt of a shotgun. Riley sank to her knees beside Helen on the boggy ground, dazed but conscious. Olive quickly turned the gun around, training it on her aunt.
“Hattie?” Riley said plaintively.
But the deer was gone.
CHAPTER 51
Lori
S JUNE 29, 2014
Dustin stood over her, swaying like snake.
“Get out before I do something we’d both really regret,” he spat.
Lori scrambled to her feet, left, got in her car and drove aimlessly for an hour or more. She was moving on autopilot, numb and frightened. Not sure what to do or where to go.
She circled back through town, saw the lights at Rosy’s still on, and looked through the window to see Sylvia cleaning up. She knocked on the window, Sylvia let her in, gave her a full glass of whiskey.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” Lori asked.
Sylvia kept pouring whiskey and Lori kept drinking, saying too much to her old friend.
She spent the night with Sylvia and made a plan. She got up at dawn, head pounding and stomach heaving from all the whiskey she’d had. She snuck out of Sylvia’s and drove home.
She wrote Dustin a note and stuck it under the windshield wiper of his truck:
D—
I love you with all of my heart. I would never be unfaithful. Soon, you’ll understand everything. I have a surprise. Something that’s going to change everything. Meet me in the bog at midnight, by the foundation of Hattie’s house. I’ll show you what I’ve been up to every night.
All my love,
Lori
She went to the mall, walking around like a zombie, then wandered into the movie theater, where she paid ten bucks for a matinee she barely paid attention to and a box of popcorn that tasted greasy and stale. After the movie, she drove to a truck stop out on the highway—a place she and Dustin used to come when they first moved back here. Exhausted, she pulled in between two semis and slept in her car awhile, then woke up and had a big steak and eggs meal.
S JUNE 30, 2014
Just after midnight, she was in the bog, waiting. She’d left her car in the driveway of the Decrows’ old place, right next to their abandoned trailer.
She paced around the edge of the bog, waiting.
A figure appeared at the other end, tromping through the bush, shining a flashlight here and there.
“Dustin!” she called. “Over here!”
But it wasn’t Dustin.
It was Riley.
Did Dustin send her instead?
“What are you doing here?” Lori asked.
“Dustin doesn’t want to talk to you,” Riley said.
“Didn’t he get my note?” Lori asked.
“My poor little brother. He’s a mess, you know. He called me this morning, sobbing, drunk, asked me to come over. When I got there, I saw the note under his wiper. I thought it was best not to upset him any more by showing it to him.”
“Riley, why would you—”
“He says you’ve been cheating on him for a long time. Everyone knows it. You know how it is in this town—how easily rumors spread. I tell a few people I’ve seen you go home with a stranger at the bar, that Dustin told me you’re cheating—and suddenly the whole town knows.”
“But . . . that’s bullshit,” Lori said softly. She shifted her weight, the peaty ground beneath her feet far from solid. Perfect really, when nothing else felt solid anymore, either. “Why would you tell people that?” Her voice was high, tears pricking her eyes.
“Perfect Lori’s not so perfect, is she? Isn’t it time everyone saw it?”
“I never . . . I never claimed to be perfect.”
“Maybe not. But Dustin always saw you that way.”
Riley reached into her shirt, pulled out a gun. Not just any gun. It was Dicky’s six-shooter.
“I borrowed this,” Riley said with a grim smile. “Tell me, Lori, what’s the big surprise? What were you going to show Dustin?”
“Nothing,” Lori said, taking a step back. “I just wanted to see him, to tell him we could work things out.”
Riley laughed. “You can’t bullshit me. How dare you even try? After everything I did for you. Bringing you to Dicky’s? Helping you develop your gift, your connection to Hattie?”
“I . . .”
“You found it, didn’t you? You found Hattie’s treasure. She led you to it, right? Where is it?”
“There is no treasure. Not that I’ve found anyway.”
“If you tell me, I’ll let you live.”
Now it was Lori who laughed. “Really? So now you’re going to kill me? Over some fantasy, some legend? Come on, Riley, I know you better than that.”
“Do you? Maybe you just think you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Riley brushed her blue bangs away from her eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding the gun. “I never did get what Dustin saw in you.”
“We . . . we love each other.”
“You don’t even know him! Not like I know him! You don’t even know half the shit we went through when we were kids, everything I did for him, everything I fucking sacrificed for him.” She waved Dicky’s gun around, keeping it pointed at Lori, who stood frozen.
Lori thought of the years she’d spent with Riley, going out drinking, listening to bands, going to yard sales and flea markets. The Lori and Riley Show, that’s what Dustin called them. They told each other everything.
But now, now Lori realized she hadn’t known her sister-in-law at all. It had all been an act. A ruse.
“I tried to tell Dustin you were no good for him,” Riley went on. “But it just pushed him away, pissed him off. So I did what I had to do. A full-on about-face. I made you my new best friend. And suddenly Dustin and I were close again.”
Lori shook her head in disbelief.
