The Invited(40)

“What if I work it off?” Olive suggested.

“What?” Nate scowled at her.

“I’m a really hard worker, honest! And I know a lot about building stuff. My dad and I, we’ve been renovating our house for a long time. I’m really good with tools and I’m a lot stronger than I look. I can frame walls and hang Sheetrock. I can even do some electrical and plumbing.”

    “I don’t know,” Nate said. “I don’t think—”

“We could definitely use some help,” Helen said, turning to him. “We’re behind schedule, right? And if Olive’s got building experience, the work will go faster if there are three of us.”

Olive nodded, looked hopefully at Helen. “I can come after school tomorrow. A trial. To prove that I’m not messing with you—I’m actually really good at building. And if it works out, if you want me to keep helping you, school’s out for the summer next Wednesday, then I can come all day. Until you feel like I’ve done enough to pay you back. I’ll work all summer if I have to, just to make it up to you. And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll sell my metal detector and get you the cash.”

“What do you say, Nate?” Helen asked.

“I don’t know,” Nate said. “The kid just tried to burn our house down.”

“Let’s not exaggerate,” Helen said. “She wasn’t trying to burn the house down.”

“Look,” Olive said, looking right at Nate, “I know what I did, it was really wrong and downright shi—I mean downright crappy. I thought…well, who cares what I thought? I’m so, so sorry. Please, let me make it up to you.”

Helen looked at Nate. “What do you think?”

“We don’t know anything about her,” Nate said.

“She’s our neighbor,” Helen said. “She’s a kid, she made some bad choices, but she’s trying to do the right thing. Right, Olive?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

Nate sighed. “No more stealing?” he asked. “No more tricks, no more sneaking around?”

“I promise! Everything aboveboard from now on,” Olive said. “And hey, I saw all your field guides inside. I know everything about the animals in these woods. I can show you a bear’s den, a beaver dam, and where the bald eagles nest. I even know where a bobcat’s been hanging out lately.”

Nate couldn’t quite hide his interest. “A bobcat? Really?”

“Totally. I can tell you all about the land. I’ve been hunting around here since I was a little kid.”

“And about Hattie?” Helen asked.

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” the girl promised. “And if you want, I can take you to meet my aunt Riley. She knows a lot more. She’s kind of an expert on local history. And she loves all that ghost and ghost story stuff, too.”

    “What do you think, Nate?” Helen asked again.

He was quiet, still shining the light on Olive’s face, trying to make up his mind.

“Nate?” Helen said in way that she hoped he’d hear as You’d better go along with this.

“Sure,” he said, still looking skeptical. “You come back tomorrow after school and we’ll see what kind of a worker you are. But if you don’t keep up your end of the bargain, or if you pull any more tricks, I go right to your father and the police.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Olive said. “I promise.”

“But right now, you should get back home before your father finds out you’re gone,” Helen said. “I can’t imagine how worried he’d be.”

“Right,” Olive said, happy to be dismissed. “See you tomorrow then.”

“Olive,” Nate said, “one more thing.”

Great, Helen thought. Is he going to make her sign a waiver or something?

“It was a deer tooth, wasn’t it?”

“Huh?” she said.

“The little bundle with the old nail and tooth you left on our steps? I’m just wondering what kind of tooth it was and where you got it. It looks old and I can’t figure out what animal it might have come from.”

The girl shook her head, looked confused. “Whatever it was, it didn’t come from me. I took plenty of stuff, but I never left anything.”

“You’re sure?” Nate asked.

She nodded. “Positive. Cross my heart.”

Helen opened her mouth to say something more, but no words came.

“Okay if I head back now?” Olive asked.

“Sure,” they both said in unison, Helen’s answer gentle, Nate’s more of a harsh dismissal.

They watched as she ran off into the woods, moving quickly and surely through the trees, the white of her old nightgown glowing like the ghost she’d tried to be.





CLOSING IN





CHAPTER 12



Olive





JULY 8, 2015

Olive knew Nate didn’t really like her. He didn’t trust her, that was for sure. As helpful as she’d been over these last three weeks, as much work as she’d helped them accomplish (they’d finished framing the walls and roof and had moved on to putting plywood sheathing up), he kept looking at her like he was just waiting for her to screw up, to try to slip something in her backpack when they weren’t looking. He even went through a show of making her open up her backpack each day before she went home. Once a thief, always a thief.