Page 105 of The Witch

“What about?”

From all the way across the yard, at the entrance to the house, I catch a flash of movement. I suddenly see the beam of a flashlight, directed at where I’m standing. And then a second beam of light joins the first.

Shit. I woke someone up.

“Just before I left the museum last night, I found the DNA test results in our mail,” he says. “They came back.”

“And?”

“There was no match.”

No match.

That means Ethel isn’t my grandmother after all. All the questions I’ve been asking were for nothing. If the letters are true, she was pregnant, but she must’ve given the baby away. Or lost it. It’s all just a wild coincidence. I’m not sure why it was so urgent for Henry to tell me that last night, but maybe he hoped that giving me the test results would convince me to stay. It won’t.

“Well, thanks for letting me know,” I say. “I guess Ethel really is just my great-aunt.”

“No, you don’t understand.” His voice drops a notch. “There was no match at all.”

In the distance, the flashlight beams are getting larger. It’s hard for me to see because I’m blinded by the lights, but I think it’s Ethel and Mick. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he says, “Ethel isn’t related to you. If she were your grandmother’s sister, the report would have noted a familial DNA match between the two of you—about 12.5 percent. But it didn’t. The two of you match as closely as any two strangers on the street. I don’t know who she is, but that woman is not your great-aunt.”

“I don’t understand. How could that be?”

Henry is saying something on the other end of the line, but his voice is breaking up. The phone connection is so spotty around here, and it looks like we have lost reception.

“Hello?” I say into the phone. “Henry?”

But his voice is gone. We’ve been disconnected.

I take my phone away from my ear, and the one bar I’ve got disappears. A message pops up on the screen:

No service

Then I look up. The two flashlight beams are very close now. They have passed the giant oak tree. In another few seconds, Ethel and Mick will be here.

Ethel isn’t related to you.

DNA does not lie. If the test showed that Ethel is not my great-aunt, then it must be true. The woman who has been living in the house with us is a stranger.

And now she is coming straight toward me.

78

“Julia!”

Ethel’s voice floats out from behind the glare of her flashlight. To her left is a larger figure—definitely Mick. He hovers just behind her, the beam of his flashlight unsteady in his hand.

Of course, it’s not really Ethel. Ethel was my grandmother’s sister. According to the DNA test, that’s not who this woman is.

So who is she?

“Julia!” she says again. “What are you doing here?”

I look down at the flashlight in my left hand and the shovel in my right. The three-hundred-year-old pelvic bone is lying at my feet. I wish I tossed it in the hole I dug before they woke up.

“Just getting some fresh air,” I say, trying to keep my voice as casual and breezy as I can.