Hail Mary

A Novel

Elizabeth Urso

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, names, or persons, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2026 by Elizabeth Urso

All rights reserved. For information regarding reproduction in total or in part, contact Rising Action Publishing Co. at http://www.risingactionpublishingco. com

Cover Illustration © Claire Sullivan
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 978-1-998672-49-3
Ebook: 978-1-998672-50-9

FIC015000 - Horror
FIC012000 - Ghost
FIC015040 - Horror/Occult & Supernatural

#HailMary

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Dad.

Oh, how I wish you were here to see this.

Mom.

I thank my lucky stars every day that you are.

PROLOGUE

1986

I was there when they found you.

Innards falling from your mouth. Muscle wedged between your teeth. An eyeball in your left hand, nerve endings grazing the cracked concrete floor.

I studied you in perfect silence, with the same devotion your forefathers studied the embalming arts. Your golden barrel curls, matted with tar. The stretched skin of your pregnant belly, almost translucent, sullied with crimson globs. A feather, fused to your left breast—noir against alabaster—fluffed up like your fluttering eyelashes.

Were you dreaming? I was no longer inhabiting your body, corrupting each of your mitochondria with an affinity for the macabre, so I couldn’t say for certain. But the slight upturn of your lips, your lax legs, and your swaying head were telltale signs. Where had your mind whisked you away to? A sandy beach far from these shores? I longed for the moment your dreamscape deteriorated, and you were yanked back to the jagged edges of the North Channel. When you realized where you were. What you’d done.

What I made you do.

Peter was the first to descend into the basement; the first confronted with the sordid scene. The redbrick wall and its blood brine. The putridity. The rot. His beloved grandfather, disemboweled by the instruments he’d once commanded. Aneurysm hooks. Dissecting forceps. Bone saws. You—the little sister he’d tormented instead of doting upon—covered in Foreman blood. A Foreman man’s blood. Mark and John followed, perpetually in their eldest brother’s shadow. At the base of the stairs, they stood frozen. Transfixed. Three tenors trying to find their vocal cords; wondering if their grandfather still had his, or if you’d eaten those smooth bands of muscle, too.

But then Peter broke the silence with a scream, inviting chaos in. He’d told the same to the police when they came to secure the scene, to wrap Foreman House in yellow caution tape for the umpteenth time. He’d told the judge, too, when he testified against you. It was horrific, he’d recalled, solemn, as the trial artist sketched away. I didn’t know a human being was capable of a sound like that, he’d said, reaching for his treasured handkerchief. The one that used to be mine.

If I had been there, I would have objected. He’d taken a solemn oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but it, and there he was, lying through those pearly whites. He’d screamed, sure, but it wasn’t horror. Horror is guttural. It comes from deep within the belly, a haunting sound to suffuse the space where safety used to live. This scream came from the roof of his mouth, high-pitched and wicked. I’d know it anywhere: glee. If one could profess ownership over a single sound like a melody, the copyright would belong to me.

The scream that escaped Peter’s lips when the judge read the verdict, though? Now that was horror. I shared the sentiment. You were guilty. You all were. Maybe not of the allegations the judge read aloud, but what did that matter? The rage that bubbled up and out of me that day was volcanic, powerful enough to turn the whole North Shore to ash. But before I burned it all down, I remembered … and then I decided: I would try again. Again, and again until your good name—his good name—finally turned sour. Until your face—her face—was a distant memory.

Mark my words. I will take back what’s mine. The handkerchief. The house. The whole bloody line. And you? I’ll think of something else deserving. Not tar. Not feathers. There’s no need to invoke the raven now. And if you manage to slip through my talons again, I’ll pivot to the bitch you brought into this wretched world. How old is she now? Two? Oh, your little doll … Mary, Mary, quite contrary. She’s too young to be afraid of little old me, but I’m not shortsighted, Sarah.

I’ve got nothing but time.

MARY

2018

CHAPTER 1

INHERITANCE

Foreman House was falling down.

Its Gothic Revival façade was sunken, as if gravity had been as unkind as its ghosts. Ivy strangled the masonry, and the cracks in the bricks poking through looked like exaggerated frowns or oblong screams. Rotting, graffiti-laden plywood covered several of the arched windows, not because they were smashed in, but because they were far too old to keep the damp out. The house was a shadow of its former self, and no sane person wanted to get too close; even the mammoth front-yard maple twisted away from the slate roof, trunk hinged, branches braced, like it was set to run. Mary Foreman knew the feeling well. But, like the tree, she had roots tethering her here, and despite promises past and presages present, a piece of herself would belong to Foreman House forever.

And it was approaching the house, sneakers pounding the pavement, humming “London Bridge is Falling Down,” that Mary fell. She tumbled over the poorly placed for sale sign and onto the damp grass, dried leaves flying in the air and expletives pouring from her mouth. This wasn’t the post-run charley horse she’d grown accustomed to. She could handle the odd muscle spasm, but full-body blows were beyond her. She was pushing thirty-five. Perimenopause was still on the horizon, but degeneration had already started setting in.

Whimpering like a wounded animal, she rolled onto her side and curled up into the fetal position. With her heart pounding in her head, she gazed up at the house. It looked exponentially worse than it had three months before, when she’d pulled into the driveway for the first time in two decades, her grandmother’s cryptic letter tucked away in the box of bullshit her uncle’s campaign manager had couriered her. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that’d settled in her bones that day: failure. Despite everything she’d done since fleeing Providence—each cautious, curated step—she was back. She should’ve known better, known that the future she was building was temporary. Nothing—not even a Tiffany cushion-cut engagement ring—could keep her from this place. Foreman women could never move forward.

The past had too firm a hold on them.

Mary hobbled up the driveway and stepped into Foreman House’s ominous, arresting shadow. The MLS Listing was wrong about most things (“good bones” and “gothic charm,” sure), but it did have one thing right: its gated front and ecclesiastical features were “unique” on the North Shore of Lake Huron. Nowhere else in Providence, Houghton, or Clarksville could you find a residence like it. The house had an air of arrogance, its spire raised toward the sky like a middle finger. Fuck you, peasants! it bellowed to the builder-grade bungalows across the way, with their oak kitchen cabinets, lifeless beige walls, and tacky garden gnomes. The real estate brokerage was convinced its grandeur was the reason it hadn’t sold, but Grandma Hannah’s letter said differently. Could the would-be buyers sense it, too? The rot, the rage, the reckoning?

You need to break the tether. You need to make it right.

Foreman House needs you.

Your mother needs you.

I need you …

“I need a fucking drink,” Mary whispered under her breath.

Dusk was descending, and the wind was picking up. It pulled an autumnal dampness from the channel across the way and blasted it in Mary’s face. Chilled to her aching bones, she pulled a gaudy brass key from her pocket and let herself in. The cranky door resisted at first, screaming bloody murder when she forced it open. With an eerie silence setting in around her, Mary tossed her sneakers onto the chipped parquet floor. They landed beneath the ancestral portraits hanging in the entrance, tarnished filigree frames flecked with black mold.

Barefoot, Mary padded toward the kitchen, the sagging joists buckling beneath her. She tried not to dwell on it. Same with the peeling paint, crumbling cabinetry, and the pesky drafts (the listing did say the house was “airy”). When she’d first arrived, she’d convinced herself that she could nurse this place back to health, restore Foreman House to its former glory as Providence’s crown jewel. She’d fallen so deep down Instagram’s Victorian house revival rabbit hole that she almost believed she could do it.

She’d made a plan. Acquired a rubber mallet and a respirator from Facebook Marketplace. Returned to Pinterest, an app she’d deleted after Dale called everything off. She didn’t need to be reminded of the vision boards she’d created for her future: eloping in Banff, furnishing their matrimonial home, renovating the sweet nursery they’d never … and yet, when Mary finally amassed the courage and conviction to start—to blow a hole in the wall and chart a new course for Foreman House (and herself)—the knocking started. The same godforsaken sounds that were flooding her ears now. She’d welcomed them as a child, back when everything was a game. But she had no interest in playing now. Besides, Ms. Morse’s messaging had long lost its levity. Now, each knock was more ominous than the last. Particularly this pattern—one of her favorites.

Welcome home.

Ms. Morse had been an invisible, distinctly female presence in Foreman House for as long as Mary could remember. Mary had long wondered who the ghost was. Why she insisted on communicating in code. What she looked like. But that was the thing about ghosts: even if you were cursed with the ability to see the dead, you could only see those who showed themselves to you. And while Mary once welcomed those appearances, she’d grown wary of them with age and experience. Ghosts were like second cousins twice removed after a jackpot lottery win; they only came out of the woodwork when they wanted something from you.

Mary opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen peas and a near-empty bottle of gin. Ignoring her mother’s voice reminding her she’d bought the bottle yesterday, she pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and plopped herself down into it. She propped her pulsating shin on the nearest chair, pulled up her leggings, and sat the frozen peas directly on her skin. Another voice echoed in her ears. Grandma Hannah’s, this time. Wrap the bag in a dishtowel, darling.

“Fuck the dishtowel,” she mumbled. Besides, the burning sensation was welcome.

It made it easier to forget everything else.

Mary reached for the frosted bottle and took a large swig, letting the bitter pine flavor settle in her mouth. A wave of relaxation swept over her; her shoulders slumped, her chest fell, and the biting surfaces of her teeth parted. But when she moved in for a second swig, she accidentally knocked the bottle over. As the gin flooded the table, spreading out over the flyers, newspapers, and the campaign call sheet she longed to ignore, her body seized up again. She watched the alcohol settle into the front page of the Houghton Chronicle, distorting the line of text that read “Time Capsule to be Unearthed Monday.”

But Mary didn’t need Margaret Bell at the local paper giving her the heads-up. Thanks to the attic she’d sworn not to set foot in, she’d pieced together more about the mysterious box than the Disciples, the faculty, and the local media combined. The journals she’d pored over painted quite the picture of her great-grandmother’s time at St. Joseph’s School for Girls. Feuding students. Mold infestations. Corrupt nuns. An evil headmistress. Mary couldn’t wait to read the letters the graduates had written to their future selves, seeping with teenage angst. What did the girls think their futures had in store? Flying cars? World peace? Precious.

Still, Mary could hardly believe the time capsule’s extraction was proceeding as scheduled. Anniversary or not, a single snap of her Uncle Mark’s fingers and no one would ever mention it again. Even Vice-Principal Crummey. His obsession with unearthing the time capsule was still no match for his love of Mark Foreman’s money. St. Joseph’s could barely operate without his annual donations. The public purse wasn’t deep enough to keep the building upright, and everyone knew it.

Perhaps Mark was waiting for the perfect opportunity to call trump and make the whole thing disappear. What do you mean, it’s Houghton’s centennial? What time capsule? Anne who? Besides, if the past few months had shown the Disciples anything, it was that unearthing the secrets of years long past was a campaign risk. There was no telling what the time capsule narrative could morph into. The last thing Peter Foreman needed was for another Foreman woman to take center stage. His mayoral bid was already on life support, and if those journals in the attic were any indication, Anne Foreman’s time capsule letter would not be PG.

“I wonder what Great Granny would’ve thought of you,” Mary surmised, plopping her finger in the pool of gin and dragging it across the newspaper, down to an obnoxiously large advertisement for Foreman Family Funerals.

I would’ve told him to wipe that smug smile off his smug face.

Mary chuckled, smudging the wet ink until Uncle Peter was a grey blob. “There. Much b—”

A violent banging on the front door thrust Mary’s heart into her throat. Again? First, it was a rock through the sitting room’s bay window, landing at the base of Grandma Hannah’s favorite rocking chair. Then, a break and enter through the side door, after which a beloved (albeit very empty) jewelry box went missing. But trying to come in through the front door like they owned the place? Mary needed to put a stop to the siege. These teenaged degenerates had already caused enough damage. Foreman House couldn’t take much more.

But what if they’re not here to hurt the house?

Mary’s heart started racing at her great-grandmother’s suggestion.

The pitchforks will come if you let them.

With generations of fury pulsing in her veins, Mary leapt up from her chair and the frozen peas went flying. When the bag hit the warped floor, it burst open, sending the small green balls rolling every which way. Mary sprinted to the front door, ignoring the shooting pain in her leg, and just before she reached the threshold, fists raised in self-defense, the door swung open.

“Ma’am.”

Mary tore down her hands and peered over the man’s shoulder. The “Vote Peter Foreman” decal on the parked Range Rover was so obnoxious that any reasonable person would assume her uncle was running for Prime Minister—not mayor of a small Northern Ontario town. She’d told her uncle’s team as much, but her concerns fell on deaf ears. If only they’d listened. She’d heard a few old farts bitching about it over early morning Double Doubles at Tims. Even the geezers thought it was a bit gauche.

Do they know?

What?

How it looks? The billboards. The decals. Lucille’s body is barely cold.

They must. They buried her for Christ’s sake!

Did a lot more than that, if you ask me …

“Did no one teach you how to knock?” Mary asked, incensed.

The driver put a hand up toward his ear and pressed down, cosplaying as a member of the Secret Service. “She wants to know if anyone taught me how to knock.”

The back door to the Range Rover swung open.

“Knocks are but a courtesy, darling,” Mark Foreman bellowed, sliding his aviators up over his bald head. The setting sun reflected off it, creating a kind of halo, even though there was nothing angelic about Satan’s spawn. “We have a key,” he reminded her, approaching the doorway.

“A key doesn’t make an unexpected entrance less alarming,” Mary insisted. What needed to happen for her uncles to take her safety concerns seriously? Last weekend’s incident was still unbearably fresh in her mind. How could they have possibly forgotten? “What is this, now? The twelfth time we’ve had this conversation?”

Mark cocked his head.

Math was never Mary’s strong suit.

“Regardless,” she continued, knowing full well that their conversations about her safety concerns remained in the single digits. “You offered me a fresh start.” She borrowed the words from Peter’s initial email to her. The one that’d followed shortly after her grandmother’s letter.

I was so sad to hear about your engagement, Mary. I hoped you’d be the one to break the spell. Alas. My brothers and I would be more than happy to provide you a place to find your footing. We have but one piddly favor to ask of you: assistance with my mayoral campaign. Before you say “no,” might I remind you that I wouldn’t be in this position if your wretched mother hadn’t opened her big mouth. I know how you feel about her. No one blames you. Come home. As I understand it, your old room is vacant.
How convenient! You ought to be with family in your time of great strife. Think of this as an opportunity: a fresh start. For yourself. For us. Your mother made certain choices when you were in utero, but you’re an adult now. Be on the right side of Foreman family history, Mary. Just this once.

“But how can I do that when I feel unsafe?” Mary continued. “When my home is under siege?”

“Your home?”

Mark’s insinuation hit Mary like a freight train. She might only be a caretaker, but this place had once been her home. “My temporary home,” she clarified, chagrined.

“You never could take a joke!” Mark said, his lips curling up into a sly smile. He pushed Mary’s bony shoulder, much too hard to be playful. “You know that this place is yours to call home for as long as it remains on the market. You’re welcome to take it off our hands, of course. We could even discuss a family discount.”

Mary let out a meagre chuckle. Even if she could afford the purchase price, lawyer’s fees, and land transfer tax, Peter would never allow it. No Foreman woman had ever owned Foreman House. Not legally, anyway. Not only had the family spent copious amounts of time and money enforcing its trust, Peter was an originalist—and a petty one at that. Why change now?

“Is that why you came here?” Mary asked. “To cut me a deal?”

Mark’s face scrunched up, confused. “Don’t be dramatic.”

Dramatic. It’s what they’d called her mother before they opted for hysterical. Same with her beloved Grandma Hannah. Same with St. Joseph’s time capsule architect, Anne. But Mary was neither of those things. She was pissed, and she had every right to be. She was sick and tired of men misunderstanding who she was and what she could do. “I am not—”

“Mary,” Mark interrupted, his voice thick with disdain. “Please. I’m here to pick you up.”

“Huh?”

“The fundraising dinner.”

Fuck.

Mary raised a hand to the mess of hay atop her head, still damp with sweat from her run. She wasn’t fit to attend a social gathering, but that didn’t matter. This is why she was here. Not for ailing Grandma Hannah and her cryptic letter, but for her uncle’s campaign. To sway the court of public opinion; convince the townspeople that the Foreman family’s long-standing battle of the sexes had come to a storied end.

“Don’t tell me you forgot …” Mark growled, glancing down at his Patek Philippe. The gold bezel caught the waning sunlight. “Peter will not be kept waiting.”

“Five minutes,” Mary said, already running back toward the house.

Inside, she splashed some cold water on her face and coated her lashes with mascara, ignoring the incessant knocks on the other side of the peeling baroque wallpaper and avoiding her reflection in the cracked mirror. She wrangled her curls into submission in a slicked-back bun at the base of her neck, dusted her nose with highlighter, and spritzed perfume on her collarbone to mask her sweat. A black slip dress, a pair of kitten heels, and a few swipes of maroon lipstick, and she was back out the door.

In the car, Mary gazed out the window, counting the election signs that whizzed past. If the choice folks advertised on front lawns was any indication, the race was close. Much closer than her uncles wanted to admit. The split didn’t surprise her, though. For time immemorial, there’d been as many people who adored the Foremans as those who feared them, allegiances shifting like the seasons.

“Mary,” Mark said, reaching his hand across the backseat. He clutched Mary’s bicep as the driver swerved to avoid a pothole. For a moment, she mistook his action for compassion. But then Mark tightened his grip. “Despite what you insinuated earlier, we do want you to feel safe here.”

Safe. Mary didn’t know if that was possible. They didn’t call Foreman Family Funerals “The Death Conglomerate” for nothing. It was a tad melodramatic, but there was no denying that the Foremans had North Shore Township’s death market cornered. Inspired by the vertical integration that’d made other entrepreneurial families millions, Foreman family patriarchs past bought up the businesses they frequently contracted with—florists, casket and monument makers, and religious paraphernalia purveyors. For decades, there wasn’t a death on the North Shore that the Foremans didn’t capitalize on; capital they used to diversify into other industries. Trucking. Waste Management. Construction. And while Mary’s mother, Sarah, insisted her family’s transition from digging graves to excavating foundations was an acknowledgement of a long-suspected truth, that wasn’t necessarily news. The townspeople had been thinking the same since time immemorial.

Foremans didn’t just bury the dead. They buried the living, too.

But offing the mayor? It was the most salacious allegation to rock the Foreman family since Isaac’s tar and feathering, and just one of many bombshells that Sarah Foreman had dropped during her appearance on the ever-popular Wicked Lives Lived podcast.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit convenient?” Sarah had asked the hosts. “Lucille Bard, the North Shore’s longest-serving municipal mayor, drops dead the same year Peter Foreman’s political boots hit the ground? Ha! You know what the true crime junkies will say. It’s giving cut-throat. Cover-up. Coup! And the one person who could quell the rumors is staunchly silent. Jennette, Lucille’s only daughter, refuses to come to Peter’s aid. She knows as well as I do: no one is safe around my brothers.”

“I appreciate you saying that, Uncle Mark,” Mary lied, pushing her mother’s voice from her mind. She was getting far too comfortable lying around her uncles. But there wasn’t any harm in lying about feelings around Mark. The man didn’t give a shit about how she felt. Feelings were beyond him. “Are you looking forward to tonight?” Mary rummaged through her clutch to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything in her haste.

“Of course,” Mark said, scrolling through his phone. “It will be nice when it’s behind us, though. One less thing in a very busy week.”

The fundraising dinner. The time capsule ceremony. Grandma Hannah’s birthday. Mary, too, was looking forward to a reprieve. If all went according to plan, her efforts would be rewarded. Peter would win the upcoming election, and she would get to the bottom of her grandmother’s letter. It was a stretch, but maybe discovering the truth would lift some of the fog. Make her grandmother remember. Not everything, of course. But, at the very least, her.

“You’re still planning to be at the ceremony? For the time capsule?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Mark insisted, insinuating that cancellation wasn’t in the cards. Alas.

“It will be good for St. Joseph’s,” Mary said, trying to find the silver lining. Grandma Hannah always encouraged her to do so. The academic calendar had been shockingly empty since she’d arrived. The girls needed something to quell their boredom. Liturgy in the gymnasium wasn’t cutting it. “We haven’t had many events since I was hired.”

“It was so nice of Guy to offer you the position before posting it more broadly,” Mark began, keen to remind her that there was no competition. The job was offered to her on a silver platter because of him. His money. His influence.

“I’m sure I would’ve had a fighting ch—”

“Could you put the radio on, please?” Mark asked the driver, ignoring her completely.

The end of Mary’s favorite Shania Twain song flowed from the speakers, and she sighed. The Queen of Country Pop was right. There was no use defending herself. She wasn’t a teaching talent. This was nepotism.

“And that was Shania Twain’s ‘Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You),’ and you’re listening to The Moose 94.1 FM, the voice of the North Shore,” said the radio personality before giving a quick weather update and cutting to a familiar advertisement.

“Here at Foreman Family Funerals,” Peter’s voice boomed out of the car’s speakers, clear and compelling, more politician than undertaker. “Family is everything. As proverbs say, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children—not to mention peace of mind. Your final resting arrangements are as important as your last will and testament. Why put off the inevitable? Pre-plan your funeral today!”

Mark’s phone began to ring loudly. “Impeccable timing,” he said under his breath.

Even though the name Peter Foreman flashed on-screen, it was still the standard tone. Mary reached into her clutch again to ensure her phone was on silent mode. She didn’t need Peter calling her next, filling the car with “The Imperial March.” While Mark had the strongest sense of humor among the Foreman brothers, even he wouldn’t find that funny.

“Radio off,” Mark ordered the driver. “Peter, I—”

Listening to Peter’s muffled demands coming in through Mark’s phone, Mary recalled the radio advert. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Foremans weren’t good men. Goodness wasn’t in their nature, neither was it in Mary’s—for she was the last in a long line of deeply disturbed women, and the only thing they’d left for her to inherit was their curse.

The last time Mary stepped foot in the banquet hall above the North Shore Curling Club, she was fourteen.

She hadn’t been invited to Evan Stewart’s birthday—they’d long fallen out by then—but she wasn’t going to let that keep her from having a good time. She’d crashed the party through a side door and spiked the punch bowl with a mickey of Polar Ice. A confrontation left Mary at the bottom of the stairs, bloodied and bruised, with two chipped teeth and you freak ringing in her ears. Mark had been the one to pick her up and chauffeur her to the emergency dentist in Elliot Lake, stopping every ten minutes so she could empty her insides on the shoulder of Highway 17.

It was the same route she’d taken when she fled a few years later, jumping on a Greyhound Bus with nothing more than a duffle bag over her shoulder, a letter from Grandma Hannah in her pocket, and a mother-shaped hole in her heart. The letter was much different from the one that had recently summoned her home, of course, but the irony of it wasn’t lost on Mary. Her grandmother’s words had forced her out, only to pull her back in. The whiplash was unwelcome.

