The Writing Retreat(61)



“Where were you?” Keira asked.

“She said she had something to show me in the basement.” My stomach tightened. Their suspicious gazes made me feel anxious—guilty, even—like I’d done something wrong. Even though I knew, logically, that I hadn’t.

“What did she show you?” Taylor asked.

“Nothing.” I shrugged. “At least, I didn’t see anything. I just heard her moving boxes around, near the wall to the left.”

“You heard? Where were you?” Keira asked.

How could—or should—I explain the hallucination?

“I went in the other direction, to the other side of the basement.” I cleared my throat. “I thought someone was calling to me.”

“Someone was calling you?” Taylor asked. “Who?”

“No. I—I think I was just hallucinating.”

“When did you go back upstairs?” Keira asked. It was like she and Taylor were suddenly detectives, studying my every twitch and blink.

“I…” I faltered. If I admitted I couldn’t remember, what good would that do? It wasn’t like I’d pushed Poppy outside. I knew I wouldn’t do something like that, even while tripping. But would the others believe me? Would Wren?

“I fell asleep for a while on a couch,” I said. “Then I woke up and went to my room.”

“And was the door open?” Keira leaned forward. “You would’ve felt the cold, right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it was open.”

“When are the police coming?” Wren asked suddenly, her voice flat.

“They’ll be here as soon as they can,” Taylor said soothingly. “The roads are closed, so they’re sending people on snowmobiles.”

“They’d better come soon,” Keira muttered.

The late-afternoon light was already shifting, turning orange as the sun sunk in the sky.



* * *



The minutes and then hours ticked by. Chitra brought out cold cuts and snacks around three, but no one ate. Yana and Roza went to radio the police again and came back with identical scowls.

“They’re not going to make it tonight.” Roza gripped the back of a chair.

“What?” Keira cried.

“They had to rescue a family whose generator stopped. They have a baby.” Roza’s knuckles were white. “They said they’d come tomorrow morning.”

“Baby trumps dead girl,” Taylor said.

Wren stared at her in horror. Keira dropped her head into her arms with a moan.

Panic rose, breaking through the icy numbness. I jumped up and realized everyone was staring at me.

“I need to go take a bath.” I held up a shaking hand as if for proof.

“I’ll come up with you.” Keira got to her feet. We left silently, walking side by side.

“Should we be doing something?” I burst out as we climbed the stairs. “I feel like we should be doing something. If she’s out there—”

“Alex…” Keira pressed her warm hand to my shoulder. I looked over to find tear tracks shining on her cheeks. “If she’s out there, she’s long gone.”

In my room, I climbed onto my bed, curled up into a fetal ball, and cried.



* * *



Eventually I got up and ran a hot bath. I lay comatose as rivulets of sweat ran down my face. I felt both exhausted and wide-awake. But it still hadn’t fully sunk in. Just hours earlier a very alive Poppy had been pulling me along, determined to show me something. What had she said?

She’s not who she claims to be.

Who on earth had she been talking about? Roza? Wren? Some figment of her imagination?

The questions felt solid, an iron bar I could cling to, to avoid dropping into a bottomless cavern of horror.

Maybe I could dig out a clue, something that would help.

So: Poppy had been tripping. People said outlandish things when they tripped. And, really, the only reason her words struck a sinister chord now was because she’d disappeared. Still, it was strange that she’d felt drawn to the basement, first sleepwalking, then on LSD.

Maybe it could’ve been any basement. Basements were symbolic. They held all the junk we didn’t want to look at.

And it hadn’t only been Poppy acting unusual. I’d not only imagined hearing Horace throwing a raucous party and Daphne fervently whispering in the basement—those hallucinations had been subtle enough. I’d also had what felt like very vivid sex with a demon.

Maybe it was this house. Maybe there was something here, some remnant from Daphne’s time.

Maybe, by writing about it, I was opening up a channel to it. Some dark energy that still vibrated in the walls.

After my bath, I sat at my desk, wrapped in a robe and staring into space. Supernatural forces. Was that really where my mind was going?

But why not? As I’d told Taylor, I’d experienced the supernatural firsthand. Maybe it was up to me to ask the question.

“Hey.” Taylor poked her head in my open door. “You’d better come here.”

I followed her to Wren and Poppy’s room, doom hovering in my chest. Wren and Keira were sitting on Poppy’s bed, bent over her splayed-open suitcase. It felt gross and wrong, like an invasion.

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