“Are there others?” she wrote into my hand one night not long ago. “Others like me?”
I was not sure how to answer. I had reflected on the question before, and decided that surely, in all the years people had been making sleepers, she could not have been the only one to spill blood. “There might be,” I told her. “But if there are, they are well hidden.”
Secretly, I pray she is the only one.
It seems that she needs to feed every few months. She grows angry and withdrawn, then weak, and we must venture out in search of food. I have brought her squirrels, fish, even a deer on occasion. (How ironic that the hunting and trapping skills taught to me so long ago by Auntie are the very skills that have enabled us to survive.) I leave the offerings outside the cave and go take a long walk while she feeds. She does not wish me to watch (nor am I able to stomach it). The truth of it is, the animals I bring do not satiate her. What she longs for most (how I shudder to write it!) is human blood.
I have brought her this, too.
I shall not share the details of my crimes here—they are too horrific to mention. Suffice it to say that if there is a Hell, the Hell Reverend Ayers always warned us of in his sermons, that is where I belong, where they will find me in the end.
It shames me to say it, to confess all that I have done, but Gertie is, after all, my creation.
My child by birth, and my sleeper awakened.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Dan Lazar, who pushed me to go bigger, to paint on a wider canvas; to Anne Messitte, for sharing my vision and finding ways to improve upon it; to Andrea Robinson, for her sharp eyes and keen insight; and to the whole team at Doubleday—I’m thrilled to be working with such an amazing bunch; and finally, to Drea and Zella, for, well, for everything—I couldn’t do any of this without you.
About the Author
Jennifer McMahon is the New York Times bestselling author of six suspense novels, including The One I Left Behind, Island of Lost Girls, and Promise Not to Tell. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.