15
The dog wanted to go out. Raquel had tried the back door, but the mutt wouldn’t so much as stick his snout through the opening. Next the front door. He’d peered onto the empty porch, then sat back on his haunches and stared at her pointedly. So apparently the dog wanted them both to go out.
“It’s too cold,” she informed him.
He regarded her reproachfully.
“And people-y. Which you know you don’t like any more than I do.”
Less judgment, same intensity.
Now she regarded her front yard as well.
Vehicles remained stacked up along the circular drive, all the way down for as far as she could see.
It was nearly half a mile to the main road, meaning the news van could be parked at the very end, just waiting for an unsuspecting soul to emerge.
But as long as Raquel stayed on this side of the woods, it should be safe enough.
She sighed, studied the dog, who could be impossibly regal when he chose.
“Fine. But you’re on your own. Are we clear? Stick around, run away, not my problem. Theo is the one who collects strays. I’m more a survival-of-the-fittest kind of gal. Though…” She couldn’t help herself. “Try not to break his heart too much. The man has already been through enough.”
She grabbed her down jacket. Then she and the canine opportunist exited the house, clambering down the front steps.
The sun was shining overhead, but based on the weak light and biting chill, it didn’t feel much like working.
Raquel shoved her hands into her pockets, hunching her shoulders against the shivering temps.
She’d spent most of her childhood experiencing winters so cold and summers so hot, the temperatures had felt less like passing seasons than grievous wounds stamped into her bones.
Even now, she had to remind herself she wasn’t a little girl, huddled against her equally freezing siblings for warmth.
She was not a teenager, lingering too long at the local diner because anything would be better than going home.
She was not even the sixteen-year-old who’d stood one last time in a total wreck of a trailer, listening to the police sirens grow closer and closer.
What will we say?
Bunny, I’m scared.
Mr. Man scampered farther ahead, nosing at drifts of dead leaves and clumps of dried grass. A squirrel popped up, startling him. He jumped back with a bark of surprise, one of the first truly doglike reactions she’d seen from him, and she found herself smiling.
Small things, that’s what the therapist had told her all those years ago. Focus on the here and now, ground yourself in the present, utilizing all five senses. Trauma had both somatic and psychological impacts. Body and mind. It was not enough to treat one; she must address both.
Even at a young age, Raquel had understood she wasn’t quite like other people.
The therapist had seen it, too. The way she could register emotions and yet remain slightly detached.
It’d held her in good stead. According to her doctor, even enabled her to survive a situation very few people could’ve handled.
The police had taken her lack of hysterics as a sign of guilt. But later, when all the facts had come to light and the therapist had offered his professional opinion, the court system had been swayed in her favor.
Theo seemed to get it—that she absolutely, completely, unreservedly loved him, which was to say she felt for him a fraction of the emotion he felt for her.
She could want but never need. She could feel affection but never trust. She could reach for him time and time again in the middle of the night but still always let him go.
A little bit of her, Theo had told her once, was still twenty times better than a hundred percent of someone else.
She hadn’t the courage to ask him lately if he still felt the same.
For all of her cool, calm analytics, she’d never anticipated what would come next.
That one day, Theo would flash his most charming grin and say hey, let’s make a baby. And that as she opened her mouth to deliver a resounding hell no, she’d discover a strange sensation tightening her chest. Her heart suddenly fluttering with…longing? Anticipation? Hope?
A baby.
A completely dependent tiny little creature, who would look up at her with his father’s gorgeous eyes.
It was crazy the way you could want something you never thought you’d want.
Until one day you were sitting in a specialist’s office, three heartbreaks later, learning exactly how the past had left its mark. And your husband was holding your hand, telling you it was okay. He loved you, would always love you, uterine competency be damned.
And you just kept staring at him, thinking if only he really knew…
The dog, barking at the squirrel now. The squirrel scampering up to a height on the tree trunk where it could confidently chitter back.
Theo loved her.
Theo would never leave her.
And herself?
She gazed around at the property that remained the area’s designated haunted house, where it was clear the most infamous tragedy from thirty years ago wasn’t even the start of this land’s pain.
Like calling to like.
Her therapist’s voice, gentle but demanding. “Bunny, I think it’s time we talk about that final afternoon. Your mother sleeping. Yourself, hiding your siblings away. When did you pick up the axe? When did you know exactly what you were going to do?”
“Dog,” she called out softly. “Time to go back inside.”
They’d barely started for the house when Raquel felt a weird tingling between her shoulder blades. She froze, one leg partially suspended. She knew this sensation. Had often woken up to it in the middle of the night. And her instincts had never been wrong.
Now she directed her foot to complete its journey to the ground. Then she bent over slightly, as if grabbing a stick for the dog. He was at the edge of the drive, nose half-buried in the brush, but one ear already rotating toward the woods.
Hunched over, she tried to peer through the mix of low-growth hemlocks and bare-limbed birches. Nothing from this angle. Straightening, she twisted and tossed the stick behind her, still searching.
There, a flash of movement. Maybe a squirrel leaping across branches, or a bird darting between the trees. But then she heard a crashing from the underbrush that was much too loud for a tiny forest creature.
She darted into the woods, the dog bounding by her side.
Reporters was her first thought. The news team from earlier resorting to trespassing to get their precious story.
Or maybe another unsanctioned looky-loo, not above sneaking about to satisfy their curiosity. She was both outraged and pissed off.
This house and its tragic past, this property and her and Theo’s fresh start, deserved better than to be salacious fodder for prying eyes. Why, when she caught up with them…
Another cracking limb, this time from off to the right. The dog was ahead of her, not barking, but whining, low and anxious.
She had heard that sound before. Last night, when the dog had taken up position on the corner of the porch.
She frowned, less certain, then resolutely surged forward. She caught a glimpse of wild dark hair, bobbing between the trees. A swish of something lighter, maybe a gray-green jacket. Then a furtive glance, cast over one shoulder.
Raquel tracked the runner’s anticipated path, made some alterations of her own to intercept.
At the last second, just as she started to close the distance…Foot snagging. Body lurching. Herself slamming hard to the ground, the force knocking the air from her lungs in a single whoosh.
She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. Could only gape like a fish, gaze still fixed ahead, where she caught traces of more movement.
Including…a flash of bare feet?
But that didn’t make any sense. Who…What…Why?
The sounds of the person’s retreat faded from her ears.
The stranger disappeared completely, leaving Raquel to gingerly pick herself up off the ground.
She winced at a throbbing pain in her ankle.
A few tentative steps later, however, it resolved itself, leaving her feeling more confused than physically injured.
She took a second to get her bearings. No more sounds came from the woods, and the tight, tingling feeling had disappeared from between her shoulder blades. Whatever, whoever, had just happened, it was over.
Raquel sighed heavily, swinging back in the direction of the house. It wasn’t until she hit the driveway she realized the dog hadn’t reappeared.
She scowled, whistling sharply. Then, when that didn’t work, clapped her hands for emphasis.
More whistling. Calling. Clapping. Returning to the woods. Retracing her path down the driveway.
But it didn’t make a difference.
The dog was gone.