“We’ll moderate our intake this evening?” Mark asked, a rhetorical callback to the night young Mary cemented herself as another Foreman black sheep. “We’ll keep our teeth, too?”

Mary nodded, rubbing the tip of her tongue against the fine metal wire fused to the back of her bottom teeth—a relic from her days with braces, which were just the tip of her dental trauma iceberg. She’d gone through too much for her smile. Extractions. Orthodontics. Gum grafting. Her teeth were precious. She had every intention of keeping them right where they were.

“I can’t hear you.”

Mary detested the way he infantilized her, but responded anyway. “Yes, Uncle Mark,” she said, her jaw and neck tight, hoping he couldn’t sense her true feelings. Terror and abhorrence in equal measure. How many times would she have to say it? She had no intention of making herself into a spectacle. She understood the assignment. Be seen and not heard. And, if someone forced her to speak, she’d sing from the song sheet the Disciples provided. The rumors aren’t true. My mother’s a liar, you know that—don’t you? My uncles are good people, good citizens of the realm. Peter is the leader we need at the helm.

“Front entrance,” Mark reminded the driver, as the rest of Peter’s staunch supporters filtered in from the parking lot like peasants. They weren’t poor, of course—the Foremans didn’t associate with just anyone—but next to the family’s fortune, their successes were modest. The Foremans had the kind of money that eclipsed every doctor and lawyer in the area, the kind that allowed them to sink their claws into powerful families in Toronto, Vancouver, and beyond.

When the Range Rover finally rolled to a stop, Mary exited, her kitten heel catching in a divot in the pavement. Mark saved her almost-tumble, and she insisted she was sober. The shoes were a poor choice, especially given her fall earlier that evening. There was nothing left to do but grin and bear it. She’d been doing a lot of that lately.

“There are reporters here,” Mark said, looping his arm around hers. A passerby might think he was doing her a favor, keeping her steady on her feet. But they couldn’t feel the firmness of his grip, couldn’t sense that she was no more than a mouse constricted in a snake’s coiling body. He could crush her if he wanted, and she’d be powerless to stop him. “Margaret Bell included.”

Mary thought back to the article she’d defaced with gin. “There’s no need to worry.”

“You’re right,” he replied, flexing his arm and cutting off her circulation. “There’s no need.”

Over the threshold, Mark released his hold on her. “I’ll see you at our table,” he said, eyes narrowed, before jetting off to schmooze.

In Mark’s absence, Mary felt the weight of a hundred gazes on her. Studying the curves of her face. The brightness of her eyes. The way her golden hairline fell like a heart around her forehead. They were probably wondering the same thing everyone did: how was it possible? How could each Foreman woman throughout the ages—her, Sarah, Hannah, Anne—look almost identical? There were strong genes, but then there was … well … them.

Mary checked her beloved Burberry trench—a gift from her ex-fiancé, now a memento mori of the normal life she’d almost had—and made her way through the throngs of people loitering in the lobby, transformed with florals and textiles and soft lighting. For a moment, it felt as though she’d teleported back to her former life in Toronto. One filled with fancy restaurants, charity galas, and valet parking. Back when she was soon-to-be Mary Mathen—beloved private school teacher and treasured fiancée of a charming dental surgeon, part of a family rooted not in crime and corruption, but cavities and Crest. The kind of mundanity she’d longed for since she came to realize the boundary between the living and the dead was Swiss cheese.

Mary pushed the thoughts away and scanned the crowd. Everyone seemed deep in conversation, small pods formed around high-top tables. If she could just make her way to the back, to the shadows, she would be safe until dinner. She could get out unscathed. She would be fr—

“Ah! Look who it is!”

Mary fought the urge to turn away. The last person she’d wanted to see after her uncle’s comments on the car ride over was her new boss. But there he was, Vice-Principal Guy Crummey: all five feet seven inches of him, clutching a champagne flute in one hand and a small plate of caviar in the other. “Mr. Crummey,” Mary said, reaching for his shoulder. Not because she wanted to, but because it was what a normal person would do. Affection had never come naturally for Mary.

“How many times do I have to tell you. It’s Guy. You’re not my student anymore! Those days are a distant memory. Like my hair.” He tapped the edge of his champagne flute to his bare scalp.

Mary recalled when she was a young girl, cross-legged in the gymnasium, clapping and yelling with her classmates. Go, Jaguars, go! She’d called him Mr. Crummey then because he’d occupied a position of authority. Much had changed, but that fact remained. Besides, calling him Guy would level a field Mary had no interest in playing on. She wasn’t here to be part of a team or make friends. She had a job to do, and it sure as hell wasn’t teaching. “I may not be a Jaguar, but you’re still my boss.”

“And thank heavens for that,” he insisted, taking a sip of his drink. “Honestly, Mary, I don’t know what we would’ve done without you! God is good. When he closes a door, he opens a window.”

Perhaps all the windows in her life were seized up. “Any word on when Jennette will return?”

Crummey shook his head. “I suspect you’ll be with us for the entire semester. Perhaps even longer.”

Mary filled Crummey’s latent pause with a smile. She’d been hard-pressed to take the job at her alma mater, but she was finding her groove with the girls. Finally. So long as her ghosts left her be, it’d be smooth sailing until Christmas. If she made herself indispensable, perhaps she could negotiate a raise. She could get out of debt and put her failed engagement behind her. She could start fresh. She tried not to acknowledge how much the thought terrified her.

“I don’t want Jennette to rush back. She needs time to navigate everything. When we last spoke on the phone, her grief was positively palpable. She’s devastated,” Crummey continued. “We all are, of course. But to us, Lucille was mayor. For Jennette, she was Mom.”

Mary wondered what it would be like to mourn a mother who did all the things a mother was supposed to. “I’m happy to sub in for as long as needed,” Mary said, hoping she didn’t come across too eager—not only for the job, but to move the conversation away from Lucille and Jennette’s picture-perfect bond.

“Are you certain? You have so much on your plate. The relocation. Your grandmother’s health. Your uncle’s campaign.”

“Hannah is stable,” Mary lied. “And the campaign keeps me on my toes. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. Truly.”

“It’s not without its challenges, I’m sure. That podcast really threw a wrench into things.”

Here we go. Mary longed for more gin. She was too sober for this. “The polls are—”

“I wasn’t talking about the polls, Mary,” Crummey said, handing off his plate and empty flute to a passing waiter. “I was talking about you.”

“I haven’t given it much thought,” Mary lied. “My mother and I are estranged.”

“At the very least it’s got you thinking, no?”

“About my mother?”

“About the business.”

“I’m not involved in the business,” Mary said, happy that she didn’t have to lie about that.

“That’s really too bad.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re a woman.”

Mary braced herself, resisting the urge to yell misogyny incoming across the banquet hall.

“All I’m trying to say is,” Crummey said, picking up another champagne flute from a passing waiter’s tray, “if Peter wants all his talk of female empowerment to ring true, he’d best put his money where his mouth is. Take Mark, for example. He’s so committed to ensuring that the girls at St. Joseph’s have everything they need to excel—”

“I assure you,” Mary interrupted, scrounging up the energy to bring her Oscar-worthy performance home. “My Uncle Peter has the utmost respect for women.”

“Even the Foreman variety.”

Mary feigned a smile.

“My oh my! The rumors are true.”

Foreman women had been keeping the local rumor mill running since time immemorial. “Rumors?”

“That you Foreman folk have buried the hatchet! I suppose stranger things have happened.”

Mary saw Crummey’s comment for what it was—a landmine—and she wasn’t getting anywhere near it. Even though the hatchet was alive and well, she didn’t want to get blown to smithereens.

“There’s nothing strange about it.”

“I think your mother would say—”

“Why don’t you reach out? Perhaps she’ll give you an interview, too,” Mary snapped, then flushed, quickly taken aback by her own tone. She wished she could shove the words back down her throat and keep them there, where they’d fade away to nothing in her stomach acid. “I shouldn’t have—” Mary began, hoping for a quick and seamless recovery. She wasn’t here to make waves. She was here to calm the waters.

“Don’t be silly,” Crummey insisted. “I shouldn’t have pried. It wasn’t proper.”

“No harm done. I hope you enjoy the evening,” she said before turning away.

Even though the waiters were weaving through the crowds with plates of hors d’oeuvres, Mary made a beeline for the food table. She was loading up a small plate with charcuterie when she felt a presence lingering behind her.

“Mary.”

Mary was so focused on willing it not to be her Uncle Peter that she’d forgotten Mark’s heads-up about Ms. Bell. She turned. “Margaret.”

“I’ll try and catch you after dinner. I’d love a quote.”

Oh, the quotes she wanted to give. About the Disciples. Her mother. The haunted funeral home she grew up in. But she wasn’t here to speak her truth. She was here to sway the masses with her silence. “You bet,” Mary said, to appease her. She had to give her something, even if it was just hope.

The time until dinner passed slowly; a constellation of Disciples-induced conversations. Mark waving her over to meet a school board trustee. John insisting she say hello to the captain of the North Shore Royals, the local Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League team. “Mark my words, Mary,” John had said after reminding her that he owned the team. “This kid’s going to be the next Sid.”

And then, finally, it was time to take their seats for the formal portion of the evening. Remarks from Peter, followed by members of his campaign team. A charity auction, with all proceeds going to Huron Manor’s dementia program in Hannah’s honor. While Mary appreciated the sentiment, she wanted to rip her grandmother’s name out of her uncles’ mouths. They didn’t deserve to win the townspeople’s favor on their mother’s back. They could’ve paid for round-the-clock home care, permitting Hannah to stay in her own place as opposed to that place. But they couldn’t wait to get her out of Foreman House. Hannah’s squatting was the last thing standing in their way. They called her their beloved mother in public, but Mary knew how they truly felt. Why else would they call her the speed bump?

Mary took her seat, sandwiched between her uncles. She glanced out at the rest of the empty chairs, all marked with name tags she recognized. Except for one, with nothing more than a cryptic reference to “special guest.” Mary was running through the possibilities when Peter took the stage.

“When I think of what it means to be a Foreman,” Peter began, locking eyes with Mary for the briefest moment when the second syllable of their surname exited his lips, “I think of all of you. The North Shore’s best and brightest. Those who lifted up Alistar, Matthew, and Isaac. Those who have been staunch in their support for my brothers and me both personally and professionally. I want tonight to be a celebration: not only of the strides we’ve made in my campaign and how tonight will benefit our chosen charity, but also of your unyielding support. It is not unnoticed. And, of course,” he paused, clutching either side of the podium, “I would be remiss not to mention my beloved niece, Mary.”

Mary’s stomach churned. The “beloved” bullshit made her want to barf.

“It’s news to no one that I have no children of my own. My brothers and I have been blessed in many ways, but, alas,” Peter said, pausing again as if to honor each sperm he’d expelled that couldn’t swim fast enough; every would-be Foreman wife that he and his brothers couldn’t lock down.

The family fortune had kept the ladies happy for a time. But it was never enough. The rumors were too pervasive—the surname too heavy a cross to bear—particularly in the absence of the offspring all the women so desperately wanted; heirs the Foreman brothers could never provide. It was ironic, really: for men so obsessed with lineage, the Disciples were the first Foreman men in history who couldn’t carry on the family line. But no one would dare talk about that curse. As far as the North Shore was concerned, the Foremans had a matrilineal issue. Nothing else.

“But we have you, dear. I’m so happy you reached out and that we were able to put the past behind us. Your resilience knows no bounds, and I, for one, am proud that you’ve come home. To Foreman House. To me.”

Was he really going to stand up there and insinuate that she had reached out? But there was no use fighting it now. It was her uncle’s narrative to control, and if she undermined him, she’d be out on her broke ass and Grandma Hannah’s letter would remain a mystery forever. So, she reached across her place setting for her champagne flute and raised a glass to her Uncle Peter. With her smile as tight as a ventriloquist’s, she whispered, “I hope you lose.”

“Ah,” Peter said, raising his glass toward her in acknowledgement. “How wonderful. Now, before we dig in tonight, I want to start off by making space for Lucille Bard.” Peter paused, bowing his head in silence. “She was North Shore Township’s faithful leader and fierce advocate for decades, and I was so, so saddened to learn of her passing. But from our collective grief comes an opportunity: to build on Lucille’s legacy and ensure that the North Shore remains a top-tier municipality. To share some thoughts about what that means, as you all enjoy your first course of the evening, I’d like to invite our special guest to the stage. Please give a warm welcome to Lucille’s daughter, Jennette.”

The room erupted in thunderous applause. How had Peter managed it? Mary knew that Jennette was the missing puzzle piece his campaign desperately needed—the only thing that could quell the conspiracy theorist choir that’d gotten quite vocal since Lucille’s death. Those certain that, somehow, despite multiple reports to the contrary and an independent postmortem, Peter had killed Lucille to make room for himself. It was a stretch, of course, but Mary’s mother had done them no favors—waxing lyrical about Peter’s inclinations on the podcast. If there’s one person on the North Shore completely desensitized to death and decay, it’s my eldest brother—and not because he’s a mortician.

“Thank you, Peter, for inviting me to speak this evening. And a special thanks to you and your brothers for assisting me and my family in our darkest moments.” A lone camera flashed from the back of the room. Mary followed the light to find Marge perched by the near-empty charcuterie board, scribbling in her notebook among the remaining cheese. “It is my sincere hope that my presence tonight puts an end to the cruel, senseless rumors circulating on our shores. I trust Peter implicitly and believe that he is the best choice for our treasured township. With that, I hope you all enjoy your first course.”

As another round of applause waned, Mary downed the rest of her champagne. She shifted in her seat as a waiter placed a small, covered plate on the gold charger in front of her. “Thank you,” she whispered. She couldn’t wait to dive in. She was famished … but before she could clasp the cover on what she assumed was a soup or salad, a series of screams sliced through the silence.

“Are those … human?”

“Call the police!”

Mary tore the cover off her wide-rimmed soup bowl to reveal a heaping pile of organs, all a putrid shade of grey from prolonged exposure to air. Brain. Liver. Intestines. Was that part of an eyeball? Mary’s nose flooded with a stench that was deep and acrid, and she tried not to black out as the pile started writhing; slippery maggots glistening as the townspeople heaved. On top was a large black feather, its quill curled up at the end. On the rim of the bowl, just left of center, was a single word piped out in large, angular letters, black like tar.

MURDERER

“Who is responsible for this?” Mark demanded, shooting up from his seat to scan the crowd. “Who is—”

His voice was quickly overtaken by someone else’s, booming out from the loudspeakers.

“Will the North Shore ever wake up?”

Mom?

Panicked, Mary glanced around the room. Her mother couldn’t be here. Could she? Mary watched as others darted their heads from one end of the banquet hall to the other, cellphones at the ready, eager to catch a glimpse of the woman who was poised to ruin everything. Again.

“Will the North Shore ever wake up?”

Mary’s stomach fell. Her mother wasn’t here. It was just a snippet from the podcast recording, boomeranging through the loudspeakers on an infinite loop. Every cell in Mary’s body screamed run, but she couldn’t. John was holding her down, his fingers digging into her shoulders and his angry breath hot on the back of her neck. So much for Mary staying in the Disciples’ good graces while she got to the bottom of her grandmother’s letter. This wasn’t just a political stunt. This was personal. Peter stormed off the stage without another word, and Mark ran off to follow him. John quickly released his grip on her and did the same. Mary didn’t know why the younger Foremans bothered. Excel spreadsheets and legal briefs would be of no use at a time like this. If only one of them had forgone funeral directing for public relations instead.

In their wake, Crummey captured the microphone, ignoring the organizers yelling at him to sit back down. “Don’t forget about tomorrow’s ceremony.” He retched, pausing to let another will the North Shore ever wake up? pass by. “11:30 a.m. Sharp.”

But Mary knew Crummey’s words were in vain. Thanks to the soup course, the townspeople were fixated on the very thing Mary’s presence was supposed to counteract: the infamous crime that’d landed her mother, Sarah Foreman, on trial for first-degree murder. Even though she was acquitted of the charge, Mary—like the masses—had long suspected the “truth” revealed in Courtroom A wasn’t the half of it. It’s why her podcast appearance was so effective. It continued to sow the very seeds of doubt that’d resulted in the “not guilty” verdict all those years ago. Still, regardless of whose story they chose to believe, the people of North Shore Township seemed to agree on one thing: the bastard had it coming. Regardless of who murdered and mutilated Mary’s great-grandfather, Isaac, there was nothing great about him.

Nothing at all.

CHAPTER 2

THE GHOST OF WHAT COULD’VE BEEN

“Why flee?”

“Because I wasn’t enough for you to stay,” Mary whispered, answering the host’s question before her mother could lie.

Mary drew a deep breath of damp, stale air into her ribcage. Sinking deeper into her cross-legged seat, she sensed something skittering about in the dark corner of the basement. Any other day, the mere prospect of encountering a rat would’ve sent her spiraling. But, in this moment, nothing could distract her. Even after listening to her mother’s interview a half-dozen times on the long walk home from the Curling Club—after abandoning her kitten heels, commandeering a pair of curling shoes from the club’s rental room, and running from Margaret Bell’s flashing camera—the podcast episode hadn’t lost its shock value. It was almost forty-five minutes of pure torture, like a hunting knife to the abdomen.

And it wasn’t because of the gory details. The blunt force trauma. The lengths of intestinal tract that couldn’t be accounted for. The infamous left eyeball her mother refused to surrender. Mary knew she’d rather listen to the hosts of Wicked Lives Lived summarize the physical evidence until the end of time than listen to her mother try to justify the unjustifiable: how, even after her acquittal, she’d had no choice but to leave Providence. Leave her.

It’d been more than thirty years since her mother walked out, leaving Mary in Grandma Hannah’s care, but the ghost of what could’ve been still lingered. A perpetual reminder of what she’d lost—what she’d never had. A loving family, a doting mother, and an infallible bond. While Mary had encountered countless ghosts over the years, she couldn’t shake this one. The ghost of what could’ve been was a real bitch.

“There were other cases,” Sarah Foreman responded.

“Which cases?” the other podcast host asked, as if she didn’t already know.

“Other unsolved murders that bore a resemblance.”

“Like?” asked the other, leading Sarah on.

“Indignities done to bodies post-mortem. A slew of others where bodies were never found. Regardless, all victims had a connection to the family business.”

“The Death Conglomerate?”

“Yes,” Sarah said.

“What sort of connection?”

“Let’s see …” Sarah began slowly, and Mary knew her mother’s pause was only for dramatic effect. Even Mary knew the crimes like the back of her hand, and she hadn’t been accused of any of them. “There was a florist who disappeared without a trace shortly after her family’s business was bought out from under her. A monument maker was found bludgeoned to death with a slab of marble. And then, who could possibly forget the casket maker found dead in his workshop, slender pieces of pine trim used to fashion crucifixes then skewered into his eyes.”

“Jesus,” went one host.

“Christ,” went the other.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Needless to say, the local police force was quite … how shall I say … motivated.”

“But you were acquitted.”

A chuckle. “Of the crimes against my grandfather, yes. There was reasonable doubt in the courtroom, but the court of public opinion isn’t subject to the same exacting standard.”

“Why do you think the public wanted to see you take the fall?”

Another chuckle. “North Shore Township has never looked fondly upon Foreman women. I have my brothers to thank for that. I can’t really blame them … they were just following in the footsteps of Patriarchs Past.”

“Yes. The decades-long smear campaign.”

“That’s putting it lightly, I think. Not much time has passed since men were burning women like us at the stake, you know.”

“We haven’t even talked about the haunted house yet,” said one of the hosts. Mary could practically hear her air quotes around the word haunted.

“Why are true crime aficionados so reluctant to believe in the supernatural?”

Before either host could answer her mother’s question, Mary tore her headphones from her ears, threw them onto the cracked concrete, and tossed her head back. She tuned out the muffled exchange still emanating from the headphones, resisting her mind’s urge to recall the remainder of the conversation from memory.

The Disciples’ proclivity for the deranged. Longstanding rumors of the young Foremans practicing their skills on farm animals. Peter’s unwavering desire to safeguard the family legacy while struggling to ensure his younger brothers didn’t squander it. Sarah was quick to lean into the most obvious example. While Peter was the shining star of his Funeral Services program, Mark had flunked out and John had failed the entrance psychiatric evaluation. So, with Peter’s blessing, Mark settled on business and John on law—the least they could do to ensure the family’s business ventures prospered, their trust remained ironclad, and they collectively avoided incarceration.

But Mary had heard all of that before. The rumors about her uncles’ involvement in the North Shore’s criminal underbelly ran deep—as deep as the rumors surrounding the men that’d come before them. But even if there was some credence to those claims, Mary didn’t buy her mother’s I didn’t have a choice narrative. Leaving Providence was a choice. So was leaving her only daughter behind in the haunted house with the raven in the basement. The same one that Mary was staring at now.

A smorgasbord of products had been used over the years to try and strip the raven from the wall; the one that’d been “painted” with Isaac Foreman’s blood and bodily fluids. They’d used bleach, trisodium phosphate, CLR, and acid. And yet, against all reasonable explanation—not to mention the laws of basic chemistry—the raven remained. Even now, decades later, the bird’s faint outline was illuminated by the hazy stream of moonlight trickling in through the window along the back wall reinforced with rusted bars. While Isaac Foreman’s remains had long been cleaned up, the mark on the floor where his corpse was discovered endured, too, like a ketchup stain on a white T-shirt.

Mary moved her head from side to side. The rigor was setting in. Struggling to stand, she reached for a nearby hunk of twisted metal to pull herself up. The sterile silver mound was cold to the touch, and she wondered what it was, back when it served a purpose. Perhaps it was a workbench, or a table—something that held a body, or the tools used to deconstruct one. But a sudden movement in the space behind her knocked her off balance, transforming a stack of boxes into dominoes, and they tumbled over until there was nothing left to fall. In the almost darkness, Mary surveyed the destruction—boxes of mangled metal, deranged turkey-baster-like devices, and loads of magazines. She crouched down and shuffled through the stack, eyeing the titles The Mortician’s Monthly and The Hearse addressed to one Hazel Jones of Glenville Court in Houghton.

“Hazel …” Mary whispered into the darkness, attempting to conjure a connection.

Even though she couldn’t place the name, a vision of Hazel took hold in her mind: a secretary at the funeral home, perhaps? Ordered to have the monthlies shipped to her home address so she could iron them before providing them to Mr. Foreman (whichever one was at the helm at the time). Hazel would stride into his office with her puffed sleeves and A-line skirt, her winged eyeliner and fancy bob that bounced when her feet hit the—

Knock, knock, knock.

