The Spite House(57)

CHAPTER 27



Dess



The first thing she noticed when she woke was Miss Happy, lying alone on Stacy’s side of the bed. She sat up, looked around the large room for Stacy. Her blood was rushing, heart thudding like she was pushing through the last 400 meters. Was her worst fear coming true? Stacy gone, vanishing as inexplicably as she returned? Dess shook her head. After how far they’d come and all they’d given up. All she needed to do was keep her sister safe, and now she didn’t know where she was.

The door opened slowly and Lafonda came in with light but urgent steps. “Hey. Get dressed and get those running shoes on. I’ve set you up to meet with someone about—”

“Where’s my sister?” Dess said, almost like she thought Lafonda might be holding her hostage.

“She’s downstairs. I made her some pancakes. She’s fine. She is now, anyway, but last night something happened. She was sleepwalking or something and got out to one of the ponds out back.”

“She what?” Dess said.

Lafonda said, “Hey, voice down. We can’t wake Eunice up.”

“Why?” Dess said, nonetheless following Lafonda’s instruction to lower her voice. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Your sister got up last night and went outside.”

“Is she okay? Where is—”

“She’s fine now. She went to one of the ponds but we got to her before anything happened. Well, Eunice got there before me, but she froze up for a second. I don’t know if she was second-guessing how to help, or just didn’t want to, or—”

“Why wouldn’t she want to?”

“Because she believes in ghosts that want to kill her, Odessa. I think she might have been scared. Or I could be wrong, but just the fact that I’m thinking it makes me question if you’re as safe here as you should be. On top of that, your sister went out because she said she heard voices telling her to do it. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I also don’t think she just made all that up. Anyway, Eunice had her stay with me instead of bringing her back to your room because she said she didn’t want to wake you up, and that didn’t sit right with me either. Something’s up and I don’t like it. I know your family’s not exactly in a position where I can just call child services or something, but I can’t just do nothing.”

Dess said nothing to refute this, and Lafonda nodded at her silence. “Right. So I’ve had me a busy morning trying to come up with an idea. Eunice took something to help her sleep, so she’ll probably be out a little later than usual, but not too much, if I know her. So we don’t have a whole lot of time to make this happen.”

“Okay, make what happen, though?” Dess said. “You want me to meet somebody?”

“Would you please just let me tell you?” Lafonda said. “Look, something happened with the people who were in that other house before y’all, and I don’t think Eunice told your father about it. I don’t know what all there is to it, that was before I came on board, but it’s come up recently and I think you ought to know about it. All I can tell you is what Dana told me today, that there was a couple there before y’all, and the wife ended up hospitalized. Dana knows more but she’s at the factory office and she can’t get out of her meetings to come talk to you before Eunice is up. Or if she did, someone at the office would tell Eunice about it later and that defeats the whole purpose of us trying to do this without her knowing. But there’s somebody else who she thinks can fill you in. The lady who came to the spite house the other day, her name’s Emily Steen. She’s a local and little bit of a big deal down here from what I gather.”

Dess went to the armoire to grab some clothes, then to the closet to change. Lafonda followed her to the closet doorway, where she waited with her back turned. “Yeah, okay,” Dess said. “Okay, so that was her at the house. She’s a writer, right? I read something she wrote up about your boss. It didn’t seem like she was a fan.”

“Their relationship is tricky from what I gather. It was never my business, but it’s apparently bad enough now that Emily doesn’t trust me by association. I asked her to come get you to talk to you, I told her it was safe, but she thought it was some kind of setup or something. Like we’re going to trap her, I guess. I don’t know. It probably didn’t help that Eunice sent Dana after her the other day.”

“What?” Dess said, incredulous, emerging from the closet dressed save for her new sneakers. She sat on the bench at the end of the bed to put her shoes on.

“Not like, ‘after her,’ like a mob hit,” Lafonda said. “I shouldn’t have put it like that. It was just to have a talk, but—”

“Lafonda, Lafonda, just tell me what’s up. What am I doing? I’m down to do it if it’ll get us through with all of this quicker.”

“I think it will.”

“Cool, then I’m down. What is it?” Dess said.

“Emily’s agreed to pick you up off-site,” Lafonda said. “Not too far away. Right down the road.”

“But you don’t want to take me there yourself.”

“I can if you want me to.”

“Yeah, nah, I think I get it. Don’t want to get caught taking me. But what exactly are you worried Eunice would do if she found you out?”