Hope gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ll explain later.”
“I’m coming with you,” Hawk said. “Simon and Hope, you stay here—stay away from the windows and keep going through that archive. We need more names and faces. If Gretchen is right we need to know exactly who did this.”
As he was talking, Gretchen had walked into the kitchen and found the whetstone used to sharpen knives. She took out Fidelia’s ivory hair clip and ran it back and forth over the surface, filing the tines of the clip until they were razor-sharp.
Hope stood behind her in the kitchen doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Giving myself a fighting chance,” Gretchen said. And for the first time she felt truly, deeply afraid that she might not get out of Axton mansion alive. She put her hair back up and slid the clip in, being careful not to graze her scalp.
Hope came over and gave her a hug. “I’m doing this for our mothers,” Gretchen said, tears in her eyes. “Doing what they didn’t have time to finish.”
Hope shook her head. “You’re doing it for our daughters,” she said.
When they came out from the kitchen, Simon handed Gretchen the Nikon. It had never felt more like a weapon in her hands.
Outside the crickets were chirping. The wind was blowing hard as they walked along the road instead of cutting through the field. After seeing the lynching photographs, reading Fidelia’s journal, and the enormous branch crashing through the window, neither of them wanted to walk past the tree.
Hawk slipped his hand into hers. They walked in unison, her Doc Martens and his sneakers crunching along the dirt road.
Gretchen tried to make small talk as they walked, to keep her mind off what would be waiting for them at the house.
“Hope says you’re going to music school in the fall,” she said.
“I am,” he said. “I’m going to Tisch.”
“Tisch?! In the city? Why didn’t you say something before?”
“Uh . . . well, we were, you know, figuring out you weren’t a ghost and then getting your aunt’s body out of the house and then solving the accident epidemic and, well, I’m not entirely sure whether you are really you or Esther right now. . . .”
“Ha!” Gretchen said, slapping him on the back.
“See what I mean?” he said.
Gretchen certainly did.
“But yeah,” Hawk said. “I’m going to be in the city. We’ll be neighbors.”
“Like Valerie and Fidelia,” Gretchen said.
“I hope luckier than them,” he said.
From where they stood on the road they could see the house. The attic windows were brightly lit, but everything else was dark. In the moonlight they could make out the dark swarm of insects hovering above the weather vane.
“When we go in there,” he said, “no matter what happens, we stick together this time.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I SERIOUSLY WISH WE’D BROUGHT A FLASHLIGHT,” Gretchen said as they stepped onto the porch. The only light downstairs was provided by the bright three-quarter moon. She tried not to think about the images of ghostly men lurking outside the place. She didn’t see them, and if Hawk saw anyone, he didn’t tell her.
“Don’t worry,” Hawk said, reaching the door first. “The electricity is still on.” He flicked a switch next to the door frame and the porch and the front hallway were flooded with light.
The house looked like it had aged a century while they were gone. Thick dust covered everything, parts of the wall and ceiling were crumbling, furniture was missing, rags and books were lying around the floor.
The floors seemed to slope sharply down in some places and in others there were holes that went straight into the basement. The staircase was a gauntlet of fallen objects and smashed portraits.
There was no humming or buzzing of insects. No sound at all.
The smell of mold and earth and smoke and metal still permeated the place. They turned on the lights in every room they went through. Gretchen wondered if they were surrounded by specters. If ghosts were there now, reading the newspaper. Going through the pantry, sitting at the piano. But so far no spirit made itself clear to them.
“How long is it going to take?” Hawk asked.
“Shouldn’t be that long,” Gretchen said. “I’m just going to process the film and make a contact sheet. But first . . .” She went into the parlor and opened the liquor cabinet, got out the gin, and took a long gulp directly from the bottle.
Hawk watched her, shaking his head.
“You want some?” She offered it to him.
“No thanks, Esther.”
“It’ll put hair on your chest,” she said, and winked at him.
Hawk smiled. “I’m all right.”