Natalie nodded. “Sure.”
“Don’t tell me how you take it,” Gina commanded. “I’mreallygood at guessing.” Folding her arms across her chest, she openly appraised Natalie. “You’ve had three kids, but you still have a great bod. Your clothes are classy. Your nails are polished, but they’re short, so you work with them. Dishes, gardening, that kind of thing. And you’re a neat freak. I bet you like strong coffee with just a splash of milk.”
“That’s incredible!” Natalie laughed despite herself. “Are you a palm reader, too?”
Gina tapped her temple. “I don’t need to read your palm to know that you’re going to have a hell of a time selling that property.”
Natalie’s smile vanished as she gazed down at the photo. “It just needs a little work.”
“Yeah, you could find a buyer even if the roof needs replacing, and there’s zero curb appeal, but those aren’t your real problems. Thelocationis your real problem.Herwoods are right behind that backyard. And on the other side of the woods isherhouse.”
Natalie didn’t need Gina to spell out who she meant by “her.”
Mrs. Smith.
Gina pointed at the McCreedy listing. “Everyone who goes out to the back patio will see those creepy woods. They’re like something out ofWicker Man.”
“What’s that?”
“A horror flick.” Gina put her hands on her hips. “Ever heard of Michael Myers? The guy who wears a white face mask and goes around stabbing people to death? He’d be right at home in those woods. My boyfriend and I watch horror movies all the time, and that house is just like the one inSalem’s Lot.”
Natalie had seen that movie, but she thought the Marsten House was larger and more sinister than Mrs. Smith’s.
“Wait! You live super close to her, don’t you?”
The gleam in Gina’s eyes raised Natalie’s hackles. “We’re two lots away. There’s a big empty lot between us.”
Gina shuddered. “That would bewaytoo close for me. I’m glad I’m on the other side of the harbor.”
“On the waterfront?” Natalie asked, knowing it was veryunlikely. Gina probably lived in a tiny cape near the train station or the high school, whereas Natalie and her family lived right on the water. They had their own private beach. Their own floating dock. Their own boat.
“No. I’m off Church Street.” Gina leaned over and spoke in a stage whisper. “Have you ever seen her?”
Only once. In the middle of the night. She was walking over the grass toward her boathouse. Her gait was awkward. One leg dragged behind the other. Her hands were spearheads, hanging limply at her sides. Her body was reed thin, all shadows and sharp angles, like the bones were trying to break through her skin. Her head was capped by a mass of dark hair. It shifted in the wind, like worms in a bait bucket.
She was completely naked.
In the middle of March.
“No.”
The lie came easily because Natalie had told it many times before. At swim practice and teacher conferences. While waiting for Jill’s Girl Scout or J.J.’s Youth Group meetings to finish. She’d been asked at the library, the beauty salon, and the deli. Even at the Macy’s makeup counter.
Mrs. Smith was the most talked about woman in Cold Harbor.
Natalie didn’t believe her neighbor was a witch. Or a psychopath. She didn’t think she’d escaped from prison or the loony bin. She wasn’t a convict or a lunatic, but she wasn’t normal, either.
Normal people went outside.
And they don’t swim naked. At midnight. When the ground still crackles with frost.
Gina scooped her coffee cup off her desk and said she’d be back in a minute, but Natalie didn’t hear her.
She stared down at the McCreedy listing like she was trying to memorize every detail, but she wasn’t thinking about theirhouse at all. She was thinking of the woods that formed a protective horseshoe around Mrs. Smith’s house.
Mrs. Smith’s woods were made up of sharp, spindly trees crowded together like needles in a pincushion. Some were lightning-scorched. Others were storm-lashed and bowed close to the ground like penitents. Curtains of poison ivy hung down from their branches and oriental bittersweet vines girdled their trunks.
The vines curled skyward in thick ropes, squeezing the trunks and branches in their vise-like embrace. Masses of green leaves with serrated edges exploded from every vine. Half of the woods were shrouded in oriental bittersweet.
