The Invited (ARC)

by Jennifer McMahon

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Helen asked, turning away from the beams, looking at Riley. “I haven’t been able to get any real answers out of anyone in town.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t,” Riley said. “It’s kind of a gruesome story and not one folks in Hartsboro are all that proud of.”

  “Gruesome?” Olive said. “Awesome! Tell us!”

  Olive had never heard the true story of what happened to Hattie. She’d asked her mom, but her mom had said no one knew for sure. Olive couldn’t believe she’d never thought to ask Riley. Of course Riley would know what really happened, and more important, she could trust Riley to tell her the uncensored, no-bullshit truth.

  Riley leaned against a stack of wood, pushed her blue bangs out of her eyes, and began. “Well, people believed Hattie was a witch, right? That she had the power to see what was going to happen before it did. Her predictions often came true and it scared people. They believed that maybe she wasn’t just looking into the future but changing it somehow. That things happened because Hattie said they would.”

  Olive tried to imagine having this kind of power over people—the ability to make them believe you were capable of seeing into the future, shaping it even.

  “One day, she warned everyone that the old schoolhouse would burn down. When it did, three children were killed. Hattie’s daughter was fine—she’d kept her out of school that day, which made Hattie look even more suspicious, right? So Hattie was blamed for the fire, as she’d been blamed for every bad event she’d predicted. See, people then, like now, I guess, are afraid of the things they don’t understand. They want something, someone, to blame.”

  “Isn’t it interesting,” Helen said, “how little some things change?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Olive said impatiently. “So what happened to Hattie?”

  “They hanged her.”

  Helen made a little gasping sound. “Really?”

  Riley nodded. “Half the town showed up after the fire at the schoolhouse. Kids had died and they were really pissed. They declared Hattie a witch and they hanged her from an old white pine that stood near the edge of the bog.”

  “What year was this?” Helen asked.

  “1924,” Riley said.

  “Wow!” Helen said. “I’ve never heard of anyone being hanged for witchcraft that late. Most of the trials and executions were back in Puritan times.”

  “I think it was pretty well covered up. People in Hartsboro weren’t exactly proud of what they’d done.”

  “Where’s she buried?” Helen asked.

  “No one knows for sure,” Riley said. “Though folks say she was dragged into the center of the bog and weighted down. That she lies there still and that’s what makes it a haunted place.”

  “So, she’s in the bog?” Olive asked.

  “Maybe,” Riley said.

  “And the hanging tree? What happened to that?” Olive asked, trying to think of which tree it could be. There weren’t any big pines along the edge of the bog.

  “They cut it down soon after,” Riley said. “Milled it into lumber. They actually used the beams to rebuild the schoolhouse.”

  “The one they tore down last year?” Olive said.

  “Yeah. Actually, I think I’ve still got a couple of the beams from it right here for sale.” She turned back toward the wood stacked on heavy steel racks.

  “No way!” Olive said. “Like, from the actual hanging tree?”

  “That’s what people say,” Riley told them as she started looking at the tags stapled to the beams. “This one,” she said, pointing.

  Helen came up, reached out to touch the beam, hesitated a second, then placed her hand on it, gave it a soft caress.

  “This came from a tree from our land? From Hattie’s time?” she asked.

  “I can’t prove it or give you a certificate of authenticity or anything, but I’m reasonably sure it did, yes. Then it helped frame the old one-room Hartsboro schoolhouse.”

  The beam looked like all the others to Olive—old, a rich brown color, full of ax marks.

  “It’s perfect,” Helen said. “It’s just what we need to be the header between the living room and kitchen.”

  “No way!” Olive said. “You’re going to put the hanging tree beam in your house? What if it’s, like, haunted or something?”

  Helen laughed. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she said. “But this beam . . . remember what I was telling you about, how they used to make lumber with just an ax? That’s what all these marks are from.” She ran her fingers over the face of the beam. “You can practically feel the history in it, can’t you?”

  Olive put her hand on the beam, too, trying hard to imagine the tree it had once come from, standing at the edge of the bog; trying to imagine Hattie with a noose around her neck, how that tree was one of the last things she ever saw. And that tree had seen Hattie, too. Had held her weight, felt her last movements. Olive imagined there was some piece of Hattie in that tree, like a stain somewhere deep down inside it.

  CHAPTER 13

  Helen

  S JULY 12, 2015

  “It’s perfect,” Helen said.

  They’d just installed the beam as the header framing the opening between the living room and kitchen.

  It was a rough-hewn beam about four by eight inches, and it spanned the top of the six-foot opening between the two rooms perfectly. It tied both the rooms together and added a wonderful old-wood warmth.

  It was amazing how the rooms were beginning to feel like rooms, like an actual space they might soon live in. The framing for the walls was up, the plywood subfloor nailed down, and all the outer sheathing in place; they’d put marks on the floor and stud walls to show where the counters, cabinets, and big soapstone sink would be installed. The sink was being stored under one of the pop-up canopies in the yard. Nate had balked a bit at the price but agreed that it would go perfectly in their kitchen.

