The Winslow Incident

FIVE SUMMERS AGO

HAWKIN RHONE’S CABIN

After the ghosts began to stir in the tower of The Winslow that summer Hazel turned twelve, but before her grandfather’s heart attacked him in the sunny bedroom upstairs, she sat with Sean inside the granite wall surrounding the cemetery. There were no messages written on the wall that day either.

Hugging sunburned knees, curious how long the corpse beneath them had lain buried, Hazel leaned forward to consider the epitaph burned onto a pinewood cross planted at her feet, gone crooked with age.

HERE LIES DINKY DOWD

NOT ANOTHER BREATH WAS HE ALLOWED

BY ORDER OF THE HON. E. A. WINSLOW

1889

She looked at her twelve-year-old friend Sean slumped against the wall beside her, and worried they would run out of dead townsfolk and candy money soon.

Their tenth straight day of ghost hunting had been launched that morning after they pestered Patience’s grandfather for a dead man’s name until finally Ben Mathers challenged them to find Dinky Dowd. When Patience became spooked during their fruitless search of the grassy church cemetery, she quit the game, and Hazel and Sean had raced across town to the weedy silver miners’ graveyard. Since Sean was first to spot Dinky’s grave, he’d won the prize of taffy and Jolly Ranchers they’d bought at Clemshaw Mercantile and stashed at the playground for later. But Hazel knew Sean would share with her, unless Patience ate it all first. More than once they’d met back up in Prospect Park and found Patience waiting for them on the red merry-go-round, wrestling with a mouthful of the rightful victor’s taffy.

Now, after contemplating Dinky’s corpse decaying beneath their feet, Hazel decided, “Hanged is a lousy way to die.”

Sean pitched a rock at Dinky’s grave marker before turning his light brown eyes on her. “Hanged is what happens when you knife George Bolinger through the heart in the Never Tell.”

“Shot. In the gut.” She rubbed her own unscathed neck. “I hope I never get hung.”

“Try not to kill anyone in Winslow.”

“I’ll try. But even if I did, I don’t think my great-great-grandfather would sentence me to hang.”

“Somebody would,” Sean said.

Squinting past the scatter of other graves to the empty space beyond the edge of the canyon, Hazel wondered what would happen if it rained too hard and the hill gave out in a wave of mud. Maybe all the markers and coffins and bones would stream over the precipice and splash into the water below. Maybe the whole stupid town would slide into the Lamprey River.

She inhaled warm, pinesap-tinged air, and then blew out her cheeks. “I wish it’d rain.”

“Never rains in July,” he said, fishing around a droopy foxglove for more rocks to throw.

She glanced up between the branches of the purple-leaf plum tree, its leaves black against the heat-washed sky. “Never,” she sighed. Abruptly she rose and brushed stickers off the back of her shorts, feeling hot and ornery, and thinking that a grilled cheese and brain-freezing chocolate shake back at the Crock were starting to sound pretty good. “I’m bored of ghosts.” She nudged Sean’s foot with her own. “Let’s do something else.”

He stood to face her. “Dare you to jump in Three Fools Creek.”

She looked her best friend in the eye. “I’ll take that dare.”

“Bullshit.”

“What will you give me if I do it?”

“Don’t matter. You won’t.”

“What will you give me?” she repeated.

“I’ll give you whatever you want.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you want, Hazel Winslow?”


“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” Hazel swatted a skinny alder branch out of her path.

“Don’t think about it.” Sean placed his hand between her shoulder blades and gave her a soft shove. “Just go.”

They crunched down a trail covered in dried pinecones while the air grew thick with the rising heat and the scent of warming resin. And the deeper they continued into the woods, the more Hazel wondered if she’d completely lost her mind.

After the path disappeared beneath a tangle of ferns, she tripped over a fat tree root. To keep from falling, she grabbed an overhead branch and pitchy pine needles rained down on her head.

“Yuck!” Hazel clawed her fingers through long waves of hair. Then she spun to frown hard at Sean. “What if he’s over there?”

“Maybe he’ll invite us for lunch.” He shrugged, grinning. “Squirrel soup.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You truly are the village idiot, I swear.”

When she turned around again, Sean plucked more needles out of her hair and off the back of her shirt. Despite the uneasy feeling roiling her stomach, she plodded forward, regret building with each step that she’d taken his dare.

