Page 48 of The Witch

I’ve barely finished the sentence before Ethel snatches the keys out of my hand. She looks furious, but even more than that, there’s another emotion bubbling just below the surface.

She looks scared.

But I don’t know why. I went up to the attic, and all I found up there were some dusty boxes. And some footprints in the dust that seemed to come out of nowhere. Oh, and those two letters, but I doubt Ethel even remembers those were up there.

Although maybe she does know about the letters. Maybe she’s ashamed of having given up a child all those years ago, and she’s worried I’d judge her if I knew.

“Why did you take these keys?” she demands to know. “What did you do with them?”

“Nothing.” I raise my hands in the air. “I was going to check the attic for mice, but I haven’t had a chance.”

She narrows her eyes like she doesn’t quite believe me, which is fair considering I’m lying through my teeth.

“Stay out of the attic, Julia.” Her voice quavers as she speaks the words. “It’s not safe. I…I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I won’t go in there,” I promise.

At least, not again.

Ethel seems satisfied, but she pockets Gram’s keys instead of giving them back to her. I don’t know whether or not the ghost of Caroline Eldridge is haunting this house, but I do know for sure that my great-aunt Ethel is hiding something from me.

35

That night, I wake to the sound of the howling wind.

The noise jerks me from sleep. It’s so loud, it sounds like a storm is raging outside, but I don’t hear any rain. And there’s another strange sound cutting through the wind. It almost sounds like…

Like hoofbeats.

I sit up in bed and rub my eyes. I’ve barely been here a week, and I’m so exhausted from my choppy sleep that I’m beginning to feel like a walking zombie. I never did sleep well at Pemberton, but I’ve never slept this badly in my entire life.

I struggle out of bed and stumble over to the window in the bedroom, which overlooks the sprawling back grounds—easily the size of a city block. Maybe the window is cracked open, and if I can get it closed all the way, the sounds of the wind will go away.

The window is large and surprisingly smudged, given how immaculately clean the rest of the room is—I would have thought that Ethel would have wiped the windows down with Windex to make sure that they were spotless. It doesn’t look like the window is open, but I put my weight on the lower part of the frame anyway, trying to tighten the seal.

And that’s when I notice something outside.

There’s a large oak tree on the right side of the backyard, just before the clearing turns into woods, that’s been there as long as I can remember. It has a wide trunk with thick leaves, although it’s not terribly tall. I used to try to climb that tree when I was a kid, and I even got stuck in it once, and my father had to climb up and get me. I’m very, very familiar with that particular tree.

And in all my years of looking at it, I never once saw a noose hanging from one of the lowermost branches.

For a moment, I can almost trick myself into thinking it could be a swing for a small child. But no. That’s definitely not what it is. There’s a rope hanging from the tree branch, and the end of the rope is formed into a noose, the perfect size to fit around a person’s neck. It’s swinging slightly in the breeze, as if there is something hanging from the rope that I cannot see.

I back away from the window. That noose was not there yesterday. It just suddenly appeared there overnight. Part of me thinks if I close my eyes, it might just all be a figment of my imagination. Except I don’t know if it would be more terrifying if it was real or if it wasn’t.

I take another step back. Now that I am farther away from the window, I realize that the smudges I saw a minute ago are not random blotches caused by poor cleaning. The smudges have a more definite pattern.

It is the perfect imprint of a hand.

Except it’s not entirely perfect. The fingers are elongated as if someone put their hand on the window and then was dragged downward.

I turn around and head for the door, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know who made the imprint of a hand on my window, but I do know one thing. I am not going to stay in this room one more minute.

36

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CAROLINE