Mary looked up at the ceiling, letting the hollow thuds fall around her. Instead of deciphering the raps, she turned her attention back to The Hearse. Familiar only with the periodic likes of Vogue and Chatelaine, she couldn’t imagine the sorts of articles and advertisements to grace the pages of these tattered monthlies from a bygone era. Leaving the burden of cleaning up the mess to her future self, Mary stuffed what she could back into the nearest box, hiked it up into her hands, and dashed upstairs.

In the kitchen, Mary tossed the box onto the floor and strode toward the sink. She reached for the mug she’d used earlier that morning, poured out the stale coffee lingering at the bottom, rinsed it quickly, and topped herself up with the opened bottle of red wine on the counter. Liquid courage in hand, Mary plucked a copy of The Hearse from the box and sat down to enjoy a magazine “devoted to the higher education of funeral directors and embalmers.” Devouring the issue, Mary couldn’t help but imagine her ancestors’ acquisitions at trade shows past. Perhaps they were on a first-name basis with the folks at Ithaca Casket Co., making bi-annual visits to their showrooms, taking the train from Toronto to New York. There was something oddly enchanting about imagining them, sitting in the dining car, trading hurried glances and hushed words.

Mary nearly had her fill of early twentieth-century arterial embalming instruments when she found them, buried at the bottom of the box: a lone front page of the Houghton Chronicle fastened together with what appeared to be a parishioners’ bulletin from St. Peter’s church, back when it was still standing. She pulled the bulletin from the rusted paper clip’s death grip and held it up to the light.

Friends,
As I’m sure you all know, our dear friend and Sister, Josephine, was reported missing in last week’s Houghton Chronicle. For the past few days, local police have been investigating on the suspicion of foul play. I understand that several of you have been questioned by law enforcement, and I thank you for your cooperation with their well-intentioned investigation. However, you all know as well as I how much this town likes its gossip (not the parishioners of St. Peter’s, though, of course!). I am writing to you today to confirm what I’ve told some of you in passing, and what I’ve told police several times now: Sister Josephine has not “disappeared,” she is not “missing,” and there is nothing “foul” about the reasons for her departure from our Shores.

In the weeks leading up to her leaving her post as headmistress at St. Joseph’s School for Girls, she confided in me about her desire to pilgrimage. While I was supposed to drop her off at the train station to make her way to Toronto, I suddenly fell ill. Our dear friend Matthew Foreman, who we trust with carriage of our bodies to their final earthly resting places, brought her there instead. What’s been reported in the Houghton Chronicle and the rumors milled in small circles of this town can, therefore, only be described as salacious conjecture. Upon her return, we will host a dinner here at St. Peter’s, and we look forward to breaking bread with you all at that time.

Yours in faith and in prayer,
Reverend Father John Bennett

Mary carefully placed the bulletin on the table, far enough away from her coffee mug in the unfortunate event it spontaneously combusted. She couldn’t risk another gin-cident. For a moment, she ignored the reference to Matthew Foreman, another in a long line of North Shore undertakers, and turned her attention to the page from the Chronicle.

Mary caressed the fragile page, her eyes darting back and forth across the headline: “Headmistress Missing.” The tone of the article was vastly different from the St. Peter’s bulletin and made her doubt Father Bennett’s claims of “salacious conjecture.” It’s not like the Houghton Chronicle was fake news. Quite the contrary: the paper had a storied history of employing professionally trained, politically agnostic journalists with personalities akin to watching paint dry. Likewise, the article was a bland recitation of the facts: Sister Josephine was reported missing by one of the school’s janitorial staff when he found her living quarters ransacked (well, in “a state of disarray,” was what Sister Helen, second in command, was quoted as saying). Mary tore through the rest of the article, about how the graduation ceremony initially delayed on account of her disappearance was tentatively rescheduled for—

“Figures.” She sighed, realizing that the tale continued on a page she didn’t have. On the reverse side of the page in her hands was no more than a series of classifieds for Manitoulin Island’s Berg & Sons, purveyors of fine pine. Still, Mary itched for more: more about the disappearance of Sister Josephine that complicated the Class of 1928’s graduation activities, including the very time capsule that would be extracted in T-minus—

Mary gasped. “Jesus.” It was just after 10:30 p.m. If she wanted to look human tomorrow, she’d need to hit the—

Ping.

Mary reached for her phone and read the tardy reply to the text she’d sent long before the fundraising dinner debacle.

Hey

While she couldn’t remember the name of “Bar Guy,” she couldn’t forget his exacting gaze, his chiseled jaw, and his impressive lexicon. A man of this caliber was an endangered species on the North Shore. If she hadn’t fled his Airbnb before sunrise, she probably would’ve woken up to the sound of breakfast sausage sizzling and bread being toasted crisp, an oversized crew neck he’d thoughtfully laid out beside her so that she’d feel com—

Woosh.

Mill Yard?

Mary weighed her options. If she told Bar Guy no, he’d be unlikely to message again. On the other hand, if she made a public appearance, she risked being accosted about the fundraising dinner. But she couldn’t hide away forever. She had needs. Besides, even though it was getting late, she wasn’t capable of sleep. There wasn’t enough melatonin on the face of planet Earth to quell the intrusive thoughts swirling in her mind; the will the North Shore ever wake up? ricocheting in her ears. Her best chance at peace was a stiff drink (or seven) and Bar Guy’s—

Just one drink.

“One drink can’t hurt,” she said aloud to no one.

An exaggerated moan carried down from upstairs, followed by another series of knocks. There were long ones and short ones that didn’t mean much in isolation, but their collective impact was particularly passive-aggressive.

-×-- × ×××

×× -

-×-× ×- -×

Yes, it can.

“Oh, shut it, Ms. Morse,” Mary maligned, pounding her thumbs. She’d had enough of the dead for one day.

See you soon.

CHAPTER 3

I’M ALREADY HAUNTED

The night before the ceremony, Mary dreamed of teeth.

Strapped down to a dentist’s chair, her limbs were bound by something that clinked when she moved. Chains, perhaps? Blindfolded, she could feel the chair’s staticky plastic cover beneath her bare legs. Scents of formaldehyde, clove, and acrylic wafted into her nose as the shrill sound of oscillating instruments and the scaling of plaque pierced the quiet. “We’ll keep our teeth, too?” Was that Mark? Or Shania? When something cold and metallic slipped beneath her tongue, the dental office disappeared in favor of a familiar classroom.

Mary stood, cold and naked, clutching a meter stick in front of blank faces with buttons for eyes and zippers for lips. Her heart clamoring inside her chest, she attempted to reel in her button-eyed and zipper-mouthed students clad in white blouses and crimson checked kilts. But instead of heeding her instructions, they pointed, laughed, and called out to her like her classmates used to—Mary, Mary, quite contrary—while her teeth rained down on the cracked tile floor, one by one, like Chiclets.

With no teeth left to lose, Mary soared on a current of hollow screams to a familiar gift shop in Niagara. Suddenly, she was ten years old again, standing among throngs of plush sea creatures tossed in large wooden crates. Her sunburned thighs stuck together, and her forehead was damp with sweat—or was it water from the orca show? Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up toward a display of necklaces and reached for a pointed tooth strung up on a piece of black rope.

“Don’t worry,” said the teenaged boy restocking the keychain display beside her. He must’ve been able to sense the fear-laden question perched on the tip of her tongue: was the shark hurt? “Sharks shed their teeth.”

“Shed?”

He nodded. “Just like a snake sheds its skin.”

Beaming, Mary plucked the shark tooth necklace from the rack. She had to have it as a souvenir—just like the fridge magnet of the Falls and the maple leaf-shaped bottle of syrup tucked inside her motel room closet.

When the woman behind the cash register asked her if she’d found what she was looking for, she nodded. For once, she had. Wallet in hand, she looked back up from her sparkly pink purse. But it wasn’t the saleslady behind the cash register anymore. It was her mother.

“Mary,” she cried, arms out at her sides, like she was preparing for a long-awaited embrace.

But before Mary could find safety in her mother’s embrace, her mother’s skin turned molten, and a fuming fault line appeared in the gift shop floor. With the sound of a judge’s gavel radiating through space and time, the plates pulled apart to reveal a set of sharp fangs. Before the hungry earth could swallow her whole, Mary woke drenched in cold sweat with the biting surfaces of her teeth fused together.

Rising from bed, she realized she hadn’t thought of her trip to the Falls in years; not since the T-shirt Grandma Hannah bought at Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks became rags used to spit-shine silver. Still, she opened the creaky drawer of her bedside table and fished around for the shark tooth necklace. Unable to locate it among what she knew to be a still-shrink-wrapped devotional and her broken vibrator (rest in peace), she drifted back toward sleep, wondering if the shark was still alive—swimming through the darkness of the ocean—or whether it was dead, its corpse rotting at the bottom of the sea.

The man had overstayed his welcome.

Awoken by a loon call shortly after sunrise, Mary half-expected him to be gone. But there he was—butt naked, snug as a bug, snoring like a fucking freight train. Not soon after the allure of his chest had worn off, a gnawing panic settled in. The pounding in her head and the moss growing on her tongue were telltale signs she’d had one too many, but the fuzzy spots in her memory were the least of her concerns. Inviting a man back to Foreman House was one thing, but letting him stay? Resisting the overwhelming urge to smother Bar Guy with a pillow to put them both out of their misery, she’d instead done the hospitable thing and tiptoed downstairs to put on a pot of coffee.

That was an hour ago. Now, the coffee was long cold, and her already non-existent patience was long gone. As the coffee churned in her unsettled gut, the night flashed before her eyes in a series of blurred bursts—tequila shots and whisky sours, forfeited pool games, sloppy kisses with a tad too much tongue. She couldn’t remember much, but she could’ve sworn Bar Guy was employed. Yet here she was, shortly before 7:00 a.m. on a miserable Monday morning, wondering if she’d be late for work. Again.

A crash-bang echoed above her, and a series of muffled expletives filtered down through the stairwell. Mary quickly returned to the kitchen table, cradling her empty coffee cup to feign absentminded morning bliss.

“My apologies,” the man said, running into the kitchen with his shirt only partly buttoned, the bottom half ballooning out like a cape. “I overslept.”

You don’t say …

“No worries,” Mary replied, even though she meant neither word. Searching for her next ones, she caught the man’s bright green eyes landing on the decrepit coffee pot, its cracked plastic handle stuck to the carafe with packing tape. “I can nuke it if you want?”

The man shook his head. “I’ll grab Tims on my way to the office.”

Office. Thank God.

In the light of morning, she couldn’t help but notice the strange softness to the structured lines of his jaw and the curve of his smile and … Stop it, went the voice inside her head. We’re not doing this again. Bar Guy was a means to an end. She had no interest in a relationship. Not with him. Not with anyone.

“Wow,” Bar Guy gasped, wide-eyed. He scanned the room with the same intensity he’d scanned her body the night prior. “This place is like a time warp.”

That was one way to put it. Mary wondered if Grandma Hannah had maintained the status quo out of a desire for historic preservation or complete and utter laziness: the warped floors, kissed by the sun and stained with red wine; the bespoke wallpaper, embossed with the family’s crest, fractured and peeling like tree bark; and the dated glassware, mismatched and chipped, any and all significance it once held lost to time.

“I hope I didn’t throw a wrench into things,” the man said, running his hands through his auburn hair. “I know you have places to be.”

Mary shook her head. “Lots of time,” she lied. “Houghton’s not too far.”

“For some reason, I thought you’d be wearing a uniform,” he said, leaning up against the harvest gold stove. Mary doubted the man meant for the movement to be suggestive, but it was. She thought back to the night before, her skin still tingling from where his lips had traced the contours of her body.

“You couldn’t pay me to put on that kilt again.” She laughed, trying to distract herself.

“Fair enough,” he replied.

A long pause fell between them.

“So,” he said, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. “Last night was fun.”

She nodded.

A wave of disappointment washed over the man’s face. Perhaps he’d been hoping for a rave review. “Well,” he said, biting his lower lip. Mary watched as his anticipation turned to disillusionment. Perhaps he’d hoped there’d be time for round two. “I best be going. I hope everything goes well today.”

“Huh?”

“With the time capsule?”

Why had she brought it up? There was plenty else to talk about: soaring gas prices, the stock market, the weather. Not that she remembered them doing much talking …

“Thanks,” she said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Another pause.

“So, when can I see you again?” he asked, clearly unable to take the hint. “Could I take you to dinner?”

Every neuron in Mary’s brain was firing “no,” but it really was slim pickings in Providence. She could do much worse than someone with good hair, excellent bone structure, and a steady paycheck. So, despite her better judgement, she settled on a reluctant maybe.

“I’ll take it,” he said, inching nearer to the front door. “It was nice to see you again, Mary.”

“You too, uh …”

Unfazed, the man dipped toward her and pressed his lips against her cheek. The sweetness of the gesture paralyzed her—that and the familiar scent of Irish Spring.

“Tom. Tom Pearson,” he said as he slowly pulled away.

Leaving Mary to wallow in embarrassment, Tom opened the front door and let himself out. Looking out at Sellers Park, Mary watched him stop dead in his tracks and spin around, gazing up at the grand old house and gawking.

“Jesus Christ. Are you—”

“A Foreman?” She scoffed.

Tom gulped.

“There’s some sage inside if you’d like to cleanse yourself.” She snickered, even though she wasn’t the least bit amused. Local men were all the same: once they found out who she was (and what she was, by association), they ran for the hills. She commanded the disappointed sliver of herself to get a grip. She’d said it herself. She wasn’t going to do this again. Besides, she had bigger problems to worry about than men assuming her afflictions were contagious.

“Was it gifted?”

“Huh?” Mary asked, visibly thrown by Tom’s question.

“The sage.”

Mary’s chest constricted. She didn’t have time for this. “Do you want it or not?”

The sound that exited Tom’s mouth was caught between a chuckle and a whimper.

“It’d be wasted on me,” he said, his head hanging low.

The three words that followed were so faint that Mary lingered on the porch and debated whether she’d misheard. But when Tom was nearly out of sight, she gave him a meagre wave and wondered what he could’ve possibly meant by I’m already haunted.

Mary darted up the gravel drive with her chin glued to her chest.

She weaved her way through the throngs of students loitering on the front steps, ignoring obvious uniform infractions and the occasional one-hitter. At her old Toronto prep school teaching job, she wouldn’t have thought twice about sending someone to the principal’s office for a misplaced shirttail, let alone underaged smoking. But not too long ago, she’d sat on these very steps: kilt rolled way too high, shirttails hanging out, a cigarette perched between red lips with gnawed-on fingernails painted black. Mary couldn’t possibly harp on these girls. Not here, not now. To call out their transgressions would be to accrue a kismet debt she couldn’t afford.

Just like their wrongdoings, Mary ignored their whispers, fueled by last night’s fundraising dinner: their hushed “there were intestines” and “Crummey puked on the stage.” As she hurried up the steps, the sea of girls parted to make way. The students always kept a comfortable distance, not because of her faculty status but because they (like everyone else) thought her curse was communicable. It’s why the desks in the front row of all her classes were decidedly empty. The girls knew better than to get too close. She wondered what the scientific community would name her pathogen. Para-not-normal-enza?

A shrill bell erupted from inside the school, the sound carrying out the open front door and down the steps. Informed of their lateness, the girls sprang into action, tucking in their shirttails and stuffing their contraband into their bras where they knew it would be safe.

“Ms. Foreman!”

Mary spun on her heels to find a cellphone hurled in her face.

“How are you feeling?”

If the question had come from any other student, Mary would’ve responded with “fine”—even though she wasn’t. But Jessica Stewart was Editor in Chief of the school’s newspaper, and Mary knew that whatever exited her mouth would be featured in whatever article she planned to pen about today’s events. Even though Mary had accepted it would be nearly impossible to extricate herself from the time capsule narrative, she was still going to try.

“No comment,” Mary replied, waving the phone from her face.

“Really?” Jessica started. “You must have something to say about last night?”

How had Jessica found out? Perhaps her father, Evan, was in attendance. Mary was grateful she hadn’t run into him. That was a blast from the past she had no interest in enduring. Mary tried to shake the you freak ringing in her ears and tried to ignore how her teeth throbbed, thinking of his birthday party all those years ago. Of course her return to the Curling Club would be ill-fated. It was silly to expect anything else. “I’ll see you in class, Ms. Stewart.”

After bidding the brown-nosing weasel adieu, Mary turned back over her shoulder and gazed out over the grounds. When her eyes landed on the towering pine at the west edge of the lot, her eyebrow inched toward her hairline. Where was the crow? Each morning it sat there, mute, as the rhythm of life swelled around it: the ding-dong-ding of the school bell, the national anthem—forever flat—and the mundanity of morning prayer. The bird’s peculiar silence would continue through morning, when the huffing and puffing of PT filled the grounds, the shrill snap of rulers on blackboards filtered through windows, and the harsh screech of string instruments echoed in the overgrown back garden. The bird would disappear around noon and return just before the bell signaled the day’s end, when the girls disappeared into yellow school buses driven by drivers who wished they were elsewhere, shuttled back to every corner of North Shore Township.

But today, the crow was nowhere to be found.

As quickly as the thought registered, it evaporated, and Mary found herself reaching for the front door of St. Joseph’s School for Girls. Before she could grasp the tarnished brass handle, the door swung open from the other side. Even though there was no one around, Mary grabbed the handle as quickly as she could, guiding the door open as the ghost crossed the threshold. No one else could see the ghost, of course—not its sunken, bloodshot eyes or the way the noose hung limp around its bent, bruised neck—but anyone could see the door open. Mary had warned the school’s ghosts countless times to be careful with their movements, but they never heeded her warnings. The dead had bigger problems than the living’s suspicions, like being stuck on the North Shore, for starters.

“Morning, Noose,” Mary muttered, deadpan.

When the frayed rope grazed the side of Mary’s thigh and the ghost’s icy hand touched her forearm, a familiar scene played out in Mary’s head: tears streaming down cheeks, a shaky chair, a boiler room rafter, a heavy, frayed rope. Mary shook her head to dislodge Noose’s memory from her mind and continued forward. Just like she didn’t have time to remind Noose to be careful when opening the front doors, she didn’t have time to look back. Not today. Noose tightened her grip as if to say, I have more to show you, but Mary pulled her arm away. She was too hungover to concern herself with Noose’s persistence this morning, just as she was with the whereabouts of some stupid bird. But as her block heels met the freshly waxed tile and the ghost disappeared into a fine mist, the crow crept back into her mind. Not because she cared in the slightest, but because she knew the women who’d walked these halls before her would’ve thought differently.

If there was one thing Foreman women loved, it was a sign.

Vice-Principal Crummey called the ceremony to order at half-past eleven.

“We are gathered here—”

With feedback swelling around him, Crummey paused dramatically with his pointer finger raised and let the painful screeching subside.

“We are gathered here today as part of Houghton’s centennial celebrations to bear witness to a monumental moment in North Shore Township’s history. Years ago, members of the Class of 1928 buried a time capsule to commemorate their graduation from these hallowed halls.”

Mary rolled her eyes. There was nothing hallowed about these halls. Haunted, maybe—but not hallowed. Mary looked up and out into the distance, where St. Joseph’s School for Girls stood. Even now, in direct sunlight, the gothic stone structure was swathed in shadows. The perpetual darkness that covered the school was a phenomenon that no one could explain, and yet everyone seemed to overlook.

Crummey continued, pausing every so often on account of the incessant feedback the sound man couldn’t tame. “Today, the time capsule will be removed from the earth and its contents displayed for all to see. To help us celebrate, we’ve invited several friends of the school to partake in today’s festivities. From left to right, we have four of our-oh-so-appreciated school board trustees, and the lifeblood of this institution, Mr. Foreman.”

Mark. The angel investor. Ensuring the faculty’s wildest dreams came true: new sinks for Mr. Maldon’s science lab, new brass instruments for Mrs. Lefebvre’s concert band, and freshly laid sod to elevate the girls’ athletic performance and the school’s overall aesthetic. No matter the ask, it was Mark Foreman to the rescue. When Mary asked why he’d taken more of an interest in her alma mater than his own, he’d just chuckled and said, “I owe it to them, after Sarah besmirched their good name.” The faculty didn’t fight him on it. Why would they? Disregarding the rumors that surrounded him was a small price to pay for his limitless credit card. Perhaps if Mary had pockets as deep as his, the students and faculty would disregard her afflictions and welcome her with open arms, too.

“With that, please join me in giving our esteemed guests a warm St. Joseph’s welcome.”

The girls’ applause was weak at best. Their second-rate cheers oozed boredom and repudiation until Crummey shot them his signature glare. The girls quickly picked up the pace and tossed in a few hoots and hollers for good measure. Seemingly appeased by their feigned enthusiasm, Crummey continued his remarks.

“If you’d all indulge me for just a moment,” he said, as if nothing he’d uttered before had been an indulgence. “As you know, we’ve had a new faculty member join us this year. A St. Joseph’s graduate, at that!”

Fuck me.

“Ms. Foreman, why don’t you give us a wave?”

Mary quickly raised her hand until it was just parallel with her ear.

“Fun fact! Ms. Foreman’s great-grandmother was responsible for the time capsule’s burial,” Crummey said with an exaggerated smile. “Isn’t that something? A true legacy.”

Instead of meeting Crummey’s expectant gaze, Mary looked over his shoulder at her Uncle Mark. Even though his lips were curled up into a smile, she knew he was fuming. Men had a monopoly on the family’s good press and she was disrupting the status quo. Even though last night’s debacle had put a healthy dose of blood in the water, she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to stick it to him. So, she raised her hand higher and gave the crowd a royal wave, relishing the way Mark’s eyes seized with disdain.

“Ms. Foreman,” Crummey continued, reaching for the shovel propped up against the makeshift podium. “Will you do us the great honor?”

Mary debated protesting, but Mark had paid a pretty penny to have the new sod laid in the soccer field a few weeks prior—a fulfilment date the landscaping company couldn’t change. So, with the weight of a hundred blank stares on her back, Mary stood, and her world see-sawed. Of all days, went the nagging voice inside her head. You simply had to be hungover for this one.

At the podium, Mary reached for the shovel, eager to ruin Mark’s grass. It was heavier than she expected, and she swayed—for real, this time. Crummey reached out to assist, but she waved him off. Why was he always trying to help her? What could he possibly see in her that even now, after all this time and all the water under the bridge, he still cared enough to lend a hand?

“Careful there,” said Crummey, just loud enough for the mic to pick up.

Mary waved him off again, this time with a half-smile. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

“Splendid,” Crummey said, turning back to the mic. “Are we ready?”

Silence.

Crummey cleared his throat. “I said: are we ready?”

When the students erupted in another bout of mediocre cheers, Mary thrust the shovel into the damp sod and pushed it deeper with the sole of her shoe, over and over again. As soon as she heard a hollow thud, Crummey appeared over her shoulder and waved her off with a sincere thank you. But even though her services were no longer required, something told her to stay.

