“It should be demolished, not turned into a memorial,” said Richard. “There’s something deeply evil about it that can’t be described with words. Houses tend to absorb the energy of their occupants.”
Lisa understood what Richard meant. She had seen Hamilton Estate from a distance on multiple occasions, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, it had always filled her with apprehension. As far as she knew, the Hamiltons had abandoned it after a disastrous business venture, but she didn’t know any of the details, except that the patriarch of the family had committed suicide.
“Richard, you’re scaring the girls,” said Lisa’s mother.
“You can’t shelter them forever, Nora,” said Richard with a sideways glance at Arthur, whose proximity prevented anyone from thinking he hadn’t overheard the entire conversation. “Although I have been ordered—quite rudely, I might add—not to discuss certain subjects in the presence of the children, including anything that could be wrongly identified as the product of insanity, I think a healthy sense of caution is completely justified, considering the circumstances.”
“Caution is one thing,” said Arthur. “Paranoia is another.”
“Unfortunately, death doesn’t discriminate between the two,” said Richard. “Would you rather sleep with one eye open or rot with both eyes shut? It’s better to be prepared than to be caught off guard. If your expectations are low enough, you’ll never be disappointed.”
“My expectations are nonexistent, at least when it comes to you,” said Arthur. He spoke with bitterness rather than anger. “I learned that lesson the hard way. I don’t want to hear anything else about the Hamiltons. Do you think you can respect that?”
“I can only speak for myself,” said Richard. “I would be ecstatic if they stayed in the grave where they belong, but there’s no guarantee they will, especially now that their former counterpart is on the loose—and you know who I mean. Stroke or not, he’s probably calling them up from the dead right now and hatching a diabolical plot to destroy us all. I always suspected he was in league with the devil.”
Sabrina walked into the room with Yvonne, and Richard stopped talking. Josh accompanied Sabrina. He didn’t look permanently damaged by her remarks, but Lisa knew better than to think he hadn’t been affected by them. She wondered why Sabrina was so harsh with him and concluded with a guilty thrill of satisfaction that the dysfunctionality in Josh’s family ran deeper than she had previously thought. She wished Richard and Arthur hadn’t stopped arguing. It was comforting to know her family’s problems weren’t unique.
“Speaking of historical landmarks,” said Lisa’s mother, “there’s a fort about a mile down the beach that was built during the colonial era. Maybe we could all walk down there after breakfast and take a look around. There’s not much of it left—just a few brick walls and a parapet over the water—but it’s worth seeing, and the beach is always covered with shells. I think the children would find it enjoyable.”
Sabrina pounced on the idea, but with a subtle alteration.
“That’s an excellent plan,” she said, “but I think Yvonne is coming down with the sniffles, and I don’t want her to get chilled. Maybe the other children could go by themselves. They’re old enough to stay out of trouble for a few hours, and they’d probably have more fun without us tagging along. It would be a perfect opportunity for them to get to know each other better. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The enthusiasm in her voice was contagious, but Lisa wasn’t deceived. Sabrina was much too eager to get rid of them. Something else was going on. She glanced at Josh to see if he shared her suspicions, but he was either an expert at concealing his feelings or oblivious to what was happening.
“Can we go, please?” said Veronica to Lisa’s mother. “We won’t do anything dumb. I promise. You can trust us.”
“It’s fine with me, as long as all of you stay together,” said Lisa’s mother. “Lisa, you’re in charge. Veronica, listen to your sister, and don’t climb on any of the walls of the fort. They might collapse under your weight. Oh, and stay out of the water. It’s too cold.”
Veronica leaped up and dashed away. Stephen and Josh followed her, somewhat more reluctantly. Lisa felt sick. She suspected Sabrina was about to spring the trap, but she couldn’t prevent it without revealing that she had eavesdropped on her father and Sabrina. As she went upstairs, she heard a dissatisfied grunt from Richard.
“They shouldn’t be wandering around out there by themselves,” he said. “They’re too young, and it’s dangerous. They’ve lived their entire lives in an artificial environment, being coddled and pampered and told how special they are. They’re unprepared for the real world. They don’t know what it’s like to be hated or betrayed or killed.”
Lisa thought he was being ridiculous. The only people who were any threat to her family were already sitting at the table. Peterson was incapacitated and the Hamiltons were dead. They had no power to do her any harm. Despite Richard’s predictions, nothing sinister had materialized in the flesh, and she wasn’t afraid of hypothetical villains. The only enigma in the whole scenario was Graham.
∞∞∞
As soon as the children left—except Shannon, who refused to go—Sabrina gathered the others into the living room. She situated herself so Lisa’s father couldn’t look at her without seeing the urn and waited for everyone else to get comfortable. Arthur sat down beside her. Richard wandered over to the mantelpiece and stood there with his back turned to Lisa’s parents. Sabrina wrapped her arms around the sleeping baby, and Yvonne’s cherubic face covered them both with a veil of innocence.
“I’m glad you’re all here,” said Sabrina. “I don’t know how to preface what I’m about to say, except that I wish it weren’t true. Most of you already know I’ve been sick for a while, but I didn’t want to believe it was anything serious, so I tried to ignore it as much as possible.” She looked
