There were only ten or so entries. Many of the pages were filled with doodled hearts, drawings of horses and trees. A few drawings revealed trees with slitted eyes and mouths with sharp teeth.
The entries had dates but no years listed.
December 10
Daddy says I’m bad because I left the blood rag in the sink, and Mrs. Martell found it. Greta lied to Mrs. Martel and said Daddy cut his hand. I wanted to tell her the blood came from the woman in the black dress. I saw Daddy carrying her from his car last night, but Greta said if I talked, the trees would eat me too.
February 21
Greta and I watched the men in the suits today. Daddy calls them the brotherhood. They took a patient to the stone room in the woods. She looked right at us in the trees. She saw us. I know she did. Her eyes scared Greta, but I thought she looked like a fairy princess. She had hair the color of gold.
The last entry was dated August 6.
I kept the ring from the lady in the black dress. Greta says I should throw it away, but I won’t. The next time the sheriff comes with a patient, I will show him the ring.
The door opened and Crystal dropped the book.
“Clever,” Greta murmured, gazing at the box and the opening on the floor. “This was Daddy’s room. The last place I would ever have looked. I thought she buried it in the forest.”
“Why did you want it?” Crystal asked.
Greta leaned forward and flicked her fingers through the contents. She pulled out the ring with the two small gems clinging to the gold band.
“It belonged to the woman in the black dress,” Greta murmured.
She slipped the ring over her own finger and twirled it around. Maribelle and I saw it in the paper. They had blown up a picture of the woman’s hand with the ring on her finger. They thought it was distinctive enough that someone might remember it if they’d received it as a gift or saw someone wearing it. Maribelle called it our white horse.”
“Your white horse?” Crystal asked, thinking of Maribelle’s last entry, her intentions to give the ring to the sheriff.
Greta laughed.
“I didn’t understand either, but she always said we’d get rescued on a white horse. She found this ring in the basement after we cleaned. She hid it in this box. She was going to take it to the police and tell them what Daddy had done. For the first time, she had proof.” Greta took the ring off. “I told Daddy that night, and in the morning, Maribelle was gone. They put her in the asylum.”
“Did she tell anyone there?”
Greta shrugged.
“Maybe, but without the ring she couldn’t prove anything. Lots of kids in the asylum made up crazy stories. Daddy said she was insane, had become a pathological liar. She was seeing things.”
“Where is Maribelle now?” Crystal murmured.
Greta snatched the box from the floor, stuffed the journal inside, and left.
49
May 1974
Greta
Greta watched Matt from the darkness of the trees.
He hadn’t heard her approach because she’d removed her shoes and replaced them with flat slippers.
He sat on the rock, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his head tilted back as he gazed at the stars.
She wondered what he thought about. How best to end their relationship? Whether he should tell her at all before he packed his bags and moved seven hours away from her?
She squeezed the hunting knife clutched in her hand. The hard rubber grip pressed into her palm. The knife felt deadly, like a live snake. She knew its power.
Holding her breath, she slipped across the clearing.
He didn’t have time to react. Before he’d even lowered his face from the sky, she’d wrenched the blade across his throat. Blood spurted out, but Greta didn’t see it. As Matt slumped forward, she fell upon him, plunging the knife into his back again and again.
She stopped when somewhere far away a car horn blared, ripping her from her rage-filled trance.
Her hands and forearms were sticky, and when she climbed to her feet, a muscle in her right shoulder spasmed and she dropped the knife.
Shaking, Greta picked it up and returned to the dense grove of trees where she’d hidden her supplies. She pulled a black plastic trash bag from beneath high ferns.
Greta had thrown on a black poncho over her clothes before she’d attacked him. She stripped it off and stuffed it into the bag. She’d worn dark jeans and a dark t-shirt on the chance any blood splattered her clothes, but she felt confident she’d remained clean.
She kicked off her black flats and put on an identical pair, throwing the stained ones in the bag. Wiping the knife clean, she fought a momentary urge to taste Matt’s blood, before sliding the sheaf over the blade and tucking it into the inner pocket of her purse.
The park bathrooms were unlocked, and she ducked inside, gazing at her reflection. Only a single spot of blood had hit her face. It clung high on her right cheek. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped it away, adding the soiled towel to the black bag.
As she walked back to the party, careful to stick with the shadows, she paused at one of the many trash bins lining the street. The garbage men would pick up the bins at dawn. She slipped the plastic bag into a bin and walked on.
At the rear of the house, teenagers had trickled out of the house and spread across the lawn. Red plastic cups of beer lay strewn across the grass.
Greta slipped from the trees and rejoined the crowd as if she’d never been gone at all. Most of her peers were drunk. Not one of them focused on her.
She spotted Nate, Matt’s best friend, leaning against the wall as he gazed down at one of the bubble-gum popping, gooey-eyed cheerleaders. Her name was Jenny or Jessie, and she giggled as if he’d just made some dashingly clever remark.
Fighting a smile, Greta brushed passed him into the house.
None of them would be laughing tomorrow.
50
Now
Bette returned to the hotel and asked to use the telephone. She dialed the number Eliza had left on Weston Meeks’ phone.
“Sunny Angels Retirement Community. How may I be of service?” The woman’s high voice held a false cheeriness that Bette felt sure didn’t translate to the person behind it.
“Hi, I’d like to speak with Eliza Sanders, please.”
“Phone calls are permitted between the hours of ten a.m. and two p.m.”
Bette looked at her watched.
“It’s 9:52.”
“Phone calls are permitted between the hours of ten a.m. and two p.m.”
Bette squeezed the phone and bit back the angry words that exploded in her mind.
“I’ll call back,” she said tensely and replaced the phone.
She paced away from the phone and back, checking her watch a dozen times. This time, the number directed her to Eliza’s room. An older woman picked up on the first ring.
“Hi, is this Eliza?” Bette asked
“I certainly hope so,” the old woman laughed, “but around here, sometimes it’s hard to say.”
“Eliza, my name is Bette Childs. Could I visit you today? I have questions and I’ll be driving downstate from the Upper Peninsula. Sunny Angels is on my way.”