The Invited (ARC)

by Jennifer McMahon

  Now, Sylvia studied Olive while she polished a pint glass. “Last time I saw you, you were a whole lot shorter. You’ve shot up like some kind of weed. How old are you now?”

  “Fourteen,” Olive said.

  “Fourteen,” Sylvia said wistfully. “Where does the time go?”

  Olive didn’t know what to say. She stared down at the shiny bar top.

  “So what can I do for you, Little Miss Kissner? Want a Coke or something?”

  “No thanks,” Olive said, reaching into her pockets, which were empty. She didn’t bring any money. Didn’t have any to bring.

  Sylvia poured her a Coke anyway, put a cherry in it. “On the house,” she said, setting it down on a beer coaster in front of Olive.

  “You hear anything from your mom yet?” Sylvia asked.

  “No,” Olive said, touching the glass, watching the bubbles rise to the surface and pop, disappearing. “Not yet.”

  Sylvia made a grim face, polished the glass in her hand extra hard. She held it up so that she was looking at Olive through it.

  “I was hoping you could tell me something, though,” Olive said, taking a sip of the sweet, cold Coke. “I heard my mom was in here with a man not long before she took off. A man with dark hair and a leather jacket. My aunt Riley saw them sitting at a table together. I was hoping maybe you might remember that and know who he was. Or really anything else about who she was spending time with before she left.” She watched Sylvia, waiting, trying not to look too hopeful. The last thing she wanted was to get the poor pitiful Olive look from Sylvia.

  Sylvia put down the glass she’d been holding, twisted the white polishing rag in her hands. “Olive, your mom, she—”

  “I know what people say,” Olive said. “That she saw lots of men. I’ve heard her called a lot of horrible names. Not much you can say would shock me, so it’s okay. Really. I just want to know the truth.”

  Now Sylvia just looked sad. Much older all of a sudden. Olive noticed the wrinkles around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth.

  “I think a lot of people misunderstood your mother . . . I mean, sure, she came in here and would sit and have a drink with whoever was buying.” Sylvia leaned down, polished at the counter with her rag, rubbing one spot in hard, tight circles, like there was a mark that just wouldn’t come out. “She liked meeting new people, especially if they were just passing through. Tourists and hunters and long-distance truckers—people with stories about other places. Men and women. You know how people around here are about outsiders—distrustful.”

  Olive nodded, thought about Helen and Nate. How she’d heard the buzz around town about the new flatlanders who’d bought the land by the bog; how they were blamed for all the trouble in town, for stirring up Hattie; how some even said Helen was a witch herself.

  “So the rumors would fly,” Sylvia continued. “But your mother—as far as I know—wasn’t hooking up with strangers all the time the way people go around saying she did.”

  “But she had a . . . like, a boyfriend, right?”

  “I don’t know, Olive. If she did, she didn’t tell me. And I never saw her with anyone here who seemed like a boyfriend.”

  “But she met men here, right?”

  Sylvia stared at Olive a minute, looking like she couldn’t quite believe what Olive had just asked. “Like I said, she had drinks with lots of people in here. Including the weirdos in that ghost club she was in.”

  “Ghost club?”

  “Yeah. The ‘spirit circle,’ or whatever they call it.”

  Olive drew in a breath. No way! Her mom was off trying to talk to spirits?

  “Don’t look so freaked, kiddo. It’s basically a bunch of folks drinking bad wine and having séances and stuff at Dicky Barns’s old hotel. Then they go into trances and charge old ladies money to talk to dead people.”

  “Wait. You’re saying my mom actually went there? To Dicky’s place?”

  Sylvia nodded. “She went more than a few times. For a while, I think she was something of a regular.”

