The Invited

by Jennifer McMahon

  Hattie was here for real this time. Not some little girl playing dress up.

  Helen froze. Hattie’s eyes—for this must be Hattie—were black and shimmered like the dark water at the center of the bog.

  Helen wanted to speak, to say something—Hattie’s name maybe, or just a simple hello—but there was no air in her chest, and when she opened her mouth, no sound came. She felt like a cartoon fish letting out little bubbles of air, bubbles that rose to the surface and popped without making a sound.

  The air felt heavy and cold, as if Helen were wrapped in a blanket of fog. And the smell! The peaty, primordial smell of the bog with something sweet and rotten behind it.

  Hattie looked up at the beam above them, the beam from the tree she’d died beneath; the tree whose branch had borne her full weight, the tree that remembered her as she must remember it.

  Hattie touched the noose around her neck, ran her pale fingers over each knob of the braid like a woman praying the rosary. And, like a woman praying, Hattie moved her lips—she was speaking, whispering softly, silently almost, and Helen couldn’t make out what she was saying. She looked more and more distressed as she whispered to herself, her fingers moving along the rope, her eyes still locked on the beam.

  Then she looked right at Helen and said one clear word: Jaaane.

  Her voice sounded like breaking glass—no, that wasn’t quite right; it was the sound of glass being ground up, being tumbled and smashed. It was a broken, screaming, hissing sort of sound that made Helen’s bowels go icy. The sweet, rotting stench intensified.

  “Jane?” Helen croaked back, her throat dry. She wanted to turn and run. To not be here with this…this creature who looked human but was clearly not of this world. Not anymore.

  “Babe?”

  Helen whirled around.

  Nate was sitting up, looking at her. He could see Helen, but his view of the corner where Hattie stood was blocked by the wall.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked, voice thick with sleep and wine.

  Helen drew a jagged breath. “Nate,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Come here.”

  “What is it?” He unzipped the sleeping bag and staggered forward, naked, his body pale and glowing in the dark. “Don’t tell me that porcupine found its way in here.”

  “Look,” Helen said, pointing to the corner. But when her own eyes followed her finger, she saw that Hattie was gone.

  “Look at what?”

  “She was here!” Helen said. “She was right here, standing in the corner.”

  “Who?”

  “Hattie.”

  “Oh man.” He smiled. “Is our little ghost girl playing tricks on us again?”

  “No! This wasn’t Olive. This was the real Hattie. She had black hair. An old dress. A noose around her neck.”

  “Sweetie,” Nate said, taking her hand. “You imagined it.”

  “She was here! I know what I saw. Don’t you smell that?”

  “Smell it?”

  “That rotting, boggy smell? She was here, Nate!”

  The smell was fading, she thought, but still distinct.

  He paused, studied her, his face full of concern—the way he looked when she ran a high fever. “It’s the crazy stories you’ve been listening to. The books you’ve been reading. And all the wine we had. You were probably dreaming about her. You woke up and part of your brain was still stuck inside the dream.”

  “Nate—”

  “Come on, Helen. You really expect me to believe that there was just a ghost in our house?”

  She didn’t answer. How could she answer? She’d just seen the proof with her own eyes. And if Nate didn’t believe her, she knew there was no way to convince him.

  She tried to imagine what would happen if it were the other way around: if he were the one saying he’d seen a ghost. Would she believe him?

  Yes, she told herself. Yes, of course she would.

  “Let’s go back to bed, huh?” Nate said, talking to her like she was a child who’d had a bad dream. “But I’ve gotta pee first.”

  “Me, too,” Helen said.

  They went back to the trailer to use the bathroom and Nate headed for the bedroom after.

  “No,” Helen said. “Let’s go back up to the house.”

  “Are you sure?” Nate asked, brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep in a real bed?”

  “I think it’s cozy up there. Besides, we left a candle burning. We have to go up anyway.”

  “Okay,” Nate agreed, and as they walked back up, hand in hand, Helen kept her eyes on the house, but of course it was a solid box—no holes where the windows would be—so she couldn’t see what was happening inside, if maybe Hattie had come back.

  Nate settled into the sleeping bags, and Helen went into the kitchen one more time to check the corner. It was still empty. No sign at all that anyone or anything had been there.

  But it hadn’t been empty.

  She knew what she’d seen.

  She reached up, touched the header beam in the doorway. She imagined it had a pulse like a living thing. A living thing with a memory of its own. And maybe, just maybe, the power to call someone back.

  A historical artifact turned talisman.

  What if objects didn’t just hold memories but held traces of the people who’d touched them, threads that connected them still?

  It was a crazy thought, one she knew better than to share with Nate.

  “Come to bed,” Nate called, holding open her edge of the sleeping bag.

  She went over and crawled in beside him, trying to get comfortable on the hard floor. He wrapped his arm around her, nuzzled the back of her neck.

  “You know what I love about you?” he asked. “I love the places your imagination takes you. That’s what makes you such an amazing history student and teacher. Because you can read about a time and place and put yourself right back there.”

