can’t escape the extreme discomfort. “What is that?” Zoë yells.
“I have no idea.”
The bettinger freezes. His head turns to look over his shoulder. The vibration intensifies, bringing us to our knees. He turns and runs into the forest, leaving Clara alone and giving her the chance to escape.
The world around us collapses and transports us once again, back to the house, standing just off the porch in the frozen grass. The sun is just beginning to rise. A large wagon, pulled by two robust horses stands at rest in the dirt path that resembles a modern driveway. The front door opens and a man dressed in a black suit with a rounded top hat emerges.
He holds the door open for others, dressed similar to him, who walk slowly and methodically out the door. The first emerges backward, holding on to something at waist level. He takes a few steps and it becomes apparent that he is carrying one end of a stretcher. A dead body, wrapped in a white sheet rests atop the stretcher made of wooden pieces and animal hide. “Oh God,” I say, burying my face in Zoë’s shoulder.
The body on the stretcher is that of an adult. I assume it’s Mary.
I lift my head again, feeling brave enough to look. As the men pass by us, a sudden gust of wind catches the end of the sheet that covers her face and lifts it in the air. Her mouth and eyes are wide open. Her eyes cloudy and colorless. Dark black circles surround them. Black veins cover her face. Her lips are a deep purple and her skin an ashen gray.
I cover my mouth with my hand and gasp in horror.
The men load her body into the back of the wagon and recover her face. They head back into the house, leaving us alone with the alarming corpse of Mary Owens, my mother.
The horses begin to grow uncomfortable and fight their harnesses. The wagon jostles from side to side as they whinny and buck in an attempt to escape. “They sense the evil,” Zoë whispers to me.
The door to the house opens once again and the men emerge carrying yet another stretcher. This time the body is small; obviously that of a child. Anna. The sheet is not covering her very well. Her left arm and a small portion of the left side of her face are visible. Her arm is completely gray with the same black veins spider webbed through it. Her fingernails are a deep purple. She bears the same dark lips and hollow eyes as my mother.
They slide her stretcher into the back of the wagon, just as they did Mary, before boarding the wagon and driving away. “Emma, come in the house,” a brusque male voice calls from the doorway of the house. He is looking directly at Zoë and me.
“Can he see us?” Zoë mutters without moving her lips.
“I don’t—” I gasp for a breath as a small girl, wearing an ankle length dress and white bonnet, walks out of my body and heads into the house.
“Oh my God! What was that?” Zoë exclaims as she grabs hold of both of my arms. “Are you okay?”
As my breathing settles, I nod my head. “Your face… all the color drained from it. You looked white as a ghost. Are you sure you’re okay, Emma?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. That was me, wasn’t it?”
She hesitates before answering. “I think it was.”
9. TWINKLE, TWINKLE
“I feel a little lightheaded,” I say to Zoë.
“Let’s sit down for a minute.”
Holding on to me, she guides me to the steps of the porch and directs me to sit. We take a few minutes to regroup.
“We aren’t going anywhere yet,” I point out after what feels like too long. “There must be something else here we need to see. Do you think we should go inside?”
“Maybe. You okay to do that?”
“Yeah, I feel better.”
We slowly walk into the house. Somehow, I recognize all of it and know exactly where everything is. The front door opens into a large sitting room with modest furniture. A fire crackles in the hearth and the little girl—me—sits in front of it playing with handcrafted dolls.
“He sits in there and writes,” I say, gesturing to a room to the left.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I remember it like it was yesterday.”
I walk through a doorway to my left. It leads into a bedroom. The covers on the bed are pulled back and disheveled. A desk sits in