The Winter People (30 page)
Authors: Jennifer McMahon
“You stay where you are,” she warned, keeping the gun aimed at his chest. “I was so sure Auntie’s spirit had done this evil thing, but perhaps the truth is simpler; perhaps it’s been right in front of my face the whole time, and I just couldn’t bring myself to see it.”
Sara rocked back on her heels, holding the gun in both hands now, bringing it up high, and sighting down the barrel.
“Was it you, Martin?” she asked quietly. “Did you hurt our Gertie?”
Martin staggered backward and fell against the dirt wall. It was as if she’d already pulled the trigger.
He remembered holding Gertie in his arms when she was a tiny infant, their miracle baby; walking with her, hand in hand, into the woods last month to choose a tree to cut down for Christmas. How she’d found a spruce with a bird’s nest in it and insisted they cut that
one down. “Aren’t we the luckiest people ever, Papa?” she’d asked. “To have a Christmas tree with a bird’s nest in it?”
“I …” he stuttered, looking at Sara. “I didn’t. I
couldn’t
. With God as my witness, I swear I would never hurt our little girl.”
Sara stared, finger twitching on the trigger. “But the ring was in your pocket when you left the house that morning, was it not?”
“Sara, please. You’re not thinking clearly.”
She was silent a moment, as though turning the matter over in her mind.
“But it wasn’t
your
ring, was it? It was hers. Which means
she
still could have been the one to do it.”
“You’re not making sense, Sara. You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Am I, now?” Sara said. She lowered the gun, turned, and looked back into the shadows around the house. “Gertie?” Sara called out. “Your father thinks I’m not right in the head. Come show him, darling. Show him the truth.”
Martin stood on the empty coffin, peering over the edge of the hole into the darkness. Somewhere in the darkness, a shadow moved toward them, shuffling through the snow.
Oh dear beloved Jesus, no. Please, no
. Martin closed his eyes tight, counted to ten, trying to make it all go away.
He opened his eyes and scrambled at the dirt, clawing his way out of the hole, not looking at whatever was moving toward them from the shadows.
“Sara,” he said, reaching for the gun, wrapping his fingers around the barrel. The movement startled Sara, and the gun fired.
He heard the sound, saw the flash of light, felt the bullet hit his chest just below his rib cage on the left. He started to run in spite of the searing pain. He clapped a hand over the bloody hole.
“Martin?” Sara called. “Come back! You’re hurt!” But he did not turn back.
On he ran, across the yard and toward the woods, hand on his leaking chest, not daring to look back.
 | Visitors from the Other Side |  |
(Editor’s note: This is the final entry I discovered, though, as you shall see, she makes reference to other pages she had been working on. It is chilling to note that Sara’s body was found only hours after she wrote these words.)
January 31, 1908
The dead can return. Not just as spirits, but as living, breathing beings. I have beheld the proof with my own eyes: my beloved Gertie, awakened. And I have made a decision: ours is a story that must be told. I have spent the last hours with papers spread out on the table, oil lamp burning bright, as I wrote down the exact instructions on how to awaken a sleeper. I have copied Auntie’s notes and told every detail of my own experience. I have finished at last, and tucked the papers away safely in not one but three separate hiding places.
We are in the house, doors locked, curtains drawn. Shep is stretched out by my feet, his eyes and ears alert. I’ve got the gun by my side. I do not want to believe that it could be Martin. That this man I thought I knew—this man I cooked for, slept beside each night, told my secrets to—could be such a monster.
Martin was badly injured when the gun went off. He won’t make it long out there in the cold with a chest wound. My fear, of course, is that he’ll make it to the Bemises’ and they’ll all come pounding at the door, looking for the madwoman with the gun.
I am pleased that I have had the chance to write down everything
that has happened while it is still fresh in my mind. Even more pleased that I have hidden the papers, should they cart me off to the lunatic asylum.
One day, my papers will be found. The world will know the truth about sleepers.
We are nearing the end of the seventh day of Gertie’s awakening. And my girl is still hiding in the shadows, here and then not.
When I catch a glimpse of her, she’s pale and shadowy. She’s dressed in the outfit she wore when she left the house on that last morning: her blue dress, wool tights, her little black coat. Her hair is in tangles now. Dirt is smudged on her cheeks. She gives off the smell of burning fat, a tallow candle just extinguished.