“Where is it?” Riley asked. “Where’s the treasure?”
“For God’s sake, Riley, I’m telling you—there isn’t any.”
“It’s not just for me. I’m doing this for Dustin. And for Olive. You, you’ll leave town quietly and swear to never come back. I’ll take the money and use it to take care of Dustin and Ollie. Take care of them like you never could. You were never good enough for them, you know that, right?”
“Please, Riley.”
Riley rocked back on her heels; the tattoos on her bare arms seemed to writhe each time she moved, lit up by the moon.
“It was never fair, that she came to you.” She glared at Lori with such hatred that Lori felt she’d already been shot. “I was the one who called to her first! The one who tried hardest. Promised to be her faithful servant, to dedicate myself to her in exchange for the treasure.” She began moving closer to Lori, waving the gun, gesturing with it. “I’ve practiced witchcraft and divination for years and she chose you, a complete novice! Can you explain that? Why people are always choosing you? Dustin chose you, even Hattie Breckenridge chose you over me. Why would that be?”
She was so close now that the gun was nearly touching Lori’s chest.
“I . . .” Lori thought of tellin
g the truth. That she was related by blood, that that’s why Hattie had come to her. “I’m—”
“Where’s the fucking treasure?”
The barrel of the gun was pressed against her chest now. She was sure that Riley wouldn’t pull the trigger. Hell, it probably wasn’t even loaded. Dicky never kept it loaded. That’s what he’d told her anyway. Lori put her hand on the barrel of the gun, tried to pull it down, aim it away from her, from either of them, before someone got hurt.
The gun went off with a deafening explosion, so much louder than Lori would have ever believed possible. And Riley, the look on her face just then wasn’t one of jealousy or rage, but only genuine surprise.
And the flash was so bright that it seemed to light up the whole bog, and there, over Riley’s shoulder, stood a tree Lori had never seen before: a massive old tree with many thick branches, and from one hung the body of a woman—a woman who was reaching for her now, who had floated away from the tree and was taking Lori’s hand, saying, “Shh. It’s all right. Come with me now.”
CHAPTER 52
Helen
S SEPTEMBER 14, 2015
The police in their dive suits, with rubbery skin slick as seals, moved through the bog, carrying the body wrapped in black plastic, wound round and round with silver duct tape. They’d just pulled it out of the deepest part, the pool at the heart of the bog where water lilies floated like tiny yellow stars on the water. The police trudged their way clumsily through the peat, crushing delicate pitcher plants, sedge, low blueberry bushes; their feet sinking with each spongy step. It was like walking on the surface of another planet.
Helen watched from solid ground, holding her breath.
Other searchers continued to move around and through the bog in wetsuits, chest waders, or fluorescent vests, radios squawking. A terrible invasion.
One of the cops slipped, nearly dropping the body. He cursed quietly, righted himself, adjusted his grip, but the plastic was slippery, his footing unsure.
Dragonflies darted through the air, shimmering, jewel colored. Frogs sang. A red-winged blackbird flew low, landing on a small cedar tree on the other side of the bog, watching the invaders with curiosity.
The trees, and all the creatures in them—the chattering squirrels gathering food, the black-capped chickadees, and the angry blue jays—watched, too. Behind Helen, on the east side of the bog, was the clearing where she and Nate lived. In the clearing stood their nearly finished house: their dream house, their haunted house, a home for the dead and the living. A place where Hattie and her family could gather.
An in-between place.
Nate had gone out to do errands: get the oil in the truck changed, pick up bar and chain oil for the saw.
“Come with me,” he’d said. “You don’t need to stay and watch.”
But he was wrong.
She did need to stay.
She needed to watch Lori’s body be pulled out.
Olive and Dustin weren’t watching, either. They were back at the hospital, waiting for news. Dustin had regained consciousness on the way to the hospital and had been diagnosed with a concussion, but no fracture, and admitted for observation. Olive hadn’t left his side.
“I hate to think that my mother’s been down there this whole time,” Olive had said when Helen was with her in the hospital cafeteria last night. “It just seems so . . . so lonely.”
But Helen didn’t think so. No, she didn’t think Lori would be lonely down there at all.
Because she wasn’t alone down there.
Be careful of the bog, Nate always told Helen. Stay close to the edge.
But the bog always drew her in.
Come closer, it seemed to whisper. Come share my secrets.
It had such an acidic, rich, mesmerizing smell—a primordial scent, she imagined. And it was such an otherworldly place, a landscape unlike anything she’d ever seen.
Some nights, she just sat at the edge, watching, listening, imagining she could see lights, the vague outline of the old house that once stood on the other side.
Hattie’s house.
The past and the present, all that had happened and all that was happening now—she felt it all layered in this place; not just layered but deeply entwined, like the roots of the biggest trees.
She thought of everything that led her here: her father’s death, Nate’s belief and determination, a dream. A dream of a place where she’d feel she belonged. Where she was meant to be.
And she’d found it.
