“Hmm,” Annalise said, as though she was unsatisfied with his answer. There was a moment of silence. Douglas couldn’t bear to leave it unfilled.
“Look, I don’t know what the problem is,” he said. “I’m sure we can do something to work all this out. Right? I’m sure it’s just been a misunderstanding or something.”
Annalise seemed thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right, Douglas.”
I wondered if this was the moment she would kill them both.
That made him a little bolder. “Sure, sure, I understand. We’re just a little confused. All of us. The baby didn’t call me Daddy, right, Meg? He’s too young for that.
“Meg and I have always wanted a son, but we were never blessed until just this winter. See? We’re all just a little mixed up.”
“One of us is,” Annalise said. “Because you have a front-facing car seat in there.”
We all looked into the backseat. A plastic car seat was buckled onto the far side of the infant’s seat. A small one. The boy who had just… I wasn’t ready to approach that thought yet, but he was too big to be sitting in such a small car seat.
Had they lost more than one? Had they forgotten that, too?
Douglas and Meg looked to each other for an explanation. Silence. Douglas turned to us and said: “We’re bringing it to my sister?” As if he was guessing.
“There are scorch marks on it,” I said. They were the same sort of marks on the ground where the boy had…
The Bentons didn’t seem to know what to make of that. The blank confusion on their faces was fascinating. They really were enchanted. My anger was still going strong, but it wasn’t directed at them anymore. I was beginning to pity them.
Meg went to the backseat, unbuckled the car seat, and heaved it toward the woods. It bounced once on the gravel and disappeared into a patch of nettles.
Douglas glanced at me nervously. “I don’t know who put that there. Really.” Then he turned toward Annalise. “Do you want money? Is that it?”
Annalise gave him a sour smile. She took the scrap wood from her pocket and laid it against the station wagon, then against Douglas’s ample belly. The designs twisted, but more slowly than before.
“Does this hurt?” Annalise asked.
“No,” Douglas replied.
“Tell your wife, because I’m going to do this to her, too.”
She walked around the car and laid the scrap of wood on Meg’s palm. Douglas stared at something fascinating in the gravel at his feet.
That’s when I noticed his hands. They were red, swollen, and shiny wet. Burned. He didn’t seem to be in pain. If I pointed them out to him the way we had pointed out the car seat, would he suddenly “remember” them? Would he suddenly be in terrible pain?
Annalise leaned into the Volvo and yanked on the gearshift. Then she walked to the front of the car, laid her tiny hand on the bumper, and shoved it. It rolled out of the ditch onto level ground. She started toward the van. “Ray, let’s go.”
“Get out of here, Douglas,” I said.
“Yeah, Douglas,” Annalise said. “Get far away from Hammer Bay, and don’t come back.”
We didn’t need to tell him twice. Douglas jumped into his car and peeled out of the lot.
I watched them go, feeling my adrenaline ebb. I couldn’t stop thinking about that little boy, or how fiercely hot the flames had been. I looked down at my own undamaged hands. I felt woozy and sick.
Annalise called my name again. I turned away, ran to the edge of the lot, and puked into the bushes.
When that was over, I had tears in my eyes from the strain of it. They were the only tears that little boy was ever going to get. I tried to spit the acid taste out of my mouth, but it wouldn’t go away.
I wiped my eyes dry. My hands were shaking and my stomach was in knots. That kid had no one to mourn for him except me, and I didn’t have that much longer in this world, either. Something had to be done for him. I didn’t know what it was, but as I wiped at my eyes again, I knew there had to be
I heard footsteps behind me. “Don’t get maudlin,” Annalise said.
I told her what she could do with herself.
“Enough with this weepy Girl Scout routine. Drink this.” She shoved a water bottle into my hands.
I rinsed my mouth and spat. As long as I did what she told me to do, she wasn’t allowed to kill me. I did it again. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “I just didn’t want you to stink up the van with your puke breath.”
We walked toward the van. I wondered how many dead kids Annalise had seen. Maybe the number was so high they barely registered anymore.
I climbed behind the wheel and buckled in. Annalise never wore her seat belt. She had other, less mundane protections.
“When the boy burned, he turned into something,” I said. “It was, like, gray maggots or something, and they started burrowing into the ground. What were they?”
