Chapter Fourteen
Sarah lies that night in Caleb’s arms again, him wrapped around her as if she could slip away at any moment. He doesn’t talk to her about leaving, as he’d promised, only touches her as if he can convince her to stay with the ferocity of his adoration.
This time she remembers to lock the door.
Before she falls asleep, she realizes the keys are missing from his pants, as if he’s intentionally hidden them from her.
At dawn she wakes to a dead weight slung over her body. Panic sweeps through her as she tries to struggle free. “Where do you think you’re going?” a male voice growls. A beefy arm tightens around her waist. It’s Jacob Vass, reclaiming his place in the bed.
She kicks and Caleb says, “Hey, hey, easy there,” and she remembers she’s safe. For now. Though she might as well be in bed with his father, the way the storm crashes inside him, trying to batter its way out.
“I have to pee,” she says, and he releases her, laughing, his fingers scraping her bare back as she wriggles away. Tracing the invisible target between her shoulder blades.
When she returns to bed, he kisses that spot, reminding her it can never be taken off. She shivers. Caleb’s arms constrict around her, assuming she’d shivered out of pleasure and not dread.
Sleep doesn’t return to either of them, and after a slow, unhurried tangling of breath and limbs, Caleb climbs out of bed with a grunt.
She admires the broadness of his shoulders as he stretches, the muscles shifting across his back. He doesn’t have a target there. “I have to go into town again. I need to pick up some things before the grocery store gets busy,” he says.
She sits up and pulls the quilt up under her arms. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
She bites her lip, partly from concern, partly from resentment. He can drive through town, and no one will shoot at him like they tried to shoot Graham. The worse they’ll do is refuse to serve him, like yesterday. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she says petulantly.
“I can ask about the garage again if you like, but they’ll still be closed.”
“Sure,” she says, hugging her knees. “Whatever.”
“Don’t be mad. Please. Can you blame me if I want you to stay a little longer?”
“You said you want me to be happy, but you don’t care about what I need.”
“That’s not true.”
“I need to get out of Sweetside. It’s not safe for me. It’s barely safe for you now. They’re coming to the house. How long until they break your windows? Break down the door?”
“Uncle Isaac won’t let them do that,” he says, and Sarah scoffs, because where was Isaac when she was alone at the motel? “We need to ride out the rest of your quarantine, and then we can see about getting your car. Or I’ll drive you to Timmins myself to your brother’s place.”
“Graham’s the last person I want to see now,” she mutters. “God, it’s your dad.”
Caleb stiffens. “What about my dad?”
“It’s like his spirit is hanging around here. All the hatred and violence and suspicion. Can’t you feel it?”
He fits the profile, Elijah had said. She sees it clearly now, illuminated by the morning light. The breadth of his shoulders, the unapologetic way he cuts through a space. The way his anger uses up all the air in the room so there’s none left for her to breathe.
“Haven’t you heard the screaming in the woods? Haven’t you heard it calling to you?” Because she has, every day.
Caleb sinks to the bed. Bows his head like he’s praying to her. “Yes,” he whispers.
All the times she thought she saw Jacob Vass, as if he were an omen, Caleb had been nearby. What if his father’s ghost is actually watching him, not her? Waiting to lead him into the woods?
“Then why can’t you take me away from here?”
“I can’t, Sarah.”
Her anger flares. How can he be so stubborn? “Give me one good reason. A real reason, not an excuse. And nothing to do with Elijah.”
Caleb lifts his eyes to hers, and for once, she can’t read his expression.
“Someone has to bury Ben in the spring,” he says.
Hopeless fury squeezes her lungs like a fist. It’s not Caleb’s blindness to the danger, or even Jacob Vass’s presence, but Ben who still has a hold on her.
“I have to go.” Caleb slides off the bed and leaves the room without looking back.
When the truck drives away, Sarah buries her face into a pillow and screams. No one can hear you scream out here, after all.
* * *
As Sarah gets dressed, the stairs squeak in Elijah’s rhythm. Her resolve quickens. If Caleb won’t help her, Elijah will. He’s like a puppy. He brought her that branch yesterday, hoping for a pat on the head. Ever since she saved him from Ben, he looks at her differently.
She follows the scent of coffee down to the kitchen. Elijah leans against the counter, shovelling cereal into his mouth while the coffee percolates.
“Good morning. Your face looks better,” she says. Most of the swelling has gone down, and the cut on his lip is almost a memory.
