We stood in the middle of a small, overgrown lane deep in a forest, but I recognized the trees instantly. This was the road that would take us to my parents’ house.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, panic seizing me.
Two years was not enough time to erase the memories of a childhood of neglect and scorn. Two years could not wipe away the last image I held of my mother, stooped in the dirt, grabbing at Merrick’s coins.
I wondered if those coins had changed their lives.
I was certain they’d not.
But part of me hoped they had.
I pictured Mama in a new dress, one bright and fresh and not faded from years of being scrubbed on the washboard. Perhaps they’d finally fixed the roof, expanded the first level of the cabin, theway they’d always said they wanted to. Remy might have married the baker’s daughter he’d been sweet on, and I pictured them all living together. Papa wouldn’t have to hunt as much, and they could all spend their days chasing after the toddling triplets I invented for Remy and his imaginary wife.
“There are things here that need to be done,” Merrick said, splitting my daydream open wide.
“What things?” I asked, stalling.
“Things you need to see.” Merrick’s lips rose. It would have looked like a smile if he hadn’t been so terribly sad.
I shook my head. “They won’t…they don’t want to see me.”
“It doesn’t matter what they want. It’s what you need.”
I stared down the road, apprehension a tangible weight cloaking my shoulders. I peered up at my godfather. He looked as ill as I felt. “There’s nothing in that house that I need to see,” I insisted.
Merrick reached out and cupped my face, his long fingers icy on my skin. “I wish that were true…. Come along.”
My feet, willful traitors, set themselves in motion.
The cabin looked nothing like I remembered.
They hadn’t repaired the roof, and the back section of it had finally fallen in, collapsing under the weight of winter snows or a heavy rain.
They hadn’t expanded either.
In fact, the cabin looked smaller now, somehow. It seemed impossible that the fifteen of us had ever lived together in such a confined space. Well…the fourteen of them, I corrected as my eyes drifted to the barn.
It too had aged poorly. Long swathes of paint peeled away from the weathered wood, unfurling down the sides like spools of fraying ribbons. I could sense it was empty, the cows and horses all long gone and never replaced.
The garden had gone to seed and now grew wherever it pleased, untended. Two chickens roamed the tangled jungle, pecking listlessly at the ground.
“They must have left,” I said, glancing up at Merrick as I struggled to put together everything I saw. “After you gave them the coins…they must have moved. Maybe into town?”
Merrick’s mouth was a thin, grim line. “They’re still here, Hazel.”
As if cued, a burst of noise came from somewhere in the cabin. It was an explosion of coughing, deep and wet and rattling and so very wrong.
A shiver ran through me. I’d never heard a cough like that.
I reached for Merrick’s hand, suddenly feeling much younger than my fourteen years. I remembered the little girl who had scurried from that cabin to the barn each evening at sunset, terrified to be caught outdoors after dark. Something about the cough reminded me of that fear, that deep, unshakeable dread, that certainty that monsters lay just out of sight, waiting for you to make a mistake and devour you whole.
“Shall we go in?” Merrick asked and handed me my valise, plucking it from the air with a twist of his fingers. It felt heavier than usual. “I’m sure they’re dying to see you.”
Later on I would wonder at his choice of words, but in that moment, all I could do was open the door.
The smell inside was terrible, and it was impossible to determine what exactly was causing it. Rubbish and moldering food lay heaped on the table where our family had once gathered to share meals.Flies buzzed in and out of the doorway. Their droning set my teeth on edge.
“Mama?” I called out uncertainly, caught on the threshold, half in, half out. I couldn’t bring myself to go any farther. Deep in the pockets of my skirt, my hands balled into nervous fists. “Papa?”