  Dicky Barns was a fifty-something man who had once been a rodeo star in Texas. That’s the way he told it anyway. He walked around like he was Hartsboro’s biggest celebrity, a huge silver rodeo belt buckle glimmering on the waistband of his Wranglers and a leather holster with an old Colt revolver. He’d corner anyone he was able to and yammer on to them about the old rodeo circuit: horses he’d ridden, steer he’d roped. His favorite stories, the ones he liked to tell the kids, were about the horrible injuries he’d seen: men gored by bulls, cowboys with skulls crushed, missing fingers. Mike said Dicky had dropped off some fancy western shirts to be dry cleaned at his mom’s shop earlier this summer. “Do you have any idea how many bones I’ve broken, son?” he asked.

  Mike admitted that no, he did not know.

  “I got more metal plates and screws than Iron Man in those superhero movies.”

  Dicky had grown up in Hartsboro but left home at sixteen to head for Texas to learn to be a cowboy. His dad had been the town doctor, but he got lost while hunting with Dicky way back in the ’70s when Dicky was just a kid. Some people said it was Hattie who got poor Dr. Barns, which Olive didn’t take too seriously. Besides, her daddy said that Dr. Barns had been a heavy drinker and it was no wonder he’d wandered into the woods and couldn’t find his way back out.

  After a few too many broken bones and concussions, Dicky quit the rodeo life and came back home to Hartsboro in his thirties and bought the old Hartsboro Hotel, turned it into a used furniture and antiques shop. Olive had heard about the séances. People said he was trying to make contact with his father, which seemed just plain sad to Olive. Kids at school said Dicky was mental, that he’d landed on his head one too many times after being thrown off horses. Olive had seen the signs around town, heard stories about the ghost parties at the old hotel. Some kids, they said they’d seen if for themselves: Dicky moving from room to room in there, surrounded by the shadows of ghosts. But for the most part, people made fun of Dicky, including Olive’s parents, who liked to tell the story of how Dicky was kicked out of a town meeting in the elementary school gymnasium a couple years ago for showing up with a loaded six-shooter.

  “The guy never takes his gun off. He thinks he’s an actual cowboy,” her mama said when they got home from the town meeting.

  “A cowboy who talks to dead people,” her dad chortled. “He’s got a permit and it’s registered, but you can’t bring a gun into a school like that.”

  “No exceptions, not even for John Wayne—I mean Dicky Barns!” Mama said back then, laughing, shaking her head.

  Now, Sylvia leaned against the bar so that she was real close to Olive. She smelled like roses, only it was off somehow, more chemical. Like a kid’s rose-scented perfume. “Lori went to those meetings hoping to make contact with Hattie.” She kept her voice low, nearly a whisper. “She wanted to know about the treasure.”

  “Did she? Did she make contact? Did she find out anything?” The words tumbled out fast.

  Sylvia smiled at her. “You don’t just look like her, you get all wound up like her, too!” She shook her head and considered for a moment, then went on. “I don’t know if any ghosts turned up, but I do know this: Lori showed up late here at the tavern one night. After everyone else had gone home. She was all shaken up and she asked if she could spend the night at my place, said she couldn’t go home, that Dustin—your dad—was real mad at her for something. I asked her what for, and she said it didn’t matter, that none of it mattered anymore.” Sylvia looked over at the men watching baseball stats flashing on the TV. Then she leaned in closer, lowered her voice and whispered, “Your mom, she had a few drinks here with me that night and, to be honest, she got a little tipsy. She told me that she had a secret, and I had to swear not to tell a living soul. Of course, I promised. And she told me she’d found it. Hattie B’s treasure. She knew just where
it was, but she hadn’t dug it up yet.”

  “What?” Olive nearly tipped over her Coke. “When was this? Did she say where it was? Did she dig it up?”

  Sylvia smiled again. She was enjoying herself now, enjoying the reaction her story got.

  “It wasn’t long before she went away. And no, she didn’t tell me where it was. I don’t know if she dug it up. Hell, I don’t even know if she really found it. You know how your mama is. Always telling stories. Especially with a few drinks in her. She likes to pull your leg, you know? See what she can make you believe.”

  Olive nodded. Mama did like to fool people, to tell tall tales. She was always testing people, to see how gullible they were, what crazy story they might believe.