By the time she reached the banks of Three Fools Creek, Hazel was sticky, scraped up, and dead sure that they were both village idiots for coming here. She glanced upstream to where scant sunlight permeated the dense tree canopy and the creek ran cold and black. Edging cautiously closer, she peered into the rushing water.

Sean bumbled up and nearly knocked her in. “See three fools down there?”

She pointed at their wavering reflections. “Only two.”

Nervously chewing her bottom lip, she lifted her gaze to the ramshackle prospector’s cabin across the creek. Its roughhewn log siding was grayed and peeling with rot, roof warped and moldy beneath the monster blackberry bush consuming the structure.

“Do you really think he did it?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” Sean swiped at the gnat buzzing his ear. “Way Ben Mathers tells it—”

“And tells it and tells it . . .” She rolled her eyes.

He laughed before continuing. “Mathers says, guilty or not, he’s a mean sonofabitch and everyone in Winslow was glad to have a good reason to run him out of town.”

Studying the cabin, Hazel wondered aloud, “Maybe it was an accident.”

Sean grabbed her by the elbow. “Let’s go over and ask him.”

“Ssh! He’ll hear us.”

“Scaredy cat. You took my dare, remember?”

“To jump in the creek, not go over there.”

“Look—he’s not home. He’s gone hunting or something.”

“Hunting children.” In the shade of the pines, Hazel got goosebumps beneath her sweat.

“C’mon.” Sean stepped down the bank.

“Don’t.” She reached out to pull him back.

Dodging her, he tore off one tennis shoe and plunged his foot into the water. “Last one in has to be rodeo queen.”

“Dang you, Sean Adair!” She kicked off her sandals and knocked past him into the creek. Chill water reached above her knees as she waded across with care. Unlike Ruby Creek where they usually swam, this creek bed harbored jagged logs and slick rocks—bumpy and mean, threatening broken ankles and concussed heads.

Splashing in beside her, Sean whispered, “We’ll steal something to prove we were here.”

Hazel gaped at him. “Now we’re stealing from him?”

Huffing in agitation, she climbed out of the creek up the opposite bank and crossed into a world silent, brambly, and weirdly wet. She spun in a slow circle, taking in the dusky woods, the tumbledown cabin, the smell of damp dirt—and her skin crawled with paranoia. “Let’s get out of here,” she hissed.

But Sean was already on the cabin’s slanting porch searching for a souvenir. A huge pair of buck antlers hung above the door and he jumped up, grabbed onto one branch, and swung in midair for a moment before crashing back down to the disintegrating floorboards.

“Nice try, Tarzan.” Hazel joined him on the porch and peeked through the cabin’s only window. Dark inside, she made out the shape of a chair next to a potbellied stove, little else.

“How’s this?” Sean asked.

She turned to see him holding a raccoon pelt by the tail. “Eww! Put that down.”

“His name’s Bandit.” He swung the stiff hide in front of her face.

“Gross! Get away!” She smacked Sean’s arm then whirled around to head off the porch. Mindful of being barefoot, she stepped gingerly along the splintered boards, which protested at even her slight weight. “I’m leaving.”

“Don’t go. Bandit likes you—”

Hazel made it one step off the porch and onto the dirt at the side of the cabin before Hawkin Rhone seized her left wrist. Soiled and crumbly as a long-buried corpse, he yanked her close.

“I warned you children!” the old man howled in her face with breath reeking of decay.

Suddenly blind to everything except his black mouth, she tried to scream but could force no breath past the cold slab of terror choking her—certain that he was about to bite off her head with his remaining rotten teeth and roast it in his potbellied stove.

“Sean, help me!” Hazel gasped. She recoiled and kicked at Hawkin Rhone’s towering, bony frame with her bare feet. “Let me go! Sean!”

The man tightened his grip around her small wrist. “Warned you!”

Her scream finally burst free and she kicked at him again while her arm exploded in pain and her heart skittered around in her chest like a trapped animal.

“You didn’t listen!” he shouted and more rancid air escaped his lungs and poured into her screaming mouth. “None of you listened!”

“Where are you, Sean?” Hazel looked up to the sky through pine boughs that seemed to be spinning then back at the man’s craggy face just inches from her own and feared she might pass out and never come to again. She finally landed a kick with the heel of her foot against his gnarled right knee but it wasn’t enough to make him let go.

Instead he wrenched her arm harder. “No more apples till spring! Hear me?”

She sobbed, “Please—” Then Hazel heard her wrist snap with a sharp sound that instantly coated her terror in nausea. “Stop!” she cried. “Let go!”

