“Look at me!” Ginny demanded. “Should I be out here going after your kids? No! What the hell is wrong with you? Get your ass down there and look for them!”
Kendra stepped back, and Ginny wavered in the squishy muck. More rippling water washed over her legs, splashing the hem of her nightgown. She looked to where the creek had once burbled and chuckled along over smoothly polished stones, as cheerful and dangerous as a fluffy kitten. It rushed and roared now.
Just across it, in a pond like the one in which Ginny and Kendra stood, was a figure in a red hooded coat. It turned at the sound of Ginny’s shouts, and Kendra let out a wail of relief.
“Kelly! Kelly! Where’s Carson?”
He was there too, a little farther on. Both children waved at their mother, who set off at a run through the overflowing creek toward them. She went down in a minute as her foot plunged into a hole or something. Kendra face-planted into the water and flailed.
Ginny wanted to laugh in that horrid way she always wanted to chuckle when someone fell, not because she really thought it was funny, but because there was no helping it. She cut it off into a strangled yelp and moved a step or two forward. She stopped herself from going farther.
She was pregnant, for God’s sake, and already this was a bad idea. Kendra had fallen into the water, and Ginny didn’t want to do the same. She’d never get up. She’d drown in her own backyard.
Besides, Kendra had made it to her feet, soaked and muddy, but seemingly unscathed. Until she started to scream, that was. She screamed and flailed some more, backpedaling and falling again. She rolled, desperate to get up and out, while the kids stared at her with goggle eyes. Kelly got too close to the edge, where the water was rushing instead of just rippling, and her feet got taken out from under her.
Ginny watched in horror as Kelly went under, nothing but the red hood showing. In seconds she was downstream a few feet and sputtering up out of the water, but she couldn’t get to her feet. Kendra screamed. Carson had put his hands over his face.
Ginny was moving without thinking, one hand on her belly and the other held out to balance herself like a tightrope walker with a pole. She slipped in the soggy grass but made it to water up to her knees before Kelly went under again. The girl had snagged on a tree branch that had fallen into the water, and it was the only thing keeping her from being pushed farther downstream. It was also pressing her under the water.
“OHMYGODMYBABY!” Kendra shrieked.
Ginny was actually closer to the girl. Her slippers had come off. Her toes dug into the mud and grass, which gave her a better grip. Just a foot or so in front of her was where the creek normally ran, and she had no idea how deep it was. Just that it was fast. Beside her was a part of another branch that had fallen during one of the snowstorms, thick and heavy enough that she had to strain to lift it.
“Help me!” she ordered Kendra.
Miraculously, the other woman moved without fuss. She grabbed the end of the branch and lifted it as Ginny guided it toward Kelly. The girl grabbed at it. Missed. Grabbed again.
This time, she caught it. Her mother yanked it, moving Kelly just a few feet closer so she could grab the red coat.
It was over in minutes. Ginny found herself clutching a sobbing and shaking Kelly, both of them higher up on the lawn and away from the creek, while Kendra waded across using the branches and grabbed up Carson. By the time she got back to Ginny’s yard, all of them had blue lips.
But they were alive.
“Oh my God, oh my God!” Kendra clutched at both kids. “What were you doing! What were you thinking?”
“We…we…we wanted to see the…” Carson could barely speak through his chattering teeth.
Whatever it was he’d wanted to see, his mother wasn’t interested. She shook him, then grabbed at his sister and started hauling them away from the water.
Ginny, exhausted and shivering, followed. Every part of her ached, and all she wanted was a hot shower, clean clothes and the comfort of her bed. Instead, she slipped on the sopping grass and went to her knees. Her fingers dug into the soft mud.
Ahead of her Kendra wasn’t even looking back as she bustled her kids home. The three of them were sobbing and screaming. Ginny thought she should be offended her neighbor wasn’t even bothering to look back and check on her, but that would mean she had to deal with Kendra and her two spawn. And didn’t she understand, anyway, the force that moved a mother to forget everything else but her children?
The baby moved inside her, protesting the position and kicking out so hard the little feet stole Ginny’s breath. She gasped, then coughed as she pushed herself along the muddy slope and struggled to get herself upright. Her fingers dug again into the soil and grass and slipped, scraping along a tree branch. Or something. Not a tree branch.
Ginny dug a little deeper and came up with something shorter than the length of her forearm. Knobbed on the end. It must once have been white, but time in the earth had turned it dark. She cradled it against her for a moment and looked behind her at the rushing water that had eroded so much of her yard. Then at the thing in her hand. She knew what had so captivated Kelly’s and Carson’s attentions, what they’d been looking at.
It was a bone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
She’d showered and changed her clothes and tied her wet hair up on top of her head, but that only left the back of her neck exposed and vulnerable. Sean’s fingers squeezed, squeezed her there. He meant the touch to be gentle and soothing, but every press against her sent a ripple of irritation down her spine, until finally she shrugged her shoulders to squirm away.
The officer who’d come to the house was young and fresh scrubbed. His uniform had been crisp and polished when he came to the door, but now shoes were spattered with mud and his trouser legs, sodden. He’d gone down to the creek, but in the dark and with the rain coming down more heavily than before, he’d come back in the house.
