The Invited(112)

“I think that’s part of it. I think the objects help them to come, but I think they come for other reasons.”

    “What reasons?”

“I think they want to be together again. And…and I think they want something from me. From us, Nate. From our house.”

“Our house?” He gave her a helpless, perplexed look.

She nodded, paused. “I think they want these objects in our house so that it can be a gathering place, a safe space for them all to come back to. Somewhere between our world and theirs. An in-between place.”

“In-between place?” he echoed in the dull monotone of someone in shock, someone who was dealing with more than he could handle. But she had to go on, to tell him the rest.

“But there’s more than that. I think they want us to help them.”

“Help them how?” Nate asked.

“There’s someone they want me to find. A living descendant of Hattie’s.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure, but whoever it is, I think she’s in danger.”

He stared at her, not knowing how to respond, doing his best to process what she was saying, to take it all in.

Helen reached out, put her hand on his arm. “We’ve got to help her, Nate. That’s what Hattie wants. What all this has been for.”





CHAPTER 42



Olive





SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

She ran home, cutting through the woods and people’s backyards, staying off the streets because she didn’t want to risk being seen if Dicky and his friends had gotten in their cars to look for her. The moon was nearly full and she had good light to navigate by. Once she was back in her yard, she went straight into the workshop—an old, leaning eight-by-ten wooden shed that stood on the other side of the driveway from the house. Heart thumping, skin prickling with cold sweat, she grabbed the old twelve-gauge Winchester her daddy used for duck hunting. All of their other guns were locked up in the gun safe in the dining room. But Daddy had been cleaning the twelve-gauge, so it was in the shop, on the workbench.

She didn’t know if Dicky and his gang of wackos would come after her, but she wanted to be ready if they did.

She felt around on the workbench until she found the flashlight her dad kept out there and flicked it on. The batteries were low and the light it cast was dim.

She found her father’s waxed-canvas duck hunting bag and opened it up, grabbing a box of ammo.

Then she started to search the shed for this diary she’d heard them talk about tonight. Hattie’s diary, maybe?

She checked the shelves, the toolboxes, the old apple crates full of junk. No diary. She found old batteries, taps and buckets for sugaring, spools of wire, boxes of nails, old tire rims, but nothing resembling a diary. She spotted the giant pink tackle box her mother had used for her brief foray into beading. A few years back, Mama had decided it would be fun to make beaded jewelry and sell it at craft fairs and the farmers’ market. She spent a small fortune on supplies, then made only a few of pieces of jewelry (which she kept herself or gave to Riley—she didn’t sell any) before losing interest. Mama was fickle like that. Things held her interest only so long, then she was chasing after something new.

    Olive reached up and lifted the tackle box down from the shelf, set it on the worktable, and opened it up. The top drawers were full of tiny compartments of beads all sorted by color and size. There were spools of nylon cord for stringing the beads and clasps, closures, and hooks. At the bottom of the main compartment were her tools: a small hammer, tweezers, pliers of all sorts. And underneath these, a leather-bound book.

Olive pulled it out and flipped through it, recognizing her mother’s tiny, sloped letters, her careful penmanship.

It was her mother’s diary! Not Hattie’s, but Mama’s.

Olive had had no idea that Mama had kept a diary. The first entry was dated January 1, 2013.

Olive flipped through the pages. There was something so wonderful and comforting about seeing her mother’s writing, touching the pages her mother had touched, reading her thoughts.

Many of the early entries were boring everyday stuff: hours she’d worked at the market, how annoyed she was with her boss, a funny story a customer told her.

Then things took a turn for the interesting. She was writing about Hattie, about the treasure. Mama was clearly searching for it.

About a month before she disappeared Mama wrote:

    I feel Hattie leading me to it, bringing me closer all the time.



In another entry, she wrote:

    If I can find the necklace, I’ll find the treasure. The necklace is the key.



On June 12 of last year, she wrote:

    I hate lying to Ollie about all this, but I’m doing what has to be done. It’s the only way to keep her safe. I see that now. I’ve seen how desperate the others are, the lengths they’ll go to to find the treasure. “There is no treasure,” I tell my girl. “There never was. It’s just a silly story people tell.” I wonder if she believes me. My Ollie Girl, she’s my bright shining star, and something tells me she sees right through my lies.



On June 14, she wrote:

    I’ve got it! I’ve got the necklace. It took a huge chunk of my savings, but money is no object now. If this works the way I believe it will, we’ll soon be rich beyond our wildest dreams!