  She listened to him as she lay in the dark, her eyes on the opening to the kitchen, on the beam at the top of the frame.

  “It was not my imagination. And it wasn’t the wine, either.”

  She knew it was pointless to argue but couldn’t help herself.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Nate told her as he stroked her hair, and part of her longed to believe him. To believe she’d imagined it. Because that would make sense. That would be simple.

  But the world was not simple.

  She knew this.

  Soon, Nate was asleep again.

  “I know what I saw,” she whispered once more, to herself, to the night, to whoever (or whatever) might be listening.

  JULY 13, 2015

  Helen woke up on the floor of the house, body stiff and sore. She was sure she could hear the faint sound of creaking, swaying: the sound a body hanging from a noose would make.

  She stared up at the beam, squinted her eyes, searching for a shadow, a sign that Hattie was there. But she wasn’t.

  And neither was Nate.

  His side of the sleeping bag was empty. His clothes were gone from the floor. Helen looked at her watch. Six in the morning. Too early for Nate to be up and out of bed normally. Maybe he’d gone back to the trailer to sleep. She unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed out.

  “Nate?” she called.

  Nothing.

  The windowless house was dark. It was like being sealed in a wooden box. A coffin. Buried like Hattie.

  But Hattie hadn’t been buried in a coffin, had she?

  Helen thought back to what Riley had told her: folks say she was dragged into the center of the bog and weighted down. That she lies there still and that’s what makes it a haunted place.

  That’s where the smell came from. That horrible, sweet rotting smell layered with the damp earthy smell of the bog.

  She’s
down there and she’s still got the noose around her neck.

  Then, knowing it was silly to check, but unable to stop herself, she stepped into the kitchen, passing beneath the beam, and looked in the corner. Empty.

  “Hattie?” she said, voice low, unsure of itself. “Are you here somewhere?”

  She waited, listening, watching, feeling a little self-conscious, a little crazy even. Was she really talking to a ghost? What would Nate say if he heard her?

  Maybe he was right. Maybe she’d imagined it. She’d had too much wine, and maybe she’d had a nightmare, a nightmare come to life.

  But that smell, she told herself. Could she really have imagined that smell? And the sound of the creature’s voice. Ground glass on glass. The sound of pain.

  It was real and she knew it.

  She pulled on her jeans and got the hell out of the house, walked down the hill to the trailer.

  “Nate? You here?”

  Not in the kitchen. No coffee had been made. No granola left out.

  And he wasn’t in the bed.

  The truck was parked in the driveway, windshield covered in dew; the keys hung on the little brass hook next to the front door. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called him. It went straight to voice mail.

  She clenched her jaw, felt the air around her grow thin, the walls moving in a little closer.

  No need to panic, Helen told herself. He must have gone for a walk. Early-morning bird-watching maybe. That’s a Nate-like thing to do.

  “Nate is fine,” she said to the empty trailer.

  Say the words. Make them real.

  She made coffee, ate some cereal, checked her email, telling herself everything was fine. Everything was normal. An email from her friend Jenny greeted her:

  Glad to hear you’re making progress with the house. Love the pic of Nate’s mountain man beard! And the story of your “ghost” visitor. Olive sounds like quite the kid. Still though…maybe I’m reading between the lines, or maybe it’s just my best friend super-psychic powers, but are you doing okay up there? Really?

  Helen closed her laptop, looked over at the pile of library books on the table. She kept renewing them. She picked up Communicating with the Spirit World and opened to the first page:

  Do you ever feel that you are not alone?

  Do you sometimes look over your shoulder, sure there was just a figure standing there?

  Helen slammed the book closed, hands trembling, and left the trailer and stood in the yard calling for Nate. Nothing. Only the morning chatter of birds.

  She walked down the path to the bog, sure she’d find him there sketching early-morning birds. But there was nothing. No one.

  She looked out into the center, where the deep part of the water was, and imagined George Decrow pulling his wife out, dragging her to the edge, her body cold and lifeless as he started CPR. She imagined it was her doing the CPR, Nate beneath her, lips blue.

  Helen shook the image away, trudged back up the path to the trailer, poured herself another cup of coffee.

  She grabbed the little notebook in her purse, found the number the realtor had given her for George Decrow down in Florida. She dialed it and waited.

  “Hello?” A crackling old-man voice, a little out of breath.

  “Yes, good morning. Mr. Decrow?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Helen Wetherell. My husband, Nate, and I bought your place in Vermont out by the bog.”

  The line went dead. He’d hung up.

  Helen pushed redial. He answered on the first ring. “What is it you want?”

  “Mr. Decrow, I heard what happened to your wife and I’m so, so sorry. And I hate to bother you, but it’s just that weird things are happening here. My husband, he thinks I’m imagining things, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going a little crazy.” She paused, worried that she’d said too much.

  She heard his raspy breathing, was sure he was about to hang up. But he didn’t.

