The Winter People (28 page)

“What do you suppose it’s about?” I asked.

“Auntie. They will try to force him to send her away,” he told me.

“They cannot!” I exclaimed. “What right do they have?”

“Father depends on the people in town. They buy our vegetables, our milk and eggs. These men, they have power.”

I scoffed. “Auntie’s powers are greater.”

When the men finally filed out of the house, my father was pale and shaken. He said very little. He poured himself another cup of brandy, which he gulped in two great swallows. Then he had a third.

When Auntie came by later with freshly skinned rabbits to make stew for supper, Father met her outside. They did not come in, and spoke in hushed tones. Soon, however, their voices were raised.

“How dare you!” Auntie yelled.

Eventually, Father came back into the house. “I’m sorry,” he said to her before he closed and latched the door. The three of us sat in the living room, listening to Auntie.

“Sorry? You are
sorry
? Open the door! We are not finished!”

I rose from my seat to unlatch the door, but Father pulled me back down and held me there, his fingers digging into my arm. Jacob bit his lip and stared down at the floor, tears in his eyes.

“How dare you!” Auntie shrieked as she watched us through the window beside the door. Her face was as serious and angry as I’d
ever seen it. “How dare you shun me? You will pay for this, Joseph Harrison,” she hissed. “I promise you that, you will pay.”

Later that night, after Father had fallen asleep with the empty bottle of brandy, Jacob crept into my room. “I am going to talk to her,” he told me. “I will find a way to get her back.” The fierce desperation in his eyes suddenly made me understand how deep his love for her was, how much he needed her. We all needed Auntie. I did not believe our family could get by without her.

I sat up late in my bed, waiting for Jacob to return. Eventually, my eyes grew too tired.

I awoke to Father shaking me. Dawn light streamed in through the window. Father reeked of brandy and had tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s Jacob,” he said.

“What?” I asked, jumping out of bed. Father didn’t answer, but I followed him out of my room, down the stairs, and out the door. My bare feet padded over the damp, dew-soaked grass. I walked in Father’s shadow all the way to the barn, terrified.

Jacob was hanging from one of the rafters, a coarse hemp rope tied neatly around his neck.

Father cut him down, held him in his arms, sobbing. And then, in my shock and sorrow, I did the thing I will always wonder if I should have done—I told him the truth.

“He went out to see Auntie last night,” I told him.

Father’s eyes clouded over with a storm of thickening rage.

He carried Jacob’s body into the house and laid him down in his own bed as if Jacob were a little boy again, being tucked in.

Then Father got his gun and a tin of kerosene.

I followed him across the yard and field and into the woods.

“Turn back,” he said fiercely over his shoulder. But I did not listen. I walked farther behind, putting more distance between us. We went through the orchard, the trees hanging with unripe apples and pears, misshapen and spotted with blight. Some of the fruit had fallen and lay rotting on the ground, attracting hornets drawn to its sweetness. The blackflies found us when we were past the Devil’s Hand, swarming in tiny little clouds. Toadstools sprouted here and there, inky and poisonous. The path bent and turned, moving downhill.

Father reached Auntie’s cabin first—a crooked little house she’d built herself out of hand-hewn logs. Smoke came from her metal chimney. Father didn’t knock or call out, he simply threw open the door, stepped inside, and slammed it closed. I crouched behind a tree, waiting, my heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s.

There was shouting, the sound of something being thrown. A window broke. Then—a single gunshot.

Father stepped back through Auntie’s green door, carrying the kerosene tin. He turned around, lit a match, and threw it over the threshold.

“No!” I cried, jumping out from my hiding place.

The flames leapt and roared. The heat was so intense that I had to move back.

“Auntie!” I screamed, staring into the flames for signs of movement. There was none. But then, from behind the roar of the fire, I heard a voice. It was Auntie, calling my name.

“Sara,” she cried. “Sara.” I lunged for the cabin, but Father wrapped his arms around me, pinning me against him, my head close enough to his chest so I could hear his heart hammering.

Black soot snowed down on us, covering my hair and nightgown, Father’s flannel shirt.

