The Invited(56)

“Oh my god, not at all,” Riley said, reaching over, giving Helen’s arm a squeeze. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big believer in this kind of stuff! Please tell me.”

“Well, ever since we got here, I’ve had this feeling, this sense.” She stopped.

Riley watched her. Not like she was crazy, but openly. She was genuinely curious.

“This feeling,” Helen continued, “that someone was watching me. I’ve almost caught sight of her a few times, just a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye, you know?”

Riley nodded excitedly.

“And I think…I think maybe she left something for me. A sort of gift.”

“What kind of gift?”

    “A cloth bundle with an old rusty nail and an animal tooth sitting in a little nest of straw. Nate thinks the tooth came from a deer or a sheep maybe.”

Riley frowned. “Do you have it still?”

“Yeah, it’s in the trailer.”

“So when you say you saw her, it was just a shadow, a little hint of movement?”

“No. I mean, at first, yes. But then last night—I actually saw her. She looked like a real person. As solid as you look now sitting here beside me.”

“Did you see her out in the bog?”

“No.” Helen shook her head. “Here in the house.”

“No way! Here?” Riley turned and looked back at the house right behind them. “Wait, is this what Nate was talking about before? About the haunted beam?”

Helen nodded. “We installed that beam yesterday and spent the night in the new house last night. I talked Nate into it. I thought it would be fun—like camping out. I got up in the middle of the night and walked into the kitchen and she was there, standing in the corner. A dark-haired woman with dark eyes, a rope around her neck.”

“Shii-it!” Riley said, drawing the word out slowly. “What’d she do?”

“She…spoke to me.”

“No.”

“Yes!” Helen said. She looked around to make sure that Nate was still out of earshot.

“No way!” Riley looked both shocked and excited. “She actually spoke? And you heard her?”

“It was kind of a horrible sound. It made me feel cold all over.”

“What’d she say?”

“She said one word: Jane.”

“Jane?” Riley was leaning close now, her face flushed. “That’s her daughter.”

“Her daughter.” Helen repeated.

If Hattie’s daughter’s name was Jane, this was proof that Helen hadn’t imagined the whole thing. It wasn’t any wine or nightmare that had given Helen that piece of information. She had seen Hattie’s ghost, and the ghost had really spoken to her, told her something she had no way of knowing.

    Jane.

“Jane was about twelve years old when Hattie was killed,” Riley said. “She disappeared right after.”

“Oh my god. What happened to her?”

“No one knows.” Riley shrugged dramatically. “She was never heard from again. There were rumors—she changed her name and moved south, or went up to Canada. Some say she never left, that she drowned herself in the bog so she could be with her mother.”

“There has got to be a way to find out what happened to her,” Helen said. “What’s the latest on when the historical society might open again? I’d love to get in there and see if we can find any leads. Anything about Jane, about Hattie. I feel like there are so many unanswered questions.”

“I talked to Mary Ann last night. Sounds like the damage was a little worse than she thought. It’s going to take a couple more weeks to get it cleaned up and renovated.”

“Oh no!”

“I guess the old wood floor under the carpet is ruined, and when they started ripping it out, they discovered some structural rot underneath. Mary Ann says we can’t go back in until we get the all clear—insurance regulations. Fucking sucks.”

“Okay, that’s okay. I’ll keep doing what I can online in the meantime.” Helen was nodding, rocking slightly to and fro like she couldn’t contain the energy buzzing through her mind and body. What if Jane had moved away, had kids of her own? What if there were living relatives, direct descendants of Hattie, who might hold important pieces of family history?

“Wow,” Riley said. “I still can’t get my head around this. You actually saw her! What else did she say?”

“Nothing. I called Nate over, wanted him to come see, but she disappeared.”

“She didn’t want him to see her,” Riley said. “Not like that anyway—she appeared to him as the white deer. I can’t believe she came to both of you guys. This feels huge. Most people, they just get a glimpse of her out in the bog. I’ve never heard of anyone saying she spoke to them.”

“Do you think it was the beam?” Helen asked. “I mean, do you think it’s possible that installing it, if it really was a piece of wood from the hanging tree, that maybe it helped her come back somehow?”

    Riley thought a minute, then said, “I’ve heard that sometimes objects act as conduits, you know? Like if you hold your grandmother’s wedding ring, you might call her back enough to be able to smell her perfume.”