But then she realized that the Spanish moss in the live oaks was completely still, the porch so silent she could hear the drone of a fly trapped on the inside of the screen door.
The cold breath that blew down her back wasn’t the wind, she realized. It was dread.
She pulled open the screen door, no longer concerned with whether or not she woke the boys.
Something was wrong. She could feel it.
“Hello? Anyone home?” The door creaked as it snapped shut behind her. “Mary Alice?”
Nella’s flip-flops slapped against the old hardwood floor as she walked down the long hallway, glancing first in the parlor, then hurrying through the dining room to the kitchen.
She stood for a moment, gazing around in wonder.
The room was pristine. Not a speck of dust or a crumb to be found anywhere.
But there was another fly in the window and, mindful of the loathsome insect, Nella placed the basket of food she’d brought on the table and made sure it was covered before she walked out back to the enclosed porch.
Here, the chalkboard was blank, the textbooks and lesson plans neatly stacked in the shelves. Nothing was out of place. No reason to think anything was amiss.
And yet Nella’s trepidation deepened as she retraced her steps to the front of the house. Something drew her attention to the cramped room beneath the stairs. The door was closed, but she’d heard a sound… a whisper…
A tremor of fear raced up her spine as she placed a hand on the knob. The door opened quietly and for a moment, Nella saw nothing inside.
Then, as the door swung wider, a shaft of sunlight fell across a child sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Head bowed, light haloing her golden hair, she cradled a doll in her arms as she rocked back and forth.
Mary Alice’s daughters were only a year apart, and they looked so much alike that it was hard to tell one from the other.
“Ruth?” Nella said softly.
No answer.
“Rebecca?”
Only silence.
“Where’s your mama?”
The little girl looked up then, her blue eyes eerily serene.
Slowly, she lifted a finger to her lips. “Shush.
She’ll hear you.”
The hair at the back of Nella’s neck lifted as she leaned down. She’d meant to offer comfort to the child, but when the doll moved in the little girl’s arms, Nella recoiled in shock.
It wasn’t a doll, she realized in horror, but a newborn baby bundled in a towel and still bloody from the birth canal.
She heard a thud against the floor upstairs and she whirled, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life. Something was so very wrong in this house.
“I’ll be right back,” Nella whispered to the child. “You stay put, okay?”
Heart hammering, she closed the door and started up the stairs.
Mary Alice’s bedroom was right off the landing.
The door was open, and as Nella reached the top of the stairs, she saw a bloody handprint on the wall outside the bedroom and a trail of wet footprints on the hardwood floor.
But Mary Alice was nowhere to be seen.
Nor were the other children.
Trying to fight off a wave of panic, Nella followed the tracks to a room down the hallway. The door was ajar and she could see something moving against the wall. She couldn’t tell what it was at first, and then comprehension struck her so hard she staggered back, fist pressed to her mouth.
Her stomach churned as she stared in horror at the shadow of a noose swinging back and forth against a sunny yellow wall.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone at the end of the hallway and she spun.
One of the little girls stood in front of the window, and the sunlight spilling in made her seem nebulous and golden, like a ghost child.
Without a sound, the girl started toward Nella.
“Are you okay?” Nella called softly, trying not to frighten the child.
When the girl didn’t answer, Nella said a little more urgently, “Where’s your mother?”
The child wore a blue dress with a matching hair ribbon. She looked angelic and sweet and it was only when she drew closer that Nella saw the blood-stains all down the front of her dress.
“Honey, are you hurt?”
The little girl shook her head. “Jacob got it on me when he grabbed my dress.”
“Is Jacob hurt?”
“No, he doesn’t hurt. Not anymore.”
Her soft voice was melodic, a tinkling bell, but the shock of her words stole Nella’s breath. “What do you mean?”
The girl’s movements were so lethargic she seemed under a hypnotic spell. She stared up at Nella with the same eerie calm as her sister. “Jacob was bad. They were all bad. Mama said they had the evil in them just like my daddy. It wasn’t their fault, but they had to be saved just the same.”
Nella drew a ragged breath, trying desperately not to let the horror of the moment overwhelm her.
“Where are they?”
“What is?”
“The evil. Can’t you feel it?”
Nella’s heart flailed like a trapped bird inside her chest as she stole a glance over her shoulder. Somewhere down that long hallway, a floorboard creaked.
Had someone come up behind her? The other girl?
For a moment, Nella could have sworn she saw something hovering at the top of the stairs. A giant shadow that was there one moment, gone the next.
The child’s gaze was transfixed, as if she could see something that Nella could not.
It was all Nella could do not to snatch the child up and run screaming from the house. Something terrible lurked in those shadowy rooms, in the beguiling depths of that little girl’s wide blue eyes.
She bent and put her hands on the child’s arms.
“Where are your brothers? You have to tell me so that I can help them.”
The little girl’s gaze strayed to the room where the noose swung in a draft. “Mama carried them down to the swamp.”
“I have to find my sissy first.”
She reached for Nella’s hand. Her tiny fingers were warm, but the fear that slid down Nella’s spine was ice cold.
Together they descended the steps, and Nella opened the door beneath the staircase.
The other girl was gone, but the baby lay wriggling on the floor. Nella reached for the tiny body.
But when she glanced over her shoulder, the hallway behind her was empty.
Ruth and Rebecca Lemay had vanished.
