Her father came bursting through the trees behind her, his breathing as loud as a freight train, his hair going in crazy directions, his shirt untucked, his tan work boots sinking in the ground. He staggered like a drunk man, a man unsure of the ground underneath him. But he came toward Olive at a steady clip. “There you are!” he said. “I thought I’d lost you.”
She raised the gun in his direction.
“Stay back,” she warned.
But it turned out she didn’t need to warn him.
Because the deer-headed woman appeared behind him, slipping out of the trees, something in her hands—a large rock—that she raised up just behind Daddy.
And Olive thought, for one brief second, that she should cry out, should warn him, but he was the enemy here. So she just watched as the woman (Mama! she was being saved by Mama!) brought the rock down against the back of his skull.
He fell to his knees, then forward, facedown, motionless. Limp as an old rag doll.
CHAPTER 48
Helen
SEPTEMBER 13, 2015
“Helen!” Nate called behind her. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“After them,” she said. She continued on the path she’d found in the woods, working her way along as quickly as she could, navigating by the light cast by the nearly full moon in the sky above.
“But it’s dark and we don’t know these woods,” he said. “You’ve gotta trust me, Helen. I’ve been lost in them myself. It’s easy to get turned around, even in daylight.”
She thought of the story of Frank Barns, who’d chased the white doe into the woods and was never seen again. Of George Decrow pulling his wife, Edie, out of the bog.
“But Olive’s out here. And that man yelling—someone’s after her, maybe her father. We’ve gotta help her.”
She’d never been so sure of anything before.
There was only one thought flooding her mind:Olive. You’ve got to save Olive.
She scrambled over fallen trees, around rocks. The trees were thick here, shading out the light of the moon, making it harder to see. She caught her toe under a thick root and went tumbling, her fall broken by the thick leaf litter. Her mind raced. Panic built, pulsating, making her heart race faster.
No. She was not going to let this happen, to let herself be paralyzed by her own emotions.
“Helen, slow down,” Nate said. “You don’t want to break an ankle out here.”
She pushed up on her knees, took Nate’s hand when he reached for her.
“Do you see anything?” she asked, voice low, taking a deep breath, trying to center herself. “Or hear anything?”
He shook his head. They stood in the dark, holding hands, keeping very still, listening.
She thought she heard something way off to the left. Sticks snapping, a low grunt. “Is that them?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, practically whispering. “It could have just been an animal.”
She broke away from Nate and pushed off in the direction of the sound she’d heard.
She walked blindly now, hands in front of her, no longer on any clear path, the trees and shrubs thickening around them. Branches reached out to claw at her face; her legs got tangled, feet caught up on roots and rocks.
“Helen,” Nate said. “I think we should turn around. Try to find our way back. We’re not any good to Olive lost in the woods.”
But which way was back? She could no longer see the lights from the house.
And Olive was out there somewhere.
