She needed security, safety, love, and comfort. Not more fear and uncertainty.
When Allie confessed that she was hearing—and maybe even seeing—things, it made Bitty’s heart ache. She had begun experiencing the same type of things when she, herself, was just a little older than Allie: hearing voices, seeing things others couldn’t see. It started when Louis was around two years old.
She was often unable to figure out what was supernatural and what was just a product of an ill mind, but she had learned how to push through it in order to continue caring for her little boy. She learned to be concerned when she absolutely had to be. And to leave well enough alone when she didn’t.
After all, only a fine thread separated the spirit world and the physical world, and very few really knew for sure what was real or imagined anyway.
The extent to which Allie’s mental faculties would disintegrate, if they even did, would be discovered in due time. But, for now, Bitty’s job was to protect her.
She doubted she would ever tell Allie the truth.
After all, what would there be to gain?
Allie had experienced far more terror than most, but odds were, with a lot of love, nurturing, and good, clean living, she would be able to manage. Sadly, these things hadn’t worked in the long term for Louis, but Louis had been a special case. One of the tragic few who, with treatment, still couldn’t function like the rest. One who had a special appetite for violence.
One who she had just recently begun to fear was capable of killing his own daughter. Until their move to Louisiana, she never would’ve believed that was possible.
Joe Hicks had successfully completed Bitty’s wellness program, and before returning to California he’d given Bitty a lead on a rental house in East Texas, where she and Allie could start all over until they sold the house in Grand Trespass and found something that better suited them.
They were headed for East Texas this morning. Would there be danger ahead? Or peace? Bitty’s gut wasn’t telling her anything either way. For once, it appeared she would have to wait to find out like everyone else.
The old woman slid into the driver’s side and watched as Allie’s gray eyes moved over the house. Then Allie got into the car and shut the door. Bitty wondered what she was thinking.
“You okay?” Bitty asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. Ready to start our new adventure?”
Allie fixed her with one of her spellbinding smiles. Smiling freely was something she had only just started doing. “I think I was born ready.”
Bitty turned the ignition and threw the Tahoe into reverse. Once they were out of the driveway, she paused in front of the house to look at it one last time because she knew she wouldn’t return.
“Mommy?”
Her breath hitched. Did Allie just call me “Mommy”? That’s . . . odd.
Bitty’s eyes flicked to the girl, only to see her staring at the road ahead. “Did you just say something?”
Allie turned to her. “Huh?”
“Didn’t you just say something?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh.”
Bitty glanced at the road ahead of them and nearly screamed. A five-year-old Louis was standing in the middle of it, watching the SUV.
Her heart froze.
Gathering a deep breath, she eased the vehicle forward. Louis’s specter, seeing that she was approaching, stepped to the side of the road and turned to face them.
When the car was directly alongside him, he locked eyes with her. Behind his small eyeglasses, the old woman could see that the skin beneath his big, blue eyes was wet. He was crying.
“Mommy,” he mouthed. “Mommy, hold me.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She wanted badly to stop the car, jump out, and take him in her arms. But she couldn’t. It was either keep reliving the past or help the girl secure a future. And she had already decided which it would be.
“Miss Bitty, are you okay?” Allie asked beside her.
Her eyes snapped forward and she jammed her foot against the accelerator, jolting the car forward. Peering into her rearview mirror, she saw Louis standing in the middle of the street again.
Facing them.
Wondering why she was leaving him.
“Miss Bitty, you okay?” Allie asked again.
Bitty cleared the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Remember when I told you I see things?”
“Yes. Why? Do you see something now?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not a what. It’s a who. And . . . it’s painful. Very painful.”
“Who is it?”
“I’ll tell you one day,” she sniffed. “Just not today.”
She felt Allie’s hand on her arm. The girl was trying to comfort her.
“Okay,” Allie said. “But . . . but are you sure you’re okay?”
Bitty didn’t want to upset the girl so she mustered up a smile. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t.
And she doubted she would ever be again.
As they merged onto I-20, Allie tried to shake the foreboding feeling in her stomach and concentrate on all the good things that were happening.
As excited as she was to be leaving Grand Trespass, she was even more excited that the adoption had gone through. Miss Bitty was now officially her mother—the only real mother she’d ever had.
She no longer had to deal with visits from her nosy caseworker or Agent Jones’s needling, repetitive questions. She was going to have a fresh start in East Texas, in a town where no one knew her. She’d be able to distance herself from her mother, and hopefully even stop hearing the woman’s unbidden voice—if that’s what the voice in her ear even was. Miss Bitty had called it post-traumatic stress disorder, but Allie was still uncertain.