At last, when it was clear that there was no saving anyone, he let me go and I fell to the ground. Father moved in, stood so close to the flames that he soon had blisters on his face and arms. His eyebrows were singed off and never did grow back right. He stood there, staring into the fire, sobbing, howling like a man who had lost everything.

Behind us, I heard the snapping of twigs. I raised my head, turned, and saw Buckshot, covered in ash. He looked at me, his milky-white ghost eye moving uselessly in its socket.

“Buckshot,” I called. “Here, boy.” But the dog gave a derisive snort and slipped off into the forest.

January 28, 1908

Martin was slow to get out of bed, dreading the day before him. Sara had spent the past two days searching the house and woods, barely sleeping, and strangely frantic.

“Did you lose something?” Martin had asked her yesterday morning, when she checked the hall closet for what must have been the twentieth time.

“Maybe,” she’d told him.

Yesterday afternoon, Martin had gone into town again to talk with Lucius. Lucius insisted on taking Martin for a drink at the inn. They settled in at the bar, and Carl Gonyea served them each an ale.

“Good to see you, Martin,” Carl said, giving him a jovial handshake. “How’s Sara doing?”

“Well,” Martin said through a tight smile. “She’s well, thank you.”

“A horrible thing to go through, losing a child like that. My heart goes out to both of you.”

“Thank you,” Martin said, looking down into his ale. Carl gave him a nod and went to tend to something in a back room.

Martin sipped at his pint and took a look around the room. The dining-room-and-bar area was grand and done in dark wood. Martin could see his reflection in the polished counter. The windows facing Main Street had stained-glass panels at the top that sent patches of colored light to flicker on the polished wooden floor. There were
half a dozen tables, laid out with white cloths and silverware, but it was between lunch and dinner, so no one was eating. Martin and Lucius were the only two at the bar. Behind it, bottles of liquor stood on shelves, waiting for the end of the day, when men with more money than Martin had would come in and drink from them.

“Tell me, brother,” Lucius said. “Tell me the truth about Sara.”

Martin leaned over and filled Lucius in on Sara’s condition. He spoke in hushed tones, keeping an eye out for Carl.

He didn’t know what he would do without Lucius. Lucius was the only person besides Sara whom Martin ever confided in, and now that he felt he was losing Sara, Lucius was all he had. And Lucius was so patient, so wise. He lent Martin strength, and often, although Sara didn’t know it, he’d lent Martin money, too. Just a little here and there, to help them during their darkest times. Martin knew Lucius would give them more—he’d offered, more than once—but Martin didn’t feel right taking his brother’s money.

Though Lucius agreed that it was a good sign to have Sara out of bed and eating again, he said he was concerned that she seemed still to be experiencing delusional thinking.

“I found her in the woods,” Martin explained, “calling out to Gertie, as if she thought Gertie was still out there, lost.”

Lucius nodded. “Keep a close watch on her, Martin. Someone with Sara’s history … who has had episodes of madness before … such a person is very susceptible to slipping back into it. As I said, she may even become dangerous. We must prepare to admit her to the state hospital if it proves necessary.”

Martin had shivered at the idea of Sara’s becoming dangerous.

Now, out of bed and dressed at last, Martin padded down the stairs and found Sara in the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee. She looked thinner than ever, the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced. Had she even come to bed last night? Martin had the feeling she’d been down here, waiting for him, all night.

“Morning,” he mumbled, bracing himself for whatever might come next.

“Do you know where the shovel is?” Sara asked. “I couldn’t find it in the barn.”

“It’s there, lined up with the other tools,” Martin said, pouring
himself a cup of coffee and peering at her through the steam. “Not enough fresh snow to need to shovel, though.”

Besides, that was his job. Was she teasing? Mocking him?

“Oh, I’m not going to shovel snow.” She had a curious look on her face, like a child up to no good.

Martin took a swallow of bitter coffee.

“What do you need the shovel for, then?”

“Digging.” She paused here, watching Martin’s reaction.

He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know, but the words bubbled out of him. “Digging what?”