  “Did she stay with you that night?” Olive asked.

  “Yeah. But she was gone when I got up the next morning.”

  “And did you see her again after this?”

  Sylvia frowned, the lines around her mouth deepening like little canyons. “No. That was the last time. Like I said, it was just a day or two before she took off.”

  “And you haven’t heard from her? Or heard anything about her from anyone?”

  Sylvia shook her head, dangly turquoise earrings swaying. She reached up, touched one, tugged on it a little. “No.” She stared out across the room, her eyes on the glowing Exit sign above the door. “Sometimes I think that maybe she did find it. Hattie’s treasure. I never believed it existed, but maybe it did and your mama found it and she took that money and got as far away from here as she possibly could.”

  Without me, Olive thought. She took a long sip of her cold Coke, trying to concentrate on the sweetness, to give herself something else to focus on other than the horrible empty feeling this idea left her with.

  All she got was brain freeze.

  CHAPTER 15

  Helen

  S JULY 13, 2015

  They spent the remainder of the afternoon cutting out the rest of the holes that would be windows. Helen went around with the drill, making holes in each corner, and Nate followed her with the saw, making the cuts, letting the pieces of plywood fall out to the ground below. They didn’t talk about the deer or what Helen had seen the night before. They didn’t talk much at all, just worked steadily, power tools whining, sawdust flying.

  “Feels more like a proper house now, doesn’t it?” Nate asked once they were finished, standing back to admire their work from the front yard.

  “Getting there,” Helen said. “But we’ve still got a long way to go. Let’s bring in one of the windows and see if we can get it in.”

  Riley arrived just in time to help, pulling up in an old battered Honda Civic.

  “Thought I’d come check out this house I’ve been hearing so much about,” she said. “Wow! I love it! Classic saltbox!”

  Helen gave her a grateful hug. “I love that you know it’s a saltbox! And that you’re here!”

  Helen introduced her to Nate, whose first words were “You don’t know anything about installing windows, do you?”

  She laughed. “Lots,” she said. They led her into the house.

  “That beam looks amazing there!” she said, stopping below the header between the living room and kitchen. “It’s perfect!”

  “Too bad it’s from a hanging tree,” Nate said, laughing. “And that it seems to be haunted.”

  “Haunted?” Riley said, looking from Nate to Helen.

  Nate laughed, and Helen said, “He’s just joking. Come on, let’s see if we can get our first window in. Let’s start small—the bathroom?”

  Riley helped them fit the window into the frame, then shim, square, level it, and nail it in place. When they finished the first window, they went on to do four more, in what seemed like no time.

  “Wow,” Nate said, admiring their work. “If we had you here more often, we might even get back on schedule.”

  “Big project like this is bound to get a little behind,” Riley said. “I’m happy to swing by and help out when I can. And if you want to break down and hire a pro for a week or two to help speed things along, I’ve got lots of names.”

  Riley was wearing a tank top, and Helen was struck by the woman’s tattoos. She was covered in designs, all in black ink only, ranging from delicate to bold: an eye, a fish, a pentagram, a crystal ball, a winged horse. She had a black snake in a perfect circle on the back of her neck, its tail tucked into its open mouth, just visible under her angled bob.

  Helen saw Nate looking at the tattoos and knew he didn’t approve—he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to do that to their body. Helen had toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo once, back when they were first together, but Nate had advised her against it, warning that she’d be sure to regret it at some point.

  “I think we owe you a beer,” Nate said.

  “Sounds great! And I’ve got a little weed if either of you are interested,” Riley said.

  Nate shook his head. “None for me thanks, but I’ll go grab some beers.” He gave Helen a raised-eyebrows you’re not really going to do that, are you? look that helped her make up her mind.

  “I’d love some,” she said, sitting down on the front steps of the new house beside her new friend. Riley produced a joint and lighter from her bag, lit the joint, took a hit, and handed it to Helen. Helen inhaled the smoke, let it seep into her lungs. She looked out across the yard to the tree line, to the path that led down to the bog. She was sure she could smell the bog, the dampness and earthy scent of peat, when the wind blew in their direction. It was as if the wind from the bog was telling her: You are meant to be here.