But still he clutched her broken wrist. The pain shot up her arm into her neck and her fingers tingled in a way that made her feel weak and the stink of him made her gag. “Sean,” she wept, “help me.”

“I told my children,” Hawkin Rhone rasped softly now. “Told Missy and Zachary to stay out of the orchard.” His eyes filled with tears; his sorrow spilled down his creviced cheeks. “She didn’t listen.” He squeezed Hazel’s ruined wrist. “Why didn’t you listen to your father?”

She cried too, at the pain that came in ever-greater waves, fearing she’d soon drown in it. Strangled by sobs, she could barely speak. “Sean—I need you. Where are you?”

At last he was there, sneaking up behind Hawkin Rhone from the rear of the cabin with an expression of terrified determination. Half the man’s size, Sean leapt up on a stump before swinging the split pine log like a baseball bat against the back of Hawkin Rhone’s head.

The old man’s head snapped forward and his upper teeth sank into his tongue. Raising his head, he attempted to speak but the teeth were stuck clear through. As he tried to pull them out by working his jaw up and down, blood streamed from both sides of his mouth, while Hazel and Sean shrieked unintelligibly—primal shouts of triumph and horror.

Slick with blood, Hawkin Rhone’s teeth finally slid free of his nearly severed tongue. And his face was a swirl of confusion as he put a hand to his cracked skull and sputtered in red, “Wha?” Then he began to turn toward Sean.

“Again!” Hazel screamed.

Sean swung and connected squarely with the bewildered man’s face, log meeting flesh with the revolting sound of cartilage and bone collapsing beneath unyielding wood.

Sprung free of the man’s grip at last, Hazel shrieked again, exultant now. With her good arm, she reached for Sean where he stood—log raised and ready—and dragged him away from Hawkin Rhone, who was now only a slack heap in the dirt.

They splashed recklessly across the creek and retook the trail, crushing barefoot through sharp pine needles, not stopping to look back or consider what had happened, just running and shouting until they rounded a corner beneath a spray of hemlock and Hazel smacked hard against Patience. Both girls cried out before falling onto a painful bed of pinecones.

Sean skidded to a stop and shot a look over his shoulder, as if wanting to make sure that the madman hadn’t given chase.

Hazel struggled to get upright, feeling battered and traumatized. The wind knocked clear out of her, she gulped futilely before catching enough breath to half-say, half-sob, “Oww, crap.”

Patience didn’t look surprised to see them. Instead, she looked about as guilty as a cat with feathers stuck to its fur. She was chewing—taffy, Hazel had little doubt—her right cheek ballooned out chipmunk style.

Sucking more air into her deflated lungs, Hazel managed to gasp at her, “Were you following us?”

Nodding, Patience’s eyes went wide.

Hazel stood up on unsteady legs to point down at her. “Did you see what happened?”

More chews, another nod, an audible swallow.

“You can’t tell anybody what you saw.”

“Ever,” Sean added, his breath ragged.

When she didn’t respond Hazel grabbed her by the hair with her good hand and Patience screeched like a bat. “Promise, Patience Mathers! Cross your heart and hope to die.”

“Cross my heart!” Her voice was taffy garbled. “Hope to die!” At that Hazel let go and Patience got to her feet, rubbing her scalp where Hazel had pulled out a smattering of long dark hair.

Hazel noticed Sean’s eyes dancing a panicked jig: looking from the path to the treetops and into the woods. He glanced down the trail once more before pulling Hazel against the trunk of the hemlock. “Do you think he’s dead?”

Holding her throbbing, shattered wrist against her belly, Hazel whispered, “I hope so.” With the shock subsiding, the shaking began, and suddenly she felt very cold.

“What if he’s not dead?” Sean’s face was crumpled up just like after the time Kenny Clark kicked his ass up and down the wood plank sidewalk in front of the Fish ’n Bait. “Can we just leave him there, in the dirt, bleeding to death?”

“Yes,” she said, fighting the urge to start crying again.

“I don’t know, Hazel . . .”

“Yes, we can.”

He passed a hand hard across his mouth, then: “We have to go back later and bury him.”

“No, Sean.” She heard the creek complain as the first fat, dirty drops of rain fell from the summer sky. “We’re never going back.”





