The Invited

by Jennifer McMahon

  “Maybe it’s in a jacket pocket or something?” Helen suggested. “Or out in the truck?”

  “It couldn’t be in the truck because you had it in town all afternoon. No, I’m sure I left it in the bedroom.”

  “Maybe it’s up at the site,” Helen suggested. “You had it this morning. We used the calculator, remember?”

  “Yeah, but I brought it back down, I’m sure.”

  “You should go check. I bet it’s up there, under the first pop-up, on the table next to the saw.”

  Nate went and checked. He came back empty-handed and irritated.

  “Where does shit go around here?” he asked. “Yesterday, the level; today, my phone.”

  Helen thought. It wasn’t just those things that had gone missing. They’d lost the broom. Helen’s favorite coffee mug. Other things had disappeared, too. Money from their wallets seemed to go missing—never all of it—just a ten here, a five there. Two days ago, Helen had splurged and bought a bumbleberry pie at the general store. When she went to get it from the fridge after dinner, it was gone.

  “Maybe you left it at the store?” Nate suggested when she insisted that she’d bought a special surprise—Nate’s favorite—for dessert, but it was now missing. “Or just thought about buying it, then got distracted by all the other stuff on your list?”

  “Maybe,” she said, beginning to doubt herself.

  She couldn’t recall losing a single thing back in Connecticut. Keys and phones were misplaced from time to time, sure, but they always turned up. And back at the condo, they’d had a place for everything: a shelf for the mail, hooks by the door for keys, a charging station in the front hall for their phones. They’d lived an ordered existence. But here in Vermont, she’d somehow managed to lose an entire pie.

  “Your phone will turn up,” Helen said.

  Nate went back to the bedroom to check the bedding and under the bed in case it had fallen off the shelf.

  Helen’s eyes went to the book, to the page Mary Ann Marsden’s phone number had been marking. The heading at the top of the page read, “7 Signs Your House Is Haunted”: unexplained noises, sudden changes in temperature, doors and cabinets opening and closing, strange odors, electronic disturbances, strange dreams, objects going missing.

  She read the last sign again, then the description:

  If an everyday item is not where you’re sure you left it, a spirit may be playing a trick on you. Most often, these items are returned, sometimes hours, days, or weeks later, usually left in the exact same spot you last saw the object. Spirits are borrowers. They are fascinated by objects from this world.

  “Can you try calling it?” Nate asked from the bedroom, his voice muffled, like he was all the way under the bed.

  “Sure,” she said, slamming the book closed. She dialed his number, listened to it ring and ring, then go to voice mail.

  The house stayed silent. No happy birdsong ringtone.

  “It’s not here,” Nate said, frustrated. This was followed by a bang and “Shit!”

  “You okay?” Helen called.

  “I’m fine. Just bashed my skull for the thousandth time on these godforsaken shelves.”

  “We should get rid of the shelves. Let’s take them down. Right now. At least the ones right above the bed.”

  “Sure, but not right this second. I need to find my damn phone.”

  “We’ll find it,” she said, standing, looking around the kitchen more thoroughly. Then she walked down the hall to the bedroom. Nate was shaking out the covers.

  “I’ve checked everywhere it could be, and it’s just not here.”

  “You can’t be sure,” Helen said. “Didn’t you say it was almost dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, then that explains why we didn’t hear it ringing.”

  “But I know I left it right here, Helen.” He hit the lowest shelf with his palm for emphasis. She saw his watch, wallet, penknife, and loose change. “That’s what’s driving me crazy. I left it right here!”

  “Are you sure you didn’t take it? Maybe by accident?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He blinked at her, and for half a second, she was sure he didn’t believe her—that he thought she was lying to him.

  “Why would I have taken your phone?” she said, the words coming out more defensive than she’d meant.

  “Well, phones don’t get up and walk away on their own,” he said.

  “No,” she agreed. “They don’t.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Olive

  JUNE 8, 2015

  “Wow! Sure is a pricey piece of equipment,” Aunt Riley, eyes wide, said when she saw the metal detector on the shelf. Riley had taken Olive up to the big hobby shop in Burlington after school. They were in the aisle with metal detectors and gold-panning supplies. The next aisle had the radio-controlled aircraft and drones, and that was where all the action was. She could hear a kid whining to his dad that he absolutely needed the drone with the Wi-Fi camera and anything else would totally suck.

  “You got enough money for this, kiddo?” Riley asked, pushing her blue bangs back away from her eyes. “I can lend you some if you need it.” Riley looked tired to Olive. Thinner, too, maybe.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got enough,” Olive said. Just barely, but she had it. Riley giving her weird but awesome gifts was one thing, but asking Riley for money was not something Olive ever wanted to have to do.

  “Where’d you get all that money?” Riley asked. “Lift a little cash from your dad’s wallet? Engage in any illicit activities?” Riley said this jokingly, but there was a serious questioning look in her eyes.

  Olive could hide just about anything from her dad—in fact, she believed he was a willing participant in her deceptions—but Riley was another story.