  “Have you seen her?” he asked.

  Helen held the phone tight against her ear, listening to George Decrow breathing. She thought of lying, of playing dumb, but this might be her one and only shot with this guy and she thought honesty was her best hope of keeping him talking.

  “Yes. I saw her last night.”

  “Edie saw her, too. I didn’t believe. I didn’t believe until it was too late.”

  “Mr. Decrow, I know this might sound crazy, but I think maybe she wants something. She said a name last night—”

  “She wants something, all right. She wants you. The best thing you can do, you and your husband, is leave right now. Leave and don’t ever go back. I’m sorry.”

  And there it was again, that sound of dead air. He’d hung up. She tried calling again, but the line was busy. He’d taken his phone off the hook.

  Shaken, she sat down at the table, opened her laptop, then closed it. Where the hell was Nate?

  Work. That’s what she needed to do. Go to work like this was just a normal day. Like she hadn’t seen a ghost last night. Like Nate hadn’t disappeared into thin air.

  He’s gone for a walk, that’s all, she told herself. He’s gone to look for birds. She said this last bit while trying to ignore the fact that his binoculars, bird book, camera, and nature journal were sitting on the table right beside the front door.

  She went back over to the house, stood outside staring up at it, entirely framed now and sheathed in plywood. It was the first step of the process her father always called “closing in,” where they sheathed the house, put in the windows and doors.

  Helen continued to study the unfinished house; it looked more like an abstract painting of a house than an actual house. The shape was there, the geometry that said house. She tried to envision the house finished, sided with clapboards, the windows in, a warm light glowing behind them. She tried to imagine Nate peering down at her from up in the library: Nate holding a book in one hand, waving to her with the other. But soon that image was replaced by another figure: Hattie in her white dress, hands pressed against the window glass, peering down, waiting for Helen. Helen blinked, looked up at the unfinished plywood nailed to the studs.

  She remembered Nate’s words last night: I love the places your imagination takes you.

  She went into the dark house, half expecting Nate to be there, but he wasn’t. Only their empty sleeping bags, burned-out candles.

  She went to work, getting out the tools she’d need to start cutting out the windows. She started on the first, the relatively small bathroom window, drilling holes in all four corners, just inside the two-by-sixes that made up the window frame. Then she guided the blade of the reciprocal saw along the inner edge of the frame. She popped the rectangle of plywood out, and she had an open window. The edges were a little woggly here and there, but it didn’t matter; once they got the window in and put up the trim and siding, it would look perfect. Most of their windows had been delivered and were being stored under one of the pop-up canopies. According to Nate’s schedule, they should have put them in two weeks ago.

  Nate. Where the hell was Nate?

  She set down her tools, went outside and did a walk around the perimeter of the yard, calling. Then down to the trailer. No sign of him.

  She imagined him coming back from a walk, smiling, teasing her for having been worried.

  Helen went back up to the house and went to work on the second window, telling herself she was sure he’d be back by the time she finished. Then, still no sign, she started on the third. With each section of plywood cut out, more sunlight poured into the house, chasing the shadows away. She felt her body relax as she got into the work. Helen was nearly finished with the fourth window when she decided this was ridiculous. She needed to find Nate. She’d take the truck and drive into town—maybe he’d walked down to the store? If she d
idn’t find him there, she’d drive to Olive’s, see if she and her dad could help her search.

  She was on her way out the door to get the keys from the trailer when she saw Nate coming up from the direction of the bog.

  Thank God!

  But as he got closer, she saw that he was all scratched up, soaking wet, walking slowly, and he seemed to be favoring one leg.

  She heard George Decrow’s warning: The best thing you can do, you and your husband, is leave right now. Leave and don’t ever go back.

  Helen ran to meet him.

  “Nate! My god! What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, snappish, looking away. “I fell into a deep spot in the bog.”

  “What were you doing out in the bog?”

  “There was a deer,” he said. “A pure white doe. An albino. I woke up this morning and went outside, and there she was, right in our backyard. I tried to get a picture on my phone, but she bolted. So I followed her into the woods.”

  “You followed a white deer into the woods?” It sounded absurd. Like the beginning of a fairy tale. Maybe the deer would lead to a well where there would be a magic talking frog.

  He shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy, made-up, but it happened. She was only a little ways ahead of me, and I stayed right behind her. She led me in a big circle, and we ended up at the bog. She walked right out into the middle. It was the craziest thing—she knew just where to step, avoiding the deep parts, finding footing. Me, I was stumbling, in up to my knees in places. The bog sucks you down, holds on to you.”

  Helen nodded. She knew what he meant, that sucking feeling like something underneath was grabbing hold, pulling at your feet, wanting to keep you there.

  “But I kept following her. I got great photos on my phone, a video even. But then I went to get closer and must have stepped into a spring; I thought I was safe because I was still a ways away from the center. But the ground just wasn’t there anymore. It was deep. I couldn’t feel the bottom at all. Coldest water I’ve ever been in, too.”