DEAD OF MONDAY NIGHT

CRAZED BEAUTIFUL WITCH

Her Uncle Pard’s pounding and yelling had woken Hazel up and sent her heart racing. Now she couldn’t get back to sleep. She’d been restless and barely dozing anyway. It was still hot and she never slept well with just a sheet on; it made her feel vulnerable. And through her windows—opened in the vain hope a breeze might kick up—she heard a lot of ruckus outside.

Her clock said 2:37.

She tried to throw off the sheet but it was tangled with her feet and she kicked at it, annoyed, until finally free of it. Then she went to her bedroom window facing Prospect Park and leaned on the sill. To her surprise she saw not just a few drunks shuffling noisily home from the Buckhorn Tavern, but dozens of people wandering the streets. She leaned farther out the window to look down Park Street, and then up toward Ruby Road. Some houses had lights on inside, including The Winslow.

Hazel glanced at the clock again. 2:38. Then, for the thousandth time that night, she wondered where Sean had disappeared to.

Turning her attention back to the street she saw Tiny Clemshaw and Ben Mathers deep in animated discussion, their dander clearly up. Bits of their conversation wafted up to her: “Held accountable for once,” and “Get away with it again.” But Hazel could make no sense of their words.

The men shushed and huddled together conspiratorially when Jay and Julie Marsh walked by. Oddly, Julie was bundled up in a pouffy down jacket. Jay’s arm hung protectively across her shoulders.

Then Hazel noticed Jinx sitting next to the elm, looking up at her with hope in his eyes. He barked twice and startled Tiny and Ben, who looked over but then quickly resumed their heated conversation.

Fishing around her floor she came up with cut-offs and her black tank top—the one with the big rainbow across the front. A stupid shirt. When her dad gave it to her on her last birthday she’d thought, He thinks I’m still a little girl. But now it was the only thing sort of clean. She threw it on along with the shorts, stuffed her bare feet into her tennis shoes, and headed downstairs.

In the foyer, she heard her dad arguing in a sharp, hushed tone and figured her Uncle Pard hadn’t left after all. But when she looked into the dark living room, she saw that he was alone. “Dad?” she whispered.

Her voice must not have registered because he continued talking bitterly to himself.

Unnerved, it took her a moment to shift her attention to the scratching sound coming from the back of the house. Imagining it to be Jinx, she made her way to the kitchen and flipped on the light.

Then she hesitated, suddenly afraid to go to the door and answer that scratch, because Jinx had never behaved like this before.

The scratching took on greater urgency and her heart sped up.

What else could it be?

Shaking off her fear, she forced herself to the door.

After snapping open the shade, all she could see was her own reflection—big eyes, big rainbow—so she leaned close to the window and peered into the darkness.

A heavy crash against the glass sent her springing back. She scanned the kitchen for a weapon, her heart bouncing around in her chest.

When she looked back at the door, there was nothing there.

Until Jinx jumped against the glass again. This time he remained standing on hind legs, front paws pressed against the window, eyes rolled halfway back in his head in pure doggy fright.

Exhaling relief, she rushed over and opened the whiny door and he fell in. Scampering across the tile the dog cast a furtive glance behind him, as if terrified that something were about to give chase into the kitchen. And after Hazel slammed the door shut, Jinx looked relieved too.

She put her back to the door, squatted down to him, and stroked the soft hair on his head. “What’s the matter, boy?”

The dog shook nose to tail.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of—”

Behind her the door was shoved open with such force the old hinges didn’t just whine, they screamed.

Jinx yelped as Hazel spun up and around in one fell swoop to face Patience: wild-eyed and breathing hard, her dark hair all a jumble, looking like some crazed beautiful witch.

“We have to undo it,” Patience said, struggling for breath.

“What are you talking about?” Hazel’s chest tightened while Jinx whimpered beside her.

Patience narrowed her eyes at the dog. “We have to undo it.” She looked back at Hazel. “Or else three more will die.”

Jinx growled at Patience then, deep in his throat, and Hazel glanced down. The dog’s hackles stood on end . . . and she felt the hair on the back of her own neck creeping up.





RING AROUND THE MOON

All the way to The Winslow, Patience kept pulling at her shorts and tank top as if they were chafing her skin. Then she would scratch at her arms, leaving welty red streaks up and down them. “Stop that,” Hazel ordered her, the sound of it driving her mad.

But Patience told her, “I can’t—there’s something under my skin.”

When they reached the base of the hotel’s steep driveway, Hazel stopped and took Patience by the shoulders. “Listen. You really don’t want to do this.”