It all happened so fast: Crummey stealing a quick peek inside the capsule, the shovel falling from her hands, the rot wafting into her nose, the bile burning at the back of her throat. Despite the existing narrative, there were no envelopes in the box—no letters penned by the graduates about the futures they saw for themselves on the North Shore. Instead, there was a skull and there was a rosary. But this rosary was different.

This one was made of teeth.

“Police!” screamed Crummey, fighting off a gag. “Call the police.”

While the crowd was flailing about, a sea of gaping mouths trying to locate jaws among the freshly laid sod, Mary was still as a statue—her gaze fixed on the skull and teeth in the time capsule buried by a fucking Foreman. She didn’t know if she was seeing things, but of one thing she was certain: in the commotion, the crow had appeared, perched on one of the rusted goalposts. Turning to face it, darkness creeping in from the periphery of her vision and her legs turning to Jell-O, the bird opened its beak and, for the very first time, it sang. It was a classic croak, throaty and hoarse, that pierced the air like the school bell earlier that morning, calling the students to order. But this call was different, Mary thought, as her body lurched left and her whole world went black. That’s a call to arms.

Despite the dirt-packed scrapes on her palms and the gash in her jeans where the shovel’s edge had met her leg, Mary didn’t understand why Sister Claudia insisted on observing her. Surely what they’d discovered in the time capsule was a reasonable enough explanation for passing out. She didn’t need a physical. All she needed was hydrogen peroxide, a few Band-Aids, and a beer.

Mary tore the lukewarm ice pack from her throbbing forehead, set it down on the examination table beside her, and started eyeing up the blood pressure cuff boa-constricting around her bicep. She wanted it gone.

“Ah!” Sister Claudia scolded, like she could read Mary’s mind. “Leave it be.”

Mary diverted her gaze with an exaggerated sigh. There was no getting out of this one.

“Trust in me like you trust in him.”

“Yes, Sister Claudia.”

“God heals all wounds, Mary. Remember that.”

“Like the bruise that’ll be on my arm from that … thing?”

“Oh, hush hush,” she said, in her signature singsong, the hills are alive type way.

Sister Claudia was the only remaining nun employed at St. Joseph’s. While the school retained its connection to the Church, the presence of the clergy on staff had consistently dwindled as the nuns encountered one of the three r’s: reassignment, retirement, or resurrection.

“There we go.”

The blood pressure cuff finally released its death grip, and Mary sighed in relief.

Sister Claudia looked down at the reading, and her face crinkled up. “Much too low,” she said, tearing the cuff from Mary’s bicep with the screech of medical-grade Velcro. The nun waddled toward the minifridge in the back corner and pulled out a juice box. “Here,” she insisted, thrusting it in Mary’s direction. “Drink this and, with his grace, you’ll be better in no time.”

Mary flipped the juice box over to check its best-before date. She didn’t need to put any more questionable fluids in her body. Her organs were already working overtime.

“If I may be so bold,” Sister Claudia started, taking her seat on the stool in front of the examination table. “How is your grandmother faring these days?”

Mary was mid-gulp when Sister Claudia asked, and she forced the drink down, even though her instinct was to spit it up. Despite the shred of hope the letter had provided, talking about her grandmother’s condition made her immensely uncomfortable—borderline nauseated. She’d spent nearly every waking moment since Grandma Hannah’s diagnosis oscillating between denial and anger. Thanks to her mother, Mary had always found grief unpalatable. Acceptance was always on a distant horizon—the closer she got to it, the further the goalpost drifted away. “Did you know her well?”

Sister Claudia shook her head. “Not very. My mind’s not what it used to be. But, if memory serves me right, there was some overlap in our time at St. Joseph’s. Before we went our separate ways, of course.”

You could say that again, Mary thought. While the townspeople’s version of events lacked the nuance the situation deserved, as far as the folks on the North Shore were concerned, Sister Claudia had taken the path to heaven, and Grandma Hannah took the one straight to hell. A winding road filled with Ouija boards and talismans and hexes. But Mary knew Grandma Hannah had accepted her fate—welcomed it, even. I can’t wait to meet Satan, she’d said after two glasses too many. I’m certain he’s a softy compared to the three devils I brought into this world.

“Even still,” Sister Claudia continued, tugging at the hem of her top and pulling Mary back to the present. “You know as well as I how—”

“Incestuous?”

Sister Claudia’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. To Mary’s surprise, the old bat overlooked an obvious opportunity to reprimand her about word choice.

“Small,” the nun insisted after clearing her throat. “I was going to say that you know as well as I how small St. Joseph’s can be. You don’t have to be in the same class or even the same circle of friends to feel like you know someone here.”

Mary had always hated that dynamic of the school. The divisions between grades and cliques were fierce and yet there was a shared misery amongst the schoolgirls. “You’re not wrong,” Mary said. “But, to your question, my grandmother is doing … as well as could be expected.”

“It’s a fierce disease,” Sister Claudia said solemnly. “We both know I’m biased, but the Manor is a lovely home. Your grandmother is in the very best hands and continues to benefit from regular sacraments. Father Seabrook is so committed to the residents.”

Mary’s chest constricted to suppress her laugh. Father Charles Seabrook wasn’t committed. That man needed to be committed.

“Are you retired from Huron Manor now, Sister?” Mary asked, picking at the dried blood on her knee as Sister Claudia hurried about the room.

“Indeed! But I still pick up the occasional volunteer shift, typically in hospice. A non-practicing role, of course, but it still scratches the itch. It won’t come as a shock to anyone, but true retirement never suited me. I’ve always been called to a life of service, Mary. Between my few days here, helping the students, and my few days at the Manor, caring for my comrades in elderly arms, I’m quite content.”

If I’m still working in my nineties, someone better shoot me …

“Better?”

Mary jolted back. Sister Claudia’s face was so close to hers that she could see the grey whiskers on her upper lip and her makeup settling into the deep folds in her forehead. Mary cleared her throat. “Yes,” Mary squeaked. “Much better.”

“Blessed be,” Sister Claudia cheered, rolling back her stool. “Lucky for you, your color is back to normal and those eyes of yours look much livelier. You’re free to go.”

“That’s good news,” Mary said, shifting on the table, the paper crinkling beneath her seat again. And even though she was still a bit hesitant to ask, she’d debated the issue long enough. “Sister: do you know what happened after …”

Sister Claudia’s right hand floated from her forehead, down to her chest, and then over and across each shoulder.

That bad, huh?

“I can’t say for certain,” she whispered, as if keeping things hush-hush would make matters less blasphemous. “I believe the administration has cleared campus and the police have been called in. The rumors are already swirling down the Shore, I bet.”

Mary thought back to the ceremony: to the cheers and the time capsule and the screams and … instinctively, she reached toward her chest. As her fingertips traced the spot where the shark tooth pendant once hung from her neck, the words of the teenaged boy re-stocking the keychain display at Marine Land echoed in her mind. Sharks shed their teeth, went his voice, leaving Mary to wonder if the skull in the time capsule had shed its teeth, too.

CHAPTER 4

A Reason to Stay

Huron Manor reeked of certain death.

It had the same stature and ambiance as the school where Mary had buried secrets and, earlier that morning, unearthed others: spires and tracery, incessant ivy that refused to surrender its hold, and enough crumbling brickwork to keep the local masonry busy for time immemorial. Mary suspected it was the most sought-after retirement residence on the North Shore for the same reason she’d brought Bar Guy back to Foreman House against her better judgement. Beggars couldn’t be choosers when choices were few and far between.

Mary pulled into one of the vacant visitor parking spots and threw her rusted Honda Civic into park. She gazed up at the building, toward the small windows she knew to be the administration’s offices. She suspected there was chaos behind the drawn curtains. Even though the Manor didn’t have human remains on their hands like St. Joseph’s did, they had to be in damage control mode, too. The Manor was waiting with bated breath for an “unprecedentedly large” donation from Peter’s fundraising dinner that may never materialize.

In the shadowy silence, Mary sank further into her stained seat and tried not to dwell on the time capsule. And to think the specter of finding a bunch of letters in that godforsaken box had thrown her uncles into a tizzy. Who would’ve thought? Mary suspected Peter would’ve given a kidney in exchange for Crummey finding a letter penned by dear old Anne. There wasn’t anything she could’ve written that would’ve done as much damage as the skull. The teeth. Mary reached toward the glovebox—the place she’d hidden Grandma Hannah’s letter that’d summoned her home. Just like she’d listened to her mother’s podcast appearance, she’d read Grandma Hannah’s desperate plea so many times that she’d memorized it—the way the looping cursive felt beneath her fingertips, a series of mountainous ridges and cavernous divots on a brittle, wide-ruled sheet of paper.

I know I told you to leave and made you promise you’d never return. But that was then. This is now. It’s happening again. I can feel it in my bones. The destruction. The rot. It’s just like last time: right before the tar and the feathers and the blood … so much blood. You need to break the tether. You need to make it right. You can save our home, Mary. You can free your mother from the chains of suspicion that continue to bind her, just as you can free me from the weight of carrying this on my own. I know you can. You’re the only one left.
You have the power. You always have.
Foreman House needs you.
Your mother needs you.
I need you …

When she’d returned to Providence, Mary was certain that she’d have enough time to get a handle on Grandma Hannah’s ask. Foreman House had been on the market for months, and Peter was still in the door-to-door canvassing stage of his campaign. But that was then. The fundraising dinner and the time capsule had changed everything. There’s no way the Disciples would continue extending her the favor of residing in Foreman House now. Her mother’s podcast appearance was an operable tumor, but the soup course? The time capsule? Those were metastatic. The Foreman family’s disease was now terminal, and any hope she’d had of being the cure for Peter’s ailing mayoral campaign was long gone.

Mary debated turning her rustbucket back on and heading east on Highway 17 until she hit 69; until the two lanes turned into four; until she found herself back in the soul-sucking concrete jungle she’d fled after finding out that her fiancé was just like the rest of them. But she couldn’t do that. There was nothing for her there. No partner. No job. No home. Besides, Toronto was far too expensive for her broke ass. Perhaps she could settle for Sudbury. The Big Nickle wasn’t far enough for her the first time, but it was cheaper; smaller than the Big Smoke, but still large enough to get lost in. All she really needed was a few hundred kilometers between her and the Disciples. All she needed was …

No. You came home for a reason.

Mary tore into the glovebox and extracted the letter, running her fingers over her grandmother’s words. And in that moment, Mary said aloud what was poised to become a silent mantra: so long as Grandma Hannah was breathing and Foreman House was standing, there was a reason to stay.

A reason to try.

Mary returned the letter to the glovebox, slipped out of her car, and darted past a handful of old bats sitting in wheelchairs on the front stoop, their faces obscured by shadows. She entered the sterile light of the Manor with a ding-dong-ding and thrust her hand under the hand sanitizer dispenser. Before she could even think of scribbling something on the sign-in sheet, the receptionist removed the telephone from her ear and propped it between her chin and collarbone.

“Hi there.”

Mary didn’t recognize the perky blonde. But, then again, she usually came to the Manor well after dinnertime, long after the day shift turned into the night. “Hello,” Mary replied, reaching for the sign-in sheet on the counter. “I’m here to see Hannah Foreman.”

“And you are?”

Mary felt a seismic shift. She couldn’t go anywhere in North Shore Township without being recognized. Even if someone didn’t know her, they sure as hell knew Sarah or Hannah. Was the receptionist setting up a punchline? Preparing for Mary to be the butt of yet another joke? Recent events made her a particularly easy target. There was no way this woman didn’t know who she was. Anonymity always alluded her on the North Shore.

“Mary,” she said hesitantly. “Mary Foreman.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Foreman.”

The genuine sparkle in the receptionist’s eye sent Mary reeling. In all her years on these shores, her name had never elicited a reaction like that. Where were the wide eyes? The slinking backward to ensure sufficient distance? Mary felt like she was living in an alternate reality. A dream state. It reminded her of the first time she’d met Dale. She could still remember the lightness of it: his outstretched hand, his cheerful smile, his unencumbered It’s nice to meet you, Mary Foreman … It was intoxicating. It’s no wonder they were engaged within a year. He’d given her all she’d ever wanted: freedom from her inheritance. It’s why she’d been so inclined to look past his faults; to ignore the insidious signs that pointed to infidelity.

“Are you new in town?” Mary asked, booting thoughts of her failed engagement away.

“It’s my first week,” the receptionist clarified, handing over Mary’s visitor pass in a way that oozed purpose.

Mary looped the lanyard around her neck. “The North Shore is a lovely place,” she lied.

Once she was clear of the reception desk, Mary tore past the dining area, strode through the library, and dashed into the drawing room. Like always, Grandma Hannah was perched next to the picture window, staring out at the pines. Even though the doctors insisted her wits were long gone, she still looked like she had them. Hell, she looked as though she had some to spare for the poor souls peppering the vast space, drooling profusely or barely breathing. Her silver hair was perfectly permed, her lips expertly lined, and her rainbow tweed blazer with its exaggerated shoulder pads screamed corporate—not committed.

Ignoring the pesky lump forming in her throat, Mary plopped down in the adjacent wingback chair and crossed one leg over the other. “What a nice place,” she said, keeping to her script. At the suggestion of one of the specialists, she always started their conversations with something neutral, like the décor or the weather or how the food served each day left much to be desired. Until you knew whether it was a good day or a bad day, it was best to stay clear of the personal. Specificity was often a trigger.

Grandma Hannah raised her finger to her lips. “She can hear you.”

Mary looked around the room. Part of her was looking for the “she” her grandmother was referring to, while the other (more sensible) part was looking for the closest staff person for when her grandmother inevitably flew off the handle. When she started talking about the ghosts, it was only a matter of time. Perhaps today wasn’t going to be the day they finally spoke about the letter—about what she’d written. They needed to. How else was Mary going to know how to break the tether? How to make things right?

“That’s a lovely blazer.”

Mary turned, expecting to find someone in scrubs ready to take Grandma Hannah back to her room. Instead, she found Tom Pearson. He looked different than he had in the faint light of morning, wearing his wrinkled, beer-stained shirt from the night before. Here, under the Manor’s unfortunate lighting, he was all business in a perfectly tailored navy suit and shiny shoes, clutching a cognac briefcase with such ease it looked almost like an extension of his toned arm. Seeing Tom’s fingers wrapped around the briefcase’s handle made her think of where else they’d been. Mary’s cheeks flushed.

In Tom’s presence, the tranquilized expression on Grandma Hannah’s face morphed into something almost … human. Suddenly, she was a giddy schoolgirl, blushing over a compliment from a handsome boy.

“Thank you,” she said, batting her eyelashes. She tugged at the cuff of her blazer before twisting the double-C embossed button as if to say, yes, this is Chanel.

Tom set his briefcase down on the mahogany end table between them.

“Might I interest you ladies in a game?”

Tom shuffled some documents around in his briefcase before extracting a small box. Mary instantly recognized it as one of those 8-in-1 game sets: chess, checkers, backgammon, and a slew of others that, in the moment, escaped her. What was he going to pull out next? A rabbit? A fucking dove?

“Oh, goody! Can she play, too?”

“Of course,” Tom said.

“Not her.” Grandma Hannah sneered, lifting her nose at Mary. “I meant her.”

Tom followed Grandma Hannah’s outstretched finger to the empty space beside her. Except it wasn’t empty. Not to Mary, anyway. She couldn’t see the ghost in full, but she could see its negative: the hazy outline of its form, the way it left reality distorted in its wake. Mary wondered if the ghost would present itself to her. She could never tell for certain. The dead always kept her on her toes.

“Of course. There are enough pieces for all your friends.”

“She’s not my friend.”

Staunch in his blissful ignorance, Tom opened the box. He pulled out the dominoes, divided them into four piles, and placed one in front of each player, including the invisible one. As Grandma Hannah gleefully tore into her stack, arranging them into an S-shape, Tom turned to face Mary again.

“I wasn’t expecting to run into you here,” he whispered, his lips curling into an infectious grin.

“That makes two of us,” Mary replied, stealing a worried glance at her grandmother. One of her dominoes had toppled over, flattening the entire S. Mary tried not to dwell on Hannah swatting angrily at the air, hissing expletives through her dentures. Where was the woman who’d written the letter? The one that’d raised her? The only real family she had left. “Are you visiting family?”

Tom shook his head. “Clients.”

“You work with the elderly?” Mary couldn’t help but sound surprised. Even though she couldn’t quite decipher Tom’s vibe, it sure as hell wasn’t geriatrics.

Tom tightened his grip around the domino now hidden in the palm of his hand. “Not exclusively.”

“Are you going to make me guess?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Oh,” Mary said, pleasantly surprised. Apart from Dale, she hadn’t made a habit of sleeping with the gainfully employed.

“Don’t hold it against me.”

She wouldn’t have dared. “Wills?” she asked. It was her best guess. Why else would he be hauled up somewhere where everyone was in their final days?

“Civil litigation.”

“Interest—”

Mary couldn’t get the word out before Grandma Hannah exploded beside her. Before Mary could fully process what was happening, the table was overturned, expletives were flying, and dominoes were raining down around them.

“She’s cheating!” Grandma Hannah screamed. “Make her stop!”

When the nursing staff descended, Mary shot up from her chair to provide the professionals the space they needed to restrain her poor grandmother. In the commotion, Tom reached out, but Mary ignored his offering. Instead, she dashed out of the drawing room, through the library, and past the dining area, trying to escape the sound of her grandmother screaming. She couldn’t listen to it any longer—couldn’t watch the nursing staff subdue Hannah until she was just like all the other shadows in the room: miserable ghosts of persons past. What kind of life was this? Grandma Hannah deserved better. She deserved the whole world.

In the foyer, Mary passed an old man sitting in one of the floral armchairs. In his hands was a rosary. As she watched him grasp the prayer beads, her stomach churned, her mind fixated on the teeth in the time capsule.

Chipped.

Yellowed.

Rotting.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” the man whispered, his eyes half-open in an almost daze. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit—”

When Mary’s feet met the pavement, the food she’d wolfed down on her way to the Manor rained on her shoes. Staring down at a few fully formed fries and a cluster of cheese curds, she wiped carelessly at her mouth.

“Are you alright?”

Mary turned her back on Tom Pearson and took a deep breath in, waiting for the smell of pine to neutralize the rot lingering in her nose. Mary kicked off her shoes and strode barefoot across the asphalt, leaving Tom’s “let me help you” in her wake. Like her puke-stained shoes, she was beyond help. And it was only a matter of time before Tom Pearson came to realize it.

CHAPTER 5

FIVE DECADES

The Mill Yard was always open.

It’d changed hands a few times over the years, but each set of new owners knew better than to mess with tradition. The hole in the wall didn’t close for anything—not statutory holidays, and sure as hell not renovations. Even though the place smelled like wet garbage, Mary wouldn’t have her decrepit, drunken timewarp any other way. Where else could she get a triple for the price of a single? The Mill Yard wasn’t rodent-proof, but at least it was immune to inflation.

“Another?”

Mary looked up at the bartender, expectantly clutching a half-empty bottle of Crown. When she’d first sat down at the bar, the bottle wasn’t even opened. No wonder her head wasn’t screwed on right. She shifted her fuzzy gaze from her favorite whisky to the neon signs hanging behind the bar. The Mill Yard’s latest owner was an avid collector. You could always count on him to be first in line at any North Shore auction or estate sale, making sure that if there was a sign to be had, he’d be the one to take it home. His collection was a real smorgasbord—Canadiana vomit from floor to ceiling. A bottle of Molson Canadian, a Toronto Maple Leaf, a winner, gagnant in the OLG’s signature colors. Where did the beaver go? The one pulled from the label of Map-O-Spread? That was her favorite.

As the bartender refilled her highball glass, Mary’s phone erupted in “The Imperial March” for the forty-seventh time. She turned it over on the bar top and promptly hit “decline” on her Uncle Peter’s call. She barely had the capacity to speak to him on a good day, let alone this one. She’d changed her clothes and showered (thrice), but the smell of shitstorm still clung to her skin like skunk spray. Could anyone else smell it on her?

“Thanks,” she said, setting another twenty-dollar bill on the bar. “Keep ‘em coming.”

Mary reached blindly for her drink, her eyes glued on the grainy television set suspended above the pool table.

“A Catholic school for girls in Houghton, Ontario is under siege this evening, as police comb the grounds for human remains. This comes just hours after a time capsule was dug up as part of the small town’s centennial celebrations. The school’s administration believed the time capsule contained letters written by the Class of 1928. But there were no letters. Instead, the time capsule contained what authorities believe to be a human skull.”

There was no way in hell that skull wasn’t human. Mary saw the discolored bones with her own two eyes. Besides, the North Shore’s criminal underbelly ran far too deep to think otherwise. The reporter droned on, and Mary found herself bracing for any mention of the rosary. Finding a human skull buried at a Catholic school was enough without the added sacrilege. But when the reporter pivoted—after the most jilted segue in the history of humanity—Mary cocked her head. Perhaps local law enforcement was trying to bury it. They had a habit of doing that. Still, it was only a matter of time before folks got a load of the teeth strung up like prayer beads. She could practically hear the chorus of “Dear God” and “Christ Almighty” from—

Something smacked into Mary’s right shoulder, nearly knocking her from her perch.

“Watch it!” she yelled, swiveling her barstool.

“Fuck you, Foreman.”

As soon as she saw the yellow ribbon pinned to the lapel of Nathan Mitchell’s puffer coat, Mary quickly sucked back in the fuck you, too perched on the tip of her tongue. Nathan’s young son, Cole, had been murdered two decades prior—an incident commemorated by an annual vigil on the first Monday of every … Shit. Cole’s vigil had completely slipped Mary’s mind. And, based on Nathan’s snide remark, she suspected the rest of North Shore Township had forgotten, too. The ribbon on Nathan’s lapel was the only one she’d seen all day.

“Come on, Nathan.”

He didn’t turn around. Instead, he opened the door to the men’s washroom and slammed it with such force that even the bottles behind the bar shook in their boots. Aghast, Mary sunk further in her seat, reached for her glass, and downed it in one fell swoop. If Nathan really wanted to play the blame game, there were much more worthy targets: the Disciples, for leveraging his grief to bankrupt his paving company; Crummey, for his insensitive time capsule ceremony scheduling; or the local police, for being unable to balance an active investigation and a cold case. She'd accepted that she was poised to become her uncles’ scapegoat, but she refused to be Nathan Mitchell’s, too.

“Ms. Foreman?” someone asked from behind her.