Maybe with a little help, but she’d found it.
. . .
Another searcher in a dive suit who’d been floating around in the pool at the center of the bog waved his arms. “There’s something else down here!” he called. “More remains. Skeletal.”
Others closed in, moving toward him slowly, carefully.
And Helen wanted to scream, to warn them. To say, Leave those bones alone. They belong here. They’re as much a part of this place as the bog itself.
A man beside her mumbled something into a radio.
Another, a volunteer fireman she recognized from the general store, said, “It ain’t safe in that bog. Not with Hattie’s ghost out there.”
Helen turned away, knowing Hattie’s ghost wasn’t out in the bog.
She knew just where the spirit of Hattie Breckenridge was.
She was back at Helen’s house with the others, waiting.
CHAPTER 53
Olive
S JUNE 8, 2016
Olive was back near the old foundation of Hattie’s house. She didn’t come out to the bog much these days. It was too hard to come and think about Mama. About what had happened to Mama.
But still, even though she stayed away from the bog, the bog was with her. It filled her dreams, her waking thoughts, too.
Especially after Dicky Barns came to visit her last week. He brought a note from Aunt Riley, who was safely locked up at the women’s correctional facility up in South Burlington. “Your aunt asked me to deliver this to you,” he said.
“My daddy says I’m not supposed to have any contact with her. Our lawyer says so, too,” Olive said.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Dicky said, handing her the paper, then turning to go. He stopped a minute, turned back. “I had no idea, you know. None of us did. We all thought Lori had run off with a man, like Riley said.”
Olive had heard all of this in court. She heard how Riley took Dicky’s gun without Dicky knowing. And how Riley had taken Mama’s diary, brought it back to the group of people who made up Dicky’s circle, hoping it might have clues about where the treasure might be. But then, when Olive went to Dicky’s and started asking questions, Dicky panicked and asked Riley to put the diary back. That was when she’d written the last passage, the one meant to incriminate Daddy.
Dicky looked down at his pointy-toed boots now. “Olive, I’m so sorry for all of this. Your mother, she was a special lady. She had a lot of gifts, but I guess you don’t need me to tell you that.”
Olive watched him walk away, shoulders slumped, looking so much smaller than he usually did. And gone was the gun in the tooled leather holster. The gun Riley had taken from Dicky and used to kill Olive’s mother.
She read Riley’s note:
Dearest Ollie,
The treasure is real. You know that, right?
It’s in the bog. It has to be. Your mother was going to show it to your dad that night. She asked him to meet her there.
Don’t stop looking. You deserve to find it.
I’m sorry. More sorry than you will ever know. There’s no real explanation or excuse for the things I’ve done. What happened with your mother—it really was an accident. I never intended to shoot her. I just wanted . . . I guess I wanted impossible things. I wanted to be the one that Hattie chose. I wanted to see her, to hear her voice, to taste
her power. I thought maybe if I had the treasure, it would make me close to her, too. But that wanting, that need—it was blinding and it made me lose everything I ever cared about. Including you.
Find the treasure, Ollie. Ask Hattie. She’ll show you. I have no doubt.
All my love,
Riley
Now, Olive stood by the old foundation, looking out over the bog.
Birds and dragonflies darted through the air. Frogs sang. The pink lady’s slippers were plentiful this year, as if Hattie had been dancing in circles around the bog.
On the other side, she saw the path that led up to Helen and Nate’s house, finished now. Helen was probably out working in the garden. And Nate off at work at the Nature Center. Last week, when they’d had Olive and her dad and even Mike over for dinner, Helen had shown Olive her new tattoo: a delicate pale pink lady’s slipper on her forearm. Her tribute in ink to Hattie.
Mike loved the tattoo. And Helen and Nate loved Mike.
“Cypripedium reginae,” Mike said when he saw it. Olive rolled her eyes but smiled at him, feeling weirdly proud of her smart, dorky best friend.
“Where have you been hiding this guy?” Nate asked, and Mike made a quirky response about hiding in plain sight, which led to a long discussion between Nate and Mike on all the animals who used camouflage and the different forms of camouflage, both of them throwing around terms like “disruptive coloration,” “background matching,” “countershading,” “mimicry.”
Mike’s hair had grown out from the buzz cut he’d worn his whole childhood, and he’d grown half a foot in the last six months. Even Olive’s dad seemed to be looking at Mike in a whole new way, calling him “son” and inviting him to stay for dinner most nights after Olive and Mike had been working on homework together.
Olive and her dad, with Helen and Nate’s help, had finished the renovations of their house. They put up the final drywall, laid down flooring, painted and put away all of their tools. Sometimes Olive saw her dad looking at the walls and could tell he was thinking about changing things again. She’d take his hand, walk over to the framed photos they’d put up of Mama: the three of them on holidays and birthdays, Mama and Daddy on their wedding day. Nothing they did—changing the house, finding the treasure even—would bring her back. But she was with them still. Olive felt it. She knew her daddy did, too.
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