by Mia Sheridan
Camden remained silent though she thought she saw a miniscule tic in his jaw.
The sheriff rubbed at his chin. “Hmm,” he hummed. “Of course, you’ll have to file for a business license through the Farrow courthouse. They can be sticklers for any type of innovation within the community, especially that which brings lots of traffic, so you might want to get that filed ASAP.”
“Oh, well, I don’t think traffic will be an issue. People tend to stagger arrival times for weekend events, and travel in groups. The parties might even bring a little extra tourism to Farrow? And of course, that’s only if I’m moderately successful.” She gave the sheriff a small, uncomfortable laugh. “But, um, I’ll get that filed as quickly as I can.”
“If you need me to put a good word in for you, just let me know,” he said, winking jovially.
“Thank you, sir. That’s very nice of you.”
The sheriff glanced at Camden. “Deputy West here tells me there were some critters in your wall the other day?”
Critters. Was that what he’d said to the sheriff when he’d told her he’d suspected kids messing around? And if he hadn’t really believed someone was using the crawl spaces in the walls to scare her, why had he boarded them up? Critters couldn’t climb ladders, and critters couldn’t open doors. She looked at Camden but he was no longer staring at her, instead his head turned and his gaze focused somewhere across the street. Something felt off here. “Right,” she murmured. “Yes. It was so silly of me to bother Deputy West. It won’t happen again.”
“Nonsense now,” the sheriff said. “We’re available anytime, even if you don’t think it’s something serious. Better to be safe than sorry, right? Especially with you two females out there all alone.”
He smiled, and though in her peripheral vision, Scarlett saw Camden turn his head toward the sheriff, she kept her gaze focused on the older man. “I appreciate it.”
He nodded. “Like I said, if I can be of any help with the council, just holler. And that goes for you and your little girl getting settled in as well.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you again, sir.”
The sheriff gave her another wide smile, tipping his chin and then putting the hat he’d been holding in his hand back on his head. “You have a nice day now,” he said, walking past her.
“You too.”
“Scarlett,” Camden murmured, leaning in as she walked past as though he wanted her to stop so he could tell her something. Whatever it was, she had no desire to listen.
Scarlett raised her chin higher and didn’t stop, pushing the door open and calling behind her, “Goodbye, Deputy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Haddie hadn’t left Lilith House in a week. Her mommy was worried about her, she knew that, and she didn’t want her mommy to worry, so she’d stayed locked in the house, playing on her iPad or doing crafts that Amelia brought for them to work on together.
She liked spending time with Millie. She felt sort of like her mommy. Millie was light like a bubble. Haddie thought not only light like a bubble, but she was shiny like one too. Millie sparkled. Millie was light and fun. Her mommy sometimes forgot to have fun. Haddie thought that probably had to do with her, and that made Haddie sad.
Sometimes she and Millie played hide and seek at Lilith House, running through the long hallways, and pressing into the dark corners, Haddie covering her mouth so Millie wouldn’t hear her giggle, and then Millie tickling her ribs and saying, “Gotcha!” when she found her so that they both fell to the ground laughing so hard they had to hold their stomachs.
Lilith House was almost fully awake now, and it liked the sounds of their laughter. Haddie could tell because the bad and the sad felt . . . less, and the light felt more. It was like every window had been opened so the sunshine poured through the halls, chasing away the shadows. The rooms on the second floor still felt heavy to Haddie and made her bones twinge, but not nearly as much as before.
Today the workmen weren’t working at Lilith House, so Millie wouldn’t be coming to play with her. Her mommy was mixing colored gels together in the kitchen, creating shades for her cakes, and when Haddie entered the room, her mommy smiled, setting down the tube in her hand next to a bowl that contained the prettiest peach color Haddie had ever seen.
“Hey, baby. How are you?”
“Good. Can I go read in the gazebo?”
