Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
“Help me, please,” I sobbed, banging my fist on the door of the little shack in the woods. “Help me!”
The old woman who came to the door wore her gray hair in a single long braid that was draped over her shoulder, a woolen shawl wrapped around her in the cold autumn night. “What do you want, child?”
I looked behind me, afraid of who might be following. I licked my lips, dry from my escape. “You must help me. I’ve…I’ve heard you can help me take care of…things.”
She stepped aside and beckoned me in. “You shouldn’t say such things aloud.”
My hands shook as I held them up, pleading. “Please, you don’t understand. I can’t have it. It’s evil. You must take it.”
“Evil?” the woman repeated. “How can it be evil?”
“Please, just help me before he finds me,” I begged.
She studied me for a long moment then sighed. “I know who you are,” she said. “Your husband and father are very powerful men. If they find out what I’ve done for you…
“They won’t!” I swore. “Please.”
She had just turned to a cabinet filled with bottles and vials when a horse approached, hoofbeats drumming the ground, harness clinking. I whimpered, my fear and desperation flooding me with panic.
Frowning, the woman turned back to the door and then sent me a disapproving look. “Did you lead him straight here?” she demanded. She pulled back a ragged blanket that served as a curtain to reveal a small bedroom. “In here.”
I rushed toward the room, but before I could hide, the front door flew open so violently, it slammed the wall, rattling the glass on the shelves.
My eyes widened with panic as my father strode into the cabin, his eyes blazing with fury.
“Get out of the way, witch!” he barked.
The woman stepped in front of me. “Your daughter is a grown woman,” she said evenly. “You have no right to be here.”
His face flushed darker. “No right? Her husband demanded that I return her or our arrangement is forfeit. And he has every right to prevent your hellish interference.”
She laughed, not the least intimidated by my father.
“You men,” she said, shaking her head. “You treat your women like chattel, to be bought and sold at your whim, and then demand they bear your children without a thought of the cost.” She laughed again, the sound mocking and angry.
“Well, when it suits you, anyway. You are the worst of hypocrites, Fairland Dawes. On Sunday, you’ll rant against the help I provide, and then on Monday bring your mistress to my door. ”
Ignoring her, my father shoved her aside and seized my wrist, dragging me toward the door. I pulled against his hold, casting the woman a silent plea for help, but she could only look on with a sorrowful expression.
When he delivered me to my husband’s home, Josef wasn’t there to greet me. Instead, he’d sent his women—those whose beds I knew he visited on the nights he didn’t come to mine. They had been nothing but cruel to me since my arrival, eager accomplices to my husband’s demands.
They dragged me up the stairs to my room and locked me in. I don’t know how many days passed—one? two? I was weak from hunger and sorrow when Josef entered. He stood at the door, his hands clasped behind his back, and glared at me for several minutes in disapproving silence.
“You clearly do not care to be in this house with me,” he finally said, his tone flat, emotionless. “I am therefore returning you to your father’s. You will have the baby there. The child will then be delivered to me.”
I stared at him, unable to speak, not knowing what to say. Finally, I whispered, “What will you do with me?”
His brows lifted. “Do with you? Nothing. You were never anything to me. Your father may dispose of you how he will.”
“Dispose of me?” I breathed. “What do you mean?”
“I will have the others pack your things,” he said, ignoring my question. “A servant will take you to your father. I want nothing more to do with you.”
“I know who you are,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You have everyone fooled, but I know. And I will tell anyone who will listen!”
He said nothing, merely turned and closed the door behind him.
“I know!” I screamed after him. “You evil bastard! I know!”
My eyes snapped open at the sound of breaking glass.
I bolted upright and scanned my room. Not seeing anything to explain the noise, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and hurried into the hall to search the rest of the apartment.
I peeked into Henry’s room first. He slept soundly, hugging his new teddy bear tightly, completely undisturbed.
I then went to the bathroom and flipped on the light.
The mirror had been smashed, shards of shattered glass scattered on the sink and floor. Only one triangular piece still clung to the mirror’s backing.
Careful to avoid stepping on the glass, I crept into the bathroom toward the sink, searching for what would have caused the mirror to shatter. But there was nothing out of place.
