Margot had kept a journal of her own for a few years while living with her grandmother. She’d lost it long ago, but she imagined it would read very similarly to the unnamed girl’s. It was almost uncomfortably intimate how well she was growing to know the young teen.
At the same time, she wished the journal would give her something more substantial. Names, instead of papa and my brother. Dates. Any mention of a curse or of having to lock her windows or of seeing strange people outside.
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she lived through a period when the curse wasn’t active.
Margot peeled another page. The writing style abruptly changed. What had been painstakingly neat—the kind of hand being maintained by a girl who had tutoring lessons—suddenly became larger, rougher, looser. At first glance Margot thought the journal might have been picked up by someone else, but she recognized the strange lilt to the Es. This was still the same person… She just no longer had the time or space of mind to focus on form.
As Margot read the entry, she understood why.
“Papa is dead…” Margot leaned over the table, her elbow propped on the white surface and her hand bracing her head. “We were asleep when there was a loud banging at the door. Uncle. He hit Papa with an axe.”
Margot let her eyes close as understanding washed over her. The journal belonged to one of Ezra Hull’s two daughters, most likely the youngest. The original Hulls, the family who had first bought the hill and prospered.
She knew what fate awaited the girl. Part of her didn’t want to read any further. But another part of her desperately needed to know.
“Mother told me to run, but I saw lights outside the home. Our cousins have surrounded us. I got into the attic. I am here now, with my candle and my book and enough ink to finish this page. I do not know what will become of us. Mother ran to the shed. I saw Uncle follow her there. He came out after a minute. Mother has not.”
The writing was growing messier, more frantic. The letters wavered as the girl’s hand shook.
“Jeremiah went for town. The lights followed him a little way down the hill, then they stopped. I pray he made it away from them. I pray he was fast enough. I heard Giles yell at someone downstairs, and then there was an axe, and he has been quiet since then. I do not know where Constance is.”
I can’t imagine what that must have been like. Hidden in the attic while your family is killed one by one. Knowing they’ll begin to look for you soon.