Little Secrets

  “A few Braxton Hicks. That’s all. I love you. Be careful,” she added, trying to get him before he could disconnect, but he already had.

  The floor vibrated again as the sump pump went off. Ginny peeked out the back door at the glitter of rain slanting down. The entire backyard had become a swamp. They wouldn’t have to bother going to the beach this summer, they could simply pitch an umbrella off their back patio.

  Her stomach had settled a bit, which was good, though now the first tingles of heartburn were tickling the base of her throat. Ginny took a handful of saltines and a glass of milk with her upstairs to the library, where she picked up the book she’d been trying to finish for the past few weeks. There was nothing wrong with the book, it was all her. Easily distracted and having difficulty focusing. She thumbed the pages and settled her milk on the small wooden table she’d set up next to the chaise lounge. Then she tucked herself under the knitted throw and tried to concentrate.

  The problem was the rain. Constant, ceaseless, drumming. She’d turned the heat up and now the room had become almost stifling. Ginny couldn’t stand against the triple threat of heat, white noise and pregnancy. The book dropped from her fingers and she knew it as she let her head fall back against the chaise, but she was simply too drowsy to care.

  She woke up when the electricity went out. The sudden black pounded her eyelids as thoroughly as if she’d been in the dark and the lights had snapped on. Ginny pushed herself upright, forgetting about the book, which crashed to the floor. She looked automatically toward the windows to see if theirs was the only house without power, but the outside was as dark as in. So, the whole neighborhood then.

  Fortunately, she’d grown so used to moving around this house in the dark that it was no big deal for her to make her way downstairs, though she made sure to take her time and place each foot solidly and carefully on the step, to be sure she didn’t tumble down. The rechargeable flashlight had turned on when the power cut out, so she had no trouble seeing her way to grab it from the dock.

  Beneath her feet, the floor did not vibrate. The sump pump wouldn’t run without electricity, of course. Which meant water in the basement. Ginny moved to the back door again, but the light from inside reflected on the glass and she could see nothing but her own silhouette. She shielded the light and tried to see outside.

  That couldn’t be the creek, could it? Lapping at the edges of the flagstone patio? Ginny opened the back door, heedless of the rain, and held up her light.

  “Oh shit.” It was the creek, or maybe it was just that the saturated swamp of her backyard had joined with the still-rushing creek waters to make one vast pond that seemed to be creeping toward her house at an exponentially fast rate. “Shit, shit.”

  Her phone rang from her pocket. “Sean? Where are you?”

  “I’m stuck. The roads are closed. The bridge is out.” Sean sounded panicked. “The state police are redirecting everyone; they said almost all the back roads are flooded out. I don’t know how I’m going to get home. Are you okay?”

  Other than the nausea now rumbling through her? “Yes. I’m fine. But the power’s out. And the water…Sean, the water’s going to come into the basement.”

  “Don’t you go down there!” he warned. “Not in the dark. It’ll be fine.”

  Ginny moaned, imagining the water pouring in, rising. Ruining. “But the water…”

  “It’s too dangerous for you to go down there. Promise me you won’t. In fact, you should go across to Kendra’s house.”

  “They don’t have power either,” she told him. “It’s not just us. And frankly, I would rather drown.”

  This forced a laugh from both of them, and the small bit of humor made her feel better. Ginny looked into the backyard again, then went to the front of the house to look out the front door. In the driveway, the water was up to the middle of her car’s tires. Fear, real fear, plucked at her.

  “Everything’s flooding here, Sean.”

  “You stay put. I’m going to ask the cop what to do. But you…don’t you go out and try to drive in it.” Sean sounded fierce, determined. Helpless. “You stay there, Ginny. Get upstairs if you think it’s going to come in the house.”

  “Oh, it won’t, will it? Just the basement. It’s not going to come in the house, Sean.” But even as she said it, a vision of gray waves of water washing over her kitchen floor and down the hall filled her head.