“We have to do this.” Patience gave her a look of total desperation.

But Hazel felt certain that what they were about to do would prove to be a huge mistake. Just like the first go round. “Why now—of all times—do you want to come back here, Patience?”

A violent shudder shook Patience’s frame. “Don’t you understand, Hazel?” She glanced up at the hotel and trembled again. “It’s the only way for us to set the past right. And to make sure it won’t happen again.” She looked back at Hazel. “To stop it from happening right now.”

Despite Hazel’s continued pleading, there had been no talking Patience out of it.

So here they sat, cross-legged, before the tall, darkened window in the circular room at the top of the tower, the crystal glass positioned between them. Hazel watched Patience summon her courage—she could almost see the waves of dread passing over her friend’s face.

“Let’s get this over with,” Hazel whispered. She wasn’t sure why she whispered; nobody appeared to be around. But it seemed best to leave whoever or whatever might be undisturbed.

“Okay . . . ,” Patience said through a shaky exhale. Then she cracked the egg and worked the innards and shells until the white slipped into the water. As the egg sank, she sucked in her breath.

Nothing. No coffin. No sign of ill fortune. No discernable shape at all. Hazel hoped that would put an end to this. It was starting to feel claustrophobic in the tower. She looked up at Patience, who was staring into the glass, skin ghost-white, eyes ink-black.

Raising her wide eyes to Hazel’s, Patience asked in a hushed voice, “Do you see anything?”

“A slimy egg white.” Hazel suddenly felt swallowed by claustrophobia and unable to contain her irritation. “And you being a freak. I’m leaving now.”

“No you’re not!” Patience snatched up the glass and threw it against the window. Water splashed back on them but the glass didn’t break. Instead, it cracked a 120-year-old pane of red stained glass before it bounced to the floor. Patience shot up and pointed down at Hazel. “You’re glad I’m sick!”

Hazel was taken aback. “Why would I be?”

“You’re jealous of me!”

Hazel stood to face her. “You are seriously deranged. Get a grip.”

“I know what you said!” Patience’s shrill voice cracked.

“Oh?” Hazel placed her hands on her hips, surprised that it felt almost good to be fighting with her. “And what was that?

“That I’m easy pickings.”

Hazel didn’t reply. She was busted; what was there to say? So she stood her ground and stared at Patience, her next door neighbor since they were squirming babies, and thought about how she’d like to punch Tanner Holloway right in his gigantic mouth the next time she saw him. Finally, she said, “At least I warned you about Tanner and his creepy country pie fantasy.”

That reminder did nothing to dampen the flames of Patience’s outrage. “You’re a back-stabber! And Sean’s not taking any more of your bullshit either!”

She’d never heard Patience use those words before. Clearly they were Tanner’s. Or Sean’s, Hazel realized with a sinking heart. “Where is Sean?”

“How would I know?”

“When did you see him?”

“I didn’t, Tanner told me. Why didn’t you help me bury the broken mirror?”

“When did Tanner see Sean?”

“Does it matter? It’s too late.”

“What does that mean?” Hazel felt cold despite the smothering heat in the tower.

“If you don’t bury the glass beneath the moonlight, the bad luck comes. In threes they’ll come, Madame Marcelle told me. You know you should’ve listened to me.”

“Settle down, Patience.”

“The cows sensed it coming—what a bad sign. Indigo knew and now I know. Gram Lottie says the cows knew and I threw up over everything in front of everybody and Gramps is ashamed at such a display and he said, ‘No Mathers should make such a spectacle of themselves,’ and he asked what the devil is the matter with me anyhow?” Patience placed her hands over her heart. “I don’t know!”

“Calm down!”

“What’s the matter with me, Hazel? I thought you were my friend, I always thought that, but when I told you about the ring around the moon you—”

“Patience! Stop!”

“—didn’t listen. I tried to warn you and now look. Now I’m sick everybody’s sick and it’s too late. The cows are dying the mirror’s broken the ring is red and that’s three only that’s not all Sadie says—”

Hazel slapped Patience across the face. Surprisingly, that felt good too.





THE WINSLOW

Hazel tried to steal more sleep in the lobby of The Winslow, where she’d taken up position on the sofa in case Sean came home. When she heard heavy boot steps outside followed by a loud thump on the porch, she slogged through her exhaustion to the door and opened it wide, too tired to be afraid of what she might find there. The body leaning against the door slumped into the entryway and came to rest on top of her bare feet.

