The Invited(115)

It was hard for Olive to believe that her father was lying—he looked so genuinely confused and hurt. But why would Mama have written those words in her diary?

Her father’s eyes moved from Olive and the gun to the kitchen window. “There’s someone out there,” he said.

“What?” Keeping the gun on him (was it a trick, something he was doing to divert her attention so he could get the gun?), she glanced out the window.

Daddy was right. She saw movement. She thought at first it was Dicky Barnes, that he’d come for her. Dicky and his band of spirit-calling witches were the last thing she needed right now.

But it wasn’t Dicky.

She saw the white dress, the glow of the white deer mask in the cool blue light of the moon.

Daddy stood looking out the window, blinking in disbelief at the deer head with white fur, long snout, glossy black eyes. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

But Olive was already at the kitchen door, throwing it open, watching the figure dart off across the yard toward the tree line.

“Mama?” she cried. The figure stopped, turned back to look at Olive, the white mask seeming to glow. Then she turned away again and ran off into the woods. “Mama! Please! Wait!”





CHAPTER 45



Lori Kissner





JUNE 29, 2014

The others knew. She was sure of it.

She’d gone to the circle tonight, just as she did each week, as she’d been doing for the past six months now, and stepped into the center of the group right on cue, playing Hattie, channeling. She wore the white dress, the black wig, her beaded shoes, and, tonight, as the perfect finishing touch, Hattie’s necklace.

The others believed she had a gift.

She heard Hattie’s voice as no one ever had before.

She heard it and she let it speak through her.

It was like she invited Hattie inside her, let her take over her body and mind, her tongue and mouth, let her say and do what she pleased.

She did have a gift.

And now, now she understood why.

She’d done the research. She’d been to the mill in Lewisburg and learned what had happened to Hattie’s daughter, Jane. And eventually she’d learned that Jane had had two children, Ann and Mark, and that Ann was none other than Lori’s mother, and Mark was Lori’s uncle, the one who had taken them in after the “tragedy.”

Before Ann’s death, she had said little about her own mother to Lori. Of course, Lori understood about keeping the past a secret. She’d kept her own past a secret all her life. When she moved in with Uncle Mark and Aunt Sara, she reinvented herself—started going by Lori and asked to have her last name legally changed to theirs. As if leaving the past, and all the pain that came with it, behind could ever be that easy.

Lori told no one about how she’d watched her father shoot her mother, then himself. She just told people, “My name is Lori Whitcomb. I grew up in Keene. My mom and dad are Sara and Mark Whitcomb.” What happened in Elsbury, when she was little Gloria Gray, was long ago and far away—and she liked it that way. Perhaps she shouldn’t judge her mother for never teaching her children her own mother’s name and the gruesome details of her death.

    And now, years later, Lori told no one of what she’d learned about her true family history. Family tradition, after all. It was a powerful secret she kept, that she was related to Hattie by blood.

At first, Lori had believed that maybe she did have a gift. Maybe she was touched, as Hattie had been. Maybe it ran in the family, passed down to each generation of women.

Then she realized the truth.

Any power she had, any gift of divination or secret knowledge—it all came from Hattie. She knew things because Hattie spoke to her.

And now the words Hattie spoke were words of warning.

Be careful, Hattie whispered to Lori in her dreams. You’re in danger.

And now, now that she’d found the treasure, actually found it with Hattie’s help and blessing, she felt the walls closing in. All their eyes were on her, searching.

“Any updates?” they’d asked. “Any sign of it yet?”

“No,” she lied. “Nothing yet.”

She hadn’t wanted to come to the circle tonight at all. She wanted to stop going to the weekly gatherings altogether. To drop out of the group. To pass on her role as Hattie to someone else. But that would look suspicious. So she played along.



* * *



. . .

Once Lori put the necklace on, started wearing it day and night, hidden under her shirts, the visions and dreams truly started.

She dreamed of Hattie’s house again and again. Of Hattie stacking rocks for the foundation after her family home had been burned down, her mother killed.

Lori took out the necklace, looked down at the design, at the circle, triangle, and square that were the door to the spirit world. The door with the eye inside. A symbol that Hattie had been able to see things in both worlds, had the gift of sight.

Lori started going out at night so she wouldn’t be seen. She told Dustin she was going out to see friends, to see a band, any excuse she could think of. She wanted to surprise him with the truth. To bring that treasure home and say, This is my secret. This is what I’ve been hiding.

    The digging was hard. She’d have to bring a change of clothes with her so she wouldn’t come home soaking wet and filthy. The worst part was trying to put things back in a way that made it look like the area hadn’t been disturbed. The last thing she wanted was a hiker or teenage stoner coming out, seeing the recent excavations, and getting curious. Rumors of Hattie’s buried treasure had gone on for generations—most people didn’t believe it, but still, treasure hunters came poking around from time to time.