Gently, she raised his less-battered ankle and retrieved her bag, then fished around until she’d located a white bottle of pills. The label said to take two at a time, but the label wasn’t talking about anyone Gabe’s size, and in Gabe’s kind of pain. She dumped four into her palm and handed them over.
“Can I have … something to … swallow them with?” His words were coming softer, and weren’t stringing together very tightly. Either the pain was wearing him out, or this was what shock looked like. Dahlia didn’t really know. Like she’d told the cop on the phone, she wasn’t a nurse. She couldn’t tell the difference between shock and exhaustion, or internal injuries and ordinary terror.
She badly wanted a drink. Gabe could probably use one, too. She didn’t know if it’d help or hurt in the long run, but in the short run a swig of booze would make everyone feel better. “Gabe, I’ll get you the last of the bourbon, would you like that?”
“I would seriously love you forever,” he promised.
“You were gonna love me forever anyway, but I’ll be right back. Whatever’s left ought to be in my duffel, if your daddy didn’t help himself while I wasn’t looking. Brad, keep an eye on him?”
“Sure.”
Gabe made an effort to smile. “I’m not going anyplace.”
“You’re also not passing out, falling over, or making any inappropriate effort to rise and shine, do you hear me?” She said this to both of them. Then to Brad, “Don’t let him overexert himself.”
The guys nodded, and she ducked back inside the house, leaving the door open behind her.
But even with the rain drumming into the clogged gutters and weathered shingles, it was quieter inside the house, and quieter still once she got past the foyer into the main living area, where they’d all slept the night before. The bags were all rolled up, and the crew’s personal effects were packed and ready to go—ready for someone to load them up, in the event that the rain ever stopped, and the trucks were ever able to come up close to the house again.
Or, failing that, when her dad arrived with the Bobcat.
The Bobcat wasn’t exactly an ATV, but it had a lot of power, and if the water went down a little, the machine could make the journey back and forth between the house and the road. It’d be faster and easier than playing two-legged pack mule, even if it did burn a lot of gas, take extra time, and piss off her dad. He was going to be pissed off enough as it was, unless Abigail put in an appearance and sufficiently scared him half to death—and then maybe he’d have a little sympathy for his beleaguered crew.
She halfway wanted him to see her. It didn’t make her feel good, but there it was. She wanted him to know.
Now where the hell was the bourbon?
She fished around in her duffel bag, but she’d accidentally lied to Gabe, because it wasn’t in there after all. She moved on to Bobby’s stuff. No, wait. Last time she saw the bottle, it’d been in the kitchen. Brad had probably packed it up while he was getting the galley in order. Isn’t that where she’d seen it last? She couldn’t remember. There was too much to remember, and too much going on. And it was getting really, truly dark.
Out of reflex, she flicked the light switch. She knew it wouldn’t work, because the power was out in half the county, right? So she wasn’t surprised when nothing happened—she just felt dumb for giving it a go in the first place.
“Stupid,” she muttered. “But I do need a light.”
One of the lanterns had been abandoned on a mid-level built-in shelf. She grabbed it and twisted the knob to turn it on. It hurt her eyes, even though she hadn’t cranked it all the way up. She looked away, and let her eyes adjust. It still wasn’t completely black inside, and the lantern didn’t make it all the way bright. It hardly made any difference at all, except to sharpen the shadows, and color them blue and white.
The never-ending dusk lingered, and stretched, and stalled, while the sun dropped behind the mountain.
Dahlia’s phone rang.
“Bobby, give me good news.”
“I made it to the trucks alive, is that good enough for you?” His voice echoed thickly in the narrow, closed space of the cab, and the rain was a background buzz. “No ambulance, though. I keep hearing sirens, but nothing’s come close, not yet. All the emergency vehicles are going up or down the mountain, or past it.”
“Shit. So now what do we do? We both know we can’t really move Gabe. You bred him too big.”
