The Invited(118)

The trees thinned, were replaced by cedar and larch, and the air changed as she got closer to the bog. The rich green bog smell filled Olive’s nose; she could practically taste it on the back of her throat. At last, she broke through the trees, her feet hitting the quaking, quivering surface of the peat, sneakers soaking wet. The bog was layered with a thick blanket of mist that seemed to glow green, to move and reshape itself. Olive came to a fast stop, not far from the ruined stone foundation that was once Hattie’s house.

But where was Hattie?

Not Hattie, she reminded herself. Mama. It was Mama she was chasing.

But where was she?

Olive held still, clutching the gun as she gasped to catch her breath and scanned the bog, eyes searching for movement in the mist. She saw no movement. And now, strangely, the air had gone quiet. Too quiet. The whole bog was holding its breath, waiting to see what might happen next.

Where did she go?

It was as if the figure had disappeared into thin air.

Now you see her, now you don’t.

    Poof.

True magic.

Maybe she’d been chasing a ghost after all.

“Mama?” Olive called. Then, drawing up the courage, she called out hesitantly, “Hattie?”

Her father came bursting through the trees behind her, his breathing as loud as a freight train, his hair going in crazy directions, his shirt untucked, his tan work boots sinking in the ground. He staggered like a drunk man, a man unsure of the ground underneath him. But he came toward Olive at a steady clip. “There you are!” he said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

She raised the gun in his direction.

“Stay back,” she warned.

But it turned out she didn’t need to warn him.

Because the deer-headed woman appeared behind him, slipping out of the trees, something in her hands—a large rock—that she raised up just behind Daddy.

And Olive thought, for one brief second, that she should cry out, should warn him, but he was the enemy here. So she just watched as the woman (Mama! she was being saved by Mama!) brought the rock down against the back of his skull.

He fell to his knees, then forward, facedown, motionless. Limp as an old rag doll.





CHAPTER 48



Helen





SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

“Helen!” Nate called behind her. “Wait! Where are you going?”

“After them,” she said. She continued on the path she’d found in the woods, working her way along as quickly as she could, navigating by the light cast by the nearly full moon in the sky above.

“But it’s dark and we don’t know these woods,” he said. “You’ve gotta trust me, Helen. I’ve been lost in them myself. It’s easy to get turned around, even in daylight.”

She thought of the story of Frank Barns, who’d chased the white doe into the woods and was never seen again. Of George Decrow pulling his wife, Edie, out of the bog.

“But Olive’s out here. And that man yelling—someone’s after her, maybe her father. We’ve gotta help her.”

She’d never been so sure of anything before.

There was only one thought flooding her mind: Olive. You’ve got to save Olive.

She scrambled over fallen trees, around rocks. The trees were thick here, shading out the light of the moon, making it harder to see. She caught her toe under a thick root and went tumbling, her fall broken by the thick leaf litter. Her mind raced. Panic built, pulsating, making her heart race faster.

No. She was not going to let this happen, to let herself be paralyzed by her own emotions.

“Helen, slow down,” Nate said. “You don’t want to break an ankle out here.”

She pushed up on her knees, took Nate’s hand when he reached for her.

“Do you see anything?” she asked, voice low, taking a deep breath, trying to center herself. “Or hear anything?”

    He shook his head. They stood in the dark, holding hands, keeping very still, listening.

She thought she heard something way off to the left. Sticks snapping, a low grunt. “Is that them?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, practically whispering. “It could have just been an animal.”

She broke away from Nate and pushed off in the direction of the sound she’d heard.

She walked blindly now, hands in front of her, no longer on any clear path, the trees and shrubs thickening around them. Branches reached out to claw at her face; her legs got tangled, feet caught up on roots and rocks.

“Helen,” Nate said. “I think we should turn around. Try to find our way back. We’re not any good to Olive lost in the woods.”

But which way was back? She could no longer see the lights from the house.

And Olive was out there somewhere.

“Let’s go back,” Nate said. “Call the police. Report the empty house with doors open, the yelling in the woods.”

Helen began patting her pockets for her phone but knew it was no good. It was still in her purse in the cab of the truck.

“Do you have your phone?” she asked.

“Dammit. No. We flew out of there in such a hurry that I left it on the kitchen table.”

If they wanted help—professionals with flashlights and dogs and guns—to find Olive, they had to go back.