“That’s what Mama wrote in her diary. That you hurt her. And you threatened to make her disappear.”

He was leaning against the counter now.

“She said that?” The words came slowly. “Why would she have said that?”

“You tell me, Dad.”

He shook his head. “I have no idea. I never hurt your mother or threatened her in any way. I would never dream of it.” He seemed to sink deeper into himself, to be taking up less and less space. The incredible shrinking man.

It was hard for Olive to believe that her father was lying—he looked so genuinely confused and hurt. But why would Mama have written those words in her diary?

Her father’s eyes moved from Olive and the gun to the kitchen window. “There’s someone out there,” he said.

“What?” Keeping the gun on him (was it a trick, something he was doing to divert her attention so he could get the gun?), she glanced out the window.

Daddy was right. She saw movement. She thought at first it was Dicky Barnes, that he’d come for her. Dicky and his band of spirit-calling witches were the last thing she needed right now.

But it wasn’t Dicky.

She saw the white dress, the glow of the white deer mask in the cool blue light of the moon.

Daddy stood looking out the window, blinking in disbelief at the deer head with white fur, long snout, glossy black eyes. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

But Olive was already at the kitchen door, throwing it open, watching the figure dart off across the yard toward the tree line.

“Mama?” she cried. The figure stopped, turned back to look at Olive, the white mask seeming to glow. Then she turned away again and ran off into the woods. “Mama! Please! Wait!”

CHAPTER 45

Lori Kissner

JUNE 29, 2014

The others knew. She was sure of it.

She’d gone to the circle tonight, just as she did each week, as she’d been doing for the past six months now, and stepped into the center of the group right on cue, playing Hattie, channeling. She wore the white dress, the black wig, her beaded shoes, and, tonight, as the perfect finishing touch, Hattie’s necklace.

The others believed she had a gift.

She heard Hattie’s voice as no one ever had before.

She heard it and she let it speak through her.

It was like she invited Hattie inside her, let her take over her body and mind, her tongue and mouth, let her say and do what she pleased.

She did have a gift.

And now, now she understood why.