I pulled him close in a tight hug, my gaze fixed on the darkness beneath the bed, trembling, waiting, half-expecting those silver eyes to flicker back into existence.
When I finally convinced myself she was gone and my brain could focus on what had just happened instead of my own horror, I realized there’d been something familiar about the intruder’s face. But it’d been too dark and the face too decomposed to place it. Was she the screaming woman? The woman in the bloody nightgown? Her hair was too dark to be the one in the bathtub.
“Was that the woman in the basement?” Henry whispered as if reading my thoughts.
I pulled back, frowning at him in confusion. “What woman?”
His little body shuddered, and he buried his face in my shoulder. “The angry one.”
I smoothed his curls. “I don’t know, baby. Is that why you didn’t want to go in the basement with me?”
He nodded. “I don’t like her, Mama. She scares me.”
“Well, you don’t have to go down there anymore,” I promised. “I’ll go by myself.”
Henry pulled back and looked up at me with tears in his eyes. “But what if she hurts you?”
Good question.
“She won’t,” I assured him, knowing for a fact that she definitelycould. Dark bruises had bloomed around my wrist the moment she’d let go but then faded away seconds later. “Sometimes when a person is angry, they just need to tell someone.”
“But, Mama,” Henry said, his voice small. “What if she’s angry withyou?”
I wrapped my arms tighter around him, eyes drifting to the darkness under the bed.
Shit.That was a damned good question.
I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night even though Henry and I decided to camp out in the living room on the couches, closer to the door if we needed to escape. Every time I dozed off for more than a minute or two, I jolted awake, convinced someone was in the apartment with us. But each time, the room was empty. Whoever had been under my bed was gone.
More than once, I checked the balance in my checking account as if money might magically appear and give me enough for a deposit on another apartment. But after I paid for groceries and Henry’s medications and medical bills and other bills that I was behind on and desperately trying to catch up, there wasn’t much left to move over to my savings. No matter how many times I did the math, no matter how many times I tried rearranging things in my head, the answer didn’t change. It would be a few more months, at least.
We could make it a few more months, right? Just a few months. Then whatever haunted Dawes House could fuck off and bother someone else.
Of course, as soon as I thought that another realization hit me. The intruder who’d attacked me at our little house wasn’t native to the property. She’d come from somewhere else. Had she been a warning? A premonition of the ghostly women I was to encounter? A portend nudging me away from Dawes House? If the last one, then that little clue would’ve been nice to freaking know at the time. If being a harbinger of doom had been the intruder’s goal, she’d done a piss-poor job. Instead, she’d scared me straight into what I’d thought was my only option.
By the light of the day, when things seemed relatively normal, it was easier to compartmentalize. I had a job that I loved. A group of people who cared aboutHenry and me. Surely, I could tough it out a few more months. It wasn’t like we were visited every night, right? We just had to make it a few months…
I had an easier time selling that idea to myself when it was just me I was worried about. But when Henry began to show signs of exhaustion over the next few days, the skin beneath his eyes sunken and dark, his newfound energy and happiness from playing with Addie fading, his bones beginning to ache once more, the desperation to find another place to live came rushing back with a vengeance.
It had been a week since the last incident when I was awakened from a deep sleep by Henry calling for me, his voice taut with fear. I bolted to his room and flipped on the light, chasing away as many shadows as possible.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, catching him in my arms when he practically launched himself out of the bed.
“Someone was hurting David,” he said, hiccupping around sobs. “I saw it!”
I sat down on his bed, still holding him, smoothing the damp curls from his forehead. “It was just a nightmare,” I said gently. “I’m sure David’s fine.”
Henry shook his head vehemently. “No, he’s not. She was stabbing him!”
My blood went cold.
Dear God…
“Want me to look around your room?” I asked, part of me praying he’d say no. When he nodded, I tried to seem unbothered as I sat him down on his bed and only hesitated for a few seconds before opening his closet door. Thankfully, it held only what belonged there. Nothing lurking. Nothing watching.
I scanned the rest of the room—no shadows out of place, no intruders making themselves known.
“It’s all good,” I told him, giving what I hoped passed for a reassuring smile.
