Page 68 of Haunted Ever After

people wrong

“Yeah, I get that now.” Sophie looked around the kitchen, as though she could spot Sarah by the table and address her face-to-face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We’re going to get it right now, I promise.”

“We are.” Cassie wasn’t sure if she was reassuring Sophie or Sarah. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of everything. I want to get your side of the story. I know it’s hard, since you only have so many words to work with.”

The words on the fridge may have provided a limited vocabulary, but Sarah had a lot to say.

husband control

after death free

but not

“Okay, so I was right about your husband being controlling. After he died you felt…free?”

Sophie nodded. “I mean, that’s a little dark, but fair.”

“Yeah, but…‘but not’? What does that part mean? Free but not free?” Cassie turned to Sophie, who shrugged.

“Plenty of reasons, I’d think. It’s not like women had tons of autonomy back then. She was a product of the nineteenth century, right? It’s not like she could go out and get a job. If she was an independent woman back then…Maybe that’s what she was being judged for?”

“Maybe?” But that didn’t seem right. Cassie paced the downstairs, from the kitchen to the living room and back again, while she thought. Sure, it had taken some time to get used to all this ghost stuff, but now that she had, Sarah wasn’t threatening. She wasn’t mean. She was kind. She was lonely. She liked watching garbage television.

Cassie was having a hard time reconciling all that with the story of Mean Mrs. Hawkins chasing kids away from her house. Why would you want to keep innocent—or not-so-innocent—kids away? Why not put up a NO TRESPASSING sign if you wanted people out?

Thoughts of signs were still in her head when she slowed in front of the coffee table, lingering in front of the photos of the house that were lined up in chronological order. She sat down on the couch in front of them, imagining where she’d hang a NO TRESPASSING sign. Maybe on the gate itself? No, there were too many roses; the sign would get lost.

Except there weren’t too many roses. Not always. Cassie picked up the first photo, the earliest one, taken when the house was newly constructed. Roses bloomed along the fence line, and now that she looked at the photo more closely, there was a white out-of-focus smudge in the background that was vaguely woman shaped. Was that Sarah, working in her garden?

Cassie followed the progression of the cabbage roses as she examined the photos in order. Lush rosebushes in full bloom suddenly disappeared. Three of the photos had no roses at all. What those photos did have was C.S. Hawkins. Standing in front of this little seaside cottage like he was lord of some great manor.

“Not a fan of roses, this guy,” she murmured.

“Cassie!” Sophie called from the kitchen. “She’s doing it again! The words changed. It says ‘roses useless.’ Does that mean anything?”

“Yeah.” Cassie returned to the kitchen, photos in hand. “See, look at these pictures. She had roses in her garden before, but while she was married—while C.S. was around—they were gone.”

“Because he said they were useless?” Sophie frowned, looking at the photos. “Flowers are there to be pretty. They’re not supposed to have a function.”

But more puzzle pieces started to rotate in Cassie’s head. So close now, just out of reach. “Sarah’s attention was on her garden, on the things that made her happy. And not on her husband. Not on giving him a family.”

Sophie sucked in a breath, and Cassie looked at her, then to the fridge. The words had changed again.

get him out

Those words again. The first time Sarah had used that phrase had been that day that Nick was there. He’d stood in her kitchen, his eyes flashing dark and almost frightening, saying the most awful things before she’d kicked him out. How her own interests should be irrelevant compared to a husband and family. Outdated, misogynistic thinking; it had all been so unlike Nick. But it was right in line with the opinion of a man from the early nineteen hundreds.

A man who wanted to control his wife.

A man who thought a woman’s main purpose was providing children.

A man with dark brown eyes.

get him out

Sarah had never been talking about Nick.

She was talking about C.S. Hawkins.

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