“How long will it take?” Ginny asked. “Until you know if it’s human?”
The officer looked uncomfortable. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. It could be a…week? Maybe?”
“A week?” Ginny sounded as outraged as she felt and turned away to keep him from seeing her face.
“Well…forgive me, but it’s not like it’s an emergency,” the officer said quietly. “We’ll do the best we can and let you know, okay? In the meantime, if you find anything else, you let us know.”
“We’re not going to find anything else.” Sean said this to soothe her, not the cop. He rubbed her shoulders again. “Thanks for coming out, Officer.”
When he’d gone, and they were in bed, trying to sleep, Sean kissed her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Ginny. All of this will be okay. I promise you.”
She knew about his promises, and wanted to believe him. Or at least that he meant it. But how could he promise her something like that?
“Maybe now you can just forget about all this stuff.” Sean’s voice rose beside her in the dark. He sounded sleepy.
Ginny was anything but tired. She breathed in the scent of lavender, faint now but still lovely. She needed to buy some more before the baby came. She had to do a lot of things before the baby came.
“It’s over,” Sean said. “You have to know that, right?”
Sean loved horror movies as much as she did, maybe more. He had to know that finding the source didn’t make the ghosts go away. Not if you hadn’t yet figured out what they wanted. Ginny breathed. She breathed.
The bed dipped as he rolled toward her. His hand rested on her hip, then slipped around to caress her belly. His heat covered her back as he nuzzled at her shoulder.
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “Even after what we found.”
“We don’t know yet what you found.”
“Bones, Sean.”
“Th
ey could be anything. Animals. Someone’s pet cemetery, probably.”
Ginny shivered, though her flannel pj’s, the blankets and her husband’s warmth had made her anything but cold. “They’re not animal bones.”
Sean sighed. “Honey…even if they’re not…”
“What?” She’d have turned to face him, but her body was too unwieldy. “If they’re not…what?”
“Even if they’re not animal bones, they’re not hers.”
“And that’s supposed to reassure me?” Ginny huffed and tossed his arm off her so she could heave herself upright. The floor felt very far away when she sought it with her toes. “Jesus, Sean. If they’re not Caroline’s bones, whose are they? Do you think that makes me feel better?”
He shifted to sit next to her, his legs long enough that his feet had no trouble finding the floor. He took her hand. “I just think you’ve let yourself get too worked up about this Caroline Miller business. You said yourself there were reports of her being sighted in California and Idaho and a whole bunch of places.”
“Her own brother thinks something happened to Caroline here, in this house. Something her dad did. Well, I think her dad killed her.”
“And buried her down by the creek.”
“Yes.” Ginny shook her head. Her bladder panged. She might as well get up and go to the bathroom. She couldn’t sleep anyway, and she’d be up in an hour, even if she peed now.
“That bone was small. It was really small.”
A Braxton Hicks contraction rippled across her belly, and she bit back a gasp as she put a hand on the bedpost to keep herself from doubling over. It wasn’t painful, just surprising. Her fingers gripped the wood.
“It didn’t belong to a fourteen-year-old girl. That’s all I’m saying.”
Ginny put her other hand on the lump of her belly. The baby was quiet, not moving. Did it dream, she wondered suddenly. Or did it share her dreams the way it shared what she ate?
“It was a baby’s bones.”
“We don’t know that either.”
But she knew it. She felt it. She rubbed her belly, but the baby didn’t move. When was the last time she’d felt it move? She’d lost track. So close to the end now, it seemed the baby was always squirming, never still.
“I know it, Sean. I know it.”
She didn’t realize she was weeping until he pulled her close to stroke her hair and his T-shirt felt damp under her cheek. Ginny knuckled her eyes, pushing hard enough to make brightness bloom behind her eyelids. She drew one hitching breath after another but couldn’t seem to get enough air. She rocked, and he rocked with her.
“It’s a baby. I know it’s a baby…”
He hushed her, but she couldn’t be soothed. Tiny bones in the closet, bigger bones in the yard. So much death in this house, and the baby hadn’t moved, hadn’t moved in hours.
She realized she’d said it aloud when he answered her.
“Does it hurt anywhere?” Sean rubbed her back. “Ginny. Are you…bleeding?”
She shook her head, then wondered if he could see her in the dark or just feel the motion of her body. “No. It’s not that.”
She’d spent the last few months telling him over and over that this was all going to be fine, but no matter how much she’d pummeled him, Sean had never quite believed it. Had she been wrong, and he right? Her hands moved over her belly again and again, seeking any motion beyond the tightening of her muscles.
“It doesn’t hurt. They’re not regular. It’s Braxton Hicks, not regular contractions.”
“It’s too early for you to be in labor.”
“I’m not in labor, Sean.” Ginny swallowed snot and salt; the taste nauseated her.
“Should we call the clinic?”
At two in the morning, calling the doctor for a little hysteria seemed unreasonable, unless you were a pregnant woman nearly due to give birth, one who’d found bones in her backyard.
“I’m just upset. Give it a few minutes.”
