The Winter People(84)

Sometimes I walk clear out to Cranberry Meadow and sit atop Martin’s grave. I talk to him for hours, until the rising sun begins to color the sky in the east, telling him all that has happened, all I have become. Mostly, I tell him how very sorry I am.

Sometimes it is my own grave I visit, right beside Martin’s. How odd it is to see my name carved into stone: SARA HARRISON SHEA, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER. Even stranger to know that it is Auntie’s bones buried beneath.

Skinning Auntie’s body was my own clever idea. After Gertie was done with her, I knew we had to do something to hide what had happened—her body ravaged, her skin torn by nails and teeth, both like and unlike an animal attack. I also hoped that when the body was found people would assume it was my own. Auntie and I, though different in age, had the same slight build. Stripped of skin and hair, of all the superficial differences, she and I were in many ways the same.

It was, truly, no more difficult than skinning a large animal, something I am practiced at—something Auntie herself taught me well. It was strange how easy it was, to see a human being as just meat, a job that needed to be done.

The rumor Auntie had heard was true: Gertie has gone on walking since spilling blood. I believe she will go on for all eternity.

The truth of it is, however, that she is but a mere shadow of the little girl she used to be. Sometimes I catch glimpses of my darling child trapped there, beneath the dull eyes of this creature whose body she inhabits.

If I could set her free, I would.

But the best I can do is to keep her safe, and keep the world safe from her. Indeed, from others like her.

As far as I know, she is the only one. But occasionally, someone will climb the hill, someone who has lost a husband or a child, someone who has somehow learned the secrets of sleepers, of the presence of a portal right here in West Hall. It is almost always a woman, although there have been one or two men. Sometimes my very presence is enough to scare her off, to make her change her mind. Sometimes there is nothing I can do or say to dissuade her from entering the cave to try to bring her loved one back. In these instances, I leave it to Gertie to take care of her.

It might seem cruel, to send someone in to her death. But all it takes is one look at the hollow, hungry eyes of the thing that once was my little girl to know there are worse things than death.

Far worse.





Ruthie


Ruthie’s head pounded. Her body felt as if it were made of cold, gray, unyielding marble. She hurried along on heavy legs, following their mother through narrow rocky passageways, navigating twists and turns.

Fawn kept chirping out questions: “What are we running from? Who tied you up? Where are you taking us?”

“Shh, love,” Mom kept saying. “Not now.”

And Katherine had questions, too: “You met my husband, Gary. Why was his camera bag in your house?”

Mom brushed off the questions with a scowl. “Quiet,” she warned, “we all need to be very quiet.”

Ruthie had her own questions burning in her brain: Where the hell was Candace, and what had made her scream?

Something’s coming.

The terrain grew more difficult—tiny passageways, huge boulders to crawl over and around. Fawn had shoved Mimi inside her shirt for safekeeping, and now Fawn had the absurd appearance of a pregnant six-year-old.

Their mother led the way, holding a flashlight in one hand and the gun from her bedroom in the other. But she kept hesitating, taking just a moment too long to study each turn.

Ruthie was beginning to have the sense that her mother was taking them in one gigantic circle.

“Didn’t we already pass through here, Mom?” Ruthie asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Mom said, looking around with the flashlight.

“I thought you knew the way,” Katherine said.

“I’ve only been out this way a couple of times,” she confessed.

“Mom, I—” Ruthie began, about to suggest that they double back, try to find their way back to the first room, go out the way they’d come in.

“Shh! Let me think,” her mother snapped.

Ruthie’s clothes were sweat-soaked, and she was chilled to the bone. Her teeth chattered, her body ached. Her brain felt scrubbed and fuzzy, and there was only one thing she knew for sure: she had to get the hell out of this cave.

“I think I feel a breeze,” Katherine said, suddenly looking to the left and walking a few paces in that direction.

“We’ve already been that way,” Ruthie said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Katherine called back. She was moving more quickly, almost running, jumping over rocks, bumping against the jagged rock walls like a pinball. Soon she turned a corner and was out of sight; Ruthie and Fawn followed, their mother a few steps behind.

“Katherine!” Ruthie called. “Wait!”

“Oh my God!” Katherine screamed from up ahead, voice high-pitched and frightened. “No!”

As they rounded the corner, Ruthie caught a glimpse of what Katherine’s flashlight was illuminating. She stopped running; her body stiffened. She leaned down and scooped up her sister, to hold her tight.

“Close your eyes, Fawn,” Ruthie said, and her little sister pressed her forehead against Ruthie’s shoulder. “Keep them closed until I say to open them, okay?”

“Okay,” Fawn murmured.