The Winter People(88)

“But this time Gertie didn’t want to let me go. She kept me tied up to the chair, wanted me to tell her stories. She’s very … strong. And when she heard all of you enter the cave, she reinforced my bonds, and even gagged me so I couldn’t call out to warn you.” Her mother took a long, slow sip of coffee and looked out the window toward the hill.

“So you do understand, don’t you? We’ve got to work hard, do our best to keep things like what happened with Willa Luce from happening again. What happened to Willa—it was because I failed to do my job. But if I had your help, things could be different.”

Ruthie looked up at her mother, who gave her face a gentle, loving stroke.

“Someone needs to keep the secrets of our hill safe; to keep everyone in town safe. I just want you to think about it, that’s all.”

Fawn stumbled into the kitchen, wearing pink footed pajamas and carrying Mimi.

“Now, who’s ready for cinnamon buns?” Mom asked cheerfully, opening the oven.

After breakfast, the girls sneaked into their mom’s bedroom while she was downstairs doing the dishes.

“Is it true?” Fawn asked once they were alone, crouching over the secret hole in the floor. “That we’re not really even sisters?” She looked down into the hiding place.

Ruthie reached for Fawn, turned her face up so that their eyes were locked. “You are my sister, Fawn. You’ll always be my sister. Nothing can change that.”

Fawn smiled, and Ruthie leaned over and kissed her forehead.

They gathered all of the diary pages, Tom’s and Bridget’s wallets, and the gun. All of it went into Fawn’s backpack, to be carried out to the well.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Fawn asked again. “Mom is going to be really mad when she finds out we took all this.”

Ruthie nodded. “It’ll be okay. It’s what we need to do. Mom wasn’t ever able to get rid of any of this—she felt too guilty or whatever, and I do understand that, but look at all the trouble it caused. As long as these papers are still around, then people will be willing to do crazy things to get them. And as long as the instructions exist, sleepers can still be made.”

Fawn gave Ruthie a puzzled look. “So the monsters are real.”

Ruthie took in a breath. “Yeah,” she said. “But they can’t help what they are. The truth is, I feel bad for Gertie. She didn’t ask for any of this.”

The woods were still as the girls walked up the hill to search for the old well. They made their way through the orchard, past the place where Ruthie had found their father clutching his ax. Up they climbed, the trail growing steeper as they approached the Devil’s Hand. Rocks poked out from under the fresh carpet of snow—some tall and jagged, some as smooth and round as giant eggs. Once they got to the top, they stopped beneath the five giant finger rocks. Ruthie looked for the opening to the cave, but the stone had been pulled back into place and was buried in a fresh drift of snow. There was no birdsong, no sign of life. Only the occasional sound of clumps of snow sliding off branches and hitting the ground.

When they finally discovered the old well, to the north of the Devil’s Hand, they were both out of breath, but pleased to have found it at last.

“This is where Gertie died?” Fawn asked, her breath coming out in cloudy puffs. Mimi the doll was clutched tight in her arms.

Ruthie nodded and looked down into the well—a circle of field-stone surrounding a big dark hole that seemed to go down forever.

She tried to imagine falling down it, looking up at the bright circle of daylight, seeing it get farther and farther away, until it was like some distant moon.

The girls stood, bundled in winter coats, snowshoes strapped to their feet. The sun had just come up over the hill, and they could see its hazy glow through the trees. The forest around them was blanketed in white, absolutely still. Not even the wind stirred. It felt as if the whole world were sleeping and they were the only two awake.

“Then this seems right,” Fawn said. She slipped off the small backpack she’d been carrying, opened it up, pulled out the journal pages, and handed them over. “I think you should be the one to do it,” she said, seeming suddenly like a much older girl, a wise old lady trapped in a child’s body. “You’re related to her.”

Ruthie took the pages in her hands; the ink was faded, the paper stained and wrinkled, splattered with Candace’s blood. There, in slanted cursive, were her distant aunt’s words. The instructions for creating sleepers she’d copied from Auntie’s letter.

She traced the sentences with her finger, thinking that her own birth parents, Tom and Bridget, once held these in their hands, believing they were going to change the world, get rich, make a better life for their daughter.

Then there were the pages Gary found: Auntie’s letter to Sara, the map she had drawn, more notes from Sara.

It was all there—Sara’s story, Auntie’s story. Ruthie’s own story, even.

The story of a little girl named Gertie who died.

Whose mother loved her too much to let her go.

So she brought her back.

Only the world she came back to wasn’t the same.

She wasn’t the same.

Ruthie dropped the papers into the well one at a time, watching them flutter like pale, broken butterflies, like snowflakes, down, down, down, until she couldn’t see them anymore.