loud for the small bedroom, “Is that why you’ve pushed us all away? Kept us from the house? To hide your secret?”
He ignored her, looking at the windowless wall on his right. “She’s here with me. Has been the whole time. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before.”
Liberty followed his gaze and stared at the plain white wall as rationale spun around inside her skull and tried to find purchase. Were these the delusions of a dying man who saw ghosts no one else did?
Or were her instincts correct, and had Adrian been right all along? She wanted to believe Adrian more than anything.
She moved back to the bed and sat down next to him. His fragile state no longer a concern, she gripped his shoulders. “Mitch Montgomery, you explain yourself right this minute. Is she dead or alive?”
“Alive,” he said, in obvious pain. “Yes. Adrian had gone and wandered off and I ran all the way back to the house, jumped in my truck and drove down the utility road.”
She loosened her grip, still not trusting her ears, wishing Nathaniel were there to hear him, too. She wiped her tears with a sleeve and Becky put an arm around her shoulders.
“Then what?” she managed to ask him.
“She was unconscious when I arrived, but still alive.” He drew in a ragged breath, his body hitched and seemed prepared for another fit, but it subsided and he continued, “She faded in and out, human to Sasquatch. I knew I didn’t have much time. I pulled her out of the brush and, hell if she wasn’t heavy.”
He lost track, but he was right. Sage towered over Liberty, even at sixteen she’d stood nearly eight feet tall.
“Go on,” Liberty prompted.
“After some struggle, I got her in the back of the truck, covered her with a tarp and brought her home.”
“Is she here?” Liberty fought the urge to ransack the place. “Is she here in this house?”
He nodded. “Yes. I put her up in Kevin’s old room. I prettied it up, you know, some fresh paint and linens like Ellie would’ve done.”
Liberty hopped up and moved toward the door, and he continued to talk.
“I’ve kept her hidden to protect her. But she isn’t Sasquatch anymore.”
Liberty stopped, turned back to Mitch. “Isn’t what? What do you mean, she’s not Sasquatch?”
Mitch lay there, eyes closed, chest rising and falling shallowly.
“You stay,” Becky stepped in. “I’ll go check if…” The look in her eyes was sincere and confused, as if she too wasn’t certain either if Mitch hadn’t lost his mind. Ravings of a dying man seemed a distinct possibility.
“Hurry, please,” Liberty said.
Becky left the room, nearly at a jog.
When Mitch opened his eyes and started to talk again, she’d already heard the door to the upstairs open, heard the wood creak as Becky’s feet moved overhead.
“You need to know, Ellie meant for me to save you, not Sage. But I can’t undo it.”
“Save me? From what?”
He didn’t answer.
“Save me from what, Mitch?”
“The curse.”
“The curse,” she repeated. She shook her head. “You can’t…” She heard the doors open and close upstairs and felt sick with anticipation.
“There’s more to the legend. More than what your mother told you about our ancestors.”
“Ours?”
“What more?”
“Ellie and I are like you and Nathaniel.” He made an attempt to lift his arm, whispered, “The amulet.”
She looked at his bracelet. It meant the world to him, and to Ellie, but it was plain. Their version of wedding bands, Liberty always remembered, but they tended to disappear and she wouldn’t notice them again until they were pointed out.
“Ellie’s and your bands?” Her head buzzed and she scolded herself. No time to demonstrate how well she could faint.
He nodded, dropped his arm down as though it weighed a ton.
She looked closer at the band, and knew it wasn’t her imagination.
He’d lost so much weight, but the band fit perfectly. Perplexed, she tried to spin it around, but it wouldn’t budge. She drew her hand back sharply. It felt like skin, not metal at all.
“Lib—” He hitched in a breath and held it.
She looked up at his chest, hoped he’d let it out again and if he did, she sincerely hoped it wouldn’t be the final one. “Mitch? How are you and Ellie like us?”
The faint click of a door opened, then shut. Becky had reached the top floor, the one with the dormers.
Liberty reached for Mitch’s hand again, and took a firm hold of his wrist. The band squirmed and pulsated beneath her fingers as though