She turned. “Wh—”

Even though the two police officers were close enough that she could read their name tags, Mary didn’t need to. Cadotte and Beaulieu were North Shore royalty; the forwards that led the North Shore Royals to their best season in history. Their jerseys still hung in the local arena. They even had combos named after them at the concession stand. While Cadotte still had an air of athleticism about him, Beaulieu had clearly let himself go. His uniform pulled uncomfortably over his gut, and beads of sweat danced on his bloated cheeks.

“Officers,” Mary said, hiding her empty glass with her body and trying her very best to appear sober. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. I thought you’d be … busy.”

“Busy looking for you.”

While she appreciated the wellness check, her pity party was invite-only.

“We’re hoping you’ll come down to the station with us.”

Mary’s mouth went dry, and her body started to hum. It was as if all the trauma she’d inherited from her mother came alive in that moment—a deep-seated distrust of law enforcement that, until this very moment, had lain dormant, deep in the strands of her DNA. “Ah—”

“Excuse me, officers,” a familiar voice interjected.

Mary glanced back to see Tom Pearson emerging from the dark corner where he’d been sitting. She’d been far too caught up with drinking to even notice him.

“Ah, Tommy,” said Beaulieu. “Nice of you to join us.”

“It’s Tom,” he corrected, in a tone indicative of a reluctant shared history.

“Calm down, Tommy. We’re just talking to Ms. Foreman,” Cadotte said. His badge was hanging slightly off center, and it was driving Mary bonkers. “She’s going to come with us.”

“Voluntarily?” Tom punted.

“At this point,” Cadotte dodged.

“At this point?” Mary asked, trying to re-insert herself into the conversation.

“Mary will need to discuss the matter with her counsel,” Tom said.

“You’re her lawyer?” said Beaulieu.

Tom shook his head. “Sylvia Kilbourn is. Should she contact you directly?”

Beaulieu and Cadotte’s faces fell. It was as if Tom had single-handedly robbed them of any involvement in what was quickly shaping up to be the most exciting case of their careers. Their deflated expressions excited her. Even though she hated that Tom was meddling, she couldn’t resist seeing someone brought down a few notches, particularly a man in blue. After how they’d treated her mother—driving her out of town despite her acquittal—she didn’t look upon them fondly. The local police could go to hell as far as Mary was concerned.

“She can call the Providence detachment,” Cadotte said.

“She knows the number,” added Beaulieu.

“And who should she ask to speak to?”

“Detective Constable Holden,” they said in unison. Their disappointment that it wasn’t either of them was palpable.

“I’m familiar,” Tom said with a look that suggested that familiar wasn’t even the half of it. “Should you speak to him in the interim, you can let him know Sylvia will be in touch.”

As soon as the bell above the door chimed to signal Tweedledee and Tweedledum’s exit, Mary punched Tom in the shoulder.

“What was that for?”

Mary stared at him, incredulous. If Tom was smart enough to get into law school, he certainly had the mental fortitude to decipher why she was pissed.

“Mary?”

Perhaps she’d have to spell it out for him. “I thought you were a civil litigator?”

He nodded.

“Well, you’re sure as hell not being very civil right now.”

“What?”

“You’re putting your nose where it doesn’t belong!”

“I—”

“Why are you meddling?”

“I am not meddling,” Tom said, his voice hushed and measured. “I am trying to help you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Mary snapped. “Besides, do you have ears? Eyes? A brain? The cops want to interview me. They want to know what I know about the time capsule. The skull. Those fucking teeth! And you know what I know, Tom? Jack. Lawyering up will make them think I have something to hide or, worse yet, that I had something to do with it.”

Tom sighed. “I’m quite sure they already do.”

They already do.

By the time Tom coaxed Mary out of the bar, the three words were her only focus. When Tom had first uttered them, her immediate response was “that’s ludicrous.” But they’d since taken on a different tone. They echoed in her ears and danced in her vision like sunspots. They pushed down on her chest so hard that she could barely breathe. Now, she was caught in a wave of nausea—the same one that’d hit her in the lobby of the Manor, an incomplete Hail Mary hanging in the thick air, watching the old man clasp the cracked beads of his—

Mary closed her eyes and clenched her fists. You’re okay, she told herself. You aren’t in a police cruiser; you’re safe in Tom’s car, tuning out a Toto song. Mary let out a long breath, opened her hands, and then her eyes. But when she saw the three words on her sweaty palms, as if they’d been carved in her skin, deep enough to show bone, she gulped.

They already do.

“Are you alright?” Tom asked.

Mary nodded, even though she wasn’t. Resting the side of her face against the cool windowpane, she wondered if the pit forming in her gut was the same feeling her mother had carried from the time of her arrest through to the end of her trial, when the judge read out his findings and Courtroom A erupted in a frenzied fit. Is this what it was like to be a suspect?

Mary resisted the urge to slam her head against the glass until she’d put herself out of her misery. Was this part of her inheritance, too? Cursed to see the dead and bear the unfounded suspicion of the living? No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She’d inherited enough from her mother. Seeing the dead—being a conduit for their pain when they touched her—was enough. R v. Foreman round two was too much.

Still, she’d reluctantly accepted Tom’s offer of pro bono legal assistance. Even though she was innocent, free help was the only kind she could afford. She didn’t have two pennies to rub together, let alone enough money to make up even a modest retainer. And from what little she knew of the practice of law—tidbits garnered from listening to Dale’s friends whine—the “we don’t win unless you do” slogan applied to personal injury, not criminal defense. Get out of jail free cards were like reasonably priced housing. They didn’t exist outside of Monopoly.

“You’re sure she’s okay to come?”

Tom scoffed. “Don’t be silly.”

“It’s late.”

“Criminal law is a twenty-four-seven operation,” Tom said, his eyes glued to the road.

“How does Sylvia have a life?”

“The law is her life.”

Some life, Mary thought, watching the cracked asphalt whiz past. When the moon kissed the top of a familiar mammoth maple, she outstretched her arm and pointed at the driveway. “That one up there.”

“This one?” Tom asked, engaging his signal light, his voice laced with hesitation. The light from the dash revealed a tightness around his eyes, his white knuckles. His agitation didn’t surprise her. Not only were his high beams barely making a dent in the foreboding darkness but, unlike the night before, Tom Pearson knew exactly where he was headed. Perhaps he’d brought his own sage this time. Not that it would do anything. Not even a full-on supernatural fumigation process could rid Foreman House of all the souls its embalming suite once housed. Ms. Morse included.

“Yes, this one.”

As the car crawled up the driveway, Mary braced herself. Not for impact, but for what she feared she might see: three matching Range Rovers, lined up like a presidential entourage; three men in the library’s picture window, huddled over their amended Riot Act. But, to her surprise, the driveway was empty. Perhaps her uncles’ damage-control summit was still ongoing—their focus oscillating between the podcast episode, the fundraiser fiasco, and the time capsule. Exiting the car, Mary knew that despite their absence this evening, it was only a matter of time before the Disciples showed up demanding answers she couldn’t provide. Perhaps Peter would grace her with his presence in the morning. Perfect.

Mary ushered Tom through Foreman House, ignoring his veiled questions about the oil paintings in the lobby and the strange knocking noises emanating from upstairs. If only Ms. Morse would shut it. They didn’t need her interventions.

In the kitchen, Mary combed the cupboards for her great-grandmother’s tea set, finding it above the stove behind a series of upcycled pill bottles stuffed full of stale oregano and chili flakes. She placed it in the sink, gave it a quick rinse, and set it on the drying rack. While the pot awaited its final wipe down, she plucked four bags of English Breakfast from a half-collapsed box. She made sure to sniff the bags before proceeding. They were clearly within an inch of their life, but they still smelled like tea.

Sylvia arrived shortly after, dressed in head-to-toe athleisure. Clearly, she’d hung up her robes for the day and, despite what Tom said about her perpetual availability, she wasn’t expecting to provide legal advice this evening. Did he summon her mid-workout?

“It’s nice to meet you, Mary,” she said, offering her outstretched hand.

Interesting. People tended not to touch her voluntarily. Mary tried to decipher Sylvia’s feelings when their hands locked, but she couldn’t. She was in the right line of work. Her poker face was infallible.

“I do wish it were under better circumstances,” Sylvia continued, readjusting the hem of her top. “But hopefully our chat helps ease your mind.”

Mary nodded. “Would you like—”

Mary didn’t get a chance to ask whether Sylvia wanted tea before an exaggerated moan carried down from upstairs. The sound was followed by a series of floorboard creaks and knocks, as if someone was pacing back and forth above them, tapping on the walls as they went.

“Are we alone?” Sylvia asked, her face betraying her for a millisecond.

“It’s probably just the raccoons,” Mary lied, saving Sylvia from the truth. “They’re noisy neighbors, but they pay rent on time.” She laughed. Sylvia didn’t. Tough crowd.

“This place is amazing,” Sylvia said, glancing about the kitchen before sneaking a peek down the shadowy hall. “Where did they hold the funerals?” she asked, rubbing her toned biceps as if she were cold.

“In the formal living room,” Mary said, pointing beyond the kitchen. Foreman House was sprawling, so her gesture didn’t mean much. “They prepared the bodies in the basement. All the embalming equipment is still down there.”

“Still?” Sylvia asked. The look on her face suggested that the Foreman family’s antique embalming equipment belonged in the local museum, not downstairs in the damp darkness, collecting dust.

“Some of it is fixed to the floor.”

“Does that mean it comes with the house?” Tom laughed.

“If it sweetens the deal,” Mary replied, taking a sip of her tea. “Clearly, it’s not a selling feature though.”

“How long has the house been on the market?” Sylvia asked.

“Almost a year,” Mary replied, pushing the milk and sugar down the table. “Embalming equipment notwithstanding, it’s kind of a hard sell. The only folks who seem at all interested want to tear it down.”

“And that’s a problem?”

Mary nodded. “Town Council won’t approve.” It was then that it struck her. Is that why Peter’s so desperate to be mayor?

Sylvia groaned. “They’re always in the way of progress.”

Mary tried not to take offence to Sylvia’s use of the word progress—as if the only way to shepherd Foreman House into this century was to tear it down. But she knew what Sylvia meant. She didn’t use progress in the same way her uncles did. All she meant was that the property’s status as a Providence historic site meant that even its current owners were limited to what they could do.

“Has anyone come to view it?” Sylvia asked, the look on her face a clear indication that she was desperate to navigate their conversation away from her last remark. “A year is a long time; there must’ve been some traffic.”

“There have been a few showings, mostly local. But those folks came out of curiosity more than anything. This place is cost-prohibitive for most.”

“I bet,” Sylvia said. Mary could almost see Sylvia’s mental math. The current state of the union. The oversized lot. Bringing the current plumbing and electrical up to code. The heating bill alone …

“Are you interested?” Mary asked, even though she already knew the answer. She wanted to keep the conversation going for as long as possible. The more protracted the Foreman House discussion was, the longer they could go without speaking into existence the real reason she was here. Mary looked down at her palms. The they already do tattoos were still there.

“Me?” Sylvia said, reaching into her pocket. “No. Just curious—like the rest of them, I suppose. A few of my distant relatives’ funerals were held here, before—”

Another series of knocks derailed Sylvia’s train of thought. It didn’t take Mary long to decipher them. The raven.

“You’re sure that’s a raccoon?”

Ignoring her question completely, Mary plucked the lid off the teapot. The bit of liquid left brewing at the bottom looked more like tar than tea. With her hospitable hat on, Mary walked over to the counter, filled the electric kettle with tap water once more, and flicked on the switch.

“On that note,” Sylvia said, appearing to accept that any questions regarding the haunting of Foreman House would go unanswered. “I’ve spoken with Detective Constable Holden. Lucky for us, he is the least unreasonable of the officers in this jurisdiction. Let’s just say he learned quite early on in his career how not to do things,” Sylvia said, flashing Tom a quick glance. “He wants to interview you in connection with the investigation. Voluntarily. Cooperation has its pros and cons.”

Mary could hear the kettle starting to gurgle. She rose from her seat, flicked it off, and poured the steaming water into the teapot. She took a moment to watch the teabags dance.

“But what could I possibly tell them? The time capsule was buried long before I came along.”

“That’s the presumption,” Sylvia said, wrapping her fingers around her teacup. “But, in the wake of recent events, the North Shore’s cold cases are top of mind. We have your mother’s podcast appearance to thank for that. Perhaps they’re wondering if this discovery has some sort of connection—”

“There’s no connection,” Mary interrupted, her tone as cold as the wind whipping through the cracks in the kitchen windows. But it wasn’t anger that laced her words. There was an air of the defensive. Perhaps Grandma Hannah’s letter was starting to get to her—to wear down the armor of apathy she’d spent years crafting. Perhaps she cared more about her mother’s legacy than she'd thought. Grandma Hannah’s voice rang in her ears. You can free your mother from the chains of suspicion that continue to bind her, just as you can free me from the weight of carrying this on my own. I know you can. You’re the only one left.

Sylvia opened her mouth to speak, but Tom waved her off. Even though they didn’t exchange any words, Mary could see a silent exchange flashing behind their eyes. When they were done, Tom cleared his throat.

“If it wasn’t for the human skull and the teeth strung up on a rosary inside a time capsule that your great-grandmother buried, that you dug up, in the wake of your mother’s feature on that podcast accusing your uncles of murder,” Tom started, his voice thick with empathy, despite his focus on the possessive. “I’d be of the same mind. But, like it or not, the only common thread right now is you.”

Mary threw up her hands. “Let me rephrase: what could I possibly tell them that they don’t already know? All of my family’s dirty laundry has already been aired. ”

“Well,” Sylvia began, pausing to take a sip of her tea. She grimaced. “You’ve been living here for a while now. Have you found anything in the house relevant to the time capsule? Anything that may signal whose remains might be in that box?”

Despite the rapport Sylvia and Tom were trying to cultivate, Mary resolved to keep the journals, the parishioners’ bulletin, and the Houghton Chronicle article secret. Even though she suspected it was merely coincidental, she needed to know for certain. The journals weren’t exactly exculpatory. She didn’t need the masses thinking her great-grandmother was some Blood of Christ downing nun hater. Anne Foreman’s legacy was already complicated enough.

Mary pushed her empty teacup aside. “You’d need an archivist to sift through all the stuff in this house. Besides, nothing in here belongs to me. If the police want to get their hands on anything, I’m not the person to ask.”

“Which is exactly why they came to you first,” Tom said, slapping his knee. “They were hoping you’d cave before your uncles shut it down.”

Mary shook her head. “Before they shut me up, you mean.”

“Pardon?” Sylvia asked.

“You must be new here.” Mary laughed, letting herself channel her mother’s theory—one she’d never fully leaned into. Sure, she’d always suspected her uncles were corrupt. But corrupt was a far cry from murderous. Still, she couldn’t shake the fact that her mother’s claims made sense, not to mention the fact that they squared away with Grandma Hannah’s longstanding fears. Could it be? Did this shoe really fit? Mary decided she’d try it on for size, saying in her mind—in her own voice—the podcast catchphrase predisposed to become clickbait.

Foremans don’t just bury the dead. They bury the living, too.

“Relatively,” Sylvia replied. “But I like to think I’ve got a sense of the dynamic.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Mary said. “This is North Shore 101.”

“Let me put it this way,” Tom offered, his hands raised as if to say don’t hurt me. “Foreman men aren’t known to be particularly cooperative with law enforcement—”

“Or the media,” Mary interrupted. “Or really anyone, for that matter. Especially when it’s something involving a Foreman woman.”

“And why is that?” Sylvia asked.

“It’s the Foreman way.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Mary didn’t care too. Not in the slightest. There weren’t enough hours in the day to do the story justice. The rift between the Foreman men and women ran so deep that she’d have to go back generations. The accusation levied against her mother, Sarah, and the Disciples’ silence thereafter was just the tip of the terrible iceberg. Foreman women had one purpose and one purpose only: to make more Foreman men. The curses they’d contaminated the bloodline with were necessary evils—nothing a little culling couldn’t fix. “Did you listen to the episode?”

Sylvia nodded.

“Well then you already know.”

“Know what?” Sylvia asked.

Mary sucked in a deep breath. The words Grandma Hannah had spoken before Mary had left Providence all those years ago echoed in the silence around her. Leave. Promise to never return. It’s not safe for you here. Not with those three at the helm. They’ll do to you what they did to your mother. Leave. Before it’s too late. You’ll be six feet under if you don’t.

“Sylvia: if this whole debacle puts a damper on business or, God forbid, it messes with Peter’s campaign, heads will roll. And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean forcibly removed from necks with hacksaws, buried in cement blocks, and plunged into the depths of Lake Huron. And not just any heads. I’m talking about my head,” Mary said, pressing on her chest. Her heart hammered against her palm. “Capiche?”

“Wait,” Sylvia pleaded, her hands up in front of her as if she were warding off a physical blow. “Your family is in the funeral business …”

“And Tony Soprano was in waste management.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table, and if there was one thing Mary couldn’t stand, it was that. She was just about to open her big fat mouth and apologize for being dramatic, offering the number of times she’d listened to her mother’s bullshit interview as an excuse for paying homage to conspiracy theories, when a ringtone erupted. Sylvia excused herself from the table and ducked out the nearest side door with no more than a Sylvia Kilbourn speaking.

“So,” Tom said, tapping his fingers on the worn wood table. “You’re on Team Sarah, then?”

“She’s my mother,” Mary whispered, again to her own shock and horror. What she should’ve said was “no comment.” But for one reason or another, in the wake of the fundraising dinner, the time capsule ceremony, and the run-in with Tweedledee and Tweedledum at the Mill Yard, she’d traded deflection for true alliance.

There’s a first time for everything, darling …

Mary shook her head to dislodge her mother’s voice from her mind. She didn’t allow herself to think about the voice she’d learned from grainy home movies captured on Super 8 film for the same reason she didn’t drink tequila. It never ended well. Whenever her mother’s voice drifted into her mind like the breeze through an open window, she quickly deployed her defensive armies and drew up the proverbial drawbridges she’d built to protect herself.

Mary was in a daze when Sylvia returned from outside. She strode toward the same seat she’d vacated, plopped herself down, and rolled up her sleeves like she meant business.

“That was a friend from the coroner’s office,” she said, signaling to her call outside. “He’ll remain nameless, but I trust him. They’ve run some preliminary diagnostics on the remains found in the time capsule.”

“And?” Mary and Tom asked in unison, inching toward the edge of their seats.

“The skull appears to be quite old, consistent with everyone’s assumption that the time capsule was buried in Anne Foreman’s era. But the average human has thirty-two teeth. There are five decades on that rosary. And while he can’t be certain, all the teeth appear to be either incisors or canines. Which means they’re not all from the same person.”

“Decades? Like years?” Mary asked.

Tom shook his head. “Rosary decades.”

“In atheist?”

Sylvia shot Mary a look that said your sarcasm knows no bounds.

“Fifty-nine,” Tom said, the weight of his voice returning their conversation to an appropriate tone. “It means there were fifty-nine teeth.”

CHAPTER 6

HE TOLD ME HIS LAST NAME WAS BEATHAN

Shortly after midnight, long after Tom and Sylvia had driven off into the darkness, Mary finally dragged herself from the kitchen table. Her hands and feet felt more like cinderblocks than extremities, making even the slightest movements painful. Stuck somewhere between fight, flight, and freeze, she wandered about the kitchen, tidying up the remnants of tea.

When the table was clear of crumbs and clutter, Mary washed out the teapot and set it to dry. While she moved through her domestic song and dance, Ms. Morse continued to pace above her, knocking on the walls as she went, the creaking floorboards reverberating with her movements. Playing second fiddle to the water rushing into the rusted kitchen sink, the sounds emanating from upstairs were white noise—just like the tick tock of the towering grandfather clock in the hallway and the hum of the radiator beside the stove.

When the dirty dishes were stacked high in the drainboard, Mary blew out the candle sitting on the stovetop and switched off the lights. Even though her eyelids felt like sacks of potatoes and her body was begging for rest, she couldn’t possibly sleep. The weight of the day’s events was suffocating: the time capsule, her run-in with the police, and the anonymous tip from the coroner’s office that’d changed everything. Despite her leg up, she knew it was only a matter of time before her uncles caught wind of the fifty-nine teeth. And when they did, they’d come barging in with questions she didn’t have answers to.

Yet.

There were dozens of journals in the attic, and if there was one place she’d find answers, it was in those pages. Answers to questions like whose head was in that box and what (if anything) Anne Foreman had to do with it. But Mary wasn’t naïve enough to think those questions were unique to her. Tom and Sylvia were right. Others would be asking soon. People with microphones and cameras and search warrants. She needed to decide. Was she going to hand the journals over to Sylvia and Tom, her only known allies? Detective Constable Holden, the only person who could hold anyone to account? The Disciples, the only thing standing between her and homelessness? Or maybe …

Mary thought back to Grandma Hannah’s letter. You can free your mother from the chains of suspicion that continue to bind her. Hannah was always steadfast in her belief in Sarah’s innocence; always suspicious of her own sons. Even though she’d birthed all four, her allegiance to them had never been equal. How could it have been? She’d bequeathed to them the same surname and yet an entirely different legacy. Her sons inherited money and power and purpose. Her daughter got nothing but a curse—the same one that’d plagued journal author Anne. If history always repeated itself with the Foremans, perhaps those pages were the key to unlocking the mystery behind Grandma Hannah’s letter, too.

With the front door deadbolted and the main floor lights dark, Mary climbed the grand staircase. On the second floor, she popped into her bedroom. The draft sneaking in through the ancient windows chilled her to her aching bones. She paused to stoke a fire in the fireplace before continuing down the hall. When she reached the second staircase, she dashed up it. On the third floor, the moaning was louder, and the ghost felt closer. In the ribbons of dim moonlight trickling in through the window at the end of the hall, she could see the footsteps pressed into the dust and the hazy outline of Ms. Morse. In all the years she’d lived in Foreman House, the ghost had never presented itself to her. Grandma Hannah never spoke of a specific encounter. Whether Ms. Morse had appeared to her mother, Sarah, remained a mystery.

Leaving the ghost to wander and wail in peace, Mary ascended the drop-down ladder, closed the creaky trap door, and switched on the flashlight she’d stashed next to it. She made her way over to the cedar chest, the moaning below her feet a distant murmur. Kneeling in front of the battered box, she pried open its rusted hinges. She was content to find it just as she’d left it, mothballs and all. Exhibit A, her great-grandmother’s journal, propped up between the chipped hands of a porcelain doll with matted hair, a bum chin, and a missing left eye. The rest of the journals were stacked beneath its backside like a throne of secrets.

Mary tore the familiar journal from the doll’s grasp and pulled out the hand-drawn map tucked inside the front flap—the one depicting the school’s grounds. She set it down on the dusty floor beside her, propped herself up against the cedar chest, and opened the journal. While the familiar first entry didn’t paint a particularly respectable picture of Anne Foreman, Mary couldn’t judge. A profound disrespect for the sacraments was genetic. She’d also been reprimanded in her day for being a bit too keen to accept the blood of Christ. Wine not.