He halfway laughed. “Yeah, you can make this my fault, if you want.”
“It’s nobody’s fault.” She sighed.
His fault.
The words flickered like static through the cell’s microphone. Dahlia wasn’t even positive she’d heard them. Then she heard the voice again, slashing through the connection. His fault. You should understand.
Her cousin said something too, but she couldn’t catch it. The words were garbled and faint.
“Bobby?” she whispered. She wasn’t sure if she was asking for clarification, or making sure he was still there. She needed for him to be there, and she was somewhat unreasonably glad that he was still so close, and that he hadn’t just driven off into the sunset. Not that he’d do that to Gabe. But would he do it to her? She didn’t want to think so.
Bobby might’ve been a thousand miles away on a tin can, when he replied, “I said, I’ll hang out here and keep my eyes open!”
“That’s all you can do, I guess…”
You were supposed to understand.
“Bobby?” She couldn’t hear him anymore, not the hollow timbre of his words inside the truck’s cab, and not the low hum of rain on the windshield outside it. She didn’t know if he could hear her, either. “Don’t leave us here. Don’t leave me.”
“I—”
The line went dead, but the cell rang again immediately, right on the heels of Bobby’s call. Dahlia checked the display and didn’t recognize the number, but it started with 423, so it was local. Maybe that meant that an ambulance was coming after all.
Her fingers shook and her throat was dry, but she pressed the green icon and said, “Hello?”
“Ms. Dutton?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Susan Hardwick with Hamilton County dispatch—I understand you have an emergency on Lookout Mountain?”
The lights flickered. The lights shouldn’t flicker. There shouldn’t be any power.
Dahlia looked around, and up at the chandelier and pendant overhead. She stepped out from underneath the one, and eyed the other warily. “Yes ma’am … that’s right. I’m sorry, it’s almost right—we’re not on the mountain, we’re right at the foot, just above Saint Elmo.”
“Do you have any power?”
She eyeballed the lights, which shuddered, but remained dark this time. The lantern in her free hand swayed back and forth, and the old house’s bones swayed with it. “No, no power. We have a young man with a badly broken leg—maybe two of them.”
“Have you been able to move him?”
“No ma’am. He’s a big boy, and we’re just about flooded in. We’ll need a stretcher … or an ATV gurney, if you’ve got anything like that.”
“Lord, but I wish there were any such thing,” Susan said heavily.
I could make you understand.
Dahlia was cold, but she was sweating through her clothes. Her flannel was tacky against her skin, and her palm was so slick she had to squeeze the phone to keep from dropping it. “What about search and rescue?”
“They’re occupied for the moment. Now, let me explain the situation, Ms. Dutton: There’s a tree down across Ochs Highway, and that’s why your power’s out. The highway’s out too, for now. Nothing coming, nothing going.”
“But there are other ways to get to the house, right?”
“If you’re talking about Alabama Avenue, you’re half right. I know the house you’re working at,” Susan said. “I saw the note on the report. We used to tell stories about it, back when I was a kid. It’s a bad place…” She paused, reco
gnizing that she’d gone off script. “So believe me, I understand why you want to be away from it.”
“So what do you mean, I’m half right about Alabama?”
I could show you.
“There’s storm damage that way, too. We got half a dozen reports of a tornado down toward the Georgia end of that street—and cleanup crews will be slow in coming. Right now, it’s not clear when we’ll be able to reach you with an ambulance. We have someone on the way, but that neighborhood’s a game of chutes and ladders, except with downed trees and power lines.”
“There’s actually a tornado?”
“Weather Service hasn’t confirmed, but—”
“But someone’s on the way, that’s what you said?”
The sound of Susan’s reply retreated into the distance, until it was barely a muffled patter of syllables. Did the lights flicker again, or was it lightning? Dahlia looked from window to window, but if there was light outside, it matched the reflections cast by her lantern, resulting in a bleak zero sum.
