“Honey, where are you?”
“Can you hear us?”
“Taylor, this isn’t funny!”
“What’s going on?” Greta calls from the living room, but I don’t have time to answer. I can’t. I’m exhausted. My bones hurt. My voice hurts.
As my body grows angrier, it’s as if the storm outside responds to it. Thunder quakes and lightning strikes; the rain screams like thousands of tiny pebbles firing at the roof.
As if Mother Nature has awoken at the sound of my rage.
Lewis opens the front door and disappears outside.
I catch sight of him darting past a window, drenched from the storm. In the living room, Benji and Greta are watching us. Conrad is in the kitchen preparing the tea.
“What can we do?” Conrad asks, pausing.
“Just stay here,” I mutter before charging down the hall.
I make my way into my bedroom and shove the rug out of the way. My hand shakes as I pull the door up. I glance outside quickly, just once out the window, but I do a double take.
Up ahead, Lewis is facing away, shouting into the storm.
Something flashes in the corner of my vision, toward the meadow. The blood drains from my body for the split second that I think it’s Taylor. I’m wrong, but I do see something. I squint, moving closer to the window.
Several feet behind him, I catch sight of movement again.
A person.
Someone else.
My breath catches as they come into view.
Someone in a dark rain jacket is following him.
I hurry to close the cellar, to chase after Lewis and warn him, to scream, but everything in me freezes as I hear it.
A cry. A muffled whimper coming from down below.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KATHERINE WILDE - 1844
Outside Foxglove, the storm is angry. Rain smacks the house like lashes from a switch, fierce and unrelenting. It feels as if this might finally be the storm that takes our beloved home from us, levels it so there’s no sign Foxglove ever existed. Like the earth has decided to take her back.
Sometimes, I don’t think that would be so bad.
The sound is all-consuming. At times, it drowns out all else—my own heartbeat included.
When it calms, even for a second, I hear him. His steps are heavy, as if he owns the earth as well as this house. As well as me.
I can chart his path as the boards creak. He moves from the bedroom to the parlor. Then, always, the slow drag of boots toward the window. He doesn’t like storms either, but that’s not why he waits by the window. He does it on clear nights, too. As if he’s watching for someone. As though someone might be coming.
Each night, I wait as he does, for someone to come. To save me.
No one ever does.
Every night, I listen, and he paces. I breathe, and he lives. I survive down here, while he enjoys himself above me—in the home built by my blood, the house meant for me.
