Because Kenny and Maggie and all the rest killed me. And when they did, they killed her, too.
My vision tunnels down until all I can see is her corpse, illuminated by a bright shard of moonlight that cuts in through a clean patch on the grimy window. I breathe deep, my body aching with some urge I can’t quite identify.
I lift my hand and fold it in the shapes she taught me when I was a little boy, when I didn’t learn to speak the way the other children did. “I love you,” I say with my fingers, my eyes hot with tears.
Then I wrench away from her, stalking back into the kitchen. The rope is coiled on the floor like a snake, and I kick it with a wordless scream, sending it flying into the ice box. Then I slam open the drawer where Mom kept her knives.
They still look sharp.
I select the cleaver she used whenever she would slaughter a chicken for our holiday meals. I like how it feels in my hand. Asa boy, she didn’t want me to watch her kill the chickens, and I wonder now if it’s because she was worried that I was like my father. But I used to watch anyway, peering through the window. She always thanked them first, right before she swung this cleaver down and separated their little heads from their bodies.
I liked the blood, crimson and glistening in the sunlight like rubies.
I shove the drawer shut and stalk back out to the woods. The moon watches me through the trees with a bright, urging intensity as I pick my way down to our little dock on the lake. Our boat is still there, not that it matters. I would have swum across if I needed to.
The waters of Hanging Lake lap softly against the rocky shore, as quiet and steady as a heartbeat. And on the other side, the lights of Veritas shine in the dark. That’s where they live, in Veritas. My murderers.Hermurderers.
I squeeze the cleaver tightly. I think about the bright, rubied blood of the chickens.
And I wonder if human blood will be just as beautiful.
1
CHLOE
PRESENT DAY
Iknow I’ve arrived when I see a big, painted sign on the side of the road, sticking up from a patch of cleared trees.Welcome to Verity Hollow!it announces in red, vintage-looking script.Lakeside living at its best!
Then, in smaller block letters:Homes starting from $550k
That number, which, from what I understand, is significantly lower than what my grandparents paid for this house, is unfathomable to me. Equally unfathomable is that I’m about to live in one of those starting-at-$550K homes after spending the first half of my twenties trapped in a tiny, mold-ridden apartment in Boston.
I turn into the subdivision’s entrance—a winding, serpentine road covered in dappled light from the surrounding trees, which have somehow been left untouched by the construction. Eventually, the road turns into a residential street, and the houses emerge out of the woods like huge mushrooms.
“Wow,” I breathe, peering over my steering wheel. I’ve never seen the house in person, just photographs, which wereimpressive enough. But these houses are so much bigger than I was expecting, with their tiered roofs and big picture windows. Half of them aren’t fully completed yet; one I pass lacks any siding, and another is just the wood frame with a half-finished roof. But as I reach the end of the block, the street numbers growing smaller and smaller, they become more fully formed. One has a big Range Rover parked in its circular driveway; another has pretty rose-themed landscaping. Between them is 12 Hanging Lake Road, my new home.
My grandparents bought this house five years ago, one of the first in the subdivision. They used it in the summers until my grandfather passed away, and my grandmother decided she’d rather not have to take care of a glittering lakeside mansion. And then she died, too, suddenly and abruptly from a stroke, and I was as stunned as anyone to learn the house had come to me, with no attached mortgage, although I do have to take care of the $1,200 a month in property taxes and house insurance. Still cheaper than my shitty apartment, though.
I pull into the driveway and stare up at the house, sprawling its way through the surrounding trees. My mom used to call it a cottage, which is laughable. This is a mansion, the kind of house designed to host family gatherings—not that my grandparents ever got around to doing anything like that. Five bedrooms, six baths, and a pier that stretches all the way to Hanging Lake.
I step out into the warm, breezy air. I can smell the lake immediately: a soft, steely scent that reminds me a little of rainwater. I can smell the pine, too, and the cinnamon-y scent of sassafras, and a kind of crispness that reminds me I’m up in the mountains and not in the bustle of the city.
A bang echoes through the woods, startling me until voices trail up on the wind. A woman’s voice, specifically, stern and chiding. When I glance in her direction, I see the first glimpse of what I assume are the neighbors with the Range Rover, sincethe woman and two children are currently marching away from the house’s porch. One is a teenager, already towering over his petite, blonde mother, his hair turning shaggy for the summer. The other is a little boy, around ten. He’s the one who sees me first.
He stops in the middle of the sidewalk and stares at me. I smile and give him a friendly little wave. Good first impressions and all that.
He mimics my movements.
“What are you—” The mother follows the boy’s gaze until she lands on me. “Oh!” she cries, correcting herself. “Oh, I didn’t realize the Monroes were renting out their property.”
I’m not sure she meant for me to hear that, given that the older boy grunts an acknowledgement. Still, I figure I ought to introduce myself. “Hi!” I call out across the gap of our yards. “I’m Chloe. I’m actually moving in.”
The woman purses her lips, studying me, eyes sweeping up and down my body, like she’s scanning me before deciding what to make of me. I plaster on my nicest smile and cut across the grass toward the family. The woman finally gives me a smile, although it feels fake.
“Blaire Jenkins,” she says as I approach, holding out her hand for a limp, awkward handshake. “These are my boys, Owen—” She beams at the teenager, who stares dolefully out at me from under the fringe of his brown hair. “—and Oliver.” She nods at the little boy, who blinks up at me with shy, round eyes.
“It’s nice to meet you, Oliver,” I say to him, and I’m rewarded with a flash of a smile. Then he brushes his palms together and brings his index fingers together like two toy soldiers.