  Her stomach muscles went tight. Hard. Ginny put a hand on the table, bending forward with her legs slightly spread. This felt different than the other times. This felt more…real.

  “Ginny! Are you okay? What’s going on?” Sean had been talking to her, but she hadn’t heard.

  Ginny shook herself as the contraction passed. She blew out a slow breath. “I’m fine. Just a contraction.”

  “Shit! What?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” she soothed him, though in fact she was starting to wonder if there would be something to worry about very soon. She put a hand on her belly, low, then over her crotch. She ached down there. Inside, deep. “Just get home when you can. Be careful—”

  But again, she was cut off, this time not because her husband had a quick-draw disconnect thumb, but because the signal had been dropped. Ginny breathed in, breathed out, until the pain in her belly eased. She still ached inside, something like the worst sort of menstrual cramps. But when it passed she could stand upright and breathe easily again, at least as easily as was possible with her child doing the cha-cha against her ribs.

  In the bathroom, though, the paper slid too easily against her flesh after she urinated. Something thick and wet spilled over the sides of the paper, and with a grimace Ginny maneuvered the light so she could see what it was. The doctor had warned her about the mucus plug, but truthfully Ginny hadn’t quite understood what it was or what it would look like until she saw it there.

  “Oh. Shit,” she said softly and let the paper fall into the toilet. She flushed and struggled back into her panties. She washed her hands, forgetting that with the electricity off, the water pump wouldn’t work until the tap sputtered and burped, going dry, and the toilet tank didn’t refill.

  Another contraction hit her at the base of the stairs. Still mild, she almost could’ve walked through it, but she didn’t want to take a chance on the stairs. Ginny held the newel post until the pain passed and tried to remember how long it had been since the last one. She’d better start keeping track, no easy task with all the clocks stopped and no clue where her watch was.

  Upstairs. Sean had told her to go upstairs. She heaved herself up one at a time and went into the library, where she set the flashlight on the table. It wasn’t bright enough to read by, but it cast enough light to show her the plate she’d left there earlier was empty. Ginny touched the crumbs with her fingertip and put them to her tongue. Salt. She wasn’t hungry, which meant she’d probably eaten them. Right?

  But she knew she hadn’t.

  She looked into the shadows, toward the small door of the crawl space. Of the closet. She’d have bent to look beneath the fainting couch if her body would bend that way, which it wouldn’t. Instead, she sat, her knees slightly spread and her hands on top of them. There was nothing to do here but wait. She thumbed her phone and brought up Peg’s number, but that call rang on and on without answer. Ginny typed in the net address for the local news channel, but the page stuck halfway and refused to load so that all she could read was “Roads closed, police direct traffic to alternate”.

  She waited for another contraction, but none came. She waited for the lights to come on, and that didn’t happen either. In limbo, waiting, starting to get chilled as the house cooled, Ginny curled up under the blanket and let herself float in the darkness. Not quite dreaming, but not really awake.

  * * * * *

  In front of her, a child.

  A girl. Long dark hair, bedraggled and tangled. Big
dark eyes shadowed with darker circles in a pale, pale face. She wore a dirty, shapeless sack of a dress that had been cut from a flowered pillowcase and a tattered cardigan, the buttons of which were missing or hanging by threads. Scabs and dirt encrusted her legs and bare feet. She stared at Ginny as her mouth worked, but nothing came out.

  Ginny blinked and sat, slowly. The flashlight had dimmed a little. She should have turned it off to conserve the charge. How long had she been sleeping?

  “Come. Please.” The girl held out a hand.

  This was not the girl in the photos Ginny’d found, though there was something of her in the shape of her face. And this girl was too young. Ginny had never seen this girl, but she knew who it was, just the same. “Caroline.”

  The girl said nothing.

  “What do you want?” It seemed the right question to ask a ghost who’d at last been brave enough to show her face. “Are you here because I found…I found you?”