She flipped on the light.

Owen Peabody. Not dead, she didn’t think, but not moving either.

She watched Old Pete Hammond and Kenny Clark climb into Pete’s truck and jostle back down the driveway. “What the hell is going on?” she yelled at the taillights.

By the time Hazel found Sean’s dad Samuel Adair and they half-carried, half-dragged Owen into the lobby and up onto the couch, Rose Peabody, Ivy Hotchkiss, Gus Bolinger, and Kohl Thacker were in the lobby too. They all looked upset and disheveled.

“What are you doing here?” Hazel asked them. She felt raw from too little sleep, hungry because she was afraid to eat, thirsty from drinking nothing but soda.

“They said we have to stay here.” Rose stood looking down at Owen on the sofa. She didn’t look concerned or even curious. She just looked.

She’s detached, Hazel realized with dismay. Unhinged.

“We said we wouldn’t go.” Kohl’s eyes had a feral glint to them. “Not with them.”

“They rousted us out of the Buckhorn Tavern like cattle.” Ivy was on the verge of tears.

“Why’d they bring you here?” Hazel asked her.

“Said since we wouldn’t stay home, we’d run out of options. Said we had to go to the south pasture.”

“Tiny Clemshaw’s the only one who broke free,” Gus said.

“Goes to prove Clemshaw’s been right all along,” Kohl said. “Holloway’s got the most to lose so he’s corralling us all here to keep us quiet.”

“What’s wrong with us?” Ivy asked. “Is everybody sick?”

“The ranch hands aren’t sick,” said Gus.

“I’m not sick,” Kohl declared. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Gus gave Kohl a sidelong glance that said, Sure you’re fine.

“Who is in charge?” Ivy searched their faces. “Where’s Sheriff Winslow?”

Owen woke up babbling, “Stay away from the water don’t even shower in it everything has water in it—everything. The cattle drank water, didn’t they? It looks clear but hides hideous toxins and microscopic amoebae—”

“Should we go down to the hospital?” Rose interrupted. “I think you need a doctor, Owen.” She looked around at the others standing in the lobby. “I think Owen needs a doctor.”

“Not tonight,” Samuel Adair finally added his two cents. “It’ll keep till daylight. Too risky driving the dark pass in your condition.” With that he turned and headed up the stairs.

“If it’s just food poisoning,” Rose said, “then we’ll all feel better in the morning.” She tried on a hopeful expression.

Hazel could not stand to look at that forced face and turned away, thinking, It’s already almost morning, Rose.

Then Kohl said, “Gonna get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.”

Now the tears did let loose down Ivy’s cheeks and a look of panic crossed Gus’s face.

“Nobody’s getting worse,” Hazel said, “you’re just tired.” She knew she was. “Why don’t you take rooms and get some rest. There’re no guests left in the hotel.”

They all just stared at her . . . unwilling to take direction from this mere girl.

Hearing silverware clink from the direction of the kitchen, Hazel abandoned the cause and rushed back to see who was there—hoping for Sean—surprised to find her grandmother at the table with Sean’s mom, Honey Adair. Honey’s dress was still wrinkled, her hair uncombed. With all the lights on against the dark night beyond the windowpanes, the women sat drinking port and not eating the wedge of cheese plated before them.

“Why isn’t anybody sleeping?” Hazel complained.

Honey Adair looked at her with a completely blank expression . . . until instantly she brightened, as though somebody had flipped her ON switch. “If everybody’s up, I best get breakfast on.” Honey rose and started banging around the kitchen.

Taking Honey’s place across from Sarah, Hazel heaved herself down onto the hard oak chair. The fatigue made her feel weighty despite having eaten so little since yesterday morning. She leaned closer to the white cheese, poked at it (soft), sniffed at it (stinky), and decided against it. Instead, she sat back and blew out an exhausted breath.

Then she closed her eyes . . . and remembered Lottie Mathers’ blood all over the dining room: on the chandelier, the tablecloth, the hardwood floor. Hazel had sworn she’d never eat in there again, never even go in there again if she could avoid it. That had only lasted until her grandmother threw her thirteenth birthday party in the dining room. Sarah had hung purple crepe streamers from the chandelier and covered the long table in colorfully wrapped gifts and pink-frosted cupcakes to prove that it was not the room or the furniture, but rather the guests and the menu that had wrought such horrors.

