The Invited(121)

“Hattie! It’s all about Hattie. She comes to you people and you don’t even want her to! You don’t even try. And why you, Helen? You’re not even related. You’re nothing. No one. Just a former history teacher who happened to put up a haunted beam. A beam I gave you. She would never have come to you if it wasn’t for me!”

Riley stepped back, positioning herself to kick Helen again, but stood frozen, a strange statue in a white dress, eyes focused out on something in the middle of the bog.

The white doe. The animal stood, seeming to hover over the surface of the bog, her white fur as pale and glimmering as the stars above, her eyes an iridescent silver.

The doe was moving toward them, slowly at first, then full-on charging right at Riley, head down.

“Hattie?” Riley said, putting her hands up in front of her, in what Helen thought at first was a stop now protective gesture, but she was wrong—Riley was opening her arms to the deer, calling her closer, waiting to embrace her.

Olive struck Riley on the back of the head with the butt of a shotgun. Riley sank to her knees beside Helen on the boggy ground, dazed but conscious. Olive quickly turned the gun around, training it on her aunt.

“Hattie?” Riley said plaintively.

But the deer was gone.





CHAPTER 51



Lori





JUNE 29, 2014

Dustin stood over her, swaying like a snake.

“Get out before I do something we’d both really regret,” he spat.

Lori scrambled to her feet, left, got in her car, and drove aimlessly for an hour or more. She was moving on autopilot, numb and frightened. Not sure what to do or where to go.

She circled back through town, saw the lights at Rosy’s still on, and looked through the window to see Sylvia cleaning up. She knocked on the window, and Sylvia let her in, gave her a full glass of whiskey.

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Lori asked.

Sylvia kept pouring whiskey and Lori kept drinking, saying too much to her old friend.

She spent the night with Sylvia and made a plan. She got up at dawn, head pounding and stomach heaving from all the whiskey she’d had. She snuck out of Sylvia’s and drove home.

She wrote Dustin a note and stuck it under the windshield wiper of his truck:

    D—

I love you with all of my heart. I would never be unfaithful. Soon, you’ll understand everything. I have a surprise. Something that’s going to change everything. Meet me in the bog at midnight, by the foundation of Hattie’s house. I’ll show you what I’ve been up to every night.

All my love,

Lori



She went to the mall, walking around like a zombie, then wandered into the movie theater, where she paid ten bucks for a matinee she barely paid attention to and a box of popcorn that tasted greasy and stale. After the movie, she drove to a truck stop out on the highway—a place she and Dustin used to come when they first moved back here. Exhausted, she pulled in between two semis and slept in her car awhile, then woke up and had a big steak and eggs meal.





JUNE 30, 2014

Just after midnight, she was in the bog, waiting. She’d left her car in the driveway of the Decrows’ old place, right next to their abandoned trailer.

She paced around the edge of the bog, waiting.

A figure appeared at the other end, tromping through the bush, shining a flashlight here and there.

“Dustin!” she called. “Over here!”

But it wasn’t Dustin.

It was Riley.

Had Dustin sent her instead?

“What are you doing here?” Lori asked.

“Dustin doesn’t want to talk to you,” Riley said.

“Didn’t he get my note?” Lori asked.

“My poor little brother. He’s a mess, you know. He called me this morning, sobbing, drunk, asked me to come over. When I got there, I saw the note under his wiper. I thought it was best not to upset him any more by showing it to him.”

“Riley, why would you—”

“He says you’ve been cheating on him for a long time. Everyone knows it. You know how it is in this town—how easily rumors spread. I tell a few people I’ve seen you go home with a stranger at the bar, that Dustin told me you’re cheating—and suddenly the whole town knows.”

“But…that’s bullshit,” Lori said softly. She shifted her weight, the peaty ground beneath her feet far from solid. Perfect, really, when nothing else felt solid anymore, either. “Why would you tell people that?” Her voice was high, tears pricking her eyes.

“Perfect Lori’s not so perfect, is she? Isn’t it time everyone saw it?”

“I never…I never claimed to be perfect.”

“Maybe not. But Dustin always saw you that way.”

    Riley reached into her shirt, pulled out a gun. Not just any gun. It was Dicky’s six-shooter.

“I borrowed this,” Riley said with a grim smile. “Tell me, Lori, what’s the big surprise? What were you going to show Dustin?”

“Nothing,” Lori said, taking a step back. “I just wanted to see him, to tell him we could work things out.”

Riley laughed. “You can’t bullshit me. How dare you even try? After everything I did for you. Bringing you to Dicky’s? Helping you develop your gift, your connection to Hattie?”