“I feel better, too,” he says, but she winces, thinking of the bruises across his arms and torso. Her own bracelet is fading around the edges to a jaundiced shade of yellow.
She helps herself to a blueberry muffin from the tray on the counter and leans beside him, her shoulder pressing companionably against his.
“What are you up to today?” she asks, although she knows the answer.
More painting, maybe a walk in the woods.
She’s not sure how he can stand to do the same thing day after day, but probably when you’re an artist, every day is full of possibilities. And the woods—
The woods are full of possibilities, too. So many vanished men. Has Elijah heard them screaming yet?
“I’m going to drink this coffee,” he announces over a mouthful of cereal, “and then I’m going into the woods to drop Ben’s things.”
Sarah’s breath catches, hope igniting like a rocket.
The key to Ben’s rental car might be available.
She could get in and go. Caleb and Elijah could tell Isaac that yes, Ben had stopped there, but the curse of the Suicide Motel had gotten him, and then that Chinese girl had broken quarantine and driven away.
Or maybe the Suicide Motel had gotten to her, too.
Half the time, Sarah’s not sure if it actually has gotten to her.
“Can I come?” she asks.
He frowns, momentarily resembling Caleb more than either of his parents. “You shouldn’t go outside in case Uncle Isaac comes again.”
“Caleb went to meet him this morning. We should be good for a bit.” So easy to lie to get what you want. You see why I did it? Ben whispers in the back of her head. She puts on an eager smile. “I’d like to see the woods. I haven’t been in them yet.”
Elijah grins back. She’s played her cards correctly. He’s thrilled to show her his favorite haunt. “All right then. We’ll go out the back in case someone sees you.”
They gather up their outdoor things. Elijah leads her through the house, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. He picks up the garbage bag puddled by his easel, and then they head out the sunroom’s side door.
Sarah hasn’t been outside since the day Graham was supposed to pick her up, and the morning chill is an unforgiving slap to her cheeks. The wind tousles her hair and drags it across her face like a veil. She shoves her hands into her pockets, regretting she didn’t ask to borrow a pair of mittens.
“This way,” Elijah says. He doesn’t need to tell her. The gap in the woods yawns up ahead, the path smoothed over from the previous night’s snowfall. The snow is soft, and it yields like flesh to the press of their boots. The pines stretch up to the sky like so many church spires.
The pines had simply looked tall from Sarah’s bedroom window.
Now, standing at their base, they are colossal.
The top boughs sag like collapsed umbrellas under the weight of snow, and at eye level, the branches are bare and broken.
Sarah feels like she’s underground. Below the surface of the earth, where the bones of the trees have taken root.
From a distance, driving by in the safety of her car, the forests she’d passed had been postcard-perfect landscapes.
Within their depths, however, it’s all scraggly, amputated branches, bark peeling like hangnails.
A harsh gauntlet between naked shrubs and brittle saplings.
So many broken, half-dead things to reach out and scratch you.
Sarah glances back at the house, but can’t see it.
It doesn’t matter. Branches creak like bowing floorboards.
In a way, they’re still inside Sweetside Manor. There is no leaving.
“Caleb figures we should scatter Ben’s things deep in the woods,” Elijah says, his breath swelling into clouds. “That’s all they ever found of the others. Just a wallet or a hat.”
“Did they ever find anything of your dad’s?”
“Just this coat.”
Sarah touches his sleeve. The sheepskin feels cool and slippery, like Elijah’s own skin. “I’m sorry you don’t know for sure if he’s gone. That must be scary, the thought he could return any minute.”
But he’s already here, Ben whispers in her head. Sarah silently tells him to shut up. He can’t talk to her; he’s dead.
“In a lot of ways, he never left,” Elijah says, and Sarah knows he’s right.
“What about our footprints?”
“It’s going to snow again soon.” He squints up at what little of the marrow-grey sky they can see. “And everyone knows I walk through here all the time, and you’re wearing my old boots.”
He hops over a fallen log, and then takes Sarah’s hand and helps her over it.
The latex gloves feel cold and clammy against her bare skin.
Is this how Ben’s bloodless flesh felt as they rolled his body up in the dropsheet?
She shoves her hands back into her pockets to ward off the chill, but it’s too late.
The chill is inside her, tensing her shoulders until they’re as stiff and huddled as Ben’s corpse.
“If you were really upset, maybe even hallucinating, what would you drop first?” Elijah asks.