“Has Ben Mathers ever been back here?” Hazel asked her grandmother. She knew that until tonight, Patience had not stepped foot inside The Winslow in over five years, not even for Hazel’s birthday parties.

Sarah scowled at the mention of Ben Mathers. “He paid me a visit just yesterday.”

“Really?” Hazel asked, not at all surprised by the flash of anger that accompanied that news. “What did he want?”

“To threaten me.”

Hazel shot forward. “What?”

“Don’t worry.” Sarah caressed Hazel’s cheek, smoothed her hair. “I shooed him away.”

Still fuming, Hazel said, “Grandma, tell me about Lottie Mathers.”

“Charlotte Ambrose.” Sarah sighed. “Lottie used to be an Ambrose before she hitched herself to Benjamin Mathers.” She shook her head as if to say, What a mistake that was.

“Do you think the guests will want pancakes?” Honey flung open the refrigerator door. “I suppose I could make waffles.”

“The guests are all gone,” Hazel said. “Remember?”

Honey dropped a carton of eggs to the tile floor. “Well fine! If they don’t want waffles, I’ll give them grilled cheese.”

Ignoring Honey, Sarah rose from the table and told Hazel, “Let’s go into the other room.”

“Grilled ham and cheese,” Honey decided. “That’s always good.”

“Honey,” Hazel said, following her grandmother through the kitchen. “Nobody’s going to eat. Anything.” Hazel pushed through the swinging door and entered the dining room behind Sarah, who then lowered herself onto a chair at the head of the table.

Hazel felt like standing. After she and Patience had raced down the servants’ staircase to find out who was screaming in this room, they’d been whisked outside. But not before they saw the knife, and the blood that followed. That had been enough—and Hazel had never wanted to hear any of the other grisly details. Until now. Patience’s escalating obsession now made Hazel want to know everything, made her want to know why this incident still felt so raw. “Patience thinks it’s her fault her grandmother died in here. Hers and mine.”

“I know.” Sarah looked pained, as if she didn’t want to talk or even think about it.

“And I’ve never understood why Ben Mathers thinks it’s your fault.”

Sarah folded her hands, looking unhappily resigned. “You had to be here.”

“I was here.”

“Only for part of it.”

Before Hazel could change her mind, she said, “Tell me the rest.”

Sarah sighed again, in a way that sounded sad. “Of course your grandfather was still with us then. Randall had just begun to carve the prime rib I had prepared, rare to perfection. For achieving that, he smiled at me in appreciation.”

Hazel glanced around the dining room, imagining her august grandfather Randall Winslow still alive and playing host to Winslow’s finest.

Sarah continued, “We heard you and Patience scuttling up the servants’ staircase, and I looked at Lottie across the table, asked her what she supposed our little witches were brewing up this time. She laughed and agreed that you two had been whispering a lot about witchcraft. Then she’d cocked her head at your grandfather, saying, ‘Who may we thank for this latest obsession?’ I laughed too, telling her that for once it wasn’t his fault. That you, dear Hazel, always so inquisitive, had discovered a book about the Salem Witch Trials all on your own.”

Ruefully, Hazel remembered doing just that, and then immediately corrupting Patience with it.

Sarah seemed to be growing more distant, reliving that night. “Lottie had rolled her eyes, saying, ‘Heaven help us—we’ll all be deemed guilty of witchcraft.’ Then she raised her face and cupped her mouth, shouting to you two on the upper floor: ‘Don’t tempt fate, girls!’ ”

Hazel winced, stung by Lottie’s prescient reproach.

“And your grandfather’s eyes were playful when he said, ‘Truth be told, Lottie, all are guilty, but some are guiltier than others.’ Just then Ben Mathers rejoined us from the kitchen, juggling a tray of drinks: vodka tonics for Jules and Meg Foster, and Scotch for Randall and himself. Lottie and I would stick with cabernet; were already, as I recall, well into our second bottle. Coming up behind Lottie, Ben had a puzzled look on his face. ‘Guilty of what?’ he asked. And Lottie shot out of her seat—as if seriously startled—bumping the drink tray with her right shoulder. Ben Mathers danced, tried to regain his balance. The tray tipped anyway and sent glasses flying, ice cubes bouncing off the table, booze cascading to the floor.”

Hazel felt her stomach curling upward, much like it had that night.

