The Girl Who Survived(3)

“I-I don’t really know.”

“What’re they doing?”

“I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I’m not sure, but I know this, there’s something . . . something really bad, Kara.”

“What . . . what’s bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“And it’s here.”

“I . . . yes . . . please, just do as I say.”

Kara suspected her sister was dodging the truth. “Where’re Mama and Daddy?”

A beat. “Out.”

“Liar.” Why was Marlie lying to her?

“Kara—”

“What about Jonas and Sam and Donner?” Kara asked frantically. Her older half brothers. They’d all been here earlier. She’d seen them at dinner and after. Donner and Sam had been listening to music and playing video games, maybe even drinking, and Jonas, the loner, had been in his room practicing his ninja moves or whatever it was he always did. Sam had kidded him, calling him Jonas Joe-Judo. Which Jonas hated.

Marlie said, “Everyone’s gone.”

“Gone?” On Christmas Eve? That didn’t seem right. “Then what’re you afraid of?”

Marlie licked her nips nervously. Her voice was the merest of whispers. “As I said, there’s someone here. Someone else. Someone bad.”

“Who? How do you know?” This was crazy. “But you just said everyone was ‘out’ and now . . . You’re scaring me.”

“Good.”

“I want Mama.”

“I told you she’s not here!” Marlie’s voice was still a whisper, but there was an edge to it. Like Mama’s when she got mad or frustrated with Kara’s brothers. “Just listen to me, okay? You’re going to stay here for a little while, until it’s safe, and then I’ll come back and—”

“No!” Marlie was going to leave her here, in the middle of the night, all alone?

“Just for a while,” Marlie was saying again, but Kara was violently shaking her head.

“No, no! You can’t. Don’t leave me!” Frantic, Kara clawed wildly at her sister. Why was Marlie doing this? Why? At seven, she didn’t understand why she was being left. Alone. Here in this dark, horrid attic that smelled like mold and was covered in dust and probably home to spiders and rats and wasps and every other gross thing in the world. “I’m not staying up here alone, Mar—”

“Shh. Keep quiet!” Marlie’s hands tightened over Kara’s forearms.

“Please—”

“Listen!” Marlie’s voice was sharp. A whisper like the warning hiss of a snake.

She gave Kara a shake. Her fingers dug through the long sleeves of Kara’s pajamas.

“Ow!”

“Don’t say a word, Kara-Bear. Keep quiet. You hear me? I’m serious.”

“But you can’t leave me here.” Not in this cold, drafty space situated under the eaves of the cabin’s peaked roof. “I’ll freeze!”

“You won’t.”

This wasn’t right. Kara might be almost eight years old, but she knew this was wrong. All wrong. “You’re lying!”

Marlie gripped her forearm so hard Kara dropped the flashlight and it rolled down the steps. Marlie’s fingernails dug through Kara’s pajamas and pinched her flesh. “Damn it,” she swore. “For once, Kara, just do as you’re told.” And then she was gone, nearly tripping over the flashlight as she fled down the stairs.

Kara took off after her but was a step behind and Marlie reached the door first, slid through and shut it.

Click.

Kara grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t move.

Locked? The door is locked? Marlie has locked me in?

Fury and fear burned through her as she heard Marlie’s swift footsteps as she hurried away.

No, no, no! “Marlie!” She rattled the door handle and pounded on the door, then as her rage eased a bit, thought better of it. This was no prank. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Something . . . evil. She swallowed back her fear and brushed aside the angry tears that had formed in her eyes. Her arms ached in the spots where her sister’s fingers had clenched.

She wanted to scream, to yell, to beat her fists against the door so that someone would hear her, so that she could escape this sloped-ceilinged jail and breathe again.

But she didn’t. Marlie’s words, whispered like the sound of death, ran through her head. “It’s complicated . . . and really scary.”

Shivering, she bit her lip and stared at the door, a dark barrier to the rest of the world. She couldn’t just sit here and wait.

What if the whoever it was Marlie thought had come into the house came up the stairs and found her?

What if he hurt Marlie? What if he killed her? Kara’s heart wrenched.

Again she wished for her mother and father. They would know what to do. But they were gone, according to Marlie, and she wouldn’t lie. Not about that.

Or would she?

Teeth chattering, heart knocking erratically, Kara grabbed the flashlight and stared at the door, shivering and trying to hear something, anything over the wild beating of her heart. Her skin crawled.

She sat on the lowest step, clicking the tiny flashlight on, then off, watching its yellowish beam illuminate the back of the door for a second before she was swallowed in darkness again.