Shep is unsettled by her; he growls into the shadows with hackles raised, his teeth bared.
Since I finished writing down our story, I have been talking to her, singing to her, trying to coax her out into the open. “Remember,” I say, “remember?”
“Remember how you and I would stay under the covers all morning, telling each other our dreams?
“Remember Christmas mornings? The time you had the mumps and I never left your side? Your stories of the blue dog? The way you’d run straight for the kitchen when you came home from school and smelled molasses cookies?”
Remember? Remember?
But Gertie has gone again. (Was she ever really here?)
“Please, love,” I say. “We have so little time together. Won’t you show yourself to me?”
I turn and look for her across the room.
And there, over the fireplace, across the brick hearth, is a message written in black with a charred stick:
Not Papa
And just now, as I’m staring at the words, there’s a knock at the door.
A familiar, though impossible, voice calls out my name.
May 2, 1886
My Dearest Sara
,
I have promised to tell you everything I know about sleepers. But before you go on, you must understand that this is powerful magic. Only do it if you are sure. Once it is done, there can be no going back
.
The sleeper will awaken and return to you. The time this takes is unsure. Sometimes they return in hours, other times, days
.
Once awakened, a sleeper will walk for seven days. After that, they are gone from this world forever. You cannot bring someone back more than once. It is forbidden and, indeed, impossible
.
If you are ready, follow these instructions exactly
.
These are the things you will need:
A shovel
A candle
The heart of any living animal (you must remove it no longer than twelve hours before the deed)
An object that belonged to the person you wish to bring back (such as clothing, jewelry, or a tool)
You must take these things to a portal. There are doorways, gates, between this world and the world of the spirits. One of these
doorways is right here in West Hall. I have drawn a map showing its location. You must guard this map with your life
.
Enter the portal
.
Light the candle
.
Hold the object that belonged to the person in your hands and say these words seven times: “_______ (person’s name), I call you back to me. Sleeper, awaken!”
Bury the heart and say, “So that your heart will beat once more.”
Bury the object beside it and say, “Something of yours to help you find your way.”
Then leave the portal and wait. Sometimes they will come to you right then and there. But sometimes, as I have said, it can take days
.
There are two other things I must warn you of: Once a sleeper returns, it cannot be killed. It will walk for seven days, regardless of what is done to it. The last thing I must tell you is something I have heard, but have not seen with my own eyes. It is said that if a sleeper were to murder a living person and spill his blood within those seven days, then the sleeper will stay awake for all eternity
.
Please use these instructions wisely, and only when the time is right
.
I love you with all of my heart, Sara Harrison
.
Yours eternally
,
Auntie
The snow was knee-deep, but they’d stopped at the barn and strapped snowshoes on—the old-fashioned sort made of bentwood with rawhide laces. The procession moved forward, across the yard and field and toward the wooded hillside. Candace was leading them with her headlamp, Ruthie and Fawn in the middle (Fawn shuffling along stoically, holding tight to a dirty rag doll swaddled in covers that she kept whispering to), and Katherine was the caboose.
“Katherine! Don’t fall behind.” Candace turned toward Katherine, her headlamp shining right in Katherine’s face. “You don’t want to get separated from us out in these woods.”
No. No, she did not.
Katherine looked up from the tiny screen of Gary’s camera. He had photographed all of Sara’s missing diary pages, and Katherine had been studying Auntie’s instructions for bringing back the dead. It was difficult to make out all the words exactly, even when she zoomed in, but she got the gist.
“What are you so busy looking at?” Candace asked. She looked like a Cyclops with one horribly bright eye: a third eye, a mystic all-seeing eye.
“Just trying to get a clearer sense of where this opening we’re looking for is,” she said, shutting the camera off and putting it back in Gary’s pack. Everyone but Fawn had on packs that had been quickly loaded with supplies: flashlights and batteries, candles, matches, rope, bottled water, granola bars, a few apples. Candace had put on the headlamp they’d found by the front door, which Ruthie and her
mother used for bringing in firewood after dark. Katherine had the camera, some water, a flashlight, candles and matches, and Gary’s old Swiss Army knife in her pack.