She raised her eyes to meet mine; hers were as black as two bottomless pits. “But sometimes the scars that hurt the worst are the ones buried deep down inside, isn’t that right, my Sara?”
I said nothing, my eyes fixed on her gruesome pale hands.
“I knew that one day I would return. I would return and keep to my word: you would pay. You would pay for what you and your family did to me. Turning your back on me, after all I did for you. I nursed you, brought you up as if you were my own child, and this was how you repaid me, by trying to burn me alive?”
“But it wasn’t me! It was Father. He was mad with grief.”
She smiled a sinister smile. “Madness is always a wonderful excuse, don’t you think? For doing terrible things to other people.” There was a little glint in her dark eyes. “To other people’s children.”
My heart went icy as a terrible realization bore down on me. “How long have you been back in town?” I tried to keep my voice calm.
“Oh, a little while now. Long enough to see your poor family struggle along. Your limping husband, who fights with the land rather than working with it. Your daughter. Your beautiful little daughter. So tiny. So delicate. So like you at her age.”
“Gertie,” I said, voice faltering. “Her name is Gertie.”
Auntie’s mouth twisted into a painful-looking smile. “Oh, I know. We knew each other well, she and I.”
I looked into her eyes, and at that moment, I finally knew the truth.
I took a step back, raised the gun, and aimed it at her chest.
“It wasn’t Martin. You killed Gertie.”
She cackled, throwing back her head. “The evidence pointed to Martin, though, did it not? His ring in Gertie’s pocket. The ring of mine he unearthed in the field. I don’t blame you for shooting him. I would have done the same.”
“I didn’t shoot him. It was an accident.”
Auntie laughed, showing pointed teeth stained brown.
“You put the ring there,” I said. “You took it from Martin somehow. It was you who left the notes that were supposed to be from Gertie.”
She smiled a wide and crooked smile. “My bright little Sara. My star.”
I stepped forward, pushing the barrel of the gun right against her chest.
She laughed, shook her head at me as if I were a foolish child once more. A little girl who simply didn’t know any better.
“Would it do any good to kill me now, Sara? Would it help to bring back all that I have taken from you? Your child? Your husband? Your brother and father?”
“You didn’t kill my father,” I said.
“No. He killed himself with drinking. Because he could not live with what he had done to me.”
I gazed into her eyes, so deep and black. Her eyes drew me in and held me, brought me back through time to when I was a little girl and would go down to the creek with her, hand in hand.
You are different from others, Sara. You are like me.
Maybe, I thought. Maybe I am like Auntie. Maybe I, too, am capable of murder, of revenge. Killing Auntie wouldn’t bring back all that she had taken from me, but it would be justice. I would kill Auntie. I would do it for Gertie. For Martin. For my father and brother.
But I was too late.
In one impossibly quick move, Auntie wrenched the gun from my hands, turned it around, and pointed it at my chest. I had forgotten her quickness and strength.
“Let’s go see if we can find your Gertie, shall we?” she said, as if I had a choice. “There are only hours left before she has to go back into the ground. I want to watch it happen. I want to see your face when the sad little phantom you brought back disappears forever.”
Katherine
Katherine moved forward blindly at first, afraid that if she turned on her flashlight they’d see the glow and follow. It wouldn’t take them long to find her. She had to work quickly.
The passage went on for twenty feet or so, taking her steadily down, the walls cool and dripping, causing her feet to slip on the wet stone. She had to walk bent over, stepping carefully over and around rocks, feeling her way like a blind cave-creature.
She didn’t know where she was going. Was the portal in an exact place inside the cave? Or could she just pull over anywhere to do the ritual?
She paused to catch her breath, listening. She heard voices, but they were far off, mere echoes. She saw no glimmer of light from the direction of the chamber; she should be far enough away now to turn on her flashlight. She blinked at the sudden brightness and saw that she’d reached a fork. She hesitated, then bore left. The ceiling of the passageway dropped, so that she had to crawl on her hands and knees. About six feet in, it dead-ended. She slithered her way back out and went to the right this time, followed the twists and turns, moved down, squeezed through the passage sideways when it got too narrow. The going was slow, and Katherine guessed she’d only made it about ten feet in.