Page 138 of Home Before Dark

I say nothing.

“I spent the past twenty-odd years secure in the knowledge that I was safe,” she says. “That God had decided I’d suffered enough for one life. Then you came back. And Petra was found. And I knew it was only a matter of time before the truth finally came out.”

Marta’s hand stops at the small of my back and stays there. I tense beneath it, fearing what’s to come.

“I can’t let that happen, Maggie,” she says. “I’ve suffered. Far more than most. I lost my daughter and my husband on the same day. Few people in this world will ever know that kind of pain. But I do. I know it all too well. Forgive me, but I’m not about to suffer more.”

She flips me onto my back in one rough, startling motion. I’m too weak to fight it. Just a rag doll in her arms. The room stops tilting enough for me to notice the pillow hugged against her chest.

Marta pushes the pillow over my face. A sudden darkening. My breathing, already labored, becomes almost nonexistent. I gasp for air, sucking in pillowcase instead, almost choking on the fabric.

She scrambles on top of me, increasing the pillow’s pressure. I try to buck beneath her, to thrash my legs. But I have no energy left. Thebaneberries have stolen it from me. The most I can do is roll again onto my side.

It works.

Marta is thrown off-balance and falls away from me.

I fall, too.

Off the bed.

Onto the floor.

I take a deep breath of blessed air, and adrenaline kicks in, giving me the strength to start dragging myself along the floor. I’m at the doorway when Marta grabs an ankle and pulls me back toward the bed.

I scream and thrust out my free leg in a crazed, desperate kick. My foot slams against Marta’s face, which makes her start screaming, too. The sound of it rings off the walls as I resume my frenzied scramble down the hallway.

Marta doesn’t catch up to me until I’m at the top of the stairs. When she snags my leg again, I expect another pull back to the bedroom. Instead, she lifts it, flipping me over.

For a moment, the whole house goes upside down.

Then I’m on the stairs.

Still flipping.

Now rolling.

Now bouncing.

The edges of steps pound at my back. My head knocks against wall. My eyes pop open to see banister rails blurring past my face.

When it ends, I’m on my back at the foot of the stairs. Far above me, Marta stands at the top of the staircase, bent forward a bit, looking to see if I’m dead.

I’m not.

But Idothink I’m dying.

A bright light forms atop the staircase, blinding in its intensity. Sobright I grimace and squint. With that narrowing of my eyes, I’m able to see someone inside the brightness—a young woman just behind Marta, hovering at her shoulder.

She looks like Petra Ditmer.

Still sixteen and beautiful, flashing a smile of deep satisfaction.

The light lasts no longer than a blink. Definitely not long enough to confirm if the glow was indeed Petra or just a trick of my poisoned mind.

All I know is that right before the brightness dims, Marta Carver jolts forward, as if she’s been pushed. She tumbles down the steps, bones snapping like twigs. There’s one final snap when she lands—a loud crack of her neck I feel in my bones.

Her body rests a foot from mine, her head twisted like an elastic toy.

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