“Please, Aunt Riley.” Olive wheezed out the words with what little air could get through.

“Shh, my special, special girl,” Riley cooed, pulling her arm even tighter.

CHAPTER 50

Helen

SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

Hattie Breckenridge was choking Olive.

Not the faint ghost of Hattie, but an actual, physical Hattie.

They were standing not twelve feet away from Helen, by the wrecked foundation of Hattie’s house, and Hattie was behind Olive, holding her, the crook of her elbow against Olive’s throat.

The moon cast a bright light, fully illuminating the scene in the bog.

They’d been following the doe, jogging along behind it through the woods. It would get far ahead of them, nearly out of sight, then stop and wait for them to catch up before moving on. When Olive’s scream pierced the silence, the deer broke into a run, Helen and Nate right behind her. She’d heard Nate stumble, fall to the ground with a “Shit!,” but hadn’t turned back. Helen followed the deer to the bog, and as she stood at the tree line, she saw Olive and Hattie about four yards away. A man was crumpled on the ground beside them.

Helen sprinted up behind the figure in the white dress with the long dark hair. She got to her, grabbed her hair, screamed, “Let her go!”

But the dark hair came off in her hands.

A wig.

And under it, a bare neck with a circular snake tattoo.

“Riley! What the hell are you doing?”

Helen grabbed Riley’s shoulders, pulling her back. Olive dropped to the ground, gasping. Olive looked up and Helen saw she was wearing the necklace: Hattie’s necklace, the circle, triangle, and square glinting in the moonlight.

“You!” Riley screamed at Helen. “Why couldn’t you have just gone away? Left before it was too late?”

Riley swung at Helen, catching her right in the bridge of the nose, sending her reeling backward, the pain bright and blinding. She sank down to her knees on the bed of wet, spongy moss.

“Helen!” Nate yelled. He sounded far away.

Riley stood over Helen. “Why couldn’t you have just given up? Gone back where you came from!” She kicked Helen hard in the side, sending her toppling over from the pain and force of it.

“Hattie,” Helen said, half in answer to Riley’s question, half calling to her, hoping she would come and save them.

“Hattie! It’s all about Hattie. She comes to you people and you don’t even want her to! You don’t even try. And why you, Helen? You’re not even related. You’re nothing. No one. Just a former history teacher who happened to put up a haunted beam. A beam I gave you. She would never have come to you if it wasn’t for me!”