I focused my attention on the mirror itself. My reflection peered back at me from the remaining fragment, but something was wrong. Instead of wallpaper behind me, there was only darkness.
Frowning, I leaned closer until my reflection filled the glass. For a split second, a shadow slid across my face, obscuring my own features, making me look like someone I didn’t recognize. Curious, I leaned closer still, until only my left eye filled the glass.
I studied the flecks of green and gold. Nothing seemed wrong, nothing unusual. The colors I’d seen every day for my entire life were just as they should be.
Then the reflection blinked.
I cried out in surprise and stumbled backward, stepping on slivers of the mirror, cutting my feet, leaving smears of blood as I scrambled to put distance between me and the image in the mirror.
When my back hit the wall, I stood there, shaking, my heart hammering, staring at the shard that had blinked. But whatever had stared back at me from the mirror didn’t return. I waited, my eyes scanning the bathroom, fearing what might happen next.
When nothing else occurred, I squeezed my eyes shut, drawing in several slow breaths until my pulse resumed a normal rhythm.
Calmer now, I opened my eyes, taking in the glass glittering at my feet, the blood on the floor where shards had cut my soft flesh in my haste to get away from what was behind the mirror.
As I bent to pick up a piece of glass, the window above the bathtub sprung open with a crash that rattled the pane.
I yelped in surprise and nearly fell but caught the edge of the vanity. Cursing under my breath, I crept to the tub and hesitantly peeked over the side. No drowned woman appeared, so I stepped into the tub and reached up to close the window. It wouldn’t budge.
“Damn it,” I muttered, thumping the frame, trying to jar it loose. I braced, pulled down again, groaning with the strain. “Come on!”
It gave all at once, slamming down. My bloody feet slipped on the porcelain, my head cracking against the windowsill as I fell.
Moaning, I tried to sit up, but the world spun, and I slid back down, breathing through the pain. As the initial pain began to ebb, dulling to a persistent throb, I suddenly realized cold water lapped at my hips.
What the hell?
The tub was filling. Fast.
I forced myself to sit up to turn off the water that I must’ve turned on when I fell. My vision swam before me, making it difficult to see. I blinked through the blur, pawing for the faucet. My fingers found the knob and curled around it. I tried to twist it, but it wouldn’t budge.
I grasped with both hands, straining. “Shit!”
Instead of fighting to turn it off in the icy water, I swung my leg over the side of the tub and started to climb out, but something grabbed my hair and yanked, pulling me under.
I thrashed, fighting to get free. Each time I broke the surface, it dragged me back down. I kicked and flailed, desperately searching for something to hold onto. My lungs burned, screaming for air.
No! No! Not like this! I can’t die like this! Henry can’t find me—
And then it let go.
I exploded up, gasping for air, and somehow managed to haul myself out, then collapsed on the tile, shaking, too cold and terrified to move. But after a few moments, I forced myself up on my knees and reached for the faucet to turn off the water before it overflowed the tub.
Disbelief froze me where I knelt.
The water had already stopped flowing, the tub empty.
I turned to look behind me.
The shards of glass were gone, the mirror intact.
The only proof that anything had occurred was the pulsing ache in my head where a sizeable lump was beginning to rise and the cuts on the bottoms of my feet.
Fighting the dizziness from what was likely a concussion, I managed to peel off my wet clothes and grab a towel from the linen closet. The cuts on my feet weren’t deep, but there were enough that I dug out sterile gauze and medical tape from the cabinet and bandaged them.
I limped toward my room, wincing a little with each step, and flinched when I passed the full-length mirror. Ugly purple and yellow bruises were beginning to form on my shoulder. I let the towel drop and examined the rest of me, new marks mapping every place my body ached.
Fear and desperation pressed heavy on my chest as I realized what could’ve happened had I not been able to escape. What could’ve happened to Henry if I’d drowned. Who would’ve taken care of him? Certainly not my mother. God—growing up with her would be worse than anything at Dawes House.
No matter what Whit had said about wanting us to stay, I couldn’t put my son or myself at risk any longer than I had to. I just hoped he could understand that when I finally had enough saved to move out—and that the intruders tormenting us would stay behind.