A worried look took over her mommy’s face and she glanced at the window, then brought her hand up, putting it on Haddie’s forehead. She’d been doing that a lot recently even though she’d never had a fever. It was like she expected Haddie to come down with a sickness at any second. She knew it was because after she’d wet herself, she’d told her mommy the reason was that she didn’t feel good. That had been a lie, but she couldn’t tell her mommy the real reason. Her mommy liked that man. Haddie had felt the . . . glitter in the air between them, like little bursts of popping light that she could feel, but not see.
Yes, her mommy liked him a lot, so Haddie couldn’t tell her mommy what he was.
She didn’t think her mommy would believe her anyway. Haddie didn’t even know what to believe.
Her mommy sighed. “I suppose some fresh air would be good. Go on out to the gazebo. I’ll be done with this mess”—she waved her hand over the many bowls in front of her—“in about an hour and then I’ll call you in for a snack, okay?”
“Okay,” Haddie said.
Haddie did go to the gazebo, but after a few minutes, she placed her book down, and walked to the edge of the woods, hesitating, and then stepped through the cover of the trees.
Haddie walked and walked, stepping over pinecones, and around bushes laden with dark, plump berries, learning more about the forest and all the things that lived there.
She placed her hand on a rock sitting in a quiet clearing, still warm from the sun, running her skin over the rough surface, letting her palm linger in the large dip in its center. A cradle. It looks like a cradle. She shut her eyes for a moment to block out the distraction of her sight, helping her to focus inward. The weight was strange here. There was mad or sad—she couldn’t always distinguish well between the two because often, they were virtually the same—but also . . . lightness. Fear that made her tremble and . . . safety, like when her mommy held her tight after she had a nightmare. Rescue. There was life . . . and death. The feelings surrounding this large rock were not together, but they also wove around one another. Sort of like Haddie’s memories. Her recollections were all from different times, but they all had her mommy in them. Some were happy and some were sad, but her love for her mommy ran through all of them like . . . a thread that connected different squares of a quilt like the ones her gram sewed.
Haddie stood there for another moment trying to make sense of the differing weights, attempting to understand what this particular thread was in this specific place, but she couldn’t. After a minute, she turned, moving in a slow circle and gazing around the forest.
She didn’t think the thing was near. She couldn’t feel its weight even when it was, but the more she’d been in its presence, the more she’d been able to sense it in some new way she couldn’t describe. It was like its weight drifted around her, just out of grasp, and she didn’t know how to latch onto it but could tell it was there. Somewhere.
The sun shifted in the sky and Haddie looked up, blinking at the streams of light bursting through the trees. She had to get home. If her mommy came outside, she’d notice she was gone from the gazebo and would worry.
Haddie walked through the woods, taking care not to let the yellow lace of her dress snag on any bushes, walking carefully through the leaves and debris, stepping around the places she felt the weight of a snake, or the nest of mice, or the heavy plants she knew were dangerous to touch. Everything had weight and even though Haddie hadn’t spent her short life in or near a forest, she found it very easy to measure. The more time she spent there, the more she could tell that different things not only told her of their good or bad
intentions, but they told her what they were.
Except the horned thing. Except that.
The snakes in this forest, for instance, were light as long as you stepped around them. But if you got too close, their weight began to change. So Haddie backed away when she was “asked.” Yes, all things had weight, but weight could sometimes shift.
She wondered if that was true of people too. She wished she could ask someone. She wished she could ask her mommy, but Haddie knew her mommy didn’t feel weight like she did, and Haddie didn’t know the words to use to explain it to her.
It made Haddie feel lonely.
It made her feel different.
She was different. She knew that.
She stepped out of the trees, making a beeline straight for the gazebo, breaking into a run when she’d made it past the house, hoping her mommy didn’t choose that moment to look out the window.
Her book was still sitting there, a story she’d just started called, The Night Fairy. She reached for it, drawing in a startled breath when she saw movement just under the bench where she’d been about to sit.
Haddie stepped back, squatting down, her eyes going wide when she spotted the tiny tan body of a baby rabbit. “Oh,” she breathed. The little thing was curled up on its side, staring at her with wide, scared eyes.