  The girl stepped forward. The floor creaked. Ginny frowned. Why would the floor creak beneath something that had no weight?

  “Come. Please. Please?” The girl held out her hand, the tiny fingers dirty, the nails ragged. She opened her palm, faceup. There was a button there, like the one Ginny had found earlier. It fell from her hand and hit the floor with a clink before rolling under the lounge.

  Ginny was up and off the lounge, her arms pinwheeling, as fast as she could move. It wasn’t fast at all. Her breath sharp in her lungs, she put the chaise between her and this wraith, this vision, this shade that was no ghost.

  Oh God.

  It wasn’t a ghost.

  “Who are you?” Ginny’s voice came out high, strained, not like her own voice at all.

  “Water.” The girl looked toward the bookcase, which made no sense. Then at Ginny. She pointed down. “Water is down there.”

  “In…the basement?”

  The girl took another delicate, hesitant step toward Ginny. In the flashlight beam, her skin looked almost translucent, her dark eyes somehow filmed. Ginny was reminded of pictures she’d seen of cave fish and mushrooms, things grown in the dark.

  “Down there. It’s coming in. It’s coming up!” The girl shuddered and jerked. She turned and ran for the cubbyhole door while Ginny stared in stunned silence. “Please come! Please come help!”

  “We want to see if the little girl can come and play. The little girl in the basement. I was playing with the little girl.”

  Ginny thought of what Kelly and Carson had said. She remembered what they’d called her. She spoke, her voice on the edge of a cough, but loud enough. “Carrie.”

  The girl turned. Incredibly, she smiled. Her teeth were black and skewed, but the smile was sweet and shy. She held out her hand. “Please come. Hurry. Come!”

  You think your father did something to her, don’t you?

  I don’t think it. I know he did.

  She thought about things going missing and being returned. Of a waving silhouette in a window. Food set out in a bowl and being eaten.

  She thought of the sound of footsteps in the night.

  She thought about the place where the garage had once been, and the basement wall that looked different from all the others.

  And then she knew what had happened all those years ago.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Carrie gestured frantically and ducked into the cubbyhole. Ginny bent to look inside. The rain sounded much louder here, and she shivered at the waft of damp, cold air.

  “I can’t fit in here, honey.” The endearment slipped naturally from her lips. That was how you addressed a child. “I’m too big. And I don’t understand…”

  Carrie disappeared. Only for a second, because after that her small head peeked out from a dark place in the corner. Ginny strained to look. It was an air duct.

  Not all of it made sense, but this did. Still, she shook her head and waved at the girl to come closer. Carrie’s wide eyes blinked when Ginny shone the light too closely on her, and she put up a hand to block it.

  “I can’t fit in there, honey. Listen, you need to come out here, okay? I’ll…I’ll call someone. We’ll go across the street, or next door.” Ginny hesitated, thinking of the water rushing down the street, as swift and deep as the creek in the back. “I will help you.”

  Carrie let out a low, moaning cry of desperation. She wriggled from the air duct and dropped almost soundlessly to the dirty plywood. She moved toward Ginny, who backed up as instinctively as if a raccoon or a rat was coming at her, though the girl had shown no signs of antagonism.

  “I’ll take care of you,” Ginny whispered.

  Another contraction hit her. She groaned at the suddenness, one hand on her belly and the other grabbing at the easel. It tipped, spilling her unfinished canvas.

  Carrie cried out and covered her face. A second later she peeked through her fingers and moved closer. She put her small hands on Ginny’s belly, and Ginny didn’t have the concentration just then to recoil.

  “Water, coming up. Down there.” Carrie pointed again to the floor, to her bare feet, to something Ginny couldn’t see. “Mama says, come get help.”

  Ginny choked. Everything inside her seemed to be tensing, and the sharp ache inside her intensified. She counted the seconds—one, two, three, four—before everything eased. Her fingers had gouged the inside of her palms. She swallowed, hard.