The cuts on my feet were gone by midday, as mysteriously healed as the mirror itself, making me think they, too, were just a paranormal manifestation. But I was still nursing a headache and bruises that afternoon. Those were definitely real.
I slipped into my pajamas early and booted up my hand-me-down laptop to look at what class I needed to sign up for in the fall, hoping to focus on something other than events at the house for as long as my aching head would allow.
I’d only just signed into the student portal when Henry started singing.
I smiled. His little voice immediately quieted my fear and despair. I peeked into his room to see him sitting on the floor, arranging stones in a circle on the floor. Next to him lay a small green velvet bag that looked like it probably contained even more stones.
“Where did you get those?” I asked, wishing the pain reliever I’d taken would hurry up and start working.
He jumped at the sound of my voice and turned wide eyes to the doorway where I stood.
“I’m sorry!” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just heard you singing and thought I’d see what you were up to.”
Henry blinked at me a couple of times as if trying to comprehend what I was saying but then held up one of the stones for me to see. “Do you like my rocks, Mama? Mamaw June gave them to me. She said I could have them.”
I lowered myself beside him, wincing when my bruises protested. “Those are really cool. I hope you thanked Ms. June.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, ma’am!”
“What are you doing with them?” I asked, picking up one of the polished stones to study the gold striations that ran through the white quartz.
“Making a circle like Addie,” he said. “But I don’t have bones, so I’m using my extra stones.”
I kept my tone light when I asked, “Are you playing the game Addie taught you? Was that the song you were singing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, swapping out a couple of the stones for ones that were in the bag. “I don’t know all the words yet.”
“Well,” I said, picking up several of the stones from the circle and putting them in the pouch, “why don’t you play something else instead? Or I can sing songs with you, if want.”
He gave me a pouty look but put the remaining stones away. “Yes, ma’am.”
When Henry eventually grew bored with playing with me, I told him to go pick out a snack and I’d let him watch his cartoons. As soon as he scampered off to the kitchen, grinning, I tucked the pouch of stones in the top drawer of my dresser and covered it with some clothes.
There was technically nothing wrong with the gift from June, but something about the stones—and the game Addie had taught Henry—made me uneasy.
“What happened to your head?” Henry asked me later, casually swinging his legs as we sat at the kitchen table eating some of the mixed fruit and finger sandwiches our neighbors had dropped off.
I touched the lump on my forehead, glad to find it wasn’t hurting quite as much as it had been, the pain reliever finally taking effect. “I slipped in the bathroom and hit it,” I told him. “Did you hear me fall?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am.” I reached for one of the sandwiches as he added, “But I saw the sad lady.”
I frowned. “The sad lady?”
He nodded. “She cries a lot.”
I set the sandwich on my plate, no longer hungry. “Why is she crying? Did she tell you?”
“No, ma’am.” He shook his head again. “She just cries and holds her stomach. Maybe she’s got a tummy ache. Or maybe she’s cold ’cause she’s wet and is giving herself a hug.”
The woman in the bathtub.
He’d seen her too. And yet, he didn’t seem scared at all.
“Do you know her name?” I asked. “Did she ever tell you?”
He nodded and popped a grape in his mouth. After swallowing, he said, “Eliza.”
Goosebumps rose along my skin. “What does she look like?”
He shrugged. “She has hair like Addie’s. And a fancy dress.”
“Fancy how?”
He made wave motions with his arms. “It’s flowy.”
“Have you seen her anywhere else?” I asked, dread making my throat tight.
But he shook his head. “Just here. She said this was her house.”
So, had Eliza been behind the mirror and the bathtub incidents? Was she trying to tell me her story, or was she trying to get rid of me? She had given birth to one child but had drowned when pregnant with a second. Did she resent that my child and I still lived?
“Does she scare you?” I asked, taking his little hand in mine, my guts twisting with guilt. I hated that he’d inherited my cursed ability. “Does she ever try to hurt you?”
He shook his head. “No, Mama. Not Eliza.”
I frowned. “I know the angry lady in the basement scares you. Does anyone else?”
He hesitated but then nodded.
“Who, baby?” I asked. “Who scares you?”
He leaned in and cupped his hand around his mouth as if sharing a secret, then whispered, “The lady in the wall.”