Chapter Thirty Five #2
She took a step back and looked widely around the room for a simple conclusion.
She stood there shaking as she examined her Mawmaw lying with her neck cut open, blood staining her nightgown and sheets.
Her face was white and unnatural. Ophelia did not see peace or anger or anything on her face—just nothing.
“No, no, no, no…”
She needed help. She turned, grabbed her bag, and ran toward the front door, but the light on in the parlor stopped her.
Her breath was heavy, and her whole body vibrated with fear.
Something was behind the parlor doors, and she had to know.
Curiosity and insanity outweighed her fear and impending grief as she opened the doors to the treating parlor.
“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”
Exodus 20:5 was written in blood on the walls.
Her whole body felt as if it was falling, like she was jumping off a bridge into freezing water, and her arms were flailing in an attempt to stop.
Her mind came back online, and rational thought said she needed to get out of the house and find help.
It was like she could feel the killer all around her, an evil presence.
She bolted out of the house and ran to her car.
She drove away, spinning her wheels, hitting potholes on the way down the driveway, forcing the car to swerve and jump underneath her grip.
Sweat from her hands coated the wheel as she kept checking behind to make sure no one was following her.
She drove to the center of town, the only other place she knew the directions to without her GPS, and stopped outside of the pizza parlor. The parlor was filled with patrons, and the warm light glowing from inside alerted her that it was safe enough to stop.
She needed to call the police, but her heart hurt knowing they’d probably do very little.
What could be done? No one knew who the Cutthroat Killer was.
No one could talk openly about magic. There were too many things that couldn’t be said.
Too many mysteries that were unsolved. Steadying her breath, she called the police.
Ophelia spent most of Friday night with the police. At some ungodly hour, Aunt Susan picked her up from the station and let her stay at her home in the guest bedroom. Jack was in town visiting, and all three sat in quiet at the breakfast table the following morning.
“Aunt Susan,” said Ophelia, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Do you mind dropping me off at my car this morning? It’s back at the police station.”
“Yes, of course, honey. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank you.” Ophelia had received news from the police that morning that the house was cleared for re-entry.
“And if it’s okay with you,” Ophelia continued, “I want to go back to the Pine House. I just feel like being there. I’ll try to tidy up some. I promise I won’t touch or take any valuables. I just…I just want to be there.”
“That’s fine, dear,” her aunt said dully.
“I can’t believe you want to go back there,” said Jack, perturbed by her interest in returning. Ophelia shrugged in response and hung her head.
Ophelia was the first back inside the Pine House once it had been cleared.
It somehow looked the same. If she kept staring at it, maybe some change would indicate the loss of its owner, but nothing.
She wondered if revisiting the house would make her feel something.
Make it feel more real. She had yet to cry.
So she walked through the front door. The foyer was dark, but there were clear signs that the police had been there—leftover tape marking removed evidence, dirty shoe prints in the foyer, the living room put back in a way that no longer made sense.
Ophelia touched her hand to the back of her Mawmaw’s worn-in recliner.
The place where she played Candy Crush, watched trash TV, and relaxed in the comfort and safety of her home.
Ophelia pressed her palm deeper into the chair. She wondered if she crawled in it, she would feel her Mawmaw’s arms wrap around her.
After she’d called the police, she went into shock, sitting stiff in her car, unsure of what was happening and how to process her feelings.
She mindlessly drove to the police station that she realized she could see from the pizza parlor parking lot.
Ophelia sat in a police office for several hours, answering questions, filling out the paperwork that she could.
Most of it needed to be filled out by Aunt Susan.
That night at Aunt Susan’s, she heard the cries of her aunt in the living room and the hushed phone calls with relatives and police. She listened to her aunt’s pain in paralysis, unable to express her own.
Ophelia moved into the treating parlor and stood in front of the gold altar.
The words were still on the wall, and she turned her head away from them in disgust. Instead, she stretched out her arms on the smooth surface of the altar and lay her head down, letting the coolness of the gold soothe her.
Ophelia couldn’t make sense of anything. All the information she held about the Cutthroat Killer and its victims swam in her head in unconnected pieces.
She wanted to make sense of it, but it wasn’t time for her to figure this out. How could she even figure this out? There were supposed to be cops, detectives, investigators all over this. Why hadn’t they solved this yet?
Ophelia pulled out the cognac from the cabinet in the altar and walked to the back porch. She sat in the rocking chair, looking out into the pine forest of her childhood. She felt like her Mawmaw would walk through the porch doors at any moment. None of this should be real.
Despair sank deep into her bones as she wondered if all of this was somehow her fault. She tipped her head back and drained what was left in the decanter. The rest could wait until tomorrow.