Chapter 13
Now
My hands shook so badly, it took three tries to stab my house key into the lock of my apartment door.
The adrenaline that had powered me through the journey to Moss Grove had faded, and halfway home, the lines of the highway had started to blur.
Except, as tired as I’d been, I couldn’t stop. My brain wouldn’t let me. The argument with Frances playing on repeat. The anger in her voice, the accusations. The bruises on her wrist. Her ordering me to leave.
God. Had I really driven nearly six hours for a twenty-minute conversation, only to turn around with nothing to show for it? At least I’d had the sense to scratch my number on a slip of paper from my car and slip it under her doormat before I left. The only proof that I’d been there at all.
The tears could’ve been chalked up to exhaustion, because twelve hours of driving in a single night was brutal, especially after a shift.
But the truth was, my sister’s words had cut me deeper than I cared to admit.
It’s like she didn’t even remember who we used to be. How we shared an entire childhood.
There were the normal parts. Running barefoot in the summer while learning how to avoid patches of stickers.
Playing mermaids in the creek and princesses on the forest paths.
Having Popsicles on the porch when it was hot and cocoa when it was cold.
And each night, after we were clean and tucked into bed, clutching each other tightly while making up stories about Aunt Hattie’s creepy willow tree.
But there were other parts too. Experiences that belonged to us alone.
There was no one else who understood the countless hours we spent poring through the books hidden away in the greenhouse.
The not-so-old ones with colorful covers and pages of glossy pictures and their faded, worn counterparts.
We taught each other how to identify the plants growing wild on the property.
We learned which ones hurt and which helped, and even the lore that likely existed only in the minds of the authors.
We devoured stories of divination and fate.
We scoured page after page, first out of curiosity and wonder, and eventually out of desperation for something that could tell us how Frances could obtain the Sight too.
The pain of eventually giving up when it became clear the internal door wasn’t going to open for my sister.
Our sisterhood was more than the sum of a single bloody night. We were a multitude of experiences. Experiences I could never forget.
I’d always thought, no matter what happened, that my sister, on some level, felt the same. Tonight, I’d faced the possibility that maybe she didn’t. I’d run away from what we’d done. Maybe Frances ran away from who we were.
And what’s more, maybe she was right about all my worries. I had considered the same possibility, telling myself that everything that was happening could be some sort of fixation, my brain linking together events that were otherwise unalike and had nothing to do with us at all.
Except the call was real. Shane’s name was real.
And Frances’s leaves too. I know what I saw…
I’d seen her signal, her cry for help, and believed she was calling to me.
That she’d signaled me knowing I’d do whatever it took to help her.
That she was inviting me to read her leaves, to open my door and peer into her fate.
But if she was speaking the truth, if she’d not given permission and I’d read without consent, that was akin to violence.
Especially since Frances herself didn’t have the Sight.
It made me sick to think I’d hurt my sister, even unintentionally.
The Sight was ebb and flow. Give and take.
If I’d truly broken a rule, there’d be a consequence.
The last time I broke a rule… No. I pushed the image away. The smell of soil. The taste of my own tears. The sound of cicadas and bullfrogs and running water.
That was different, though it haunted me constantly. The memory my penance.
I paused, one hand on the doorknob, inhaling a deep breath then letting it out slowly. My thoughts were jumbled, barely making sense.
Frances had said I that I was a mess.
Maybe I was. That night so long ago had changed me. How could it not?
Here’s a secret. The dark part I’d never admitted.
Mostly I hated it, the frenzied memory of standing in the forest, his warm blood drying on my cheeks and hands, each of my breaths as sharp as knives, my nerve endings sparking like frayed wires. But sometimes…
Sometimes the memory was a welcome reminder. Because that moment when I’d looked down at the body, at the blood on my hands, and realized what I’d done, I’d felt both terrible and also—for the first and maybe the only time in my life—powerful.
My life now, taking orders and fetching coffee, didn’t afford me much power.
But once upon a time, I’d done what was necessary. I’d kept the promise I’d made when we were little girls. I’d kept Frances safe.
And I couldn’t stop looking out for my sister now just because she refused to see the danger lurking nearby. I refused to believe she didn’t want my help, and I refused to believe she hadn’t asked for it.
I pushed the apartment door open and stepped inside.
Thank God it was empty, because Carla was nosy, and my brain was too frazzled to think of an acceptable excuse for why I was still wearing my work clothes from yesterday.
I dropped my keys on the counter. My bed was calling me, but first I needed a shower, hot water to wash away all the embarrassment and hurt.
I grabbed a fresh T-shirt and pajama shorts from my bedroom.
I yanked open my bedside drawer to get my phone charger, but instead of grabbing the cord to plug in, I was met with the clear bag holding my sister’s hairbrush.
I stared at it, those blond threads tangled through the bristles.
I yanked it from the drawer, finally doing what I should’ve long ago.
I stomped to the bathroom with the brush, ripping away the blond hairs.
Each snap and tear of my sister’s fine strands was satisfying.
You want me out of your life? Fine. I dropped the hairs into the toilet.
When there wasn’t a single strand left, I flushed and watched the only physical tether to my sister’s fate swirl and disappear, trying to pretend like I was happy about it.
I threw the brush at the wastebasket and missed. It slid behind the toilet as I sank to the floor. I leaned my head back against the Sheetrock of the bathroom wall. I was so tired. So damn tired.
Yet that place inside rippled. A dark feeling, a swell of dread. Its whisper the last thing I remembered.
It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, it was to the muffled sound of my phone ringing. My cheek was pressed against the cool tile of the floor, a line of drool hanging from my lips. What time is it? I wiped my mouth and pushed to my feet, groaning and rolling my head from side to side.
I shuffled to my room, scooping my phone from where I’d left it on the nightstand.
If I’d been coherent, I’d have sent it to voicemail and tumbled into bed, but instead I answered, my eyes at half-mast and voice thick with sleep. “Hello?”
It should’ve been Larry or maybe Carla.
For a flicker of a second, I’d hoped it could be Frances.
Instead, an authoritative male voice poured into my ear. “Good morning, this is Detective Jackson from the Puddle Creek Police Department. Am I speaking with Millicent Waters?”
“Huh?” My eyes blinked open wide, and I scraped a palm through my bangs. For a moment, it was as if the room shifted, tossing me off kilter.
I’d spent a decade dreading this call. A decade running. I remembered the internal whisper—It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming—before I drifted off.
Was this what was coming for me?
“Hello? Ma’am?”
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Yes. This is Milly Waters. Why are you calling?”
I braced myself, preparing for the worst.
“Ms. Waters, I’m calling about a lead we’ve recently uncovered on a cold case that you may be able to help me with. Do you remember a boy named Casey Montgomery?”