She looked up. Past his ugly, contorted face.
Past the bowed trees. Their crooked limbs.
The night sky.
The moon was blue against the dark expanse.
Stars were scattered, indistinct pinholes.
Charlie closed her eyes. She wanted darkness, but she saw Sam twisting through the air. She could hear the thump of her sister’s body hitting the grave like it was happening all over again. And then she saw Gamma. On the kitchen floor. Back to the cabinet.
Bright white bone. Pieces of heart and lung. Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and life spilling out of her gaping wounds.
Gamma had told her to run.
Sam had ordered her to get away.
They would not want this.
They had sacrificed their lives for Charlotte, but not for this.
“No!” Charlotte screamed, her hands turning into fists. She pounded into Zach’s chest, swung so hard at his jaw that his head whipped around. Blood sprayed out of his mouth—big globs of it, not like the tiny dots from Gamma.
“Fucking bitch.” He reared back his hand to punch her.
Charlotte saw a blur out of the corner of her eye.
“Get off her!”
Daniel flew through the air, tackling Zach to the ground. His fists swung back and forth, arms windmilling as he beat his brother.
“Motherfucker!” he yelled. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Charlotte backed away from the men. Her hands pressed deep into the earth as she forced herself to stand. Blood poured down her legs. Cramps made her double over. She stumbled. She spun around in a circle, blind as Sam had been. She couldn’t get her bearings. She didn’t know which way to run, but she knew that she had to keep moving.
Her ankle screamed as she ran back into the woods. She didn’t look for the weather tower. She didn’t listen for the stream, or try to find Sam, or head toward the HP. She kept running, then walking, then she felt so exhausted that she wanted to crawl.
Finally, she gave into it, collapsing to her hands and knees.
She listened for footsteps behind her, but all she could hear was her own heavy breaths panting out of her mouth.
Blood dripped between her legs. His stuff was in there, festering, decaying her insides. Charlotte threw up. Bile hit the ground and splattered back into her face. She wanted to lie down, to close her eyes, to go to sleep and wake up in a week when this was all over.
But she couldn’t.
Zachariah Culpepper.
Daniel Culpepper.
Brothers.
Charlotte would see them both dead. She would watch the executioner strap them to the wooden chair and put the metal hat on their heads with the sponge underneath so that they wouldn’t catch on fire and she would look between Zachariah Culpepper’s legs to watch the urine come out when he realized that he was going to be electrocuted to death.
Charlotte got up.
She stumbled, then she walked, then she jogged and then, suddenly, miraculously, she saw a light.
The second farmhouse.
Charlotte reached out her hand as if she could touch it.
She swallowed back a sob.
Her ankle could barely hold her as she limped through the freshly plowed fields. She kept her eyes on the porch light, using it as a beacon, a lighthouse that could guide her away from the rocks.
I am here. I am here. I am here.
There were four steps up the back porch. Charlotte stared at them, trying not to think of the steps at the HP, the way she had run up them two at a time just a few hours ago, kicked off her shoes, peeled off her socks and found Gamma cursing in the kitchen.
“Fudge,” Charlie whispered. “Fudge.”
Her ankle buckled on the first step. She held onto the shaky railing. She blinked at the porch light, which was bright white, like a flame. Blood had dripped into her eyes. Charlotte used her fists to rub it away. The welcome mat had a plump, red strawberry on it with a smiling face, arms and legs.
Her feet left dark prints on the mat.
She raised her hand.
Her wrist had a springiness, like the rubber band on a paddle ball.
Charlotte had to steady one hand with the other so that she could knock on the door. A bloody, wet impression of her knuckles was left on the painted white wood.
In the house, she heard a chair scrape back. Light footsteps across the floor. A woman’s chipper voice asked, “Who could that be knocking so late?”
Charlotte did not answer.
There were no locks that clicked, no chain that slid back. The door opened. A blonde woman stood in the kitchen. Her hair was pinned back in a loose ponytail. She was older than Charlotte. Pretty. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened. Her hand fluttered to her chest, as if she had been hit by an arrow.
“Oh—” the woman said. “My God. My God. Daddy!” She reached for Charlotte, but she didn’t seem to know where to touch her. “Come in! Come in!”
Charlotte took one step, then another, then she was standing inside the kitchen.
She shivered, though the space was warm.
Everything was so clean, so brightly lit. The wallpaper was yellow with red strawberries. A matching border rimmed the tops of the walls. The toaster had a knitted cozy with a strawberry stitched onto the side. The kettle on the stove was red. The clock on the wall, a cat with moving eyes, was red.
“Good Lord in Heaven,” a man whispered. He was older, bearded. His eyes were almost perfectly round behind his glasses.
Charlotte stepped away until her back was against the wall.
He asked the woman, “What the hell happened?”
“She just knocked on the door.” The woman was crying. Her voice trilled like a piccolo. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“That’s one of the Quinn girls.” He opened the curtains. He looked outside. “Are they still out there?”
Zachariah Culpepper.
Daniel Culpepper.
Sam.
The man reached his hands to the top of the cabinet. He pulled down a rifle, a box of bullets. “Give me the phone.”
Charlotte started to shake again. The rifle was long, its barrel like a sword that could cut her open.
The woman reached for the cordless phone on the wall. She knocked it to the ground. She scooped it up. Her hands were still fluttering, their motions chaotic, uncontrollable. She raised the antenna. She handed the phone to her father.
He said, “I’ll call the police. Lock the door behind me.”
The woman did as she was told, her fingers clumsy as she tried to turn the latch. She clasped together her hands. She looked at Charlotte. She took a quick breath. She glanced around the room. “I don’t know what …” She put her hand to her mouth. She was looking at the mess on the floor.
Charlotte saw it, too. Blood was pooling around her feet. It was coming from her insides, sliding down her legs, past her knees, her ankles, steady and slow like the trickle that came from the farmhouse faucet if you didn’t hit it hard enough with the hammer.
She moved her foot. The blood followed her. She remembered learning about snails, the way they left a slick slime behind them.
“Sit down,” the woman said. She sounded steadier now, more sure of herself. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You can sit down.” She gently pressed her fingers to Charlotte’s shoulder, guided her to the chair. “The police will come,” she said. “You’re safe now.”
Charlotte did not sit down. The woman did not look like she felt safe.
“I’m Miss Heller.” She knelt down in front of Charlotte. She brushed back her hair. “You’re Charlotte, is that right?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Oh, angel.” Miss Heller kept stroking her hair. “I’m sorry. Whatever happened to you, I’m so sorry.”
Charlotte felt a weakness in her knees. She did not want to sit, but she had to. The pain was like a knife jamming into her insides. Her bottom ached. She could feel something warm coming out of her fro
nt like she was peeing herself again.
She asked Miss Heller, “Can I have some ice cream?”
The woman said nothing at first. Then she stood. She gathered a bowl, some vanilla ice cream, a spoon. She placed it all on the table.
The smell brought a surge of bile into Charlotte’s throat. She swallowed it back down. She picked up the spoon. She ate the ice cream, shoving it into her mouth as fast as she could.
“Slow down,” Miss Heller said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Charlotte wanted to be sick. She wanted him out of her. She wanted to cleanse herself. She wanted to kill herself.
“Mama, what would happen if I ate two bowls of ice cream? Really big ones.”
“Your intestines would burst and you would die.”
Charlotte devoured a second bowl of ice cream. She used her hands because the spoon was not big enough. She reached for the container, but Miss Heller stopped her. She looked aghast.
She asked Charlotte, “What happened to you?”