Her phone drooped away from her ear. She would have pressed the disconnect button, but the dropped call beep told her it wasn’t necessary. Slowly, she tucked it into her back pocket. Carefully, she took a step toward the front door.
Nothing happened, so she took another one.
The big pendulum overhead twitched and rocked.
Dahlia didn’t wait around for anything to flash, shiver, or fall. She took a leap forward and ran toward the door. She’d left it open—that’s right. It beckoned and whistled as the air slipped around the cutout where the rose transom used to be.
She could make it in a dozen long, fast steps, if she sprinted fast enough. She could make it in a few seconds.
No, you have to stay.
The front door jiggled. With a swipe like an angry slap across a face, it slammed shut before Dahlia reached the foyer.
She drew up to a halt, skidding on the damp wood floor and nearly falling—flinging the lantern up so it shined against the ceiling. It fell back on her wrist to dangle by its wire handle. It knocked against her elbow and her forearm, sending fractured shards of light and shadow wildly through the room.
She steadied the light. She held it up and out, and listened for tornadoes, or ghosts, or anything else that shouldn’t be hanging about the Withrow estate.
An electric pop smacked across the house. It wasn’t lightning, not quite; it was more like the thrilling punch of a transformer frying a squirrel. There was light, and there was a crack too loud to be thunder. There was a ringing in Dahlia’s ears. There was static in front of her eyes.
When it cleared, all the lights were on. The house was bright as day, but somehow, that wasn’t any better than when it was nighttime dark and illuminated only by the LED lantern swinging from Dahlia’s left arm. Somehow, this was worse.
She looked back to the front door. Still shut.
Gabe and Brad were on the other side—waiting on the porch for an ambulance to bring a stretcher, and for her to bring the bourbon. She still hadn’t found it, and now she’d completely given up looking for it. Did they know what had happened? Were they knocking? Would she hear them, if they did?
The leaded glass transom with the Victorian roses glinted in the lamplight.
But that wasn’t right. It couldn’t glint. It couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t there anymore. The pendant lamp dripped with crystals; but that wasn’t right either. It didn’t have crystals—it was an ugly mid-century thing. But the ugly lamp was gone, and above her head there was a bigger, grander model—strung with glittering teardrops of glass. Dahlia wondered when it’d been removed. She wondered what had happened to it, since it must have been gone for years before she arrived.
“Abigail? Abigail, what are you doing?” she breathed. The lantern was useless to her, but she couldn’t stand to drop it. She clung to it, in case it was a lifeline back to her real, terrible life, where Gabe was hurt and the mountain was scarred with falling trees, and tornadoes scraped along the ridge like a knife across a wrist.
She heard, almost in answer, but not quite: Abigail, Abigail, what have you done?
The words fell in a singsong tone, coming from somewhere upstairs.
The stairs were intact again, and polished recently. The chestnut and fir looked warm and rich and clean. And the mantel, with two marble ladies, but no cracks between them. And the floor, gleaming and newly swept, accented with rugs that were freshly beaten and free of dust.
She climbed up the staircase—where Gabe had just fallen, hadn’t he? The spindles were all in place, not a single one chipped, splintered, or broken. The rail was sturdy and thick, and it didn’t wobble when she held it as she rose. From the landing, she could see the whole first floor, alight and sparkling; and she could see the second-floor hallway, with doors open, and tinny music coming from the master bedroom.
The doors were open.
All of them. Even Aunt Hazel’s.
She stumbled up the last few stairs and onto the carpet runner, untouched by moths or sun fading. Two doors down on the left. The door with the classic hardware, now undulled by rust or tarnish. She ran for it, and the door crashed shut, nearly knocking out her teeth. It only struck her nose, but it struck her hard. In a moment, she felt blood falling hot and wet, pooling and spilling down over her lip.
“Hazel!” she called. She beat hard on the door. “Hazel, let me in, please! Hazel!”
Through the solid oak came a whisper, soft and sad: I’m sorry dear, but I can’t. She’s got you already.
