The Invited

by Jennifer McMahon

  “I hate to think that my mother’s been down there this whole time,” Olive had said when Helen was with her in the hospital cafeteria last night. “It just seems so…so lonely.”

  But Helen didn’t think so. No, she didn’t think Lori would be lonely down there at all.

  Because she wasn’t alone down there.

  Be careful of the bog, Nate always told Helen. Stay close to the edge.

  But the bog always drew her in.

  Come closer, it seemed to whisper. Come share my secrets.

  It had such an acidic, rich, mesmerizing smell—a primordial scent, she imagined. And it was such an otherworldly place, a landscape unlike anything she’d ever seen.

  Some nights, she just sat at the edge, watching, listening, imagining she could see lights, the vague outline of the old house that once stood on the other side.

  Hattie’s house.

  The past and the present, all that had happened and all that was happening now—she felt it all layered in this place; not just layered but deeply entwined, like the roots of the biggest trees.

  She thought of everything that led her here: her father’s death, Nate’s belief and determination, a dream. A dream of a place where she’d feel she belonged. Where she was meant to be.

  And she’d found it.

  Maybe with a little help, but she’d found it.

  * * *

  . . .

  Another searcher in a dive suit who’d been floating around in the pool at the center of the bog waved his arms. “There’s something else down here!” he called. “More remains. Skeletal.”

  Others closed in, moving toward him slowly, carefully.

  And Helen wanted to scream, to warn them. To say, Leave those bones alone. They belong here. They’re as much a part of this place as the bog itself.

  A man beside her mumbled something into a radio.

  Another, a volunteer fireman she recognized from the general store, said, “It ain’t safe in that bog. Not with Hattie’s ghost out there.”

  Helen turned away, knowing Hattie’s ghost wasn’t out in the bog.

  She knew just where the spirit of Hattie Breckenridge was.

  She was back at Helen’s house with the others, waiting.

  CHAPTER 53

  Olive

  JUNE 8, 2016

  Olive was back near the old foundation of Hattie’s house. She didn’t come out to the bog much these days. It was too hard to come and think about Mama. About what had happened to Mama.

  But still, even though she stayed away from the bog, the bog was with her. It filled her dreams, her waking thoughts, too.

  Especially after Dicky Barns came to visit her last week. He brought a note from Aunt Riley, who was safely locked up at the women’s correctional facility up in South Burlington. “Your aunt asked me to deliver this to you,” he said.

  “My daddy says I’m not supposed to have any contact with her. Our lawyer says so, too,” Olive said.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Dicky said, handing her the paper, then turning to go. He stopped a minute, turned back. “I had no idea, you know. None of us did. We all thought Lori had run off with a man, like Riley said.”

  Olive had heard all of this in court. She’d heard how Riley had taken Dicky’s gun without Dicky knowing. And how Riley had taken Mama’s diary, brought it back to the group of people who made up Dicky’s circle, hoping it might have clues about where the treasure might be. But then, when Olive went to Dicky’s and started asking questions, Dicky panicked and asked Riley to put the diary back. That was when she’d written the last passage, the one meant to incriminate Daddy.

  Dicky looked down at his pointy-toed boots now. “Olive, I’m so sorry for all of this. Your mother, she was a special lady. She had a lot of gifts, but I guess you don’t need me to tell you that.”

  Olive watched him walk away, shoulders slumped, looking so much smaller than he usually did. And gone was the gun in the tooled leather holster. The gun Riley had taken from Dicky and used to kill Olive’s mother.

  She read Riley’s note:

  Dearest Ollie,

  The treasure is real. You know that, right?

  It’s in the bog. It has to be. Your mother was going to show it to your dad that night. She asked him to meet her there.

  Don’t stop looking. You deserve to find it.

  I’m sorry. More sorry than you will ever know. There’s no real explanation or excuse for the things I’ve done. What happened with your mother—it really was an accident. I never intended to shoot her. I just wanted…I guess I wanted impossible things. I wanted to be the one that Hattie chose. I wanted to see her, to hear her voice, to taste her power. I thought maybe if I had the treasure, it would make me close to her, too. But that wanting, that need—it was blinding and it made me lose everything I ever cared about. Including you.

