Page 102 of The Witch

“Henry, did you call Adult Protective Services?”

The long silence on the other end of the line tells me everything I need to know.

“I can’t believe you!” I shriek at him. “I trusted you with personal information, and you…you used it to get my grandmother out of her house.”

“What?” he sputters. “Julia, that’s not why I called! I called because I was worried. I went through this with my grandfather, and I know how hard it is to accept when an older person needs more help than you can give them. Your grandmother is a danger to herself. Maybe you couldn’t see it, but I could.”

“A danger to herself or a danger to Pemberton?” I counter.

Again, that silence. Bastard.

“Look,” he says, “I get that you’re not in a dancing kind of mood. But please, meet me tomorrow night so we can talk about this.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because Ethel is throwing me out,” I say stiffly. “She knows you used information that I gave you to make that report, and she told me to get out. I’m packing right now, and I’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”

“What?” he bursts out. “She can’t do that! The house is in your grandmother’s name, not hers!”

“It’s her home,” I say quietly. “She asked me to leave—for good reason—and I have to respect that.”

“But…” He’s quiet again, as if at a loss for words. “Julia, you’re not really going to go, are you?”

“Uh, yeah. What part of ‘my aunt is kicking me out’ did you not understand?”

“But you can’t just leave,” he protests. “What about us?”

I let out a snort. “Us? You mean the way you’ve been pretending to like me to get me to convince my grandmother to sell you this house?”

“You can’t really believe that’s what I’ve been doing!”

I realize I’ve been gripping the phone cord tightly enough that my palm is starting to hurt. When I release it, the imprint of the spiral is left behind on my palm. “Don’t insult my intelligence, okay, Henry?”

“Julia.” His voice cracks on the syllables of my name. “I was never pretending. I don’t know how you could think that. I…I really like you. A lot. More than I’ve liked anyone in a long time.” He pauses, waiting for me to respond, and when I don’t, he blurts out, “Please don’t go, Julia. Please.”

He sounds so earnest. If I didn’t know what he did, I would be really moved right now.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

I strongly suspect I will never see Henry Ziegler ever again.

75

The last thing I need to do before I leave is put that bone back where Gram found it.

I really believed there was some sort of mystery in this house. Those letters from Ethel all those years ago were so strange. And what happened to Celia Caine, Mick’s fiancée? Only a few days ago, it all seemed so important, but now, I feel humiliated, and all I want to do is leave. I’ll be staying with my parents until I can get back on my feet again.

Either way, I need to put the bone back. The owner—whether or not it was Caroline—does not deserve to have their resting place disturbed. It will be my final act before I leave.

I set my alarm to wake me up at one in the morning. I need to wait until everyone in the house is asleep. But also, I’m not really sure what happens at 3:41 in the morning that stops the grandfather clock, and I don’t want to find out, so I plan to be done long before then. My goal is to go out to the backyard, dig a reasonable-sized hole, and lay these remains back where we found them.

The night is chilly, so I throw on a jacket and hide the pelvic bone inside. When I get out of my room, the hallway of the second floor is empty and dark. I grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen earlier today, but I don’t dare turn it on until I’m out of the house. Instead, I wait a minute for my eyes to adjust, and that’s when I see something on the wall outside my room.

It almost looks like…writing.

I squint down at it, but it’s too dark to make out the letters, so I chance turning on the flashlight on my phone. I shine the light on the shaky reddish-brown writing, which looks like somebody painted it onto the wall with their index finger. The letters are faint, like each stroke was an effort. My heart thuds in my chest as I read the message: