Though Loretta’s food was delicious, the richness of the homemade meal got to me later as we were driving home to the Lodge. My stomach tossed and turned, full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. My skin was burning up. I pressed my forehead against the car window, relishing the cool glass against my skin.
Simon kept looking at me from the corner of his eyes. He thought I hadn’t noticed, but he’d been doing it all through dinner too.
“Do I look that awful?” I asked weakly.
“You, uh, don’t look great. I think we should take you to the doctor tomorrow.”
The car lurched over a bump in the road. I squeezed my eyes closed, concentrating on keeping the contents of my stomach where they belonged. “We can’t afford a hit to our health insurance.”
“Then what’s the point of having health insurance?”
“What were you and Keith talking about?” I said, eager to change the subject. I hated doctors. I’d spent too much time in sterile offices after the fire. “You were outside for a while.”
“His mother’s house mostly,” Simon answered. “It’s old, and Simon’s worried it will need more fixing than he can provide in the next few years. I offered to help with the roof.”
“That was nice of you.” It helped the nausea to keep my eyes on a tree in the distance and follow it until we passed it. “I had an interesting chat with Loretta, too.”
“Oh?”
“Did Keith ever mention being arrested to you?”
Simon hesitated.
“You knew already,” I said flatly.
“He told me the first week he was working for us,” he admitted. “He said it didn’t feel right not sharing it with me, but he also asked me not to tell you. He wants you to think well of him.”
“He got arrested for stalking and trespassing,” I reminded him.
“He was going through a hard time with his dad,” Simon replied. “I get parent stuff. You should, too.”
“So, you want to be his Daddy now?”
Simon’s lips tightened. “Please don’t pick another fight with me. I’m sick of bickering with you. It’s every day.”
I crossed my arms and slumped down, automatically grumpy. I didn’t want to fight, either, but irritation grew into anger, and anger grew into rage. More and more, I noticed how little patience I had. The distance between Simon and me was my fault. I gathered my pride, stuffed it in a mental packing box, and taped it shut.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I don’t feel well.”
He reached across the car to rest his hand on my thigh. His palm felt too warm. “Which is why I want to take you to the doctor. I don’t care how much it costs. We can get you some meds and nip whatever this is in the bud.”
“I don’t want to go to the doctor.”
He tried to hide his hurt as I moved my leg out from under his hand. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. The moist heat beneath his palm was making me uncomfortable, not his touch. Before I could say anything, we turned up the unpaved road to the Lodge, and I closed my mouth out of fear something other than words might come out of it.
I couldn’t get out of the car on my own. My head spun, and the world went with it. I waited for Simon to come around to my side and pull me out. I hung heavily off his shoulder as he helped me up the porch and into the Lodge.
I felt worse as I stepped over the welcome mat. With the new heaters installed, the Lodge was quite warm. It sent a fresh wave of nausea through me. The darkness pressed in on me, squeezing my lungs. I sensed, rather than saw, a presence to my left, and when I turned toward it, two glowing orbs met my gaze like an animal’s reflective eyes in the night.
Simon flipped on the light over the entrance. I blinked. It was only Lily, sitting in the lobby, and her eyes looked perfectly normal.
“How was it?” she asked. Then she noticed how terrible I looked. “Whoa, did they feed you poison?”
Lily got up to help, but Simon turned his body to separate us.
“I got this,” he said. “She needs to get in bed.”
“Can I do anything?” Lily asked.
“No,” he replied shortly.
Lily’s mouth turned downward as Simon carried me out of her sight. I didn’t have the strength to tell him he’d been rude to her. When he set me on the air mattress in our makeshift bedroom, I tumbled limply onto the pillow and lost myself in a world of darkness.
I awoke sometime later, feeling better. Simon slept soundly next to me. His hand rested on my stomach as if he’d gone to sleep while monitoring my breath. I gently moved away and slid out from under the blankets.
Though it was warm in the room, cool air swept around my feet, almost beckoning me into the corridor. I stepped into my slippers, took one last look at Simon sleeping peacefully, and left the room.
The magnetic pull—I’d felt it two or three times in the Lodge—took me toward the stairs. My feet barely made a sound as I climbed to the second floor. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I faced the long corridor. All the rooms were closed, except for one. Moonlight spilled into the hallway from the open door.
I walked toward it. As I got closer, a voice whispered in my ear, but I couldn’t make sense of the words. It seemed to be speaking inside my head.
I turned into the empty room, the one before the presidential suite. I went to the window. It was open. The gap was big enough for someone to climb out onto the roof. I fit one leg through, ducked, and pulled the other leg out behind me.
The wind should have bothered me. It lapped against my exposed face and neck like a sharp whip. My dry lips burned, but I paid it no mind. My focus was on the tree near the edge of the roof, silhouetted against the dark woods.
The roof was slick with ice and new snow. With every step, it threatened to slide out from under my feet and pitch me over the edge. I didn’t care. I had to reach the tree.
Close-up, it became obvious the tree was dead. The branches were white and gray. The bark peeled away from the trunk like dead skin. The air was completely still. The wind had stopped. Nothing moved—not an animal in the woods, nor a snowflake in the air. It was silent.