  Find the treasure, Ollie. Ask Hattie. She’ll show you. I have no doubt.

  All my love,

  Riley

  Now Olive stood by the old foundation, looking out over the bog.

  Birds and dragonflies darted through the air. Frogs sang. The pink lady’s slippers were plentiful this year, as if Hattie had been dancing in circles around the bog.

  On the other side, she saw the path that led up to Helen and Nate’s house, finished now. Helen was probably out working in the garden. And Nate off at work at the Nature Center. Last week, when they’d had Olive and her dad and even Mike over for dinner, Helen had shown Olive her new tattoo: a delicate pale pink lady’s slipper on her forearm. Her tribute in ink to Hattie.

  Mike loved the tattoo. And Helen and Nate loved Mike.

  “Cypripedium reginae,” Mike said when he saw it. Olive rolled her eyes but smiled at him, feeling weirdly proud of her smart, dorky best friend.

  “Where have you been hiding this guy?” Nate asked, and Mike made a quirky response about hiding in plain sight, which led to a long discussion between Nate and Mike on all the animals that used camouflage and the different forms of camouflage, both of them throwing around terms like “disruptive coloration,” “background matching,” “countershading,” “mimicry.”

  Mike’s hair had grown out from the buzz cut he’d worn his whole childhood, and he’d grown half a foot in the last six months. Even Olive’s dad seemed to be looking at Mike in a whole new way, calling him “son” and inviting him to stay for dinner most nights after Olive and Mike had been working on homework together.

  Olive and her dad, with Helen and Nate’s help, had finished the renovations of their house. They’d put up the final drywall, laid down flooring, painted, and put away all of their tools. Sometimes Olive saw her dad looking at the walls and could tell he was thinking about changing things again. She’d take his hand, walk over to the framed photos they’d put up of Mama: the three of them on holidays and birthdays, Mama and Daddy on their wedding day. Nothing they did—changing the house, finding the treasure, even—would bring her back. But she was with them still. Olive felt it. She knew her daddy did, too.

  “Mama would have loved this house just the way it is,” Olive would say.

  * * *

  . . .

  Olive stood in the bog now, wearing her mother’s necklace—Hattie’s necklace. The door between the worlds.

  She took it off, let it dangle on the thin leather cord.

  “Show me, Hattie,” she said. “It’s time.”

  And she felt it. Felt it in her heart. That it really was time. That Hattie was ready to show her now.

  And the silver pendant started moving, pulling to the left. She walked a few steps, then the necklace changed direction and so did she. Step-by-step, she followed the path the necklace laid out. Hattie’s path. She stepped over the pink lady’s slippers that seemed to be leading the way. The path, accented with the wild pink o
rchids, led right to the back corner of Hattie’s house. Then the necklace began to twirl in fast clockwise circles.

  “Here?” she asked.

  Yes, the necklace said. Yes.

  Maybe it was another trick; she’d dig up another ax head, an old pot or sink maybe.

  She laid the necklace down on the ground, began pulling back rocks. Tested with her metal detector and got a strong signal.

  She kept digging, moving rocks.

  Until her shovel hit something hard.

  She reached down, felt a piece of wood and, behind it, the edge of a heavy metal box.

  Beside it, Hattie’s necklace glinted up at her in the sunlight, the eye in the center watching.

  I see all.

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not exist were it not for Dan Lazar, Anne Messitte, and Andrea Robinson, who asked me to write my own version of a haunted house story. Thanks for encouraging me to take this journey and for all the insights you gave me along the way. Many thanks to the whole spectacular team at Doubleday. And to Drea and Zella, who always go along for the ride, whether they necessarily want to or not (even when it involves exploring old stone foundations and getting soggy feet tromping through bogs!)—I love you guys.

  About the Author

  Jennifer McMahon is the International Thriller Writers Award–winning author of eight novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Island of Lost Girls, Promise Not to Tell, and The Winter People. She graduated from Goddard College and studied poetry in the MFA Writing Program at Vermont College. She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.

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