“What do you mean, she’s…” Dahlia slowed.
Everything slowed.
A cold drowsiness overcame her, and she almost closed her eyes—almost buckled at the knees. She leaned forward, and a warm, wet drool of blood rolled out of her nose, but she remained upright, one hand pressed against the door to Hazel’s room, still praying for help from the other side.
“Hazel,” she tried one last time. The word was mud in her mouth, thicker than peanut butter.
She took a step back and lowered her hand. She looked toward the hallway’s end, where the window wasn’t broken anymore, and there was no flapping bit of plastic to fly loose and menace the crew. The window was whole, and original—the panes were a tidy six over one, with a wood frame on a pulley system.
The little details anchored her. She cataloged them.
No. I can show you.
She turned on her heel, but not on purpose. She strolled down the long hallway, past the other doors: all open, all solid wood, some six-panels and some four-panels, with brass knobs and hardware. It all looked new.
No.
“Stop it,” Dahlia tried to command, but it didn’t come out. Her tongue was fat and slow. A soft hiss was all she could manage. She kept walking, entirely against her will—an unwilling pilot in a crippled plane. The radio was out. None of the controls were working. She struggled to stop. She strained to fall to the ground.
But Abigail said, No.
So Dahlia kept walking, on feet that didn’t feel like her own, at a pace that wasn’t familiar, and with a gait that felt unbalanced. She reached the stairs to the attic and tried again to stop herself—catch herself on the wall and hold fast, rather than go up there and see whatever Abigail wanted her to see. Her hands didn’t work any better than her feet. They stayed at her sides, and with all her strength, all her effort, she could do little more than flutter her fingers.
She would’ve cried, but her eyes didn’t belong to her either. The time for crying had passed, years ago. Decades ago. Longer ago than that.
Stair by stair she climbed, past the sconces that hummed and hissed, because they worked just fine and weren’t the rusted-out or missing hunks of metal she’d seen before. Nook by nook, the gas lit them up, and the corridor was brighter than Dahlia had ever seen it, and the wallpaper was pristine—not yet faded or stained, discolored or ripped. It was a light shade of blue that was nearly green, with silver vines and peach-colored flowers running in vertical r
ows from floor to ceiling.
No. To hell with the house.
The attic trapdoor had a metal handle screwed into place. She grasped it, turned it, and pushed when the small latch clicked. The hinges squeaked. The door lifted away, and she let herself inside the vaulted, skeletal space beneath the roof.
Abigail was there, living and breathing, standing beside the window in a yellow dress. She had one hand on the rough sill, and a worried look on her face. She was very young, and so was the man who stood beside her—the soldier, wearing his khaki uniform with squared-off shoulders and a narrow waist.
“Did you mean what you said?” Abigail asked him.
He did not look at her. He was staring out over the yard, toward the garage and the graveyard that wasn’t yet a real graveyard. “Yes, I did. Now you’ve got to stop this,” he told her firmly.
“That’s not what you told me before. That’s not what you told me, when you said you loved me and we ought to get married.”
“You’re awful young for that.”
“Too young for what?” Surely she wasn’t more than fifteen or sixteen. Still a child.
Gregory didn’t look much older. He must be eighteen, at least, if he was wearing the uniform, but he might have been as old as twenty. “You’re too young to understand, I made a mistake—that’s all.”
“You made a promise.”
“It was a dumb promise, and I shouldn’t have done it. Now, listen, Abby. I came back one last time, like you asked—because you said you had to tell me something. But I think it was all for show, and you don’t have anything new to say at all. So now I’m leaving, and I won’t come around again. Or, if I ever do, it won’t matter any. I liked you just fine, but I’m not looking for a wife.”
She swallowed and nodded like she understood. There was something resting on the windowsill, or on the exposed beams that made up the frame. She picked it up and held it low, by her thigh. Her fingers flexed, tightening and adjusting her grip.