Haddie reached in, scooping up the bunny as gently as she could and bringing it to her chest the same way she’d held the kittens in the hardware store. It whimpered softly. “It’s okay,” Haddie whispered. “You’re going to be okay.” The bunny stared up at her for another moment and then closed its eyes as though it had decided it trusted her enough to sleep.
Haddie turned and headed toward the house, calling for her mommy.
“Haddie?” her mommy called back, walking from the direction of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway of the foyer when she spotted Haddie, her eyes going from her face to the animal in her arms. She blinked. “Haddie, what is that?”
Haddie stood still, stroking the velvety ear of the tiny creature. “A bunny.”
Her mother walked toward her, her shoulders lowering as if with a long exhale. She came to stop right in front of her, still gazing at the baby. “A bunny,” she repeated. “Oh Haddie. Honey.” She blew out another breath and looked off to the side for a moment. “I can’t keep taking in baby things from the woods.”
“But, Mommy,” Haddie cried, pulling the bunny as close as she possibly could. “He’s all alone.”
“Baby, are you sure his mother was nowhere to be found?”
Haddie shook her head, picturing where the bunny had been left in the gazebo where her book was.
Her mother shook her head, pursing her lips. “It’s just . . . we’re not an animal hospital, Haddie.” Her mother sounded a little mad now but her mommy’s weight always stayed the same even when her words sounded mad. Wherever weight came from, her mommy’s didn’t shift like a snake’s did. “I’m trying to start a business, Haddie. I don’t have time to be nursing sick forest creatures. We’re going to have to put it back in the woods.”
Haddie’s heart felt crushed. “No! Mommy, we can’t. It will die if we don’t help it. I named it, Mommy,” she said on a whim. Maybe if her mommy knew it by name, it would be harder for her to turn it away.
Her mommy pressed her lips together again. She reached out and ran a finger over its ear, sighing. “What’s its name?”
“Her name is Mopsie.”
Her mother’s lips tipped and inside, Haddie let out a sigh of relief. “Mopsie, huh? It’s a good bunny name.” She sighed again. “I guess our feathered friend is doing well enough that we can take on one more.” She reached out, taking the baby gently from Haddie’s hands. “Let’s go get my computer so we can figure out what baby bunnies eat.”
Haddie grinned, following her mommy from the room.
Later, after the baby bunny had eaten a small dose of heavy cream, Haddie’s mommy had sent her to wash up and change into her PJs. She pulled on her pink nightgown and walked from the bathroom back into her mommy’s room. Her mommy sat in the rocker by the window, the baby bird in his cradle next to her, the bunny nestled in a towel in her arms. All three of them were sound asleep.
For a moment, Haddie simply stood there watching them. They were all so incredibly light, the bird, the bunny, and especially her mommy. A tear tracked down Haddie’s cheek. She loved her mommy so much that sometimes it felt like her heart would soar right out of her body.
She would not let that man hurt her mommy. She would not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thirteen Years Ago
Loud footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs to the attic and Kandace looked up from the book she was reading on her bed, placing her pillow more firmly over her stomach. Sydney glanced at her, a small worried line forming between her eyes. It sounded like a man was approaching. A trill of fear whirled through Kandace. Jasper. Who else could it be?
Kandace’s fight or flight instinct kicked in as she sat up quickly, dropping her book to the floor, her head whipping around for a place to flee. She was finally healed, finally sleeping through the night, the pain in her tailbone tolerable enough that it didn’t wake her up every time she moved. Sydney sat up too, raising her hand in a relax gesture, giving Kandace a comforting nod. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” she whispered.
Kandace blinked, forcing her shoulders to relax. No, she hadn’t done anything wrong, in fact, they’d even earned the rare privilege of a chaperoned walk around the grounds that afternoon, but at Lilith House, Kandace wasn’t sure it mattered whether you were guilty or innocent of any particular charge.
The door crashed open and Jasper stood in the doorway, a moaning Aurora in his arms.