Mary continued, down past the mention of black mold and hazmat suits and the damp and the dark, spreading like a cloud of doom, before she came to a dog-eared page. She raised the journal closer to her face, cleared her throat, and read aloud: “He told me his last name was Beathan—a name derived from the Scottish Gaelic beatha meaning life.” She continued, past her great-grandmother’s thoughts about her handsome great-grandfather, until a particular phrase nearly jumped off the page.

“The Raven,” she said before setting the journal down.

Then, as if it were a boomerang, the word came back at her in the darkness.

The Raven.

The flashlight tumbled from Mary’s hand and struck the floor with a loud bang. As it rolled away from her on the far-from-level floor, the creeping darkness of the attic was illuminated in swift surges: damp boxes, long-forgotten furniture, shelves of chipped porcelain doll parts—heads, torsos, and limbs. When the strobe light show was over and the flashlight came to a stop against the back wall, Mary shook her head to dislodge the story that’d taken root inside her mind. It was the same story that’d been on the tip of everyone’s tongue after the fundraising dinner debacle: the story of the fateful day her great-grandfather’s heart stopped beating.

According to a Frankenstein-like fusion of jurisprudence, memory, and local lore, Isaac’s body was brought down into the basement of Foreman House by his doting son, Luke, to await transportation to the Providence arm of Foreman Family Funerals when day broke. However, when the Disciples returned the next morning, the young men made a horrifying discovery: their grandfather’s corpse was tarred and feathered, a raven was painted on the brick wall in his blood and other bodily fluids, and his insides were piled on the damp floor beneath the bird’s beak like a sacrificial offering. Lying beside the body was their pregnant, unmarried sister, Sarah Foreman, her hands and mouth covered in the same liquids she’d used to paint the raven.

Allegedly.

At first, the only charge on the table was indignity post-mortem. But when the autopsy revealed death by cyanide poisoning, the charge became murder in the first degree. The trial was a painful wedge that drove itself between Isaac’s two children—offspring that straddled each side of the longstanding family divide. While his son, Luke, wanted the book thrown at his niece, his daughter, Hannah, maintained her own daughter’s innocence. Convinced the true culprit was a vengeful competitor or a scorned businessman who wanted Sarah framed, Hannah insisted the family business be folded and Foreman House be sold for the good of her four children. But when Luke died the morning before Sarah stood trial, his mangled body discovered at the base of Foreman House’s grand staircase with his mouth stuffed full of black feathers, Hannah changed her tune—convinced the key to the mystery was the house itself. Something’s wrong here, Hannah had told the officers who’d marked off the staircase with yellow caution tape after the coroner rolled Luke’s body out. I can feel it.

And, by the grace of God, the jury agreed.

The police, on the other hand, wouldn’t give up the witch hunt. Convinced Isaac’s death had a very human explanation, the local police ramped up their investigation into a slew of local cold cases the year following Sarah’s acquittal. In fear of further prosecution, Sarah fled, leaving toddler Mary in the custody of Grandma Hannah. But, by the time Mary was in her teens, Hannah’s theories about Foreman House had become more unhinged, and the Disciples began to formally question her capacity. Grandma Hannah made Mary promise to leave and never return to the North Shore—convinced that if she did, Foreman House would bestow a similar fate on her as it had her mother.

And even if Mary turned out to be immune to the house that made her mother a murderous cannibal (again, allegedly) and drove her great-grandmother, Anne, to end her “torturous possession” by hurtling herself off a local bridge with cement blocks strapped to her ankles, Grandma Hannah was certain the Disciples would do Mary in, anyway. I can’t lose you both, she’d said before shuffling teenaged Mary out of the house and shoving a Greyhound bus ticket into her shaking hands. Don’t look back. Don’t come back. Not if the world stops spinning. “Joke’s on you, Grandma,” Mary whispered into the darkness, thinking about the police encircling her like a pack of rabid wolves. “Joke’s on you.”

Mary fetched the flashlight, gathered up the journals from the cedar chest, and tossed them into an empty crocheted bag she’d found inside. She turned the missing-eyed doll around, closed the cedar chest, and descended the stairs—aching, shattered, and creeped the fuck out.

With her feet safely on the pine planks that lined the third-floor corridor, Mary spoke into the silent darkness. “Goodnight,” she whispered, even though she was almost certain her housemate had already found rest. Haunting was taxing, after all.

In the comfort of her bedroom, warmed by the light of the fire, Mary tucked all but one of the journals away inside her shabby suitcase. She took the other to her bed, returned to the page with the mention of black mold and hazmat suits and read aloud.

The infestation started the day before I was suspended for downing the Blood of Christ.

I discovered it in the third-floor bathroom, festering in corners and lingering among rusted pipes—black specks morphing into ghoulish grins and rebellious crosses turned upside down (right-side up, if you ask me). But it wasn’t dirt peppering the brick walls, like I’d so foolishly assumed.

It was something else.

I shared my discovery with the janitor shortly before being escorted off the premises, my classmates lining the front steps in their crimson-checked kilts, small crosses drawn on their foreheads with ash. Before the nearest nun dragged me away, Ralph insisted he’d take care of it. But his breath reeked of bad decisions and his eyes glazed over in a way that meant he’d never remember his promise. I was all too familiar with eyes like that to be fooled by his crooked smile.

I debated telling Mother Superior, but I knew she wouldn’t listen—not to me, anyway. My only path forward was to hope that the school would be condemned. But I knew better than to believe in miracles, even then.

So, on Good Friday, when men in hazmat suits descended upon St. Joseph’s School for Girls to rid the third-floor bathroom of its plague, they whispered of toxic black mold. Mother Superior was horrified, for how on earth could something so menacing grow in a place so hallowed? They say the mold is just a memory now. But I know it still lingers there, in the cracks and crevasses, crawling up the walls behind the haphazard coat of fresh paint.

I caught a whiff of it, you see—stale urine, wet socks, rotting wood—and watched a spore break free and float through the air like a dandelion tuft. Perhaps that’s why Sister Josephine was hovering in the doorway, grasping her rosary like a lifeline—her Hail Marys punctuated by the pulse of a water hammer. When she saw me, she lowered the beads and flashed the perverse smile I once mistook for safety. She slithered away into the dimly lit hallway, and I proceeded to lock myself in the furthest stall and wretch until all I could hear was my heart beating in my head instead of—

That nun will curse the day she ruined me.

I was no one then, but someday … I’ll be someone.

I’ve planted the seed.

I’ve nurtured it.

And soon, I’ll watch it grow.

Sister Josephine! The missing nun from the St. Peter’s bulletin. Clearly, there was some animosity, but a vague that nun will curse the day she ruined me wasn’t enough. Mary flipped the page to read on, but the words were all jumbled. She could barely see straight, let alone analyze her great-grandmother’s looping cursive. She wanted to know more, but she needed rest. Her curiosity would need to wait for morning.

Mary tore off her clothes and kicked them into a corner of the room. As the fire crackled away in its place and plumes of smoke rose up the chimney, Mary snuggled in beneath her favorite quilt, pulling the most-worn edge up to her chin. With thoughts of Sister Josephine and Scottish Gaelic and water hammers swirling in her mind, Mary closed her tired eyes. “I thought I’d be someone someday, too,” she muttered, delirious, before her jaw expanded in a yawn. She expected the influx of cold air to draw her closer to sleep but, instead, it gave her a dreaded second wind. “Of course,” she said, opening her eyes and turning from her side so that she was lying on her back. “Of—"

There, suspended in the darkness, was a woman—her tattered white dress flecked with red, her long black hair dripping down like globs of wet paint. Mary braced for impact, and the ghost fell from the ceiling and hovered just above her, the tips of their noses nearly touching. In a state of shock, Mary lay there on the bed, frozen inside herself. As her insides twisted like a dish towel, the woman’s long, blistered fingers wrapped around the sides of Mary’s face and pulled her eyelids open further. Mary awaited the ghost’s memory transfer—just like with Noose the morning of the time capsule ceremony. The shaky chair. The boiler room rafter. The frayed rope. It happened every time Mary touched the dead. But this time, there was nothing.

No memories.

No visions.

Just rage.

“Ms. Morse?” Mary whispered.

But instead of responding, the ghost tightened her death grip, smiled a large gap-toothed grin, and let out a long, hollow scream of “Nevermore.”

DAPHNE

1927

CHAPTER 7

I’LL BE HOME SOON

Foreman House was aglow.

From the warm sheen of the freshly waxed parquet floors to the small flames dancing atop slender candlesticks, the mansion took Daphne Lobb’s breath away. Until now, she’d only admired the grand house and its treasures through foggy windowpanes or stolen glances into open doors. But now, she was finally standing inside the house that one day she’d call her home. No one knew, of course. Especially not the Foremans. Daphne knew all their secrets, but this one—that she’d soon be one of them—was hers to keep.

“Please,” Mr. Matthew Foreman said, wiping his polished leather shoes on the black mat in the doorway. “My office is this way.”

Daphne watched her father heed Mr. Foreman’s instructions, his shoulders slumped, heavy with grief. It was pitiful, really, how he’d spent the past three days drunk, sobbing into an empty whisky glass, sitting in front of her mother’s open closet, inhaling the remnants of her putrid perfume. Daphne had barely been able to pry him off the floor for this meeting, and even though he was upright, he still looked like he was about to topple over. Daphne wanted to smack him silly. There was nothing to be sad about. This was a joyous day! Her mother was dead.

Finally.

With her father’s muffled words barely audible and the smell of horse manure lingering in his wake, Daphne gazed up at the portraits lining the lobby. She narrowed her discerning eyes, studying the brush strokes. The portraits were oil on canvas. That was clear as day. Sadly, she couldn’t quite make out the artists’ signatures. Alas. It was the kind of thing she’d longed to add to her journal, among the address of Foreman House, the name of the architect who’d designed it, and a family tree of all those who’d lived there. Daphne studied the Foreman family with the same ferocity her father wished she’d study her Bible. No matter. She’d discover the artists’ names soon enough. If not now, then later—when she wedded Mr. Foreman’s only son and became the lady of this house. Surely, one of the same artists would be called to paint her.

Daphne reached a slender hand up toward the largest of the three portraits, hanging front and center. She ran a finger across its ornate filigree frame, down the exposed brick wall, and up over the shining placard beneath it. It was cold to the touch.

ALISTAR FOREMAN

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.”

“A good man recognizes that the most important inheritance is not physical wealth, but godly character and a good name,” Daphne whispered, paraphrasing the Proverbs verse. She traced Alistar’s surname again with her fingertip—the same one she’d inscribed countless times in the pages of her journal, trying it on for size. “And there’s no better name than this one.”

“Daphne?”

“Coming,” Daphne cooed, her lips curled up into a feigned smile. The trick was the only thing of remote value she’d learned from her mother. When you speak with a smile (even a fake one), you sound pleasant. And even though there was a deep, dark hole inside her, she couldn’t have Mr. Foreman knowing that. Today, she’d be the epitome of grace. A young woman befitting the Foreman name.

Turning from the portraits, her breath caught in her chest. She crouched down, tore the piece of hay her father had trekked in off the floor, and slid it down the front of her dress. The stench of her farmhand father would dissipate, surely. But the hard evidence of his (and by virtue, her) worldly status would not.

The office was warm. The fire crackling away in the fireplace cast a soft glow, its reflection dancing on the polished mahogany furniture. Daphne took in her surroundings: the gilded globe on the mantel, the shelves of leatherbound books, the ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling, sending small beads of pastel light dancing around the room. Daphne was transfixed by it. What part of the world had Mr. Foreman imported it from? No one on the North Shore was capable of such craftsmanship. Perhaps Mr. Foreman had acquired it on his travels abroad. Perhaps they’d take her there one day.

“Ms. Lobb,” Mr. Foreman said. “Please, take a seat.”

Mr. Foreman was already seated at his desk, and her father was across from him in one of two plush velvet chairs. The empty one beckoned to her. From its claw feet to its cloud-like cushion, the chair was the pinnacle of luxury—at least to someone accustomed to worn wicker and old leather that cracked like a working man’s hands. How long had they been seated? How long had she been ogling the home and its treasures before her father called to her? She sank down into the plush seat and crossed one leg behind the other, like a lady, setting aside her embarrassment. She needed to focus.

“Please, call me Daph,” she said, in a voice that wasn’t quite her own. “It’s what my mother—” she paused, waiting for her left eye to release a single tear, just like she’d practiced, sitting in front of her scuffed vanity. As the tear fell, she watched Mr. Foreman’s face soften. “I’m sorry,” she cried, reaching a trembling hand up toward her cheek to wipe it away. “It’s just—”

“Say no more, my dear,” Mr. Foreman insisted.

Daphne watched in awe as he plucked the handkerchief from his blazer and placed it down on the desk in front of her. With a sweet smile, she picked it up, relishing the way the buttery silk felt in her hands. She folded it over her pointer finger and dabbed at her cheek three times in quick succession, praying Mr. Foreman wouldn’t ask for it back. Her collection of Foreman family artifacts demanded it. It would look splendid next to the dried herb bouquet from the Foreman family’s garden, and the silver spoon she’d—

“I know how difficult this must be for the both of you,” Mr. Foreman said, leaning forward in his chair. “The loss of a wife—of a mother—is never an easy burden to bear. But so young? Muriel was a bright light dimmed far too soon.”

No. Her mother was a dark storm cloud people longed for reprieve from. Even still, Daphne’s father crumbled beside her. She placed a hand on his knee and squeezed it tight—not to instill comfort, but to cause pain. What was he doing, stealing her spotlight like this? How was she supposed to make an impression on Mr. Foreman when he was blubbering like a buffoon? She’d poisoned her mother to solve her problems, not create a whole host of new ones. This was her one chance. If she wasn’t successful this time, she’d probably have to kill her father, too.

“Please excuse my dear father,” she said, sweeping a hand over her forehead. “As you said, this has been very difficult for him. For us. We’re just so thankful to have your listening ear.”

“And have my ear you do, I assure you,” Mr. Foreman said. “This is a funeral business, yes, but the service we offer here at Foreman Family Funerals transcends the transactional. We understand your grief. We sit with you in it. We honor it. And, in doing so, we honor your loss. We honor you.”

He’s good, Daphne thought. Even I almost believe him.

For the next half-hour, Daphne was a spectator to Mr. Foreman’s perfectly executed song and dance. By the time he started shuffling her and her father out of his office, they’d gone through the particulars of embalming, chosen a casket and a crucifix to mark it, selected a modest plot at the cemetery in Houghton, set a date for the funeral and internment, and chosen the photo to display at the visitation.

It was just before her bum left the velvet cushion that Daphne spotted them, fanned out on the corner of the desk in a neat semi-circle. “What are those, Mr. Foreman?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. She leaned forward in her seat and perched her chin on her folded hands, batting her thick eyelashes.

“Ah,” he said, reaching for one of the publications. “The Mortician’s Monthly. I used to get The Hearse as well, but I paused my subscription last month. I found it a bit heavy on the advertisements.”

“Oh, they’re periodicals?” Daphne asked, making a note to pause her subscription, too. She didn’t want to spend what little money she had on something not even the Foremans would shell out for. Times had always been tough for Daphne, but now they were tough for everyone. She needed to be strategic. Methodical. Calculated. Her future hung in the balance. She couldn’t afford a misstep—literal or figurative.

“Indeed.”

“How fascinating,” Daphne exclaimed, thinking of the dozens of issues she’d stowed away in a box in the cupboard under her Aunt Hazel’s staircase. She’d gleaned so much from The Mortician’s Monthly and The Hearse. A deep knowledge of the industry. An appreciation for the art of it all. A catalogue of phrases she planned to sneak into future conversations to ensure the Foremans saw her commitment to their craft. It was how she’d prove to them that she was built for this. For them. “I’d love to leaf through one.”

Mr. Foreman raised an eyebrow. “Funeral directing interests you?”

Here it was. Her chance to shine. Daphne nodded emphatically. “Yes, very much.”

Mr. Foreman pursed his lips. “A lovely girl like you shouldn’t concern herself with the likes of that.”

Daphne chose to ignore his condescending tone. This wasn’t how she’d anticipated their conversation going—but she’d have other opportunities for him to see her brilliance. This was a blip. Pretending they’d left things on a more positive note, Daphne turned to leave. That’s when she saw a figure out of the corner of her eye—the cape of a habit fanning out. But for her face, she could pass for Count Dracula. Sister Josephine didn’t suck blood, of course, but she certainly knew how to drain the life from someone.

“Ah, Headmistress! Please, come in,” Mr. Foreman called.

Headmistress? After everything that’d happened—everything she’d told Mother Superior—they’d promoted her anyway?

“Thank you, Mr. Foreman,” Sister Josephine said with a slight dip of her chin.

Daphne tried to shield her face with her hand, but it was no use. She’d been spotted.

“Miss Lobb,” Sister Josephine continued, threading her fingers together and hanging her hands in front of her. “I was so sorry to hear of your mother’s passing,” she whispered. “My condolences to you and your family. May her soul rest in peace.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Daphne said, each word like a razor blade in her mouth.

“I hope we see you back at school soon.”

The words were thorns in Daphne’s side, slowly deflating her. Of course, Sister Josephine hoped she’d return. Who else would she torment otherwise?

When Sister Josephine disappeared into Mr. Foreman’s office, Daphne drew a sharp breath. She couldn’t let Sister Josephine get under her skin. Not here. Not now. She had an audience. She could feel the eyes of the Foreman family portraits on her back—judging her, trying to decipher whether she was fit to bear the Foreman name. I am, she longed to scream. I am worthy. If not me—devilish me—then who else? As she followed her pitiful father outside, she stole one last look at Foreman House. I’ll be back, she promised the budding maple in the front yard, straight as an arrow. The stained glass, slate roof, and arched windows. The stunning redbrick mansion that housed terrible secrets, the kind that only she could truly understand.

I’ll be home soon.

Daphne was the only person to have ever checked out the Embalming Encyclopedia from the local library. She’d read it cover to cover two dozen times, which begged the question: since it provided fulsome guidance for the professional or expert embalmer, what did that make her? An honorary professional? An expert in her own right? She’d never embalmed a body, but she’d immersed herself in the material enough to know that the process was both brutalist and beautiful—particularly if done right. And if there was one person who did so, it was Mr. Foreman.

Her mother’s corpse was no exception. The witch looked almost human. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were slightly parted, but not enough to see the cotton stuffed inside her mouth. Her arms, legs, and fingers were gently flexed to relieve the muscle tension and stiffness of rigor mortis. While the linen dress her father had chosen hid it, Daphne knew there was a small incision near her right collarbone—a remnant of Mr. Foreman’s search for the common carotid artery and internal jugular vein. Daphne’s body hummed with excitement, thinking about it: the arterial tubes, the drain tubes, the angled forceps, the hose, and the embalming fluid—pushed through the arterial system, forcing blood out through the jugular.

Daphne took a deep breath in, willing her frantic mind to focus on the combing of her mother’s hair, the faint wash of lipstick on her lips, the light stippling of blush on her cheeks. It was perfection. Daphne had been waiting for this day for a long time, and, thanks to her mother dying on her first murder attempt, she’d killed two birds with one stone: see an embalmed body up close for the first time and watch her mother be buried six feet under.

“Daphne, darling,” said a voice over her shoulder. Daphne turned away from her mother’s open casket to find her Aunt Hazel standing beside her, the tip of her nose red and irritated. Had she been crying? Odd. Daphne wasn’t sure who hated her mother more.

“Aunt Hazel,” she cooed, planting a kiss on her aunt’s cheek.

“How’s my nose?”

“Very red.”

“Fantastic,” Aunt Hazel said. “I put a dab of blusher on it.”

Daphne knew she got her flair for theatrics from somewhere. “Genius.”

Aunt Hazel surveyed the room. “She’d love this, you know. Everyone here. Everyone wailing.”

“You know I love a good performance, but this. This is just …”

“Why don’t you take a break, get some air?”

With Aunt Hazel’s blessing, Daphne walked out of Foreman House and across the road, toward Sellers Park. It was there that she saw him, sitting beneath one of the towering pines: Isaac Foreman. Her future husband. Her destiny. She approached him cautiously, coaxing her long black hair into the breeze. She started whistling the song she knew to be his favorite, and he looked up from his book. Their eyes met, and he smiled. She waved.

“What’s your name?” Isaac asked as she approached, the afternoon sun kissing his perfect cheek the way she longed to.

Daphne could tell that he was entranced. People always were. She had that air about her. “Daphne,” she said, holding back her surname. There was a risk that he’d already put things together. The marquee sign outside Foreman House read Lobb, after all. But she wasn’t going to spoon-feed her lineage shame to him. On the off chance he didn’t know, she’d keep him guessing. She loved guessing games. They were delicious.

“Daphne,” Isaac said. “A lovely name for such a lovely face.”

Daphne felt herself blush. “What’s yours?”

She wondered how he’d enunciate it—where he’d place the emphasis. Both his first and last were two syllables, so there wasn’t much he could do. Still, she could only imagine the way his revered last name would roll out from his perfect pink—

“Isaac Beathan.”

Pardon me? It came as a complete and utter shock when he introduced himself as Isaac Beathan—a name derived from the Gaelic betha, meaning life. Luckily, Daphne was well-versed in other languages; otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea what Isaac was talking about. It struck her as strange, though. His lie was far too specific for her to believe it wasn’t a deliberate choice on his part—to claim himself a Beathan rather than a Foreman. A man of life instead of death.

If Daphne didn’t know better, she would’ve gobbled up the lie he fed her. Isaac Foreman had that sort of face: unsuspecting, familiar, kind. A pair of endearing wire-rimmed glasses sat atop his perfectly symmetrical nose, and the hardback flaps of an Edgar Allan Poe anthology sat perched between his strong, capable hands. His hair was slightly tousled—not in an unkempt way, but in a way that added to his charm. He was wearing his school uniform, though not to code. His tie was hanging loose around his neck, and his shirttails stuck out from beneath his crested sweater in a quiet act of rebellion. His checked handkerchief wasn’t in his jacket, as it should’ve been. It was folded up inside his book, marking his page. She wondered if it smelled like him.

While he sat there beneath the pine tree, cones and sap dropping down around him, Daphne couldn’t help but notice how their school uniforms mirrored each other—how the warp and weft of her tartan kilt were an inversion of his checked tie. Staring at the small cut on his cheek where she suspected he’d nicked himself shaving, the dried blood the same crimson as his sweater, Daphne realized she’d never been this close to a boy from St. Jude’s before.

