Olive ran with the shotgun held tight in both hands, kept it firm against her body, barrel pointing up to the left.
Never run with a gun,Daddy always told her, but if there was ever a time for breaking the rules, this was it.
She got to the edge of the yard, passed the old hollowed-out maple she and Mama used to leave gifts for each other in. The place she’d hidden the necklace she now wore.
Mama was ahead of her, just a blur of white moving through the trees like a deer-headed ghost.
And it was like chasing a ghost, so much so that Olive wondered if maybe this wasn’t her mother, if it really was Hattie.
But why would Hattie be wearing her mama’s special fairy-tale shoes? Even in the dark, from a distance, she could make them out—could see the sparkling light from the flower-shaped beading on top.
Her mother was moving surprisingly fast, considering that she was wearing her good shoes and her vision must be encumbered by the mask.
But then again, Mama knew this path by heart. She’d been walking it for years and, like Olive, could probably do it with her eyes closed.
Olive knew where they were going, where the path led.
They looped through the woods, up the hill, then back down, the figure ahead moving easily over the roots and rocks, navigating the path perfectly in the moonlight.
Daddy, on the other hand, was off behind them, struggling to catch his breath, tripping on fallen trees, stumps, roots. Olive heard him cursing each time he went down. And he was calling for her. “Ollie! For God’s sake, wait up!”
But she did not slow. She made her way past ghostly white paper birch trees, white pine, maple, and aspen. She did not want to lose Mama (or was it Hattie? Hattie who’d found a way back and was now wearing Mama’s magic shoes as she ran through the woods toward the bog?).
Olive saw the lights of Helen and Nate’s trailer through the trees as they skirted around the back edge of their property. Olive imagined them tucked safely inside, Nate watching his wildlife cameras, Helen reading about spirits and hauntings. Olive wondered if Nate’s camera might catch a glimpse of them running through the woods, if he might see the pale mask of her mother and think his albino doe had come back once more, taken human form now.
“Mama!” Olive cried out again, her voice breathy, choked sounding.
But what if it’s not Mama?a worrying voice asked.
What if it’s really Hattie and she’s leading you out into the bog to kill you?
But she didn’t believe that. She knew in her heart (didn’t she?) that Hattie would not hurt her.
Olive could hear the call of frogs coming from the bog, the trill of crickets singing their early fall symphony.
The trees thinned, were replaced by cedar and larch, and the air changed as she got closer to the bog. The rich green bog smell filled Olive’s nose; she could practically taste it on the back of her throat. At last, she broke through the trees, her feet hitting the quaking, quivering surface of the peat, sneakers soaking wet. The bog was layered with a thick blanket of mist that seemed to glow green, to move and reshape itself. Olive came to a fast stop, not far from the ruined stone foundation that was once Hattie’s house.
But where was Hattie?
Not Hattie, she reminded herself. Mama. It was Mama she was chasing.
But where was she?
Olive held still, clutching the gun as she gasped to catch her breath and scanned the bog, eyes searching for movement in the mist. She saw no movement. And now, strangely, the air had gone quiet. Too quiet. The whole bog was holding its breath, waiting to see what might happen next.
Where did she go?
It was as if the figure had disappeared into thin air.
Now you see her, now you don’t.
Poof.
True magic.
Maybe she’d been chasing a ghost after all.
“Mama?” Olive called. Then, drawing up the courage, she called out hesitantly, “Hattie?”