Together, they waited in the dark, their hands linked, but the cramps and contractions eased.
“It’s going to be okay, Ginny. I promise you,” Sean said again as morning light eased through the windows.
She didn’t believe him, but she believed he thought it was true, and this also had to be enough.
Chapter Forty
Ginny didn’t want to look out into the backyard. Caution tape sectioned off the lower portion of the yard where the creek still ran deep and fast. The rain hadn’t stopped, either. She didn’t want to look out and see the churned mud and torn-up grass, or all the places the investigating team had dug. It was only a yard, the damage could be repaired.
And they’d found nothing.
They were going to keep looking. Moving downstream, as well as starting farther upstream. There wouldn’t be a single infant bone buried in her yard; that just didn’t make sense. But it could’ve come from anywhere, not her yard, or its companions might’ve been swept away.
If only the rain would stop. Off and on for the past week and a half, sometimes a steady downpour and others a faint drizzle, the water refused to sink into the ground already oversaturated from the melting snow. Everything was wet. Nothing would dry.
Ginny didn’t really want the tea she’d made—even thinking about drinking it made her feel like she had to pee. The never-ending patter of rain on the roof didn’t help. Her back hurt. Her feet hurt. All her joints ached and creaked. Sitting for too long made her rear end numb, but lounging on the couch left her too lethargic to finish all the tasks that had suddenly become so important. The books called it “nesting,” and Peg laughed when Ginny told her on the phone how she’d gotten the overwhelming urge to run every single washable item in the house through the laundry.
Ginny hadn’t laughed. The need to make everything clean for the arrival of her baby was pathological and embarrassing, but she was also helpless against it. The problem had become lugging the baskets up and down the stairs, difficult enough earlier, before she’d become so huge and clumsy. Now impossible.
She comforted herself with folding and refolding the tiny shirts and pajamas. With stacking diapers and packages of wipes. She arranged and rearranged the plastic shelves full of baby items and organized the selection of stuffed toys on the wooden bookcase. She rocked in the chair, which, with its hard wooden back, should’ve been uncomfortable, but which offered her just the right amount of support.
She rocked a lot.
She dreamed.
She woke to darkness, sorry at once she’d allowed herself to nap in the chair instead of in bed or at least on the couch. Her head spun for a second or two when she stood, gripping the arm of the chair, and blinking to orient herself. The night-light in the hall reminded her where she was, but for a good few minutes she had to think about it.
The nursery. She was in the nursery. In her house. Sean was gone; he’d be home later, after work, after class. Later. Everything would be later.
Discomfort rippled across her lower belly. She stood for a moment, legs planted slightly more than shoulder-width apart. Something twinged inside her, and she winced.
She needed a drink. Her mouth had gone dry. Her stomach was a little upset, and the thought of a cold glass of ginger ale was all at once the most perfect thing she could imagine.
She shuffled toward the door out of habit and was glad for it when her foot kicked something small and metal. There was no way she could bend to pick it up, but she heard it skitter across the floor and land somewhere close to the soft throw rug. When she turned on the light switch near the door, the lights seemed to take forever to turn on. Those stupid fluorescent bulbs she hated. Too dim at first to see what she’d kicked, and she didn’t want to wait until they got bright enough.
It was a button. Struggling, she managed finally to grab it and tucked it in her pocket. By the time she got dow
nstairs, she had to pee. Again. The sound of rain had infiltrated everything, so that the splash of urine in the bowl was drowned out. She flushed, washed her hands, and in the kitchen poured herself a tall glass of ginger ale. The first sip went down easy, cool and sparkling. The second tasted bitter. She poured the rest down the sink.
From the basement came the juddering sound of the sump pump going. The floor rumbled a little under her feet. Ginny put her hand on the counter for a moment, feeling off-balance. Her hair fell in her face, and she brushed it away.
The phone rang, and she thought about ignoring it, but answered anyway. “Hello.”
“Hey, sweetheart. It’s me.”
The sound of Sean’s voice relieved her more than she knew she needed to be relieved. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon. The professor was late, and he’s going over stuff that will be on the final. I was going to duck out early, but…”
“No. You shouldn’t miss it.” This class was breaking him. He needed all the help he could get. Ginny took a deep breath, but her lungs barely filled. Too much baby, not enough room for anything else.
“What’s going on there? You okay?”
“It’s still raining. And it’s dark,” she added.
He laughed. “Turn the lights on?”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it in the dark. It’s peaceful, with the sound of the rain.”
“I thought you’d be sick of that by now. I am. How’s the sump pump?” Sean coughed lightly, then murmured something to someone on the other end of the line. “Sorry, honey, I have to go. The break’s over.”
“Go, go.” Ginny made a flapping gesture with her hand, though of course he couldn’t see it. “I’m fine. Everything’s okay here. So long as the power stays on.”
“Right.” Sean paused. “Shit. I should come home.”
She laughed. “No, no. I’m fine. Really. Be careful coming home, the rain’s horrible.”
“And you…the baby? You’re still okay?”
His question annoyed her less now that she was so close to the end, because he was asking something she could answer with full confidence and have him believe her.