She threw it into her backpack and went back home, exhausted and discouraged, her jeans and sneakers soaked through, angry with Hattie for getting her hopes up and giving her nothing but a rusty old ax head.

She changed out of her wet things into a dry T-shirt and pair of sweatpants and lay back down on the couch.

She dreamed of the ax.

That it was cleaned up, sharpened, and she was using it to chop wood.

But then it wasn’t wood she was chopping.

She was hacking her mother up into chunks and throwing them into the bog.

She woke up screaming.

Daddy came flying into the living room, flipping on lights.

He reached out and took her hand, looking at the filthy, bloody fingertips.

“Jesus, girl,” he said. “What’s going on with you?”

She started to cry. He took her in his arms and rocked her like she was a little girl again. “Shh,” he said. “It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right.

Maybe her father had been right. Maybe she was sick. Sick in the head. Or maybe it was something worse than that.

Maybe, somehow, Hattie had gotten inside her.

CHAPTER 31

Helen

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015

Helen opened her eyes. She’d been dreaming of Nate’s white deer. It had been speaking to her in Hattie’s ground-glass voice.

Wake up, Helen, the deer told her. Wake up!

Helen blinked at the open doorway to the bedroom, half expecting to see Nate’s deer there—that the creature might have somehow followed her out of her dream. But there was nothing.

Helen’s head ached. Her thoughts felt slow. Foggy.

She wanted to lay her head back down and sleep, but something was wrong.

Very wrong.

“Nate.” She shoved at him hard. “Get up!”

“What?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Gas,” she said, the panic starting to rouse her. “Propane! I smell propane.”

He sat up. “Jesus,” he said, coughing. “Come on.” He grabbed Helen’s hand, pulled her out of bed and into the hall.

The smell was overpowering, the air thick with propane.

“Don’t turn on any lights,” he warned; “the spark…” His hand was wrapped firmly around hers as they hurried through the trailer in the dark and out the front door, into the cool night air.

Nate ran to the side of the trailer where the big white tank was and switched the gas off.

“Should we call the fire department?” Helen asked.

“I think it’ll be okay,” Nate said. “The front door’s open. Let’s let it dissipate a bit, then we can open all the windows.” He looked at Helen. “How do you feel?”

“I have a headache and I’m a little dizzy, but okay,” she said.

“Me, too. We got lucky. Good thing you woke up when you did.”

Good thing Hattie woke me, she thought.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Must be a leak somewhere,” he said.