“There’s something else,” Fawn said. “Under the bed.” She pointed. Clutching the bear in one hand, her flashlight in the other, Ruthie peered under the bed.
A purple-and-white ski jacket lay on the stone floor. It was torn and covered with brown stains—old blood.
“That’s like the one that missing girl was wearing, isn’t it?” Fawn asked. “Willa Luce?”
Ruthie nodded, turning away.
She thought of what Candace had said earlier, about her parents’ claiming there was a monster in the woods. A monster that killed Tom and Bridget O’Rourke—her birth parents. Where had Ruthie been when they were killed? Had she been witness to whatever happened to them? The very idea of this made her feel sick to her stomach. The cave walls seemed to be moving in closer; the air felt thinner.
“Alice Washburne!” Candace called, her voice echoing, hurting Ruthie’s ears. “I’ve got your children! Show yourself or I’ll hurt them!”
Ruthie set down the green bear, reached into her pocket to find the gun. She flipped the safety lever off and held her breath, waiting.
They listened for a minute. All they heard was the crackling of the fire and a dripping sound from someplace far off.
“I don’t like this,” Fawn said, stepping closer to Ruthie. “I don’t like it down here.”
“Me, neither,” Ruthie said, hand on the gun in her pocket.
Silence.
“Damn it,” Candace barked. She circled the chamber, peering down each passageway with her headlamp. She stuck her head down one and sputtered something Ruthie didn’t catch.
“What’ll we do now?” Ruthie asked, her eye on the gun in Candace’s hand. Surely she was bluffing. She wouldn’t hurt them. She’d keep them alive and unharmed to use as leverage when the time came.
“We’ll have to explore each tunnel, one at a time.”
Please, God, no more narrow tunnels, Ruthie thought.
“We could split up,” Ruthie suggested. “Or maybe Fawn and I should stay here. In case my mom shows up.”
“No!” Candace spat. “We all go together.” She glanced around the cave, eyes beady and glinting. “Wait a minute. Where’s Katherine?”
Ruthie scanned the room, shone her light down the dark openings of the three tunnels.
“Damn it!” Candace bellowed.
Katherine was gone.
Sara
January 31, 1908
Auntie.
I blinked once, twice, three times, yet she still stood in my doorway, an actual flesh-and-blood being. Surely this was no spirit: she had form, substance; snow dripped from her clothes, and her body cast a long shadow behind her.
Gertie had run off as soon as she heard Auntie’s voice outside, probably gone back to the closet to hide.
Shep was by my side, growling low in his throat. Auntie gave him a look, and he slinked off, tail between his legs.
“Are you …” I stammered. “Are you one of them? Have you come back from the dead?”
Perhaps I had gone mad after all.
I still held Martin’s gun in my hands, gripping the stock so tight my fingers turned white. Auntie just glanced at it and laughed. It sounded like wild wind through a dry cornfield.
She was older. Her once raven-colored hair was now steely gray and in wild tangles, tied in clumps with rags and bits of leather. She had feathers and beads and pretty little stones woven into her hair. Her skin was dark brown and wrinkled. She wore a fox pelt draped over her shoulders.
“Would it be easier for you,” Auntie asked, “if I were a sleeper?”
“I …”
“Easier to believe you were right all these years, that I lay dead in the ashes of my home?” Her face grew stormy.
“But how? How did you survive?” I remembered the heat of the fire, the soot that rained down and covered us; how, in the end, there was nothing left but a few charred remains and that old potbelly stove. “I heard the gunshot. I watched your cabin burn to the ground.”
Auntie chuckled bitterly. “Did you think it would be so easy to kill me, Sara?”
I remembered Buckshot, his fur singed, taking off into the woods. Was he following Auntie?
“Kill me and leave my remains to rot in the ashes?”
I took a step back, suddenly frightened. “I tried to stop him,” I said, voice shaking. “I even tried going in after you once the house was in flames, but Father stopped me.”
Auntie moved forward, gave a disappointed shake of the head. “You didn’t try hard enough, Sara.”
“And you’ve been alive all this time?” I asked, disbelieving. “Where have you been?”
“I went home. Back to my people. I tried to leave my past behind, to forget all of you. But, you see, I couldn’t forget. Whenever I got close, all I had to do was look down at my hands.” Auntie removed her gloves, showing hands and fingers thick with white, gnarled scars. “I’ve got another on my belly, too, from your father’s shotgun. The wound got infected. It was a terrible mess.”
Auntie rubbed her stomach with her scarred right hand.