  “No way! I’ve been saving forever,” Olive explained. “Then I sold my old metal detector to my friend Mike. He bought a couple of the old musket balls I’ve found, too. He thinks they’re cool.”

  “So, what are you going to do with this new fancy metal detector you’re spending your life’s savings on?” Aunt Riley asked.

  “Oh, you know. The usual. Look for coins and lost rings on the beach at the lake. See if I can find any old home sites back in the woods. Maybe find more musket balls to sell to Mike.”

  Riley smiled at her. “I thought maybe you were searching for Hattie’s treasure.”

  Olive looked at her aunt, thought of telling her the truth. Riley believed in stuff like ghosts and old folktales. Riley and Mama had loved telling each other Hattie stories they’d heard, turning this woman who lived by the swamp into a witch with superhuman powers, a ghost who could come back and wreak terrible revenge. Mama and Riley agreed that that poor woman who died after nearly drowning in the bog had definitely been lured out there by Hattie, but that she must have deserved it in some way. In their minds, Hattie enacted revenge only on those who had crossed her in some way—maybe simply by trespassing or not giving her the respect she so obviously deserved. And Riley and Mama loved to tell stories of the supposed sightings of Hattie over the years, and, of course, the disappearances. As obsessed as Mama had been with Hattie, Riley might have been more so. She talked about Hattie like she’d known her, like she was an old friend no one but her understood.

  “Nah,” Olive said then, looking at her aunt. “There is no treasure. Mama said.”

  Riley looked at Olive for a few seconds. “She said that, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Olive said. “Mama was pretty sure. And I believe her. I mean, really, what are the chances that it actually exists and hasn’t been found yet?”

  “I don’t know. I just think it seems kind of sad. Finding that treasure was a dream of your mom’s for such a long time.”

  Olive remembered Mama telling her that they were the ones who would find the treasure, that
it was their destiny.

  There was this long, awkward pause again while Riley watched Olive, seemed to study her, really.

  The kid in the next aisle had won: his dad was buying him the fancy drone with the camera he wanted.

  “Dreams change,” Olive said matter-of-factly as she reached for the boxed metal detector on the shelf.

  “I guess they do,” Riley said, and she looked so sad for a minute that Olive was sorry she’d said what she had. Sorry she’d brought up Mama at all. It was easier, safer, to not mention her, to pretend she’d never existed. Sometimes Olive got so caught up in her own grief that she forgot other people were grieving, too. Olive wasn’t the only one Mama had left.

  “Gonna do some treasure hunting?” the salesclerk asked Olive when she brought the box up to the register, a little gleam in her eye.

  “Absolutely,” Olive said.

  She and Riley got into Riley’s car and drove back home. In the car, Riley moved on to asking Olive all about school and how her daddy was doing. And Olive lied. It scared her sometimes, how good she was at lying. Even to Aunt Riley, who was way swifter than Daddy.

  “School’s great,” she said. “We’re learning about this thing called natural selection. Do you know about that?”

  “Sure” Riley said, getting on the on-ramp for the highway. “Survival of the fittest. Charles Darwin and his finches, right?”

  “It’s all about adaptation,” Olive said. “I like that.” She loved this idea that some humans might be evolving right now, in minuscule ways, ways you couldn’t even see at first.

  “I guess when you think of it, that’s what survival is really all about, right?” Riley asked. “I mean, not just as a species, but on a mundane, day-to-day level. Life throws shit at us and we roll with it. We adapt and evolve.”

  Olive nodded. Riley got it so completely.

  “Of course, some people are better at adapting than others,” Riley said, giving Olive this knowing, laser-eyed look. “Your dad, even when we were kids, always had trouble with change. He’d pretend to be doing okay, but when things changed, when something upset him, he’d get thrown off, sometimes go into one of his funks where he wouldn’t leave his room, didn’t want to eat or talk to anyone. Sometimes he’d get so mad, he’d punch holes in the walls. He broke his hand once, hitting the wall so hard.”

  Olive nodded; she’d heard this story a hundred times. She tried to ready herself for what she knew was coming.

  “How’s he doing?” Riley asked, glancing at Olive in the passenger seat beside her. “The no-bullshit answer, please.”

  And there it was. But Olive was ready with a smile.

  “Dad’s doing okay, really,” Olive said. “He makes dinner every night. Helps me with my homework, even. He’s getting me a computer of my very own soon.”

  “And the renovations? Is he still spending all of his time with that?”

  Olive shrugged. “Sure, we’re working on the house, but it’s not too bad. The living room’s nearly done. And I’ve decided to go ahead and do some work on my own room. Make it a little bigger, you know? So there’ll be room for bookshelves and a built-in desk for the new computer.”

  Was being a really good liar a form of adaptation? Olive wondered.

  Cleverness was, she believed.

  But was Olive really being that clever? She wasn’t sure if Riley bought it, but her aunt pretended to, at first, and said, “That’s real good, Ollie. I’m glad things are going well. I know high school can be tough—it definitely was for me.”

  “Really?” Olive asked.

  Riley paused a minute, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, then said, “Yeah, you know, not everyone is designed to fit in. For those of us who don’t, those of us destined to blaze our own paths, well, other people can be downright shitty to us. Especially in high school.”