  Helen was already starting to look at the inside of the house and think about where their couch and favorite reading lamp would go; what it would be like to make coffee in their kitchen. She felt like a little kid playing house with imaginary furniture as she moved from room to room.

  “Let’s just tell people the beam came from the old Hartsboro schoolhouse and leave out the hanging tree bit, okay?” Nate said, blinking up at it like it was something he was still trying to understand.

  Nate had found the beam’s history a bit disturbing, unsettling even, but had agreed it was a beautiful piece of wood.

  “You can’t buy wood like this these days,” he’d said, running his fingers over its surface, feeling the rough edges left by the hewing ax. “Sturdy old heartwood from the center of an old-growth tree like this.”

  The beam seemed to give a warm glow compared with the new, pale spruce two-by-fours underneath it.

  “I love the way it makes the house feel,” Helen said now, as she took Nate’s hand, led him around the downstairs. “The way it brings in this real sense of history.”

  Nate laughed. “Kind of a morbid history, but yeah, I get what you’re saying.”

  “It’s pretty amazing that it came from a tree right here on our land. Imagine the stories it would tell if it could,” Helen said. “I really want to incorporate more old building materials—more stuff with local history. You should see that salvage yard, Nate! So many beautiful things just waiting to be given new life. My dad would have loved the place!” She remembered going to barn sales and flea markets with him, picking up old windows, doors, sinks, and hardware for him to use in his renovations. “They had stained-glass windows, claw-footed bathtubs, old farmhouse sinks, and so much lumber. And all of it had stories to tell!”

  Nate nodded, rubbing his beard, which had filled in substantially and was now looking more beard-like and less I forgot to shave–like. Helen wasn’t sure whether she l
iked the new beard yet. She thought it made him look more like a serial killer than a woodsman.

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” Nate said. “We wanted to build green, right? And you can’t get much more green than reusing and recycling. And it’s a definite bonus when the materials are of higher quality than what you can buy new. Plus, I imagine it’s cheaper in a lot of cases. Maybe with the exception of that massive stone sink you brought home. Overall, it’s a win-win.”

  “I’m going to go back to the salvage yard, check online sites, just be on the lookout for other things we can use.”

  “Okay,” he said with smile. “You’re officially in charge of acquiring salvaged materials.”

  “Artifact hunting!” she declared.

  “I love it,” he said, giving her a kiss. “And I love that you’re so excited about this!”

  “Riley will be a big help. She’s so great, Nate. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She looks like this Goth girl with crazy hair, tattoos, and piercings, all dressed in black, but she’s a total history nerd! And in the summer, she builds houses for Habitat for Humanity. I told you she offered to come give us a hand, right?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I think we should take her up on it. Maybe I’ll schedule a work day and have her and Olive come; maybe we can invite Olive’s dad, too. We can get pizza and beer for after. What do you think?”

  “Sounds great, hon.”

  “Nate? I just had an idea.”

  He smiled. “You’re on a roll today.”

  He was right, her mind was whirring. She felt so good. Keyed up.

  “What do you think about sleeping in here tonight?”

  He laughed. “What, on the floor between the sawhorses? Make a bed from bundles of insulation and sawdust?”

  His you’ve gotta be kidding smile turned to a frown. “You’re serious?”

  She put her hands on his shoulders, gave them a little convincing massage. “Come on! It’ll be fun! We can clear a spot in the living room. Bring our sleeping bags. Light some candles. It’ll be like camping, only better. The first night in our new house!”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “First sex in the new house,” she whispered.

  “Okay, I’m in,” he said, stepping toward her, giving her a scratchy kiss.

  . . .

  They’d had two bottles of wine, which would explain Helen’s pounding headache and terrible thirst. She woke up naked, disoriented. She turned her head. They were in the bare bones of the unfinished new house. On the living room floor. In the spot where their old braided rug would one day go.

  One of the candles in the glass votive jar was still flickering dimly. Nate snored softly beside her. They’d zipped their two sleeping bags together, making one large bag, which now felt suffocatingly hot and damp with sweat. The plywood floor beneath them was hard, too hard to sleep on comfortably. Her back and neck ached. And she had to pee.

  She unzipped her side of the sleeping bag and crawled out, searching around on the floor until she found her T-shirt and panties. The air felt startlingly frigid. She rubbed her arms, trying to brush the goose bumps away.

  Something creaked behind her. The house settling, maybe?

  Did brand-new, totally unfinished houses settle?

  There it was again, a loud creaking sound.

  Jesus. What was that?

  Her damp skin turned even more cold and clammy.

  Turn around, she told herself. Just turn around.

  She took in a breath, then slowly turned so that she was facing the kitchen, looking at it through the framed opening with the new beam up above. The beam from the hanging tree.

  It’s the beam making the sound, she thought. The beam remembering the weight of Hattie hanging from one of the tree’s sturdiest branches.

  She recalled something she would read once about hangings: how unless the victim’s neck was broken with the initial drop, she would hang and slowly suffocate. A terrible way to die.