  And: I chose you.

  She hadn’t smoked pot since college, but it seemed like the right thing to do—part of who the new Vermont Helen was. She felt loose and relaxed for the first time in days.

  She imagined the shit she’d get if her friend Jenny back in Connecticut could see her now—Embracing your hippie self, Helen? First step weed, second step unshaven armpits, then you’re commune-bound for sure. And if Jenny had any idea Helen believed she’d seen a ghost—her old friend would be up here in four hours, shoving Helen into her Land Rover to go back to the safe predictability of life in Connecticut. An intervention, she’d call it.

  Helen imagined having a dinner party with Jenny and Riley—pictured Jenny staring at Riley’s tattoos, piercings, and blue bangs. Helen got a little thrill out of the idea of introducing them, showing off Riley like an exotic pet—look at my new friend, look at my new life.

  Riley’s skin seemed almost alive to her. “I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” Helen found herself saying.

  “Awesome! I can hook you up with someone. There’s this guy, Skyler, I apprenticed with him once upon a time when I thought maybe I wanted to be a tattoo artist. He’s amazing. Most of this is his work.” She held out her arms and Helen saw things she hadn’t noticed before: images and faces within the designs.

  “Do you know what you want?” Riley asked.

  What did she want? Her mind drifted, spun. She stared into the empty black eye socket of the crow skull on Riley’s forearm. Nate would like that one, Helen decided. It was like something he might draw in his nature journal.

  “Do you have a design in mind?” Riley asked.

  Nate came back with a six-pack of beer.

  “What are we designing?” he asked.

  “Helen’s tattoo,” Riley said as Nate passed her a beer.

  “Is that right?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral, but he shot Helen a look of concern—or was it derision? He pulled up a folding camp chair and sat facing them on the lawn in front of the house. Helen felt a twinge of guilt, like she had betrayed him somehow. The weed was making her paranoid, surely.

  “Nate,” Helen said, as he settled into his chair and cracked open a beer. “You should tell Riley about the deer you saw this morning.”r />
  Nate had a good swig of beer, then told Riley the story of the albino deer.

  Riley smiled and nodded, happy for him, but not seeming the least surprised.

  “Wait,” Nate said. “You know about the white deer?”

  “That was Hattie you saw,” Riley said.

  Helen’s stomach clenched.

  “What?” Nate laughed.

  Riley laughed, too, but comfortably.

  “Oh yeah! There are tons of stories that go back for decades about a white doe in these woods. A couple of hunters back in the late sixties swear they found a naked woman out here by the bog. She ran, and while they chased her—they say to help her—she transformed into a white doe.” Riley’s leg was pressed against Helen’s as they sat side by side on the steps.

  Nate laughed so hard he snorted beer out his nose. “And how much had they had to drink?” Nate asked, once he’d pulled himself together. “Or maybe it was something stronger—nothing goes with a hunting trip like a little LSD, some magic mushrooms maybe. I’ve heard how Vermont was in the late sixties and seventies.”

  Riley shrugged her shoulders. “I guess you never know. However, as I said, there are dozens of stories going back years and years. People seeing her, following her deep into the woods.”

  Nate took a long sip of his beer, looked at Riley, his eyes moving from her face to her tattoos. “Interesting. I mean, albinism has always been linked with mystical stuff. In folklore, the ‘pure white animals’ often have magical abilities. In some cultures, albinos are considered cursed and are shunned. But really, it’s just a genetic mutation—an accident that causes melanin to be improperly produced or distributed. Beautiful, unique, sure . . . but just genes.”

  “It’s weird, though,” Helen said. “Don’t you think? That there are so many stories about a white doe in these woods going back years and years? I mean, if hunters were seeing her in the sixties, it can’t be the same deer, right? How long can one deer live?”