There was only one occasion during school hours when students were permitted to mingle at a distance: Mass. But fraternization was strictly prohibited. St. Joseph’s girls were only permitted to admire St. Jude’s boys from across the aisle, relegated to their own section of pews—like two families on the holy occasion of matrimony. Of course, there were other occasions for cross-pollination in the hours after school but with students shuttled into Houghton from Providence, Clarksville, and beyond, it didn’t happen often. Still, any mingling after hours was done under the watchful eye of God—or so the Sisters told the girls to be sure they kept their panties on. They’d made it quite clear that God didn’t look with grace upon the fornicators.

“What are you reading?” Daphne asked.

Isaac looked up from his book and pushed his glasses up his perfect nose. He closed the hardback flaps with a soft thud and set the book down in a trampled clover patch beside him.

“Poe,” he said, searching her face for a reaction. “The Raven.”

“Is it any good?” Daphne asked. She already knew the answer, of course. But that was her little secret. Instead of completely surrendering to thoughts of Isaac and his wire-rimmed glasses, Daphne found herself thinking of The Raven, of the man’s descent into madness, crippled by the unbearable loss of his beloved, Lenore. She wondered when Isaac would think of her that way—as his beloved. It wasn’t a matter of if for Daphne, but when. There’d be nothing nevermore about their love story. She was certain of that.

“Very,” Isaac said with a smile. “Do you read?”

Daphne was mildly annoyed by his stupid question but knew better than to let her feelings show. Instead of acknowledging the condescension in his voice, she nodded playfully. To her surprise, Isaac picked up the book from the ground and handed it to her, handkerchief and all. A second Foreman family handkerchief! How lucky was she?

“For me?”

He nodded.

She opened the front cover, ignoring the ISAAC FOREMAN transcribed on the inside flap. She turned the pages and gazed up at him.

“What did you say your name was, again?”

“Isaac. Isaac Beathan.”

Perhaps he wanted to distance himself from the family name and therefore the family business. But why? If you were going to build an empire out of something, it would only make sense to erect it on the back of a certainty. To borrow the words of Benjamin Franklin, the only certainties are death and taxes. And, as far as Daphne was concerned, taxes were incredibly dull.

Daphne stood in front of her mother’s grave as Father Bennett read a hymn and her father wailed. She looked up at the clouds swirling overhead and then down at the words etched on her mother’s headstone: “Loving wife, mother, and friend.” Daphne was convinced the only person her mother truly loved was herself. The weight of that woman’s self-absorption was so heavy it had its own gravity. There was a time when Daphne nearly lost herself in it.

Considering it now, though, as Father Bennett droned on about the grace of God and the promise of life after death, there was one thing her mother loved more than herself: her rosary. She’d paid an arm and a leg for it, convinced that it’d been the subject of a special Papal Blessing. When Daphne was younger, she’d almost believed her mother’s tale. But as she grew, she saw right through the veneered shine of the rosary’s pearls. Daphne quickly came to realize that the treasure her mother had traded her father’s hard-earned money for was nothing but a hunk of worthless plastic.

Yet, each Sunday, with her rosary tucked inside her pocket, wearing the same rose-colored glasses she’d been wearing when she bought the wretched thing, Daphne’s mother dragged her to St. Peter’s—early—so they could recite the rosary in peace before the other parishioners arrived. If Daphne’s mother had her way, they’d make it through all five decades before even the keenest arrived, long before the organ chimed and Father Bennett strode down the aisle, carrying a jewel-adorned cross that, too, looked cheap. All the jewels of Catholicism had the same wash: the chalice was too light to be of any value, and the gold on the pulpit looked more like tarnished brass. Still, her mother treasured her rosary, and it was her dying wish to be buried with it.

Daphne hadn’t planned to take it. But she couldn’t help herself. She’d snatched it from her mother’s cold, dead hands before the casket was closed and the pallbearers appeared. If she’d felt a shred of loyalty, love, or compassion for her late mother, she wouldn’t have dared. Hell, she certainly wouldn’t have killed her! But even now, standing in front of her mother’s grave, twisting the rosary in between her fingers in the safety of her coat pocket, Daphne felt nothing. Perhaps if she’d had a mother, she would’ve felt differently.

She had Aunt Hazel, sure, but there were no other allies amongst her bloodline. It was one of the reasons she was so desperate to bear Isaac Foreman’s name. The Foreman family had roots—deep, strong roots. Daphne knew that if you cut down the Foreman family tree, another would sprout up in its place. The Lobb family tree, on the other hand, didn’t have that perennial quality. The Lobb family was a series of saplings that never quite took; branches breaking under the weight of their own leaves, roots rotting in the wet, acidic ground, grasping for purpose that was perpetually out of reach.

“Daphne?”

Daphne released her grip on the rosary and looked around. How long had she been standing there, alone? Everyone had dispersed—Father Bennett, her father, a handful of other idiot mourners she hadn’t recognized. The clouds looked angry now, and the wind was picking up. It carried a promise: rain.

“Isaac,” Daphne gasped, a bit too sensually. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to pay my condolences.”

Daphne shook her head. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

She knew it was a risk—to confront her beloved about his lie. She expected his demeanor to be laced with defiance. But it wasn’t. He crumbled like a house of cards.

“You know who I am.”

Daphne reached down further into her coat pocket and twirled the beads through her fingers. “How could I not?”

They stood in silence for a while, as the raindrops started to fall.

“My mother’s maiden name was Beathan,” he explained, turning the sole of his shoe back and forth in the mud. “She died in childbirth. She died giving life to me.”

Daphne’s cold, dead heart leapt out to him in that moment. She knew Matthew’s wife had long since passed (the family tree drawn on the inside of her journal said so), but she hadn’t realized how. She couldn’t imagine the guilt Isaac carried. She wasn’t capable of such an emotion, but she imagined it was as taxing as farm work. And if there was one thing she dreaded, it was that. Hauling hay. Shoveling manure. Plucking potatoes from the black earth. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Isaac winked.

Daphne’s lips curled up into a smile. “I’d never lie to you.”

His lips mirrored hers. “You remind me of her—my mother.”

Daphne could’ve been shot dead in that moment, and she would’ve died happy. Was there a greater compliment in the world to bestow on someone? For the man of your dreams to say that you remind him of the woman who’d brought him into the world? Daphne had long been convinced, being the damaged, worthless goods Sister Josephine insisted she was, that she’d be forced into the same life her mother had: a miserable farmhand’s wife. And yet, here was Isaac Foreman, telling her she was kin-like. She could practically feel the roots sprout out from the bottom of her shoes, tearing through the dirt, shooting up to meet his. Intertwining.

She reached out to touch his cheek, and Isaac’s eyes locked with hers. Was he thinking the same thing she was? That this was the moment they’d tell their children about one day? The moment they fell in love, standing in a cemetery, in the shadow of the fruits of their funeral business that would exist for generations to come.

Isaac looked up over Daphne’s shoulder, and Daphne turned. Their fathers were deep in conversation, and Daphne knew her father wouldn’t realize she was gone for a long while—if he ever did. She reached for Isaac’s hand and led him through the cemetery to a small shed at the back that was sloping to one side. As she and Isaac stepped over the threshold, she imagined instead that they were walking into Foreman House, into the basement that housed the embalming equipment she’d longed to use. She could think of no better place for this to happen.

Isaac filled her up against the brick wall, propped up by a box from none other than Ithaca Casket Co.—a logo Daphne recognized from an issue of The Hearse. As he finished, she stretched her arms out on either side of herself, like a bird flapping its wings. With Isaac panting into her neck, his hand cupped into the small of her back, Daphne looked up over his shoulder and out through a small window.

Perched on the ledge beyond was a large black bird. She knew from its caw that it was a crow, but she willed it to have a croak, larger bristles at the base of its beak, and a wedge-shaped tail. A raven. In that moment, Daphne thought its presence was a sign for celebration—an ode to the moment she’d shared with Isaac under the tree in Sellers Park, his book resting in a clover patch. But a suspicious apprehension panged deep inside her gut. She punted it away, for she only had space to honor one thing: her ambition. This was her moment, her metamorphosis.

After all this time, she was finally taking root.

MARY

2018

CHAPTER 8

THE RAIDER

Mary was dragged into the land of the living by someone pounding down the front door.

Again.

Angry blows reverberating deep in her gut, she opened her crusty eyes and glanced upward, half-expecting the ghost to reappear and take her breath away. But all that remained on the peeling plaster were glow-in-the-dark remnants of Ursa Major—plastic stars stuck to the ceiling during her eleven-year-old astronomy phase (against Grandma Hannah’s specific instructions, of course). Mary had always been a contrarian.

Mary rose from bed, threw on an oversized sweatsuit, and dashed downstairs. If only the strikes belonged to a neighborhood child who’d lost a toy over the back fence. Hell, she’d take a Jehovah’s Witness, maybe even invite them in for some more shitty tea. But it wasn’t someone in contravention of the front door’s faded “No Soliciting” decal. It wouldn’t be. Not after the time capsule ceremony. She could feel it in her bones; in the anxious fire raging in her chest. She was finally going to get what was coming to her.

Mary paused her mad dash through the kitchen to tap her phone, still sitting on the counter next to the drainboard, precisely where she’d abandoned it the night before. An array of alerts lingered on the home screen. A wellness check from Tom. Another two texts from VPC (Vice-Principal Crummey): one encouraging her to take the day to collect herself and another confirming that a supply teacher would cover her classes. To Mary’s dismay, there were an indeterminate number of missed call alerts marked with no more than a skull emoji.

Lovely, Mary thought. Her hands and feet were heavy like cinderblocks again.

Moments later, just as she’d feared, Mary opened the front door to find her Uncle Peter, looking perturbed as ever, with his youngest brother John standing a few steps behind. Mary couldn’t help but notice the large book clutched in Peter’s hands. Had he brought it to throw it at her head? Mary resisted the urge to flee, trying to quell her nervous breaths that longed to burst out. If John had come alone, she wouldn’t have felt this way. John was a dweeb—the least frightening of the Disciples—but Peter’s gravitas had a way of rubbing off on anyone who accompanied him.

Peter punted the book to John and curled both hands into fists. “What did you do to the lock?”

Mary stared at Peter, slightly stupefied.

“Our master key doesn’t work,” John added, struggling to tuck the book under his scrawny shoulder. His brothers were built like brick shithouses, but John, well … he was the brains of the operation.

“What are you implying?” Mary asked, her voice trembling.

“I think it goes without saying,” John replied.

“I didn’t do or change anything,” Mary said. She desperately wanted to change the locks, but she wouldn’t dare. Breathing was at the top of the list of things she wanted to continue doing. “I—”

“Enough,” Peter interrupted, pushing past her in a huff. “Come.”

Mary couldn’t tell if he was speaking to her or to John. Even still, instead of obeying the command, she lingered in the entrance, immobilized by the ghostly haze in front of the now-closed door. Below the dust particles dancing in the early morning light was a component of the antique doorknob’s locking mechanism. The hunk of tarnished metal was slumped over on the floor, like a piece of worthless garbage on the shoreline of Sellers Park. Mary took a deep breath in through her nose, catching a whiff of the same smells that’d surrounded her as she lost consciousness in the wake of nevermore. A stale, putrid rot. Just like the one inside the time capsule.

“I’m not interested in playing any more of your games,” Mary whispered, fearing she’d have to add Ms. Morse to the growing list of people (dead or alive) to be wary of. “This is my life we’re talking about.”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

In the silence left by her Uncle Peter’s terrifying tone, soft knocks began to flood Mary’s ears. It didn’t take her long to decipher the ghost’s message.

Let’s play.

“Mary!”

Mary started squirming. She stood on her tiptoes and stole a quick peek outside through the door’s stained glass insert. Peter and John’s vehicles were the only ones in the driveway, which meant that Mark must’ve had better things to do. He was probably hauled up at St. Joseph’s doing his own damage control, trying to distance himself from the school he’d sunk a fortune into. The one that was now a crime scene. She could practically see him, standing in the doorway of Crummey’s office, demanding answers; the Vice-Principal cowering behind his desk, breathing into a paper bag. I thought there’d be letters, I swear it!

“Mary. Anne. Foreman. To. Day.”

With tight shoulders, Mary walked stiffly down the hall. When she arrived in the sitting room, her uncles were already seated on the bespoke leather reading chairs closest to the window. Mary looked on at Peter, who was grasping the arms of the chair like the neck of someone he wanted to strangle. She tried to avert his exacting gaze, but it was impossible. Peter had eyes like da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. They followed you, burrowed into your soul. In that moment, it was as if Mary were a child again, getting a good old scolding from Uncle Peter in Grandma Hannah’s absence. “No wonder your mother left,” he’d say, as if the statement were unremarkable as a comment about the weather. It was an insult he used far too frequently; one that always left young Mary reeling, considering what Faustian bargain she’d have to make for her mother to come back and love her as a mother should.

“When I summoned you,” Peter said, drumming his fingers over the armrests until he was certain he had her undivided attention. She could tell from the look on his face that he was only going to say what he’d come to say once. Repetition was beneath him. That’s why he’d brought his parrot, John. “I was confident our arrangement could be mutually beneficial: you would help quell our election woes in the face of that … podcast … in exchange for a roof over your single, destitute head.”

Ouch.

“And what do I get for extending you that extraordinary kindness?”

“Ah—”

“That was a rhetorical question!” John beamed, seemingly elated to get a word in.

“Fucked,” Peter said, giving his brother the side-eye. “I got fucked.”

Mary sat there, stunned. Peter had said a lot of things to her over the years. Things that were rude, dismissive, offside. Countless veiled threats. But she’d never seen him quite like this. He was seething.

“What is it with you women? Is it genetic? Surely this lunacy—”

“I am not a lunatic,” Mary muttered. She wanted to yell it from the rooftops, but it was no use. It didn’t matter how much vigor she had. As far as her uncles were concerned, she was a lunatic. A hysterical Foreman woman hellbent on destroying them. Just like her mother. Just like theirs. Just like Anne.

“I assumed you’d say that,” Peter said. He unbuttoned the lone silver button on his blazer and flung it open to expose its intricate patterned silk lining. “I must admit, Mary, despite all that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours, I have every confidence you have something vaguely resembling a brain. Which is why you’re going to start at the beginning and tell me everything you know about that godforsaken box.”

Box? Peter curated his word choice like the average millennial curated their Instagram. If he meant the time capsule, he would’ve said that. Unfortunately for Mary, she’d found many boxes. The one in the attic, housing her great-grandmother’s journals. The one in the basement, with the periodicals and the parishioners’ bulletin. The anxious fire in her chest burned on; its flames curling up her esophagus. If this was a trap, she was hellbent on steering clear of it. “Box?”

“The time capsule,” John offered, unable to resist an opportunity to offer a point of clarification. He took a quick glance at his brother before continuing, construing his silence as permission. You only spoke when spoken to around Peter. “Surely, you’d be able to recall the relic you extracted that derailed Peter’s campaign and upended our lives.”

Mary let out a breath. Thank God she hadn’t mentioned the other boxes. On the off-chance her uncles didn’t know about them, she was going to keep them close to her chest. The last thing she needed to do was give the Disciples an edge. Safety meant being one step ahead. “I don’t know any more about that than you.”

Peter threw back his head in disgust. “You know, you look like your mother, sitting there all dumbfounded.”

“She really does, doesn’t—”

“I wasn’t finished, John.” Peter sneered at him before snapping his gaze back to Mary. “Do you honestly expect me to believe you had no ulterior motives in taking us up on our offer? That your mother just happened to appear on a popular true crime podcast dragging my name through the mud in the middle of an election, insinuating that I offed the mayor to make way for myself?”

“Simply ludicrous!”

“John, I swear to God,” Peter said. “As I was saying, you expect me to believe that you actually wanted to return to this wretched place and take up residence in this haunted house? That you were ‘game’—your word—to take a job at the alma mater you despised, the same year they planned to exhume a human-remain-containing time capsule buried by The Original Loon?”

Mary’s blood started to boil. How dare he speak of Anne like that. Her great-grandmother was haunted, not hysterical. Why else would she have ended her life in the way she did?

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Mary asked. “I had nothing to do with any of this. I’m only here because you invited me,” she lied, her body breaking out in a cold sweat. “And apparently I only got the St. Joseph’s teaching job because Mark pulled some strings.”

“But there’s always something with you women,” Peter said, ignoring her reasonable explation entirely. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in cahoots.”

Who could he possibly think she was in cahoots with? Grandma Hannah hadn’t had a good day since she’d arrived, and she hadn’t seen her mother in decades. If they didn’t share a face, Mary wouldn’t be able to pick her mother out of a lineup. If she didn’t have Grandma Hannah as a point of reference, she wouldn’t know what her mother might look like at all.

Mary opened her mouth to speak, but Peter waved her off.

“If coincidence is the story you’re planning to stick with, so be it.”

“It’s the truth,” Mary insisted. Grandma Hannah’s letter notwithstanding, she would’ve been hard-pressed to return to the North Shore if she knew the shitstorm that was on the horizon. Her life was already in shambles. The break-up with Dale was enough. She didn’t need this, too. “I swear it.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

A chill shot down Mary’s spine. She didn’t hope to die, and certainly not at her uncles’ hands.

“So, tell us then,” Peter said, pivoting. “What did you see inside the time capsule?”

Bile burned at the back of Mary’s throat as she recalled the image: the skull that looked like the back of it had been bashed in, the filth and mold that lined all sides of the box, the rosary with teeth where the prayer beads should’ve been. She cleared her throat, willing the smell of rot to stay away. “I saw a skull and … teeth. Strung up like prayer beads on a rosary.”

“Well,” Peter said, spinning the garnet ring on his middle finger. “I guess whoever put that head in that box had a little dental arts and crafts session with it, too. To each their own.”

“Indeed,” John offered. “Another indignity done to a dead human body. What will this be now? Count number—”

“John, please …”

Peter’s voice faded out. Time stood still. That head. A body. Singular. No mention of incisors or canines. Did the Disciples not know about the fifty-nine teeth? Did they actually think the teeth belonged to the skull? Could she really know something about the case that her uncles—with all their friends in the police force, Town Council, and the Ministry—didn’t? Mary was certain they had eyes and ears everywhere, the Coroner’s Office included. But all signs pointed elsewhere. To her having the upper hand.

“I think we’re done here,” Peter said, rising from his chair, bringing her uncles back into focus. “You’re not to speak about this with anyone. If you’re contacted by law enforcement, you’re to confirm that you’re unable to speak without your lawyer present. One will be provided to you, of course.”

Mary debated telling her uncle his legal assistance wasn’t required, but she didn’t want him to get all up in her business. He was up in enough of it as it was.

“Mary?”

She gulped. “Yes.”

“Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“We’re going to need something a bit more from you, I’m afraid,” Peter continued. “John?”

John stood from his chair and cracked his knuckles.

“What does that mean?” Mary gasped, sinking further into her chair.

“Oh, relax,” John said, turning away from her. When he was facing her again, Mary realized there was a Bible in his hands; the same book he’d been clutching in the doorway. “Would you like to do a religious oath, or a solemn affirmation?”

“Neither.”

“But that’s not—” John stammered, glancing over at Peter. “That’s not an option.”

“I came home for you, didn’t I? I came to help.” Mary sighed. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Well,” John began. “Foreman women are not terribly credible—”

“Silence!” the patriarch screamed, letting the quiet fall around him before continuing. “John, I told you to leave that book at home. There’s no need for the legal theatre. Yet.”

Mary gulped again.

“Oh, one more thing.”

There was always one more thing.

“A little bird told me that a man by the name of Tom Pearson left here rather early yesterday morning.”

How could they know about Tom? Were they spying on her? Mary’s eyes darted around the room, scanning the corners for hidden cameras. “And?”

“You’re not to see him.”

“What?”

“So long as you live under my roof,” Peter said with the veracity of a man who thought himself the rightful owner of Foreman House. “You’re not to associate with that man.”

Mary narrowed her eyes. This was getting ridiculous. She’d taken the job they wanted for her. She’d lived in the haunted, dilapidated house. She’d toed their side of the family line. But telling her who she could fuck? That was where she drew the line. “And why would that be?”

“He’s not a friend of this family,” Peter said before signaling to John that it was time to go.

Mary stepped aside, thankful that the interrogation was over. How dare Peter come in here and tell her who she could and couldn’t associate with. She was a grown-ass woman. Her vibrator was broken. She had needs. Besides, who was a friend of the Foremans? If her mother’s podcast testimony was any indication, the Foremans didn’t have friends. People didn’t associate with them out of loyalty; they did so out of fear. With their stature and wealth, and with the North Shore death market cornered (in more ways than one), Mary’s mother had said, her mic cutting in and out, my brothers have reduced the townspeople to two camps: those who are too afraid to speak out against them, and those who can’t even if they wanted to because … well … because they’re already gone.

In her uncles’ wretched wake, swimming in the sea of her mother’s theories, Mary longed for more. More about the box she’d found in the basement, and more about the disappearance of Sister Josephine that reportedly delayed the Class of 1928’s graduation activities. Was the nun ever found? Could it be her skull inside the time capsule? She had the rest of her great-grandmother’s journals to work through, but she needed an unbiased perspective.

Mary knew that there was one place she could find answers, or, at the very least, a lead. She looked at the grandfather clock standing tall in the shadowy hall. She’d collected herself enough. Even though there was nothing she hated more than her senior English class, if she wanted access to the missing page of that article, she needed an in at the Houghton Chronicle. And, as fate would have it, her golden ticket would be there waiting in the (almost) front row.

The “c” in the sign on the faculty lounge door was missing.

Only a faint outline remained where the brass letter was once affixed to the wood; so faint, in fact, that you really had to look to see if it was ever there at all. Mary tried not to think too much about how the “c” had disappeared shortly after she’d started her tenure; about how she’d asked her uncle to order a new sign to no avail. She’d long despised the “those who can’t do, teach” adage and suspected Mark was trying to make some sick point. If you asked him, Mary’s faults ran as deep as the ocean depths Mr. Maldon, the physics teacher, was droning on about in front of the water cooler. To Mark, Mary deserved to eat her lunch every day in a faulty lounge, and the staff at St. Joseph’s would remain so until her time there came to its storied end. Hell, he probably stole the “c”.

“The question was brilliant! Stumped all of them,” Mr. Maldon exclaimed, even though he’d already said so twice (once as “big fat zeroes across the board on question twelve” and again as “even Jessica Stewart didn’t stand a chance”). “Do you recall learning the concept, Mary?”

“What concept is that?” Mary asked, her gaze drifting toward the water cooler.

