The Creeping

“How much farther?” Sam calls ahead to Daniel.

Daniel whirls around, his face shadowed with stubble. “As a kid I thought there was something off about Old Lady Griever. She’s all over these woods, and if anyone knows what happened to Jeanie, it’d be her. Don’t freak her out before she answers my questions, okay?” We stare at him blankly. “Got it?” he demands. Sam nods and I mimic the gesture, too baffled to be original. I can’t imagine what about a little old lady would make Daniel think she was keeping details of Jeanie’s disappearance from him.

I take a deep breath, stifling another shudder, and follow. Moss-covered stones that fit like jigsaw pieces make up the pathway. Thick bramble etches both sides, and sharp branches extend with the look of tentacles threatening to pull me into their hungry mouths. One catches at my camisole, and when I tug free, it tears the silk.

I glare at the offending branch as Sam reaches for it, snapping its bony finger off. He grins as he makes a show of stomping it. I can’t help smiling embarrassingly large in response. “I feel like we’re Hansel and Gretel making our way to the witch’s house in the woods,” I whisper.

“I hope you’re not picturing me in lederhosen.” Sam laughs. He’s close enough behind me that his heat spreads down my spine, beneath my shirt. There’s something so familiar, so comforting, about being near him. It’s an irresistible taste of a home that’s no longer mine. I let my eyes flutter shut, pulling the sensation over me like a blanket. My face collides with Daniel’s back.

“Watch it,” he growls. I shrug off his vileness and follow his gaze up to a shabby gray house.

Calling it a house might be too generous. It’s more a shack than anything remotely houselike. It’s a room or two large, with busted steps leading to the front door. Haunted-house-worthy cobwebs hang thick from the porch eaves. The windows are blackened with soot. There’s not one living thing within a perimeter of several yards; the trees and brush actually grow as if they’re trying to escape it. There’s a perfect circle of blue sky directly above the roof, making me feel too exposed, like we’re bugs under the lens of a magnifying glass. Inky smoke snakes from a crumbling chimney, filling the air with the stench of burning fur or hair. To the left the entire front yard has been freshly churned for planting; when I look closer, I see it’s really separate small mounds that have been tilled just close enough to look like one large plot.

“What the . . .” My words fade as I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. The shack’s front door swings inward, revealing a rectangle of pitch blackness beyond. Daniel straightens his shoulders, steps forward holding his hand up in greeting, and squares his feet to brace himself.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Griever. It’s Daniel Talcott,” he calls, eager and polite, the ragged edge of his voice gone. “My parents and I used to live down the lane. We’ve spoken before, remember?” Silence. A light breeze spirals around us as if trapped in the clearing, causing the shack to sway. I take a small step backward into Sam. His chest doesn’t give, and I don’t restore the space between us. Just for a minute I want to be warm and safe touching him. His heart tap dances its rhythm into my back.

“I’ve nothin’ more to say to you,” a voice like a meat grinder growls from the open door.

Undeterred, Daniel steps closer. “Mrs. Griever, do you remember Jeanie? She brought you cookies once with my mother. The ones with little jam thumbprints in the middle? She used to play near here.” Daniel’s tone is raw and vulnerable. I catch a sob in my throat that comes out of nowhere. His memories of Jeanie are so intimate. They’re difficult to hear. I’ve been busy convincing myself that Jeanie was nothing special, but to him she was. I want to ask him what it was about her that he loved so much.

A knotted hand protrudes from the doorway. It braces the door frame and wrests its owner slowly from the dark. As if she’s emerging from a pool of black tar, she’s revealed piece by piece: the saggy transparent skin on her forearm; crookedly formed bare feet; a shrunken skull with loose white skin and deep scores under her cheekbones; clumps of silver hair patchy over a navy-veined scalp; earlobes that hang lank; and a hunched spine in a ratty black shawl tied over a mauve-pink dress, which reaches her ankles.