Chapter 20
Anna almost didn’t see her. She was too busy picking her way through the night, mentally replaying the clip of Lila and Jamie partying in her house, trying not to think about the video that had been her face in the bright light, and the men, and the thing she couldn’t remember but every stranger could watch, to notice the slight ripples in the darkness.
She was turning up the dirt track that served as some kind of drive to the house when a flash of white cloth caught her eye, something drowning in the ocean.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled.
There was someone else out here. She looked up at the house and her heart leaped to her mouth.
Even in the poor light she could see that the front door was wide open. Oh shit.
“Grandma?” The word was muted by the thick night now settled around her. She jogged forward a few paces. “Grandma?” she repeated, slightly louder. It was hard to make out anything at all, even with her phone’s flashlight on, and she was nearly on top of her before she finally saw her.
The old woman was kneeling on the ground, her face distorted with emotion, rocking backward and forward, keening softly.
Anna hurried over and crouched next to her, taking her hands.
“I’m here, Grandma. Evelyn. I’m here. It’s Anna.
I’m sorry. I’m here now.” Still Grandma keened, a low, terrible sound, and as Anna pulled her close so they were face-to-face, the night filled the deep wrinkles in Grandma’s skin and her face looked like a cracked mosaic.
“It’s me, Grandma, I’m here,” Anna repeated, sick with guilt.
What had she done? She shouldn’t have gone out. How was she going to explain this?
At last some recognition flickered. “Anna,” Grandma said. It was a statement, not a question, and she looked away again toward the patch of dry ground and keened some more. “I can’t keep doing it, Lord, I can’t keep doing it.”
“Let’s get inside,” Anna said, mentally berating herself. She shouldn’t have gone out. She should have waited until a night when Mom was home. It had been selfish. Thoughtless. “Your hands are cold.”
“Stop it!” Grandma was suddenly looking right at Anna, her eyes wide and bloodshot, and spittle flecked on Anna’s cheek as she barked out the words. “It’s so loud! The girls in my head are so loud.”
She gasped and then froze momentarily before her voice dropped. “They say a girl died here.”
A shiver ran down Anna’s spine. Between sitting in a graveyard, talking about ghosts and the dead, and then finding out that Lila and probably Bonnie had been in her house, she was creeped out enough without this.
“They say a girl died here,” Grandma said again, staring at Anna, eyes wide and afraid.
“Who says, Grandma?” Anna leaned forward, one arm reaching out for the old woman. “Who’s talking in your head?”
Grandma finally flinched and crumpled, holding her hands to her ears. “Anna,” she moaned. “Anna, Anna, Anna.” Her shoulders hunched and she started to sob, the awful sound coming deep from within her hollow chest. “Anna,” she whispered.
Anna did the only thing she could think of. She pulled Grandma into a hug and soothed her.