The shape fell silent once again.
Outside, the wind picked up, gently rocking the house. The exposed roof beams overhead creaked softly as they held their place.
Sadie kept her eyes locked on the purple flower in the jar. It was beginning to droop over the lip of the jar. She blinked, and in that split second, her friend was once again beside her, so close that Sadie imagined she could feel hot breath on her cheek.
I want your mommy to play with us, her friend said.
Sadie felt a sourness in the pit of her stomach. It was the same feeling she had when she saw Charlotte playing with other girls at recess.
“Why?” she asked. She did not mean to sound angry, but she couldn’t help it.
It’ll be fun. You’ll see.
“I don’t think she wants to play. She’s busy. And …” Sadie paused, afraid that the thing she was about to say would hurt her friend’s feelings. “I don’t think she’ll believe you’re real.”
Once again, the room grew still. Sadie was afraid her friend had left, even though she could still see the fuzzy shape standing right beside her.
Then the voice in her mind said, We’ll make her believe.
Sadie couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the red smear of a smile rise up on her friend’s face.
The thought of making her friend happy made that yucky sourness in Sadie’s tummy go away. She stared harder than ever at the purple flower poking out of the top of Mason the Jar, and she was filled with a happiness that tickled her skin.
Sadie began to hum again, the song she had just learned, the song her friend had taught her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
IN THE DISTANCE, a flash of lightning split the sky.
Kris brewed a fresh pot of coffee, poured herself a steaming mug, and stood at the towering windows along the far end of the great room, watching as the sky turned from blue to a sickly green until it was finally overtaken by the thick cluster of charcoal-gray clouds that rumbled in like a smoke-streaked locomotive.
She sipped the black coffee, careful not to burn her tongue. Steam curled up around the sides of her nose. The coffee was bitter, but she relished its harshness. It jolted her senses, only to settle into the burn of a smoldering fire in her belly.
Thunder rumbled through the storm front, and the rain fell suddenly in one incredible, dense sheet. The lake was transformed into a million shattered mirrors. The trees in the forest lining the shore bowed obediently to the onslaught.
Across the cove, lights shimmered through the deluge, like a torch flickering behind a waterfall.
Windows. Illuminated from within.
The cabin. Her cabin.
Kris lowered her mug. The bitterness of the coffee no longer tasted pleasant. There was something off about it, a rottenness that crept up from her throat and over the back of her tongue.
Leaning closer to the window, she attempted to peer through the rain-streaked glass. The downpour was much too heavy to see the other side of the cove in any detail, but every now and then, she felt she caught a wavering glimpse of a figure standing in one of those windows, a woman with straight black hair draping over her back. Staring. Watching.
It’s your imagination, her chiding voice scolded her. It’s like you want the woman to be there. You need her to be bad, because you chased her, you chased her away…
Behind her, a floorboard creaked.
In the window pane, Kris glimpsed the reflection of a small form creeping through the great room.
She turned just in time to catch the shape of a child ducking behind the leather sofa.
“Sadie?”
“Mommy, quick! Come hide with me!”
“Why don’t we play a board game?” Kris suggested. “We could play Clue. You love Clue.”
Sadie popped up just enough to glare over the top of the couch. She whispered sharply, “Mommy! Come on! Hurry or she’ll know where I am!”
Across the lake, a streak of lightning cut a jagged line behind the gypsum hills.
Kris flinched at the sudden flash of light, and fresh anger slipped under her skin like a hot poker.
“Who are you talking about—”
Sadie pressed a finger flat against her pink lips. “Shh!” Nodding her head as if picking up some inaudible rhythm, she began to mouth numbers as if she were counting along with someone else calling out from deeper in the house.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Sadie’s eyes were fixed on something across the room.
Kris followed her gaze. In the hallway, the doors to the bathroom and both bedrooms were shut. The hall was an endless black tunnel.
Sadie continued to mouth the words:
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Kris stared at the black void, as if she expected someone to emerge from it, to come racing out in a wild fit and charge at her.
That’s crazy. We’re the only ones in the house.
And still Kris did not look away.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
Hide, her timid self cried out desperately in her mind. Quick, she’s coming!
Kris heard herself expel the word on a breath: “Who?”
But there was no answer for this question. She knew this was just another of Sadie’s games, one of her fantasies. And yet Kris could not help but feel her skin tightening as Sadie drew closer and closer to the final count of twenty.
Eighteen.
At her side, Kris’s hands clenched, clutching the edges of the sleeveless flannel that hung down over the top of her jeans. Without even realizing it, she began to twist the fabric between her fingers.
“Sadie, enough.”
Nineteen.
“I want you to stop this.”
“Shh!”
Twenty!
Sadie ducked behind the couch, out of sight.
Overhead, a fresh sheet of rain thundered against the roof. The sound echoed down from the vaulted ceiling and filled the house with the steady, powerful rhythm of its attack.
Kris could not look away from the impenetrable blackness within the hall.
She’s coming, the frightened voice warned.
Who? Kris shot back.
From behind the couch, Sadie giggled nervously.
She’s going to find you.
In her hand, Kris twisted the end of the shirt so tightly that the collar began to tug at her neck.
Something was building inside her. It began deep in her chest and then rose up her throat to the back of her tongue, burning like hot bile. It felt like a shriek that had been hiding within her for years. It needed out, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She opened her mouth, and the first blistering-hot word began to form on her tongue.
And then Sadie screamed.
The sound pierced so deeply into Kris’s ears, it felt like needles driven savagely into her ear canals, the tips scraping at the folded lobes of her brain. Her entire body seemed to short-circuit.
Go, her mind commanded. Help her!
But just as the sensation of stunned paralysis faded, Kris heard her daughter’s screams transform into laughter. Without warning, Sadie raced out from her hiding place behind the couch, shrieking “No! No!” as she bowed her body forward as if someone were right behind her, reaching out to tag her. She was a blur as she sprinted across the great room and disappeared into the blackness of the hallway.
“Mommy, come on! We’re it!” Sadie’s voice echoed from far away.
And then all was silent.