  And Olive almost told her then. Almost confessed everything—how school really sucked, how she skipped more often than went these days, how her dad had started tearing her bedroom apart, how she really was looking for the treasure and hoped it would help bring Mama back.

  But then Riley turned and smiled at her, and it was a genuine smile, radiating happiness and relief.

  “I’m really so happy you’re doing well, Ollie. I think a computer’s a great idea! Let me know if you need any help picking one out or setting it up or anything. I’m not an expert, but I know enough to get by.”

  Olive nodded.

  “And you know,” Riley added, putting her hand on Olive’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “If things ever weren’t going well at home, you could always come talk to me. And my guest room is always open, you know that, right? You can stay with me anytime.”

  “I know, thanks.” Olive loved the idea of staying with her quirky aunt, but she knew she couldn’t leave her dad for long. She was all he had left. “But things are fine at home now. Really.”

  Riley gave her a smile. “Just keep it in mind, ’kay? My door’s always open. And we’re still on for this weekend, right? Bride of Frankenstein and a double pepperoni pizza?”

  “Absolutely,” Olive said, giving her aunt the best happy, well-adjusted, I’m doing fine, really smile she could muster. “And don’t forget the Swedish Fish!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Helen

  JUNE 9, 2015

  Something was eating the trailer.

  It was a little after two in the morning and Helen had just come to bed after sitting in the kitchen, doing research on the computer, reading her library books, and drinking two cups of herbal tea liberally laced with brandy to help her get to sleep. Country living was not doing wonders for her insomnia. Back in the condo, there had been hundreds of channels of cable TV and the constant noise of traffic from the highway to help lull Helen to sleep.

  Of course her research hadn’t exactly helped. She’d done a search on Hattie Breckenridge and discovered a brief entry from a collection of Vermont ghost stories written in the 1980s:

  Hattie Breckenridge, legend had it, was the wife of the Devil himself, with a beauty no man could resist, even in death. To this day, residents of Hartsboro claim to see her in the woods and bog where she once lived, and some have been unlucky enough to follow her, to answer her siren’s call, and never find their way out of the woods again.

  Helen had switched off the computer, thinking the story utter nonsense. Where were the facts? Where were the names of people who’d seen her, people who’d supposedly gone missing? She crept into the bedroom and lay down, closed her eyes, took a deep sighing breath, willing herself to fall asleep quickly—and then she heard something scratching and chewing. It seemed to come from directly beneath her pillow.

  “Nate,” she said, shaking him. “Wake up.”

  “What?”

  “Do you hear that?”

  “Mmm?”

  It was a scrabbling, gnawing sound coming from under the bed. Steady and grinding.

  There was something down there. Something with sharp teeth. Something chewing its way up to them. It would eat through the wooden slats of the bed frame, then the soft organic cotton mattress, and then—

  She shook him harder, gave his shoulder a not-so-gentle punch. “Nate, there’s something here, in the trailer!”

  “Ow! God! What? Where?” he asked, sitting up, listening as he rubbed his shoulder.

  “Don’t you hear it?” she asked.

  “Hear what?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Just shut up and listen!” she hissed. This was not going to be like the scream their first night.

  They sat together under the covers, listening.

  Gnawing. Definite gnawing. Not the soft chewing of a mouse, but something much louder, much larger.

  “You hear that, right?” Helen asked.

  “Yeah, I hear it.” H
e sounded worried.

  “Well, what the fuck is it?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of animal.”

  Helen remembered the library woman’s words: “You stay out there long enough, and who knows, maybe you’ll see her, too. Go to the bog at sunset and wait. When the darkness is settling in, that’s when Hattie comes out.”

  And Helen had thought of going last night after supper, of walking to the bog by herself, but she’d been too frightened.

  The mad chewing got louder, more insistent.

  My, what big teeth you have.

  All the better to eat you up.

  She hadn’t gone to Hattie. Perhaps Hattie had come to her.

  “I think she’s under the bed,” Helen whispered.

  “She?” Nate said, grabbing his glasses, flipping on the light.

  “It. Whatever.”

  She shouldn’t have been reading the ridiculous Hattie story online and the witchcraft books from the library before getting into bed. Next time she couldn’t sleep, she’d pick up one of Nate’s science tomes—study the anatomy of an earthworm or how evaporation and condensation cause rain.

  “Hand me the flashlight,” he said as he slid off the bed and dropped to his knees. She passed him the big yellow light and he flicked it on, shone the beam under the bed. Helen stayed on top of the covers, legs tucked under her, half expecting a gnarled hand to reach out and pull him under.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing here,” he said. “But I still hear it. It sounds like it’s right underneath us.” He stood up, his white boxers and T-shirt glowing as he moved down the darkness of the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Helen’s voice was squeaky and frantic and she hated herself for it.

  “Outside,” he said. “To look under the trailer.”

  She scooted out of bed, padding behind him down the hall to the front door. She stood in the open doorway while he made his way down the steps. It was a clear night, the moon hanging low in the sky, the stars looking bright and close, the air damp and cool. Goose bumps prickled her skin.