  “Your mama is down there?”

  Carrie nodded and tugged at Ginny’s sleeve. “Please come. Mama says, the lady is nice. I tell her, the lady is nice. She says, you help us.”

  Carrie looked pleading, then terrified. She shook so hard her teeth chattered and looked around the room, though there didn’t seem to be anything to see. She looked back at Ginny.

  “Mama says, he is gone!”

  “Who? Who’s… Oh God, oh God,” Ginny muttered. She managed to stand up straight. “Your mama and you in the basement. And he…yes, honey. He’s gone. And I’m going to help you. But I can’t get into that air duct, I have to call someone. We’ll call, okay?”

  But her cell phone still wouldn’t pick up a signal, and the power was out, and though she knew there was a landline phone somewhere around, she didn’t know where it was or even if it would work if she plugged it in.

  “How high is the water, Carrie? How far up?”

  Carrie hesitated, then ducked low to the ground and held her hand to just above Ginny’s ankle. Then she put it higher. Higher. To Ginny’s thigh.

  Surely it couldn’t be that high, could it? If the basement was flooding that much, it would come into the first floor, wouldn’t it? Ginny didn’t know. All she could think of was a foundation where there’d once been a garage and the concrete wall in the basement below it.

  “You come.” Carrie tugged her sleeve, pulling Ginny toward the bookcase to the right of the fireplace.

  All the pieces were falling into place. The figure she’d seen in the window upstairs—not the one by the easel, but another window on the other side of the fireplace, one that she’d assumed was built for symmetry. The one behind the bookcase.

  Carrie reached along the molding and pressed something with her small fingers. The bookcase creaked. It shifted.

  It moved.

  Ginny cried out, not so much in surprise as a twisted sense of victory. She was not crazy. She was not crazy. And this house was not haunted, at least not by a ghost.

  Carrie grunted, shoving at the bookcase until Ginny hooked her fingers into the now-open slot and pulled. Even with the weight of the books, the case moved smoothly, on oiled tracks like a sliding glass door. It was an ingenious design, but the space behind it proved even more so.

  There was a window here, identical to its sister on the other side of the fireplace, though this one was hung with a cloak of spiderwebs, the sill decorated with a multitude of dead flies. The narrow space betwee
n the outside wall and the back of the bookcases was just wide enough for Ginny to stand in, though even without the baby bulk, she’d have brushed both sides with her shoulders. Directly to the left of the opening was the brick side of the chimney, while about four feet to the right was an opening in the floor.

  Just a hole, no safety railing or anything to keep an unwary stumbler from falling into it. But then, Ginny thought, anyone entering this space would’ve had to know exactly where they were going. Carrie ducked around her and leaped toward the hole, too fast for Ginny to catch her.

  Ginny, imagining the girl plummeting into an empty space, cried out.

  Carrie looked over her shoulder and stepped into the darkness. She didn’t fall. She gestured for Ginny to come closer.

  It was a metal spiral staircase, the first step a few inches below floor level. It circled into darkness, though when she hung the light into the opening, Ginny could see that the stairs continued without a break down to a small landing.

  She’d never have thought she could fit into it, but she could. And did. There wasn’t enough room for her to fall either forward or back, so even without a railing to grab she could put one foot at a time down on each step. She couldn’t see Carrie below her, but she could hear her. When Ginny got to the landing, there wasn’t much more room. She held the flashlight as high as she could to look around the narrow column of space.

  She was behind the pantry that should’ve been an extra foot or two wider, but wasn’t. “Oh God. He did this. He built all of this…”

  She didn’t have time to break down or dwell on the sickness that had led George Miller to build this house with a prison inside it, though that was what she was sure she’d find. Ginny gave herself a shake that set her head spinning. She braced for another contraction. Everything about her pelvis felt loose and wobbly, like her hips weren’t hinged quite right. A contraction eased and passed, and she drew in a few shaky breaths.