“But since she did tell me about Amy, I thought we might talk about her.” When Beth’s forehead creased into a worried frown, Abigail hastened to reassure her. “It will be our secret. I promise not to tell anyone else about Amy, unless you say it’s all right.”
Beth chewed thoughtfully on her lip, then looked warily at the old woman in the bed. “Wh-what do you want to know about her?” she stammered.
Abigail let herself relax. It was going to be all right. “Well, to start with, how old is she?”
Beth hesitated. She wasn’t quite sure. “My age,” she said at last. “I think she’s eleven, going on twelve.”
“Eleven,” Abigail repeated. “And do you know what she looks like?”
Beth shook her head.
“But I thought she was your friend,” Abigail pressed. “Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Y-yes—”
“Then you must know what she looks like, mustn’t you?”
“It … it was dark.”
“Dark. Like it is in the mill?”
Beth nodded.
“And is that where you saw her? In the mill?” Once more, Beth nodded. “What does she do there?”
“She … she lives there,” Beth replied, then stepped back almost as if she expected to be punished for what she’d said.
“But I thought—I thought she was dead,” Abigail said.
Beth’s eyes widened once more, and again Abigail was afraid she was going to run from the room. But instead, she swallowed hard, and stood her ground.
“She is dead,” she said. “She used to work in the mill a long time ago, and something terrible happened to her. And she’s still there.”
“I see,” Abigail breathed. “Do you know what happened to her?”
Beth thought, and then remembered the smell she’d noticed when she’d been in the basement of the mill with her father. “I think there was a fire,” she whispered. “I think there was a fire, and she couldn’t get out.”
Abigail gasped, suddenly sitting up in the bed. Her hand shot out, clutching Beth’s arm. “How do you know that?” she demanded. “How do you know there was a fire?”
Beth, suddenly terrified, wrenched herself loose from Abigail’s grip, and ran to the door. Then she turned back to face the old woman once again,.
“I know!” she said, her voice reflecting her sudden desperation. She wished she hadn’t come here after all, wished she hadn’t agreed to come and see this old woman who hated her for reasons she couldn’t understand at all. “I just know, that’s all!” she repeated.
She reached for the door handle, but just as she was about to pull on it and run from the room, Abigail spoke again.
“I can tell you about Amy,” the old woman said. “I can tell you everything about her that you want to know.”
Beth froze, and then, very slowly, turned away from the door. Abigail’s eyes seemed to reach out to her, gripping her, drawing her inexorably back toward the bed.…
Tracy sat in the waiting room, her fury growing inside her.
It should have been her her grandmother wanted to see, not that stupid Beth. What could they possibly be talking about? Her grandmother didn’t even like Beth—in fact, she hated her almost as much as Tracy herself did.
Then she remembered the conversation she’d had that afternoon when she’d told her grandmother how crazy Beth was. And her grandmother hadn’t really said anything.
But she’d gone down to the mill later on.
Was it possible that her grandmother didn’t believe Beth was crazy? Could she actually believe what Beth had been saying?
It wasn’t fair.
None of it was fair!
Everyone was paying attention to Beth, and no one was paying attention to her!
In fact, her own father hadn’t even done anything when that horrible Alan Rogers at dinner had told her to shut up. Instead of defending her, he’d actually apologized to Beth, like he was Beth’s father, instead of her own.
And now her grandmother was acting like Beth was her grandchild, instead of herself.
All of a sudden, Tracy knew what was happening. Beth was stealing her family. She was stealing her father, and she was stealing her grandmother.
Tracy clutched at the magazine she was pretending to read, and saw her knuckles turn white as her anger turned her hands into tight fists.
Well, she wouldn’t put up with it, and if any of them thought she would, they were wrong!
She’d get even. She’d get even with them all!
17
Beth sat silently in the back seat of the Mercedes, staring out the window, watching the darkness outside as the big car made its ponderous way along Prospect Street toward River Road. As it came abreast of the