  Helen felt her own throat tightening as she reached down to grab the candle and forced herself to shuffle forward, passing under the beam, moving into the kitchen, which was all shadows. The windows in the house had all been framed, but they hadn’t cut through the plywood that covered them yet, so they were dark. No views. No moonlight coming through.

  It was like being in a tomb with only a dimly flickering candle.

  And she wasn’t alone in here. She felt that instantly.

  She could hear something.

  Not creaking this time, and not Nate snoring in the other room, but the quiet breathing of someone trying not to be heard.

  She turned to her right and looked in her blind spot, and her bladder nearly let go.

  There was a woman there.

  She was standing just to the right of the wide doorway, her back against the wall, her body right where a set of kitchen shelves would go. She wore a dirty white dress, black lace-up shoes. Helen saw the woman’s wild inky-black hair, the dark circles like bruises under her eyes, and knew exactly who she was. She knew, just looking into her eyes. She would have known her even without seeing the heavy hemp rope looped around her neck: a coarse noose like a macabre necklace, the frayed end of the rope hanging to the woman’s waist.

  Hattie was here for real this time. Not some little girl playing dress up.

  Helen froze. Hattie’s eyes—for this must be Hattie—were black and shimmered like the dark water at the center of the bog.

  Helen wanted to speak, to say something—Hattie’s name maybe, or just a simple hello—but there was no air in her chest, and when she opened her mouth, no sound came. She felt like a cartoon fish letting out little bubbles of air, bubbles that rose to the surface and popped without making a sound.

  The air felt heavy and cold, as if Helen were wrapped in a blanket of fog. And the smell! The peaty, primordial smell of the bog with something sweet and rotten behind it.

  Hattie looked up at the beam above them, the beam from the tree she died beneath; the tree whose branch bore her full weight, the tree that remembered her as she must remember it.

  Hattie touched the noose around her neck, ran her pale fingers over each knob of the braid like a woman praying the rosary. And, like a woman praying, Hattie’s lips moved—she was speaking, whispering softly, silently almost, and Helen couldn’t make out what she was saying. She looked more and more distressed as she whispered to herself, her fingers moving along the rope, her eyes still locked on the beam.

  Then she looked right at Helen and said one clear word: Jaaane.

  Her voice sounded like breaking glass—no, that wasn’t quite right; it was the sound of glass being ground up, being tumbled and smashed. It was a broken, screaming, hissing sort of sound that made Helen’s bowels go icy. The sweet, rotting stench intensified.

  “Jane?” Helen croaked back, her throat dry. She wanted to turn and run. To not be here with this . . . this creature who looked human but was clearly not of this world. Not anymore.

  “Babe?”

  Helen whirled around.

  Nate was sitting up, looking at her. He could see Helen, but his view of the corner where Hattie stood was blocked by the wall.

  “Whatcha doing?” he asked, voice thick with sleep and wine.

  Helen drew a jagged breath. “Nate,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Come here.”

  “What is it?” He unzipped the sleeping bag and staggered forward, naked, his body pale and glowing in the dark. “Don’t tell me that porcupine found its way in here.”

  “Look,” Helen said, pointing to the corner. But when her own eyes followed her finger, she saw that Hattie was gone.

  “Look at what?”

  “She was here!” Helen said. “She was right here, standing in the corner.”

  “Who?”

  �
�Hattie.”

  “Oh man.” He smiled. “Is our little ghost girl playing tricks on us again?”

  “No! This wasn’t Olive. This was the real Hattie. She had black hair. An old dress. A noose around her neck.”

  “Sweetie,” Nate said, taking her hand. “You imagined it.”

  “She was here! I know what I saw. Don’t you smell that?”

  “Smell it?”

  “That rotting, boggy smell? She was here, Nate!”

  The smell was fading, she thought, but still distinct.

  He paused, studied her, his face full of concern—the way he looked when she ran a high fever. “It’s the crazy stories you’ve been listening to. The books you’ve been reading. And all the wine we had. You were probably dreaming about her. You woke up and part of your brain was still stuck inside the dream.”

  “Nate—”

  “Come on, Helen. You really expect me to believe that there was just a ghost in our house?”

  She didn’t answer. How could she answer? She’d just seen the proof with her own eyes. And if Nate didn’t believe her, she knew there was no way to convince him.

  She tried to imagine what would happen if it were the other way around: if he were the one saying he saw a ghost. Would she believe him?

  Yes, she told herself. Yes, of course she would.

  “Let’s go back to bed, huh?” Nate said, talking to her like she was a child who’d had a bad dream. “But I’ve gotta pee first.”

  “Me, too,” Helen said.

  They went back to the trailer to use the bathroom and Nate headed for the bedroom after.

  “No,” Helen said. “Let’s got back up to the house.”

  “Are you sure?” Nate asked, brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t you rather sleep in a real bed?”

  “I think it’s cozy up there. Besides, we left a candle burning. We have to go up anyway.”

  “Okay,” Nate agreed, and as they walked back up, hand in hand, Helen kept her eyes on the house, but of course it was a solid box—no holes where the windows would be—so she couldn’t see what was happening inside, if maybe Hattie had come back.