The Invited(93)

One note said: “It’s a game we play. Like a child’s game of tag.”

Helen continued to turn the pages with trembling fingers.

His book was nearly full and over 90 percent of it was sketches of and notes about the deer. Close-ups of her face and eyes. Notes on her approximate height and weight.

“My god,” Helen muttered, sure she was looking at the diary of a man unwound, a man completely obsessed. She felt sick to her stomach.

Then she got to the last page with today’s date at the top: “She was waiting for me today at our usual place. She was clearly annoyed that I was late. She looked at me as if to say, Please don’t keep me waiting again. Then she took off, running so fast that I could not possibly follow.”





CHAPTER 30



Olive





SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Olive had been dreaming about Hattie for the past few weeks. Since she’d put Mama’s necklace on. Dreaming not just about Hattie but that she was Hattie. She was standing in front of her house by the bog. Then she heard men and dogs coming for her.

The dreams ended the same: with a noose around her neck and her hanging from the big white pine.

She woke up at midnight on the living room couch and was totally disoriented: she thought she was still Hattie, waking up in the little crooked cabin.

“You okay?” her dad said, standing over her. He was in boxers and a T-shirt. His hair was ruffled and his eyes were puffy.

“Yeah, bad dream,” she said.

“You screamed in your sleep,” he said. “Scared the hell out of me. Woke me up out of a sound sleep. I came tearing out here thinking something…I don’t know what.”

“Sorry.” She rubbed her face and shook her head, trying to rid herself of the dream.

“Then when I got out here, you were talking in your sleep.”

“Yeah? What’d I say?”

“?‘I’ll always be here,’?” he said. “That’s what you said.”

Olive got chills.

“You sure you’re feeling okay, Ollie?” Daddy said. He put a hand on her forehead, like she might have a fever. “You don’t look right.”

“I’m fine, Dad,” she said. But she was anything but fine.

“If you’re sick tomorrow, I can call Riley, see if she can come hang out with you.”

“No, Dad, I’m fine, really.”

“Things going okay at school?”

“They’re fine,” she said.

    The truth was, even though she was only a few days in, the year was off to a better start. She hadn’t cut so much as a single class. She showed up prepared, did all of her homework.

“Okay, let’s both go back to sleep,” Daddy said. “Don’t go having any more bad dreams.”

“No more bad dreams,” she said. And she meant it. Because no way was she falling back to sleep.

She waited until it was quiet upstairs, then she went into the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight, shoved it into her backpack. She snuck out the back door, crossed the yard, and walked through the woods to the bog, following the path that started at the edge of her yard by the hollow tree. She stopped there, checked the hollow, foolishly hoping that there might be a message inside. Only pine needles and a wood louse.

The night was cool and moonlit. There was a dampness to the air that clung to her.

She got to the bog and found it covered with a fine mist. She thought she saw a figure on the other side, over by where Hattie’s house once stood. She shone her light across the water, then made her way along the edge toward the stone foundation, but there was nothing. No one.

Still, she felt she wasn’t alone.

She took her necklace off, watched it swing in the moonlight.

She hadn’t attempted to communicate with Hattie like this since that first time. It had freaked her out too much. Made her feel half crazy. And, if she had to admit it, she was a little afraid of whatever answers Hattie might give her.

“Are you here, Hattie?” Olive asked, holding the thin leather cord that the silver I see all pendant dangled from.

It began to swing in a slow and steady clockwise direction.

“Am I going crazy?” she asked.

The pendulum held still.

“What am I even doing out here?” she said, more to herself than to Hattie. She was about to put the necklace back on, to give up trying to communicate with Hattie, when the silver circle at the end of the string swung forward, back and forth.

“What does that mean?” she asked. The pendulum just kept swinging out in a forward motion. Weird. She took a step forward.

Yes, the pendulum said, moving clockwise again. Then it went back to moving straight back and forth, only off to a slight left angle. Taking a chance, she took another step in the direction the pendulum was pulling her.

    “You want me to follow you?”

Yes.

Olive started to walk, straight at first. Then the necklace swung to the left, and Olive started walking to the left. She was heading out toward the middle of the bog. She’d explored the bog enough to know where the deep places were, but still, it was dark and she felt a little nervous about stepping into a spring.

Then, all at once, the necklace stopped, holding perfectly still.