Sarah’s eyes were wide and bright, manic with memory. “I rose, saying, ‘Lottie, what is it?’ over and over. She was clutching one hand to her throat as if she were choking. Right before our eyes her lips puffed up and her throat swelled. Jules Foster rushed to her from the opposite side of the table while Ben backed away saying, ‘Help my wife, help her, help,’ until he fell backwards over Lottie’s upturned chair.”

Hazel knew exactly where this was going; the play was about to reach the part where she and Patience had entered, stage right. Suddenly she regretted having her head filled with these new images—she had enough haunting memories already stored up.

But Sarah went on, “Lottie was wheezing, suffocating on her own swollen neck, while her arms flailed across the table, crashing decanters into soup urns, and shards of crystal and porcelain flew through the air and cabernet splashed the tablecloth, the ceiling, all of us in red.”

If Hazel had not heard the crashing and seen the aftermath for herself, she’d have to think her grandmother was embellishing this horrific story.

“By the time your grandfather restrained her arms, Lottie’s face was purple and her eyes bulged. Jules picked up the knife and poked clean through her throat. If Lottie hadn’t twisted at that exact moment, Jules wouldn’t have hit her artery. As it was, blood poured out but no air flowed in.” Sarah lowered her head and pressed her fingers to her eyelids. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. It was already over.”

“Why does Ben blame you?” Hazel asked. “We all saw Dr. Foster stab her.”

“He did blame Jules Foster, until the coroner’s report came back and confirmed that short of having a syringe full of epinephrine in his pocket, there wasn’t a thing the doctor could’ve done to save Lottie.”

“I thought she bled to death.” Hoping to quell the memory of all that blood, Hazel kept her eyes on her grandmother.

“No, her death was due to anaphylactic shock—an allergic reaction to my escargot. Lottie had never had snails before, never dreamed she was allergic. So with Dr. Foster in the clear, Ben turned on me. He accused me—he continues to accuse me—of poisoning his wife.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You and Lottie were close friends.” Just then it struck Hazel as extremely strange that Patience told her earlier tonight that Gram Lottie says, The cows knew. She shook her head hard. “Why does it have to be anyone’s fault?”

Sarah looked tired all of a sudden, her bright eyes dimming. “Ben couldn’t accept the truth—there wasn’t any blame in it. And he needed that blame to help him through it.”

Hazel’s anger reignited as she recalled the cruel words and harsh glares that had constituted Ben Mathers’ ceaseless campaign against her family ever since. Placing her hand on Sarah’s arm she asked, “Grandma, what’s happening now?”

“Looks like we’re headed for another bad patch,” Sarah said. “Like when—”

“Get out! Get out!” Honey yelled from the kitchen.

Hazel rushed back into the kitchen to find Honey chasing Jinx, dangerously whipping a saucepan through the air while the dog struggled to find traction on the tile.

“Stop, Honey!” Hazel darted past her and flung open the back door so that Jinx had a route of escape.

The dog’s floppy ears lay plastered against his head, tail tucked between his legs, feelings clearly hurt.

“I won’t have wolves in my kitchen!” Honey gave Jinx a fuzzy-slippered kick to the ribs.

He yelped in surprise and pain before scurrying out the door.

“Have you lost your mind?” Hazel shouted at Honey before running after her dog.

When Hazel caught up to Jinx where he cowered at the front corner of the hotel she knelt and pet him, trying to calm him down. “You all right, boy?”

He was tense and low to the ground, frightened not only by Honey’s mad chase but by the men who were shoving Jay and Julie Marsh through the yard toward the front porch. Julie tripped and fell and Jay knelt to help her. Kenny Clark clipped Jay aside and hauled Julie up by the collar of her down jacket and pushed her up the porch steps.

Jinx made a sympathetic sound.

“Please,” Jay said, “we’re fine. We don’t need any help.”

Help? Hazel thought. “Who’s helping anybody?” she whispered to Jinx and the dog began to bark.

No use hiding, she came around into the yard to face Kenny and Old Pete. But she didn’t know what to say because she didn’t understand what she was seeing.

When Pete noticed Hazel, he ordered, “Under no circumstances are you to let them leave.” Gesturing at Kohl Thacker pressed up against the bay window of the ballroom, his face staring out at them in frantic-eyed interest, Pete added, “We gotta assume it’s contagious.”

And with that Kenny gave Jay a final shove and waved the Marshes into the hotel.

Contagious?

The word bounced around inside Hazel’s head; she wouldn’t let it lodge there.

Guess we’re not talking about food poisoning anymore.