Swiftly, a body dropped from a higher branch in the tree. Frozen with horror, I watched the rope pull taught. Snap! The victim’s neck broke.
I couldn’t move. My feet wouldn’t lift from the roof. The body spun slowly. Long, dark hair. Milky, pale skin. Finally, I saw the face.
Lily.
A scream pierced the air. Then another one. They came one after the next with hardly a breath in between.
“Max!” At the window behind me, Simon struggled to get out onto the roof, but his body was too large to fit through. “Max, what the hell are you doing? Stop screaming!”
It was then I realized the horrific sounds that filled the forest were coming out of my mouth. I turned back toward the tree. Lily’s body was gone. She was nowhere. Not up in the tree or on the ground below.
But I couldn’t stop screaming.
“Max, please!” Simon’s voice rang with panic. “Watch the edge!”
My toes were hanging off the roof. I looked down. The ground was not too far away. I could easily jump if I wanted.
“Don’t you dare!” Simon shouted. Then he vanished from the window, just like Lily’s body.
I stared at the ground. I wiggled my toes. One step forward would take me tumbling off the edge of the roof. When was the last time I’d felt real pain? In that burning house, for certain, when the skin on my legs and torso began to crisp. The scars had faded, but they would never disappear. This was my life. Full of fire and doubt. Just as I thought everything was coming together, it all burned away.
I lifted one foot from the roof—I could move them now—and dangled it in the open air, just to see what it would feel like. I lifted my chin to the sky and let the returned breeze whisk my hair from my neck. God, it was good to be free. I shifted my weight forward and stepped off.
“Max, no!”
It was too lat
e. I tumbled toward the ground. For a moment that lasted forever, I fell into oblivion. I fell into darkness. I fell into the world beyond this one.
Then Simon caught me.
9
Simon fell under my weight. We tumbled into a snowbank, but he kept his arms wound tightly around me. As soon as I pressed my face against the warmth of his neck, the veil lifted from the world. Whatever spell that had entrapped me on the roof was broken.
Simon sobbed into my shoulder. He made no attempt to lift us from the deep pile of snow. He wore no coat or boots. He was barefoot. But his haste had saved my life or at least saved me from a major injury.
The shadow of the dead tree loomed over us. I looked high into its branches, but there was no sign of Lily’s body. The roof seemed farther away from the ground than when I stood on it.
“Why?” Simon whispered, his voice thick. “Why would you do something like that?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I answered truthfully. My head felt clearer than it had in days. The nausea from earlier had passed. For once, I felt like myself. Better than myself.
Simon clasped my face between his palms and forced me to look at him. “You stepped off the roof.”
“I slipped,” I heard myself say.
“I saw you, Max,” he said with the tiniest hint of fury. “I saw you lift your foot and step forward. You didn’t slip.”
I shook my head and smiled. “You’re being silly. Why would I intentionally jump off the roof?”
“You tell me.”
I smoothed his curls away from his forehead and ran the pads of my fingers down his face. It was the first intimate gesture we’d shared in weeks. “Baby, you’re imagining things. I slipped and fell. That’s all.”
The lines around his eyes and mouth softened as I continued to stroke his cheeks. He closed his eyes, relaxed, but when his hand slipped and landed in the snow, it brought him back to reality. He grabbed my hand in his icy one, trapping it against his chest.
“Don’t tell me I imagined that,” he growled. He drew me roughly toward him and stood up, showing no effort in lifting me from the ground. His back was covered in snow. It fell off in big chunks as he carried me to the front of the Lodge and inside. Unceremoniously, he dumped me onto the couch and covered me with the blanket. “Don’t tell me what I did and didn’t see,” he went on in the same rough tone. He vanished into the kitchen, and I heard him put on the kettle. “I’m taking you to the doctor’s tomorrow. I don’t care how much it costs. We’re going. End of story.”
“You can’t make me.”
“Yes, I can,” he roared.
I blanched, hiding beneath the safety of the blanket as he appeared in the doorway between the lobby and the kitchen. His chest heaved as he stared at me, gripping an empty mug so hard I thought it might explode under the pressure. I had never seen him so angry.
Even as I thought it, his rage faded. The longer he looked at me, the more he deflated. His shoulders lowered. His contorted expression relaxed. All at once, the anger morphed into sadness. Or was it fear?
“Don’t you understand?” he whispered. “You’re all I’ve got left.” His defeat made me reply with the words he wanted to hear.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. Just don’t call 9-1-1.”
Simon held me for the rest of the night. His breathing never slowed or evened out. Every once in a while, he shook himself awake. My heart sank. He was afraid to go to sleep, lest I end up on the roof again.
In the morning, he called the primary care doctor in Silver Creek and made an emergency appointment. An hour later, he loaded me into the car like a sick dog and drove me to town.
“I feel fine,” I reported, once we were in a private exam room.
Dr. Alvarez was a whole head shorter than me. She had a severe haircut that stopped right at her chin and forearms strong enough to strangle an ox. While she listened to our story from the night before, Simon paced the room with his arms crossed.
“She’s been ill,” he cut in. “A bad head cold. Probably bronchitis, but she wouldn’t let me bring her here until now.”
