Page 2 of A Heart So Haunted
“It’ll be waiting for you. Cross my heart,” Cadence said before giving her niece one final hug. When Landry pulled away, Cadence’s fingers lingered in the space where the little girl had stood. Then the girl slunk off the porch, shoulders drooped, her little pink shoes clip-clopping over the cobbled path toward her mother.
A window jerked open.
Another.
No. No, no, this child—she had it, shecould—
The girl’s mother muttered something under her breath—something even the wind didn’t toss back for Harthwait to hear—and climbed into the driver’s seat without so much as a glance at Landry.
The child hauled herself into her own booster seat, snapped her own seat belt, and rolled down her window. She leaned out when the car jerked into reverse, fingers hooked over the window lip, and waved as the car sputtered farther and farther away.
Cadence watched, waited. Until the last of the dirt plume kicked up by the car’s wheels faded, the little girl along with it.
She rubbed both hands over her face. Her skin had fallen in the last couple of years, though Harthwait would bet she wasn’t much over the age of forty. Not much older than he was, nestled in the walls.
“I swear,” Cadence muttered. She pressed down the flyaway hairs, straightened her shirt. Started to talk to herself like she always did, especially when she wanted to ignore the noises at night. Because she always ignored the noises. “Nothing you can do, Denny. She’s not yours, and this place isn’t good for her, either.”
Harthwait bristled. Of course, Cadence would put it off—what was the saying about pulling the wool over the eyes?
The house relaxed, if only a little, as Cadence started locking doors, pulling down windows. The birds hadn’t yet stopped singing for the evening. Cadence circled through the next floor, room after room. She plucked the last of the scattered toys from the old playroom floor. Tossed them in the bins, then waltzed into the hall.
But there sat an empty pit where the little girl had been. Like a hunger, it crawled between the stairs, inside the door hinges, beneath the shingles. An ache that sat suppressed for too many years, stretched its arms and legs and unfurled from the concentrated place it had been curled. Like a starving man, unable to recall the scent of smoked venison—until one day, a hunter in the distance started a spit. The aroma drifted downwind, and then the starving man knew a hunger like never before. The pain snaked down to his marrow, and all he could think of was the venison, the possibilities. The need.
That was this child.
And this woman had sent heraway.
Above the toy bin, a window jerked open. Only a hair’s breadth.
The birds still sang.
She wouldn’t notice.
Cadence made it to her bedroom and locked the door behind herself. Every once in a while, she would stop and listen. She did sonow. Glanced about the space—herspace. No wayward breeze glided in through cracked windows. No settling of the foundation.
She shuffled through baskets of thimbles and twine, old sewing needle containers and crotchet hooks. Until it emerged from the bottom—the radio remote, the two and the four so worn that the numbers were nearly illegible.
Cadence turned the radio up until the birds quieted outside. Even the birds—it couldn’t even have the birds anymore—
One by one, the spare bedroom windows slammed open. One after another, curtains billowing, breeze rustling. If she wanted to do this, then fine. It could wait.
But the radio vibrated through the walls, so obnoxious and loud, Cadence never heard a thing. Not even when the attic door ripped open, just after midnight.
Chapter One
Ipeeked through the front door’s sidelights and watched the woman hobble down the cobblestone path. If she turned around now, she’d see me with my nose pressed to the glass, counting down the seconds until she reached her car. The thought made me pull back—or at least until I was looking out the window at an angle.
She teetered onto the driveway, and only once she opened the driver’s side door did I let the stained-glass window covers clatter back into place.
I glared down at the covered dish in my hands. How many meals did someone need? I understood the sentiment—the instinct to provide when someone was in need or experiencing a loss. But this … This was too much.
There was no reason for me to find room for another casserole dish in Aunt Cadence’s—no,my—refrigerator that wasn’t going to get eaten, anyway.
“Why does it smell like that?” Sayer muttered. I turned beside the grandfather clock to find my friend leaning against the stair railing, the neck of his penny tee pulled over his nose while he stared at his phone. A search engine reflected in his glasses.Realtors in Colleton County, it probably read.
I lifted the aluminum foil with a cringe. “Because it’s broccoli.” I crunched it back in place. “And cheese.”
“Not enough cheese, apparently,” he said, voice muffled. “That’s absolutely putrid.”
