Girl One(63)

“What do you think happened?” Cate spat. “Somebody killed them. Someone hurt Vera and Delilah and then dragged them here. Maybe to burn them alive, or burn the evidence after the fact.”

“Just like there was a fire that killed Bellanger and Fiona,” I said. Bile collected at the back of my throat. “Just like the one at Cate’s house. Just like there was a fire that—” But I couldn’t complete the thought. My body folded in half, and I threw up again, grateful for the way the sensation took over my body. When I looked up again, the back of my throat as raw as a wound, Cate was staring into the trees.

Tom swallowed, scrubbed at his lower face with the back of his hand. “We need to tell somebody.” His voice cracked a little, but he was firm now. “We’ll go to the police. Whoever did this came to Kithira. Maybe people around here saw him. Maybe they met him. It’s a small place. We need to ask around, figure out who did this—”

“Coeur du Lac is also small,” I said. “Nobody saw who set the fire there.”

“This is different,” Tom said. “He’s left evidence behind.”

What if somewhere on the outskirts of Coeur du Lac, on the bank of some lonely reservoir or in the middle of an overgrown vacant lot, there was a spot like this? The remains of my mother.

“We aren’t going to the cops,” Cate said, low and vicious.

“But something’s wrong,” Tom said.

“This has been here awhile,” Cate said. “Why didn’t somebody see the smoke and investigate? Why didn’t anybody check on Vera and Delilah? I don’t see how something like this could’ve happened and then gone unnoticed for months.”

“What are you trying to say?” Tom had lost some of that stunned quality, his initial panic shape-shifting into denial.

Isabelle was still clinging to the white dress, running a hand over it now, the idle, soothing way she might touch a newborn baby or a small animal.

“I’m saying that it might not be that simple,” Cate said. “You think we’re about to catch the bad guy, but we can’t get reckless. We don’t know anything about Kithira or the people who live here.”

“This is our best chance to figure out who’s been targeting all of you,” Tom said. “This person is sick. He’s dangerous. We need all the help we can get.”

Cate’s expression didn’t change. She shook her head, mute. I could tell that Tom hadn’t convinced her, and my own disquiet was mounting. All the violence in my past had happened when I wasn’t looking, locked in a place beyond the reach of memory. This—the ashes, the blood—I couldn’t think straight.

It had dipped into evening now, the sun hot and golden all around us, the kind of brilliance that came on the very cusp of darkness. Tom spoke up again, and this time he was gentler: “I get your hesitation, Cate, I do. So I’ll take the lead. This is bigger than I realized. We need outside help.” He paused. “This could be the only way we find out what happened to Josie’s mother. I don’t want to get in the way of that. Do you?”

Cate inhaled as if he’d struck her. All three of them were looking at me now. “I don’t know,” I said, miserable with the choice. “I want to find whoever did this to the Strouds. Of course I do. And my mother—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. I remembered Emily in the attic, the way she’d said that Tom would lead me to my mother. The simple comfort of that moment. “Tom’s right,” I said. “We can’t handle this by ourselves anymore. It’s too much.”

“We’ll go back to the Strouds’ house,” Tom said, relieved. “We’ll call the police.”

He turned to go. Cate didn’t look at me as she moved, her face flinty. After a second, Isabelle followed, still holding the dress against her chest. I thought about telling her to leave it behind, but I couldn’t stand to think of that dress hanging alone, in the trees, abandoned.

Following the others, I stopped at the edge of the clearing. There was something odd about the trees near the charred circle. Their bark looked strangely textured. Tattooed. I went closer, squinting. There were words carved into the skin of the trees, so linear they looked like hieroglyphics.

The markings appeared fresh, exposed skin still raw and pale. I reached out to touch them with my fingertips, like this extra information would help me interpret what was happening. I saw what looked like two Vs right next to each other, and my mind kept thinking V-V, V-V, or maybe five-five, until the two symbols consolidated into one letter. W. Then all at once: Witches. Hewn into the wood with those sharp angles, the S just a harsh series of connected lines. Three slashes. There, below it, another word, not quite identical, but similar. Witches. Another one, another one. A dozen. Some angled. Some written in huge letters, as long as my palm, others so small I could barely read them. The word was always the same, and it spread from trunk to trunk like an infection.

WITCHES WITCHES WITCHES WITCHES





29

I waited outside, listening dully to Tom and Cate argue next to me. Being inside the Strouds’ house felt wrong. Morbid. The TV set flashed bright against the opposite wall, visible through the windows. All those laughing faces playing to an empty room. Those trees screaming WITCH into the silence.

“It’s the right choice,” Tom was insisting. “We can’t go home without knowing what happened to Josie’s mother. If this sheds any light on what happened to her—if this helps us catch the guy—”