The Winter People(36)

No. Gertie was dead. Buried in the ground.

He remembered the way she’d looked when they hauled her body out of the well. Like she was sleeping.

He recalled the feel of her hair in his pocket, coiled softly like a snake.

“Sara?” he called.

He’d been sick with worry over Sara these last days. She had stopped eating, would not leave the bed, would not feed or wash herself. She seemed to get weaker and less responsive with each passing day.

“Honestly, there’s nothing we can do but wait,” Lucius told him. They had been standing in the kitchen, speaking in hushed voices. “Keep trying to get food and water into her, give her the tonic, offer whatever comfort you can.”

“I keep thinking about when we lost Charles,” Martin said. “How sick with grief she was.” He didn’t want to say what he was thinking, not even to his own brother: This time it was worse. This time, he feared, she might not come back to him.

It was one thing to lose poor Gertie, but if he lost Sara, too, his life would be over.

“I don’t want to frighten you, Martin,” Lucius said. “But if she doesn’t come around soon, I think it might be best if we sent her to the state hospital for the insane over in Waterbury.”

Martin’s whole body went rigid.

“It’s not a terrible place,” Lucius said. “They have a farm. The patients get outside every day. They would keep her safe.”

Martin shook his head. “She’ll get better,” he vowed. “I’ll help her to get better. I’m her husband. I can keep my own wife safe.”

But as far as he could tell, Sara was growing worse with each passing hour. And now here it was the middle of the night and she was missing.

“Sara?” he called once more, listening.

And there it was again—the scratching, tapping, fluttering—louder this time, more frantic.

He sat up, scanning the room in the darkness. He could make out the edge of the bed, the dresser to his left, and there, in the right corner, a form hunched, moving slightly, pulsating.

No.

Breathing. It was breathing.

The scream stuck in his throat, coming out as only a hiss.

He looked around frantically for a weapon, something heavy, but then the thing moved, raised its head, and he saw his wife’s long auburn hair shine in the dim moonlight.

“Sara?” he gasped. “What are you doing?”

She was sitting on the floor in front of the closet, wearing her thin nightgown, her bare feet as pale as marble against the dark floor. She was shivering.

She did not move, did not seem even to hear him. Worry gnawed at his insides like an ugly rat.

“Come back to bed, darling. Aren’t you cold?”

Then he heard it again. The scratching. Claws against wood.

It was coming from inside the closet.

“Sara,” he said, standing on shaking legs, blood pounding through his head, making a roaring sound in his ears. The room seemed to shift around him, growing longer. The distance between himself and Sara felt impossibly far. The moonlight hit the closet door. He could see it move slightly, the knob slowly turning.

“Move away from there!” he cried.

But his wife sat still, eyes fixed on the door.

“It’s our Gertie,” she said calmly. “She’s come back to us.”





Ruthie


The heater in Buzz’s truck was set to full blast, but they still shivered as they navigated the Connecticut suburbs. The floor of the truck was littered with McDonald’s bags, coffee cups, and empty bottles of Mountain Dew, Buzz’s drink of choice when beer wasn’t an option. Fawn sat between them; though her fever was broken, she was still weak and pale. They’d stuffed her into her down parka, then wrapped her up in a wool blanket before leaving home four hours ago.

“Are you sure you’re up for a road trip, Little Deer?” Ruthie had asked.

Fawn had nodded eagerly, and so Ruthie said okay, even though she was pretty sure that taking Fawn out in the bitter cold when she was sick was not something Mom would approve of.

It was only day two without Mom, but already Ruthie was starting to realize the million and one things her mother did each day to keep the household running smoothly—cooking, cleaning, laundry, feeding the cat, plowing and shoveling the driveway, bringing in firewood and splitting kindling, taking care of the chickens, giving Fawn medicine and juice. Ruthie didn’t get how her mother managed it all and made it seem so effortless. Maybe her mom wasn’t as much of a disorganized flake as Ruthie had always thought.

Buzz had borrowed his dad’s GPS, and they were using it to find their way to 231 Kendall Lane, Woodhaven, Connecticut, the address on Thomas O’Rourke’s driver’s license.

Buzz had tried to talk her out of driving down to Connecticut, said they should at least do a little research first.

“It’s been a million years, Ruthie,” he said. “What are the chances they’re even at the same address? I’ve got my laptop—give me five minutes somewhere with Wi-Fi and I can check it out before we go all the way down there for nothing.”

Ruthie was adamant. She insisted they just get in the truck and go.

“It’s been fifteen years. Maybe they’ve moved, maybe they haven’t. There might be neighbors or relatives who can tell us something.”