Dr. Alvarez smiled warmly at me. “Not a fan of doctors, I presume?”
“After hours being poked and prodded by them as a kid, it got old quickly,” I explained. “Not that I have anything against you personally.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not offended.” Her gaze slid between me, sitting quietly on the exam table, and Simon, who refused to remain still. “Why don’t we start with an easy question. What brought you in today?”
Simon opened his mouth.
“I fell off the roof of the house,” I said before Simon could tell his version of events.
“She stepped off,” he revised anyway, finally coming to a stop. “I watched her do it. She was standing on the roof in the middle of the night, screaming her head off like someone was attacking her—”
“Why don’t we let Maxine describe her experience?” Dr. Alvarez said, firm but not rude. “She’s the patient here.”
Simon shut up and resumed pacing. Dr. Alvarez turned to me and waited.
“I don’t really remember what happened,” I said. That was partially true. The time between waking up in bed and landing in Simon’s arms outside was blurry, like a thin fog laid over my memories. “I think I might have been sleepwalking. I don’t know how I ended up on the roof.”
That was a lie. Though the details were hazy, I recalled the gust of cold wind at my feet, pulling me upstairs and into that specific room. I could see myself ducking through the open window and stepping outside.
“Why were you screaming?” Dr. Alvarez asked.
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were,” Simon said. “It woke me up. They probably heard you all the way in town.”
“Simon, why don’t you wait outside?” the doctor suggested. “I’d like to talk to Maxine alone.”
Simon glared at her. I thought he might refuse, but he grabbed his coat and stalked out. It was just Dr. Alvarez and me. When she leaned forward and made eye contact with me, I sensed what the next conversation would be about.
“How is your home life, Maxine?” she said. “Do you feel safe? Taken care of?”
“This has nothing to do with Simon,” I replied automatically. “He gets mad when he’s worried. That’s all.”
Something like pity formed in Dr. Alvarez’s eyes. “I’ve worked with a lot of women who have told me the exact same thing.”
“I’m not abused,” I said brusquely.
“Okay, let’s try something else.” She rolled her chair back and folded her hands in her lap, popping the bubble of forced intimacy she’d created with her previous question. “Your husband said he woke up to the sound of your screams and found you standing on the roof. He said you intentionally stepped off. You said you weren’t screaming and that you fell off the roof. One of those versions is true. We need to figure out which one.”
I knew which was true. The fresh soreness in my throat was evidence enough of our harrowing night. But I couldn’t tell Dr. Alvarez why I’d been so horrified. Or could I?
“It won’t make sense,” I said.
“Try me.”
I swallowed my nerves. “I saw something.”
“You saw what?” she prompted quietly.
“A woman,” I answered, daring not to reveal the victim’s identity. “She was hanging from the tree. Dead. I heard her neck snap. I don’t know what came over me. I wanted to be free, and the edge of the roof was right there…”
Dr. Alvarez studied me for a long time before speaking again. “Maxine, have you witnessed any trauma in your life? Have you lost anyone before?”
“A house fire killed my parents and my childhood best friend,” I said, shaking. “I have scars on my legs and stomach from where I was burned.”
“Have you ever had problems with post traumatic stress disorder before?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Not like this. I used to have panic
attacks, but they don’t happen as much anymore.”
The doctor drew my paperwork toward her and skimmed through it. “You recently moved to Silver Creek, correct? That’s why I haven’t seen you before.”
“Yes, we bought the ski lodge, and we’re working on renovating it.”
“Do you flip houses and such for a living?” she asked. “Have you done this before?”
“No, we decided on it out of necessity,” I answered. “We didn’t have a lot of money, and we were staying with friends who wanted to start a family. Buying the Lodge and fixing it up seemed like the only logical choice.”
Dr. Alvarez set aside the paperwork. “Here’s what I’m thinking. You’ve just gone through a lot of big changes in your life. You’ve taken on this huge challenge of renovating the Lodge. Both you and your husband are under a lot of stress. You’re probably not getting a lot of sleep—”
I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, we’re sharing a double air mattress.”
“Exactly,” she continued. “You’re in a new, unfamiliar place. One that doesn’t feel anything like home. The weather is particularly bad this year. My best guess is the stress is piling up on you. You have underlying trauma you haven’t addressed, and the combination is triggering these episodes.”
Every part of me wanted to tell her she was wrong. PTSD didn’t explain the feeling that captured me while I’d been walking around the house last night. It didn’t account for the strange magnetic pull that led me upstairs and through the window, nor for the whispers in my head or the shadows without bodies.
“What am I supposed to do about it?” I asked.
“Talking to a professional is a good start,” Dr. Alvarez replied. “I can refer you to a friend of mine. He’s a certified psychiatrist—”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, I don’t want to go to therapy. I can’t talk about this. Not yet, anyway.”
She sighed. “In that case, I can give you something to take the edge off.”
“That’s it? You want me to take a pill.”
“I can also give you some exercises to practice on your own that will help with your anxiety,” she said. “Breathing techniques to relax and focus on reality, rather than the pictures your brain shows you.”
The Haunting of Silver Creek Lodge Page 10