“I’m going to dig up Gertie’s body.”

He splashed coffee down his front, burning his chest.

“You’re going to …” His voice sounded shaky, strange to his own ears.

Sara smiled slyly. “Gertie left me another message,” she said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her apron and handing it over to Martin. He unfolded it, and there, in shaky, childish writing, was:

Look in the Poket of the dress I was waring
.
You will find somthing that beelongs to the 1 that Kilt me
.

He swallowed hard, but the knot in his throat stayed there.

He had a flash of Gertie at the bottom of the well, wearing her wool overcoat and blue dress. Heavy wool stockings bunched up on her legs.

When they pulled her from the well, he saw her hair had been cut. No one but Martin noticed. Martin, who’d carried the hank of hair coiled up in the pocket of his coat, buried it in the snow.

“But Gertie wasn’t killed, Sara. She fell.” He tried to keep his voice calm and level; his best you’ve-got-to-see-reason tone, like a parent reprimanding a small child.

But hadn’t some part of him been wondering all along if it had truly been an accident? How had Gertie’s hair been cut? Who hung it up in the barn?

Sara only smiled. “We buried Gertie in the dress she was wearing when they found her in the well. I need to do this, Martin. I need to know. I need to know if it’s her.”

“Her? Her who?”

“Auntie. Though Auntie died so long ago … The spirit of Auntie. I need to know if she killed our little girl.”

“You think Gertie was killed by a
spirit
?”

“I don’t know!” she said, exasperated. “That’s why we have to dig her up. Don’t you see?”

She looked at him long and hard, waiting for a response.

“Don’t you, Martin? Don’t you need to know the truth?”

He stayed silent.

Gertie had been laid to rest in the small family cemetery behind the house. Beside her were the graves of Sara’s parents, her brother, Jacob, and Gertie’s tiny infant brother.

“Sara, Gertie’s been in the ground for two weeks now. Have you thought about the … 
condition
her body will be in?” It was dreadful to imagine, and he felt cruel bringing it up, but he had to find a way to stop her.

She nodded. “It’s only a body. An empty vessel. The little girl I love is out there still, in the beyond.”

Martin took in a breath.

Calm. Be calm
.

He felt his face and ears burning, his heart hammering away in his chest.

He remembered seeing Sara come out of the barn the day Gertie disappeared. How he had gone in just after and found the fox pelt gone and the hair hanging in its place.

A terrible possibility began to dawn—something that he hadn’t allowed himself to believe in, or even to consider, until now.

Could Sara have killed Gertie?

She may even become dangerous
.

He looked down at the note scribbled in childish handwriting. He tried to recall his daughter’s penmanship, but could not quite picture it. To his eye, the note Sara had produced looked more like the writing of an adult trying to write like a child.

Was this Sara’s way of confessing? Did she know there was something of hers tucked in the pocket of poor Gertie’s dress?

The room seemed to tilt slightly, and Martin grabbed onto the table to keep his balance.

He looked at Sara, his beautiful Sara, and wanted to weep and scream and beg her not to leave him, beg her to fight against the madness blossoming inside her.

He remembered handing her the Jupiter marble he’d just won from Lucius when they were children—how she’d been so beautifully radiant that he’d given it over without even thinking; he’d have given her anything then, same as he would now.

She was his great adventure; his love for her had taken him places he’d never dreamed of going.

“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it on my own,” Sara told him now, her body rigid, ready for a fight.

“All right,” he sighed, knowing he’d lost. It was over. “But we’re going to do it properly. I’m going to go into town to get Lucius. He should be here, don’t you think?”

Sara nodded. “The sheriff, too. Bring the sheriff.”

“Definitely,” he promised, standing to go get his coat and hat. “You just sit and wait. A job like this, it isn’t a thing any mother should have to do. We’ll take care of it when I get back. We’ll take care of everything.”

He leaned down and kissed her cheek. It felt hot, dry, and papery, not at all like skin—not at all familiar.

Visitors from the Other Side The Secret Diary of Sara Harrison Shea