The Invited(110)

But her plans slipped away when she walked into the trailer.

Nate was sitting at the kitchen table, looking down at something. At first, she worried it was another warning message: LAST CHANCE.

But this was far worse.

Helen froze in the kitchen, wishing she could turn around and run.

Nate was pale, shaking. He had the ax next to him. And Helen’s notebook—full of all she’d learned; all she’d experienced with Hattie, Jane, and Ann; all the things she had lied to Nate about over and over—was there, open on the table.

Helen stepped back. “Nate?”

She thought of Ann being shot dead by her husband in their living room. What did it take to make a person snap, to pick up a gun (or an ax) and come after the one he loved?

“What did she look like?” he asked. He croaked the words out, like a frog calling from the bottom of the well.

“Who?”

“Hattie. When you saw her in the kitchen. And later, in the house. What did she look like?”

He reached down, rested a hand on the ax handle—the new hickory handle Helen herself had bought for hanging the ax.

“I—” Helen scrambled, unsure what to say. Perhaps deny it all, tell Nate that he was right, that there was no such thing as ghosts, she knew that now. Tell him she must have imagined it.

    But hadn’t she done enough lying?

Nate rose, holding the ax. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot. “What did she fucking look like, Helen?” he shouted.

“Nate,” Helen stammered, taking a stumbling step backward, toward the still-open door, estimating the distance between Nate and herself.

“Did she have black hair?” Nate asked, wrapping his fingers around the ax handle now. “Dark eyes? A little shorter than you are?” He was looking at Helen but also beyond her, like the figure he was describing might be right behind her, watching.

Helen nodded, taking another step back, knowing she must be close to the door. She held one hand in front of her, palm out in an it’s okay, let’s calm down gesture. With her other hand, she reached back, feeling for the doorway.

“I saw her,” Nate said. “Jesus, I must be going crazy, because I swear to you, I actually saw her.”

He collapsed back down in the kitchen chair, let the ax slip from his hand, slumped forward, put his arms up on the table, and buried his face in them.

Helen went to him. She put a hand on his arm. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Tell me what she did to you.

He lifted his head. “I was out in the woods, tracking the deer. I know you think I’m crazy, but she’s real, Helen. But now I think…oh god, I don’t know what I think.”

“So you were in the woods. Is that where you saw Hattie?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I was walking in circles for what felt like hours. She knew I was following her. It’s something she does. A game she plays? Then the circles got wider, and soon, I was following her along the edge of the bog. Only…it was different.”

“Different how?”

“Maybe I somehow stumbled onto another bog? Or another part of the bog. An area we haven’t explored yet.”

Helen nodded but knew there was no other bog. No other part of the bog.

“What did you see there, Nate?”

“There was a house. A little cabin. A ramshackle thing. Crooked, leaning to the left.” He looked at her and she nodded again, encouraging him to continue. “There was a chimney with smoke coming out of it. And the door was open. My doe…I mean, the doe, the white doe I’d been following, she walked right in. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing, but I knew I had her then. She was trapped. I got my camera ready and ran, ran toward the cabin. But when I got there…”

    “What?” Helen asked. “What, Nate? What happened?”

Nate pushed his chair back, stood up, rubbing his face.

“There was no deer inside. But there was a woman just inside the front door. A woman with dark hair and eyes. She was wearing a white dress. And the way she looked at me, Helen…” He paused, his eyes locked on Helen’s. In them, she saw pure terror. His voice shook. “It was like she knew me, Helen. Like she’d been waiting for me.”





CHAPTER 40



Olive





SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

Mama! It was Mama there, dancing in the center of the circle.

But how? Why?

Olive’s mind scrambled for explanations and for an idea of what she was supposed to do next.

If only she had a cell phone, like every other fourteen-year-old kid on the planet, then she could sneak back behind the bar, call or text her dad and Aunt Riley, tell them she’d found her mom, to hurry up and come quick.

But she didn’t have a phone and she was stuck here, in this old bar and lounge at Dicky’s hotel.

Think, she told herself.

Olive thought about tracking a skittish deer when hunting, how you had to keep it in your sights and follow carefully until you had the perfect shot, until just the right moment.

Her one and only shot with Mama was trying to get her alone, to talk to her one-on-one.

“She speaks!” one of the men said, as if reading Olive’s mind.