Jasper dropped Aurora on her bed and then turned, walked to the door, and slammed it behind him.
Kandace and Sydney both rushed to Aurora’s side, Kandace drawing back when she noticed the bandages on Aurora’s trembling thighs, blood seeping through the gauzy white material. “Oh my God,” she breathed, pulling Aurora’s skirt a tad higher. “Aurora, what did they do to you?”
“They caught me looking through the cabinets in the infirmary.” Her gaze stayed stuck on Kandace’s. Snuck into the infirmary? That surprised Kandace. She’d only known Aurora a short time, but she was always the one warning Kandace not to take risks. Not here.
“Why did you do that?” Sydney hissed, an edge of hysteria in her voice.
“Just seeing what I could find.”
Sydney made a sound of frustration, standing. “I’m going to get you some water,” she said, rushing to the bathroom. She looked ill.
“They caught me but they didn’t know what I took,” she whispered to Kandace, reaching back and bringing something from where she’d apparently tucked it in the waistband of her underpants. “I told them I snuck in for the pain meds.” She glanced toward the bathroom and then put the white wrapped item in Kandace’s hand.
Kandace glanced down at it, her stomach landing in her feet. It looked like a pregnancy test. Her eyes shot to Aurora’s.
“You’ve been throwing up almost every morning since the . . . cleansing,” she said. “You’ve been falling asleep before lights out.”
Kandace was taken aback. “Only a bug.”
Aurora shook her head. “Maybe. Please, just take it.” She winced when she shifted. “There was another girl in the infirmary when I went through the drawers. I didn’t think she’d tell. I thought I was safe. But she did. She told.” She closed her eyes. “So stupid. I should have been smarter about it. My dad said I was the stupidest person he ever met and he was right.”
Kandace shook her head. “You’re not stupid. It’s Lilith House that’s sick,” she spat out. “They make spies out of us. That girl used the information because she had some reason to. I mean, apart from Sydney and me, do you trust any other girl here? I don’t. We’ve all been sent here by someone who believed our lives mean nothing, that we could be disposed of. And they use that agai
nst us. It’s dog-eat-dog for the utmost for His fucking glory. It’s the only way to avoid punishment or earn privileges.”
Aurora let out a small snort. “A short walk outside? Time off from cleaning duty? That’s the price of a soul these days?”
Kandace pressed her lips together. She was certain others had sold out for less. It wasn’t always so much about the prize, but the character of the person trying to win it.
You learned how noble you were in a place like Lilith House. You learned how much of yourself you were willing to sacrifice for others. And how cheap your price could be.
Aurora had sacrificed for her because she worried she was in trouble. It hadn’t been worth the risk because she wasn’t pregnant, but just to know someone had her back in here was priceless to Kandace.
Aurora’s expression remained miserable and Kandace glanced down at Aurora’s thighs again, remembering her roommate telling them that she was a cutter. She remembered the numerous pink scars, the ones she’d put there herself.
“They cut you,” she said, her heart in her throat.
Sydney emerged from the bathroom, returning to the other side of Aurora’s bed and handing her a glass of water. Aurora sat up slightly and took a few sips before laying her head back on the pillow. “Yes, they cut me. They held me down and took a razor to my thighs. They opened the door so the others could hear me scream.” Her face screwed up and tears filled her eyes. Kandace squeezed her hand. Sydney and Kandace hadn’t heard her screams because they’d been outside, but of course, they got to see the result of Aurora’s punishment. They were witness to her pain and tears.
“Your parents will see these scars, Aurora,” Sydney said. “They’ll know.”
But Aurora just looked at her sadly. “How will they tell them from the ones I gave myself?” Aurora asked. Kandace’s stomach sank. She had no answer because Aurora was right. She’d thought it once before when she’d first arrived at Lilith House, and she thought it now: they were the perfect victims. Liars, thieves, whores, and those who practiced self-sabotage as though it was their job. By the time they’d shown up at Lilith House, they’d lost all credibility.