Page 12 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
I curse and squeeze my fist, only to have blood drip from it, huge drops hitting the ground. I stand there, transfixed as the blood disappears in the dry earth, and the wind sighs in something like relief.
Home.
She’s home.
I shiver and open my hand to see a wash of blood with a bright red line across my palm. Time wavers, and I’m four or five, running to the cottage, my hand clenched, blood dripping from it. Dad sees me and drops his book as he jogs off the porch to meet me.
“Oh, honey, what happened?” he says, peeling open my hand to see the line across it.
I shake my head and mumble something.
He folds my fingers over the injury. “Come on inside, and let me get that fixed up. Then you need to show me where it happened. There must be something sharp.”
Except I didn’t remember where it happened. I didn’t remember anything but seeing the cut on my hand, the blood dripping into the parched earth, hearing the wind whisper and then running, running as fast as I could for my father.
No, there was something else. I thought I saw—
“Oh my God.” Gail runs over and grabs my wrist. “What happened?”
I start to say I don’t know, still caught in the memory, but then I come back to myself and wave at the gate.
“Damn gate bit me,” I say, trying for lightness.
“I think I have bandages in the car.”
“Nah, a tissue will be fine. I just want to get to the cottage. See what we’re dealing with.”
She nods and hands me a tissue from her pocket. As she heads back to the car, I squint into the shadows cast by the overgrown bushes. Then I shake my head, clasp the tissue, and follow Gail.
Five
We continue up the lane, and I wince with every branch that scratches the car.
“I’ll trim those,” I say.
Just like Dad used to do.
I bite my lip and look out the window. Through a break in the thick bushes, I see an old tire on the ground, a rope still attached to it.
“Higher, Daddy! Higher!”
I look away sharply and clasp my hands in my lap.
Today will be the hardest, but I’m going to face these ghosts head-on. No hiding in the cottage. I’ll walk the property and let the memories flow, and as difficult as that will be, it’s better than cowering in a run-down shack.
I’m actually glad that the cottage will be in disrepair. Fitting. A reflection of our ruined family. I need to see the damage as a project. The beach is probably full of trash, and I imagine no one obeyed those No Trespassing signs. It’ll give me something to clean up. Maybe I shouldn’t bother—the developers won’t care—but keeping busy will be good. Between that and work, the month will zoom by.
Gail and I can give this place an extreme makeover. Exorcise the past that way. Get rid of that tire swing. Refurnish the cottage. Put bright-colored beach chairs on the shore. Just the two of us,enjoying a beach vacation while renovating a run-down cottage. Working remotely during the day and drinking beer by the campfire at night.
By the time we turn the last corner, I’m lost in my plans, determined—
The cottage appears. It doesn’t leap from the bushes or anything so dramatic. Gail is driving dead slow around that last curve, the road pitted and rough, and the cottage appears as if someone slowly draws back a curtain, revealing one sliver at a time.
The porch railing. Then the front corner and then the entire thing emerging into the bright late-August sunshine.
The cottage is exactly that. Cottage, cabin, camp, whatever you want to call it. Not a beach house. Not a summer house. My grandfather’s money was old money. He was descended from European settlers who moved to America in the early waves, making a homestead here along the banks of Lake Ontario. They did some farming, but their business was in trade, establishing a port a little farther down.
That kind of generational wealth doesn’t mean grand beach houses and sprawling estates. It means owning the most desirable land and keeping it as a vacation getaway with small and rustic cottages for your own personal family camp.
