“Imagine my surprise when I saw it was you.”
He said nothing. He only smiled. But something about his appearance made it hollow.
He didn’t believe her. He didn’t want her back. She was too far gone.
She was nothing but a vessel now.
She could see the rejection in his eyes.
53
* * *
IN THE LIVING room, Audra Snow’s things were gone. So was the dark figure that had stood in the corner. But Lucas knew Jeffrey Halcomb was still there.
There was a bang in the kitchen, like a pot hitting the countertop. Lucas vacillated in his open study door when something rushed past him, rushed right through him. He staggered back. The air left him in a gasp, squeezing out every last bit of oxygen from his lungs when the door slammed shut in his face, trapping him inside.
He stumbled away, the backs of his legs bumping into his desk. All at once, the drawers flew open. One fell to the floor, spilling its contents across the dull brown rug. What the hell was this, a poltergeist? Was stuff like that actually for real? He clamped his teeth together and shot a look at the door.
Jeanie, he thought. I’ve got to get Jeanie.
He shoved himself away from his desk, grabbed the doorknob, and twisted, but it didn’t budge. He tried again. The knob didn’t give, not even a little. He veered around, his eyes fixed on his chair. If he couldn’t go through the door, he’d smash the window, then work his way back inside to get his daughter. But his approach toward the chair was cut short. The door flew open again, rattling against the adjacent wall.
Lucas spun around. He hesitated at the now familiar sight of Audra Snow’s old furniture. It was as though the mere motion of the door opening and closing had transported him. The place was the same, but time had reversed itself by over thirty years.
He rushed past Audra’s old living room without giving himself a chance to think. Because if he did think, he’d have to consider how any of what was happening was possible. The people in the orchard. The laughter. The voices. The table. The furniture that had been stacked even after the house alarm had been installed.
Every conclusion seemed insurmountable. Every answer was nothing short of unreal.
That was when it dawned on him, a realization so unbalanced it stopped him short of Jeanie’s bedroom door. Jeffrey Halcomb had asked Lucas to move into this house knowing full well what was inside, what would happen. Halcomb had never intended to grant Lucas the interview he had promised, and Echo’s motives had never been to help Lucas with his book. She’d given him the photographs to keep him where he was, to root him to Pier Pointe.
Because there was something here.
Something no logic-minded person would ever consider real.
Something he himself had cast aside as weird fiction while, perhaps, Jeanie had taken the notion far more seriously.
I don’t want to go to Uncle Mark’s.
I want to stay here.
He tore open Jeanie’s door, and at first he didn’t see her. For a flash of a moment, he was sure his life was over, certain that his body was going to give in beneath the sheer weight of his fear.
“Jeanie?!” He bolted into the room. That was when he saw her, his little girl kneeling inside her closet as if in prayer. A square of black paper rested beside her knees. She didn’t turn to look at him. Jeanie, who was always quick to snap her head around and give him a disapproving glare, didn’t seem to even know he was there.
“Jeanie,” he said, choking on her name. Jeanie’s failure to respond only heightened his anxiety. He stumbled toward the closet, caught himself on the jamb, his mouth going dry at what he saw. There, covering the wall, were pictures of Jeffrey Halcomb and his family. Jeff, outlined in yellow highlighter to give him an angelic, ethereal glow. Jeff’s photo framed with squiggles of black Sharpie and silver paint pen—swirls and curls and hearts and childish sentimentality. Jeff winked at him from a small wallet-sized portrait Lucas hadn’t seen before.
You’re too late, it said. I can love your kid better than you ever could.
Something inside him shifted. His apprehension began to dwindle beneath the smolder of anger—the same impatient ire that had consumed him not more than a few hours before.
“Jeanie.” Lucas took a single step forward. He extended his arm, grabbed her shoulder. It woke her from her daze. She turned her head, and for a brief moment, her eyes were far away.
“Jeanie . . .” The uttering of her name lifted a veil from her face. That distant, almost glazed-over stare melted away, leaving his daughter alert, startled. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What is this?” His gaze settled on what he could only imagine to be a makeshift Halcomb shrine.
He could read her expression. She had seen something. While he was downstairs, hearing the laughter of dozens of people, seeing the shadow of Jeffrey Halcomb standing in the corner of the living room, something had happened to Jeanie as well. But rather than figuring out what that was, he caught her by the arm and pulled her up. The sheet of paper crumpled beneath one of her feet, the silver pen too light to read.
Suddenly, she tore her arm away from him as if revolted by his touch. “No!” she screamed. “Leave me alone! I have to finish this, I have to do what I said!”
“What are you talking about?” He reached for her again, but Jeanie shoved him away. “Stop.” He nearly barked the word. “We’re getting out of this house. Now.”
He grabbed her, wrenched her toward the door, but somehow she stayed in place. Eighty-five pounds of little girl, and he couldn’t budge her from where she stood. Her feet were cemented to the floor.