Mr. Maldon had Mrs. Lefebvre captive there, clutching her paper cup like a lifeline. Mary could tell that she desperately wanted to refill it, but Mr. Maldon was standing right in front of the jug, unable to sense Mrs. Lefebvre’s great need. Mary could only imagine how positively parched she was. The girls in Mrs. Lefebvre’s second-period concert band class were so awful she spent most of the time yelling over their screeching instruments, begging them to stop. Mary knew because her second-period class was above the music room. She was planning to buy Mrs. Lefebvre earplugs for Christmas, if she lasted until then. She was old enough to draw a full pension. Mary had no idea why Ms. Lefebvre stuck around.

“That as light energy travels through the water, the water molecules scatter and absorb it so at great depths, there’s no light energy left to detect.”

Kind of like your ability to detect social cues, Mary thought. She was much better at masking than Maldon. “Can’t say I do.”

“You must,” he insisted, pulling out a chair at the communal lunch table and plopping himself down into it. “Reflection, refraction, and diffraction are key physics principles.”

“Oh yes,” she said, turning her attention back to the barely bubbling kettle on the counter. “So key that I use them all the time in my everyday life. Just like the Pythagorean theorem.”

“You know what they say, a watched pot never boils,” he said, ignoring her STEM-jab.

She’d had it up to here with Mr. Maldon and his salty remarks. Wait … Maldon. Like the salt. Amazing. “This is a kettle,” Mary clarified, filing the Maldon salt tidbit away for the next time she needed a zinger in the faulty lounge. “Would you look at that.” She smiled as steam spewed out the top of the vessel, motioning to the rapid bubbling.

“Everything bubbles up eventually,” Sister Claudia said dryly, just as Mrs. Lefebvre broke free from Mr. Maldon and extracted her crumpled brownbag lunch from the fridge. She sat down at the table and methodically pulled out its contents, setting her juice box, bruised apple, and squished, cellophane-wrapped sandwich in front of her, as if the only place they belonged was exactly where she put them.

“Don’t you usually eat in your classroom?” Mr. Maldon asked.

Mrs. Lefebvre shook her head. “The cops hijacked my music room. It’s chaos, I tell you.”

The music room was by far the largest classroom at St. Joseph’s, the only one capable of accommodating a makeshift nerve center. Music stands and chairs were much more portable than the antique desks bolted to the floor in most of the classrooms, and with its double doors backing out onto the gardens (a mere hop, skip, and jump from the soccer field), frequent trips to and from the crime scene would be convenient. The music room was also in its own wing of the school, down the corridor next to the old nun’s quarters (now teacher’s offices, for those teachers blessed—or some would say, cursed—with their own spaces), so the police would be free to work in peace, away from curious eyes.

“St. Jude’s is letting us use their space for the time being,” Mrs. Lefebvre continued, tearing off the layer of plastic surrounding her sandwich. A wave of revolting tuna hit Mary hard in the face. She gagged, regretting her choice to forgo her complimentary day off. “I have to get back over there soon to get things organized for our lunchtime rehearsal. We have our Fall Showcase coming up, and the selection keeps tripping up the woodwinds. Besides, I still haven’t figured out where they keep their batons.”

Mr. Maldon laughed. “You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than a baton to keep those ladies on track.”

“Huh?” Mrs. Lefebvre asked between moist chomps.

“You know what they say: nothing distracts a St. Joseph’s girl like a St. Jude’s boy.”

He wasn’t wrong. Mary, too, had found it difficult to resist their charms, back in the day. There was something about their crisp white shirts and checked ties (that they invariably wore without regard for the fact that they should be tied and not draped around their necks like stoles) that made it difficult to focus. Interactions between St. Joseph’s girls and St. Jude’s boys were limited for that very reason. Apart from the two school dances each year and monthly Mass, there was no reason for the students to mingle. Mary wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Lefebvre found a few stowaways at concert band practice. A tuba case could hold a student or two.

“Well,” Mary said, grasping her mug of tea. “I gotta go. I have class to—”

“Not so fast,” Mr. Maldon interrupted. “You really think that after what happened yesterday you get off without spilling any deets?”

Mary sighed. Mr. Maldon was one of those potbellied, middle-aged men who longed to be “hip with the kids.” He was always tossing a shoddily used short form into conversation or referencing a meme (which he pronounced “mem”) or GIF (which he pronounced G.I.F., like G.I. Joe). Perhaps he thought expanding his lexicon would make up for his receding hairline or the fact that the only thing he had to offer anyone was a physics principle they longed to forget.

“I can’t tell you any more than what’s on the news.”

“Can’t as in ‘you have nothing to share’ or can’t as in ‘you’re not at liberty to discuss?’”

“Can’t as in I don’t know any more than—”

A crash and a bang interrupted Mary’s rant. A swath of jars came tumbling out of the open refrigerator: grainy mustard, expired mayonnaise, and something once-pickled and now petrified.

“Jesus!” Mrs. Lefebvre cried out, just as Sister Claudia popped up from her seat and began to tidy up the mysterious mess. “Why does that keep happening?”

“Spooky,” Mr. Maldon said, fluttering his fingers in the air to the clink and clang of the jars Sister Claudia was shoving back in.

“It’s about time someone fixed that fridge,” Mrs. Lefebvre said to a chorus of you don’t say’s from the other teachers in the faulty lounge.

It came as no surprise to Mary that none of them—not Salt Man, the conductor, or Sister dearest—could see the ghost running her long, blistered fingers across the kitchen cabinets, rattling their doors with the softness of a summer breeze. Mary had named the ghost The Raider back when she was in seventh grade—when the ghost presented itself to her and insisted on her helping find a certain door. But even after Mary had stolen the janitor’s keyring and placed it in the ghost’s hands, the ghost didn’t fade away for good (as they usually did when they no longer needed help from the living).

Even now, years later, if there was a door, drawer, or cupboard that mysteriously opened, shed its contents, and then closed again on campus, you could bet your lucky stars The Raider was the culprit. Mary still didn’t know what the ghost was searching for, but Grandma Hannah always said it was common for ghosts to spend their half-lives searching for something they’d never find. The living and the dead had that in common.

“Did I hear the word fix?”

Mary turned on her heels to see Mark standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Mr. Foreman,” Sister Claudia said, turning from the fridge. “You’re always the answer to our prayers.”

“I spare no expense for St. Joseph’s, Sister,” Mark said, making sure to lock eyes with Mary before continuing. “I came to see Guy but thought I’d stop by to see if anyone needed anything. How are the new sinks faring, Mr. Maldon? What about your new instruments, Mrs. Lefebvre?”

“Fantastic,” Mr. Maldon said.

“Superb,” Mrs. Lefebvre said.

“That’s what a man likes to hear,” Mark said, turning to leave. “I’ll see what we can do about that fridge.”

“And the door sign!” Mary added in jest.

Mark didn’t respond.

“I really must go,” Mary insisted, spinning on her heel. “Enjoy your day, all.”

“You too, Mary,” called Mr. Maldon.

While she couldn’t be certain, Mary was almost positive that as she shut the door behind her, the salty, balding idiot added while you still can.

The blare of the lunch bell caught Mary off-guard.

She was still standing at the blackboard, hurriedly wrapping up her thoughts on Act I of Hamlet, when chaos erupted in the hall. The students leapt up from their desks to a chorus of shrieking chair legs and mindless chatter. Mary considered recapping the assigned reading but quickly decided her efforts would be in vain. Most of her English class was already gone, and the few remaining stragglers didn’t need reminders. Those girls kept her on her toes—not the other way around.

“Jessica,” Mary called out, setting her chalk down.

“Yes, Ms. Foreman?”

“Can you stay back a minute?” Mary asked, wiping her hand down over her hip.

With the hooligans having already vacated the class, Jessica Stewart was spared their dramatic ooohs and aaahs. Despite Mary’s open-ended question, Jessica wasn’t in trouble. Her brownnosing ass wasn’t capable of it.

“I’d love to stay and chat,” Jessica began, pushing her glasses further up her button nose. “But I don’t have much time. The woodwinds are getting together for an extra practice session at—”

“St. Jude’s, yes,” Mary interjected. “This won’t take long,” she insisted, waiting for the last of the students to trickle out before continuing. “I’m looking for a … research assistant.”

Jessica’s eyes lit up like fireworks.

“The fact that you’re the frontrunner nearly goes without saying. Your latest essay was superb,” Mary said, hoping the compliment would butter Jessica up and buy her some much-needed time. The last thing she needed was Mrs. Lefebvre breathing down Jessica’s throat with her tuna fish breath. She’d never hear the end of that. From either of them.

“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” Jessica said, her lips curling up into a grin. Mary couldn’t help but notice how her firework eyes were slightly duller, now—her gaze more exacting. It was as if she’d already scoped out the situation for what it was: a negotiation. “What is it you need help with?” Jessica asked, slowly turning her back to the clock on the wall.

Mary cut to the chase. “I’m looking for some historical Houghton Chronicle content. I’ve tried my best, but I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for.”

“My mother works there. I use her login all the time.”

“Really?”

Mary knew full well that Connie Stewart worked for the Chronicle. It was the only reason she’d even considered eliciting Jessica’s help. After all, she couldn’t just mosey on down to the Chronicle’s office and start asking questions. Grace Mitchell, Cole’s grief-stricken mother, was Editorial Director; and if Mary’s encounter with Nathan Mitchell at the Mill Yard was any indication, Grace would tell her to shove her request for assistance where the sun didn’t shine.

But Jessica didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know that Mary was banking on her being just like the brownnosers who populated St. Joseph’s back in her day, either: physically incapable of passing up an opportunity to get on a teacher’s good side. Girls like Jessica were all the same, anyway—the sort of student every teacher loved and yet simultaneously couldn’t stand. Brownnosers were like psychedelics: a microdose was sufficient. There was, in fact, too much of a good thing.

“I’d be happy to help, Ms. Foreman. But wouldn’t you rather ask my mom? I’m good, but she’s much—”

The no that exited Mary’s mouth was far too forceful.

Jessica’s body went rigid. Mary quickly pulled her cards back toward her chest. Time was ticking.

“What’s gotten into me.” Mary laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “What I meant to say was that if your mom were to help …” Mary paused, scrambling for the excuse or reasonable explanation she hadn’t anticipated needing. “Then I couldn’t offer extra credit.”

Jessica’s eyes lit up. “Extra credit?”

“It could count toward your end-of-semester research paper.”

“But I’ve already started working on that.”

“I’m sure you could use the time you would’ve spent wrapping it up on other things, no?”

Mary watched Jessica process her proposal, calculating its value in relation to the other things on her plate, like concert band and the school newspaper. “I could certainly use the time to work on my university applications.”

“I hear you’re applying to journalism school?”

Jessica nodded. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To tell stories that would otherwise go untold. To uncover difficult truths. My tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the St. Joseph’s Examiner has been a dream come true.”

Mary’s eyes widened. The cadence, the upward inflection, the way Jessica’s eyes got just a bit glassy on the word dream. The girl was going places. If not journalism school, then perhaps The National Theatre.

“I’d be happy to write you a letter of recommendation.”

“That’s very kind of you, Ms. Foreman.”

Mary smiled. “So,” she continued, reaching out her right hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Mary could tell that Jessica was still a bit hesitant. She’d probably never shaken a teacher’s hand before. Was the handshake too much? She needed this in at the Chronicle. If not, she wouldn’t have the objective evidence to prove that her hunch about Sister Josephine was anything more than that.

Come on …

To Mary’s delight, Jessica threw her brownnosing button nose up in the air, plastered a toothy grin across her smug face, and reached out her hand. But just before Mary could grab on, Jessica pulled her hand back. And not because she was afraid of supernatural infection.

“There’s one more thing.”

You little bitch. “What would that be?”

“I’m writing an article for the school paper,” she said, crossing her arms. “About the time capsule.”

The morning of the ceremony flashed in Mary’s mind: the cellphone hurled at her face; Jessica’s vague, open-ended question; the terse “no comment” she’d dished back at her. She couldn’t help but shake her head. “Lemme guess: you’d like a comment?”

Jessica shook her head. “An interview. Sit-down. Oprah style. Thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?”

“Relax, Ms. Foreman. It’s a school newspaper, not W5.”

Mary snorted. She knew she was being ridiculous. Since arriving back home in the wake of the podcast, she’d been on edge—even more question-averse than normal. But Jessica Stewart wasn’t the police—she was just a keen kid, writing for a pitiful school paper. What implications could her article possibly have in the grand scheme of things? Besides, without those access credentials, Mary was at an impasse. She needed this.

“On one condition,” Mary insisted, her cable knit sweater morphing into a straitjacket, the potential negative implications of her bargain crawling back up her throat like food she couldn’t keep down. “This stays between you and me.”

CHAPTER 9

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS

Mary left St. Joseph’s with an interview reluctantly penciled into her calendar, a set of guest access credentials for the Houghton Chronicle’s online archival database, and a slew of unsolicited research tips that’d gone in one ear and out the other.

The further Mary got from the school’s front doors, Noose still lingering on the front step, bony arm raised in a half-wave, the better she felt about their bargain. The risk of one of the Stewarts ratting her out to the Disciples was a small price to pay for exploring the Sister Josephine angle in secret. It wouldn’t be long before someone else discovered what she had, and while only time would tell if it was a coincidence or a correlation, Mary was determined to beat the clock. By the time she arrived home, she could barely wait to dive into a night of research. But just as she was about to turn on her barely-functioning laptop, there was a knock at the front door.

“Mary.” Tom beamed, hoisting the brown paper bags clutched in his arms higher. “You look fantastic.”

Mary didn’t need a mirror to know Tom was full of shit. “What are you doing here?”

“You said you were up to having dinner.”

“Did we set a date?” Mary asked, even though she knew they hadn’t.

Tom shook his head. “I figured tonight was as good a night as any.”

“Oh,” Mary said, warmth creeping to her cheeks. She was in no way prepared for company, but she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Her research would have to wait, and Peter would have to take his he’s not a friend of this family bullshit and shove it. If this was the final nail in her coffin, so be it. At least she’d die full. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Mary reached for the LCBO bag, leaving Tom with the bag that was damp with grease. She caught a whiff of chip stand gravy and malt vinegar and tried not to think of her vomiting spell outside the Manor. The Dragonfly was a Providence staple, and she loved their fries far too much to be dissuaded from how they’d tasted on the way back up. Besides, in a matter of days, it would be closed for the season. She needed to get her fill pronto. Before she knew it, the snow would start to fly.

In the kitchen, Tom dropped the bag on the counter and extracted his haul. “I debated driving up to Clarksville and getting takeout from Pier 17,” he said, opening the four cardboard containers to reveal his choices—a smash burger, a pogo, a regular fry, and a poutine. “But I figured this would do the trick.”

“Champagne?” Mary said, extracting the bottle. “What are we celebrating?”

“Dinner with ‘Bar Guy’ isn’t celebration-worthy?”

Mary would be hard-pressed to admit it, but Dom with Tom was the best thing that’d happened to her in weeks. Flutes in hand, Mary led Tom through the main floor of Foreman House and into the dining room. The long bespoke pine table sat in the center of the room, beneath a grand chandelier that had always screamed Phantom to Mary. On one side of the table was a wood-burning fireplace with several taxidermy mounts hanging above it. Front and center hung a stag’s head with skin down the sternum, its magnificent antlers collecting dust. To its left was a wolf, its glassy eyes dull, its fur matted, and its nose cracked. To its right was something else. Mary had come to understand it was a meerkat, acquired during a trophy hunting trip to South Africa—not because the Foreman who ventured there wasn’t able to kill a lion or a bush elephant or a buffalo (lies!), but because he’d been quite taken with the mischievous mongoose.

“Did you know they’re the most homicidal mammal?” Tom asked, his gaze fixed on the meerkat’s snout and brindled coat.

“You don’t say,” Mary remarked.

Grandma Hannah had always said that the three mounts were reflective of the Disciples hierarchy, their personalities. Mary had always assumed that the middle brother, Mark, was crowned the Meercat on account of the “M”—not to mention that he was sort of a weasel. But perhaps Grandma Hannah was acknowledging something else, too. Something more sinister.

There’s a darkness inside Mark, her mother had claimed, both podcast hosts hanging on her every word. John, too. People think they're just understudies. Puppets doing their perturbed brother’s bidding. But you know what they say: things aren’t always what they seem.

Tom turned away from the taxidermy mounts and gazed at the table. “These are nice,” he said, pointing to the dried flowers in a crystal vase. “I like the white ones,” he said before moving about the room.

Mary spared him the botany lesson. For reasons unknown to her, Tom Pearson had willingly returned to her family’s haunted house. The murderous meerkat tidbit was enough—she didn’t need the damn chrysanthemums pushing him over the edge. While white chrysanthemums were typically reserved for funerals and decorating graves, for Foreman women, white chrysanthemums were a source of comfort. They smelled like home.

“Is this you?”

Tom outstretched his hand toward a picture frame sitting atop the grand Victorian credenza, positioned adjacent to the fireplace. Mary inched closer to Tom and gazed at the array of tarnished silver frames, eager to begin her guessing game. When evaluating images of Foreman women, one had to rely on certain details to discern who was who: the photo’s size and shape, its gradient, the landscape, and any items in the foreground or background that could indicate the time period. Buildings, cars, and advertisements were Mary’s go-to, but sometimes the fashion was the truest indicator. She wondered if future Foreman women would be able to continue to rely on textiles, with everything coming back around.

If there were any future Foreman women, that is.

The color of the small photo Tom was pointing to wasn’t as vibrant as the Kodak Moments of Mary’s youth; the glossy 4 x 6’s indiscriminately stuffed into albums and frames like the ones on the credenza. In this photo, a preteen Foreman girl sat on the hood of a retro Volkswagen Beetle parked out in front of a much livelier Mill Yard. Other collectible cars lined the streets, too, their proud owners lingering near, chatting amongst each other. The girl’s golden curls billowed in the wind, and a wide smile graced her heart-shaped face.

It was a smile that Mary had never truly known, and yet one she couldn’t seem to forget. It was a fixture in her dreams, just as it plagued her nightmares. She’d long wondered if her mother’s smile had the same infectious warmth as Grandma Hannah’s. Or if it had a more … insidious quality, whether her words were some transfixing siren song. It’s what the local media had said in the wake of her acquittal: that she’d hypnotized the judge. The trial sketch artist had certainly leaned into it, making her mother out to be some sort of witch. Mary had only seen the sketches once, and she had no desire to see them again.

Even though they’d never spoken of them, Mary was certain Grandma Hannah thought the same. She could almost picture her on the first Saturday of the trial, waking up to find a copy of the Houghton Chronicle on the front porch of Foreman House; a sketch of her beloved daughter, looking wicked as ever, gracing the front page. Grandma Hannah wasn’t confrontational, but Mary would put good money on her grandmother storming out of Foreman House and collecting as many copies from her neighbors as possible, coming home with a heaping pile of newsprint, only to set them all ablaze.

How could she not? She’d always been steadfast in her belief that Sarah was innocent, even after she’d disappeared without a trace. She’s a good person, Mary, Grandma Hannah had said time and time again. I want you—need you—to remember it. Hold on to it like you hold on to your powers. Don’t let them go. Mary had made Grandma Hannah many a promise and acquiesced to many of her demands. But viewing her curse as anything other than what it was had always been beyond her. Despite how she was coming around on her mother, there was no chance of a tune change on that.

“The resemblance is—”

“Uncanny, I know,” Mary said. “That’s my mother.”

Tom gasped, still gripped by the photo. “No. You could be twins.”

“Strong genes,” Mary remarked before letting out a long sigh and letting her gaze fall on the unmistakable family heirloom that graced her mother’s left hand—a narrow gold band with a small sapphire in the center. It was a ring that had belonged to the Foreman women who’d come before her. A ring that would’ve been Mary’s, if only Sarah had stuck around long enough to bestow it upon her.

Tom clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I’m … sorry.”

Mary stretched out her arm toward him, palm facing up. “That’ll be a quarter, please.”

“Huh?”

She laughed. “It was my grandmother’s game. She started it when she was young. Made a small fortune back when this place was a working funeral home. She continued it long after the business moved into corporate offices, and it’d be rude to break with tradition now.”

“Ah. A Foreman family swear jar.” Tom laughed. “I’ll accept it.”

Returning to the table to dig into their food, Mary’s initial reservations about dinner with Tom Pearson melted away. The conversation was flowing—and not just because of the bubbly. There was something entirely easy about talking to Tom. Despite having little in common insofar as careers, hobbies, or general interests, they could commiserate in a way few could: they were both born and raised on the North Shore of Lake Huron, and even though they’d both managed to extricate themselves from its grasp, they were right back where they started. It was the township’s unwritten slogan: no one leaves these shores for long. Most folks would assume that “no one” meant the living. But Mary knew it applied to the dead, too.

“When did you leave?” Mary asked before taking a bite of her burger.

“Um,” Tom began, looking at the ceiling. “Just before high school.”

“That’s a hard time to move.”

“No kidding,” he said. “It was a long time coming, though, so I try not to hold it against my parents. My mother was itching to move when my brother died, but it was hard for my father to find work elsewhere. He was a janitor at the water treatment plant. It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid the bills and had good benefits. They didn’t feel comfortable moving without having something else lined up.”

“And where did you go?”

“Southeast,” he said. “Kingston.”

“That’s quite the ways.”

He nodded. “My father got a job at the Pen.”

“That must’ve been a challenging place to work,” she said, choosing her words wisely. Now a national historic site, Kingston Penitentiary was the country’s oldest maximum-security prison. Dale had insisted they go for a tour, but Mary had always found an excuse not to. She knew what she’d find there. Between the riots and the suicides, she was bound to have an encounter. As much as Noose and The Raider annoyed her, she’d take them any day over the ghost of a convicted felon.

“Oddly enough, my dad quite enjoyed it.”

“Really?”

Tom nodded. “I think part of him found being surrounded by people who were locked up … restorative.”

It took every ounce of self-restraint Mary had not to probe further.

“My older brother died by suicide when I was eight,” Tom continued, reaching for his champagne flute. He swirled it like a seasoned sommelier before continuing. “He’d just turned thirteen when he made sexual abuse allegations against the priest at our church. When my parents went to the police, the Dioceses played their usual chess game. Nothing ever came of the complaint: no investigation, no charges, no compensation. Nothing. So, we got as far away from these shores as we could instead. My dad spent the rest of his days surrounded by men who were held to account, and my mom spent the rest of hers blaming God for all the things he didn’t do.”

Mary sat her flute down, barely able to process what Tom had shared. No wonder he said he was haunted. How could he not be? “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “About your brother.”

The tension in Tom’s face disappeared. “Pay up, Foreman.”

Mary laughed. “Put it on my tab.”

A few moments later, Mary grabbed her napkin, licked her lips, and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. “Can I get you anything else?” She smiled, motioning to Tom’s empty plate.

“I’m stuffed,” he said, tapping his washboard abs.

Mary chuckled. Feeling like a beached whale by comparison, she let out an exaggerated puffed-cheek exhale, stood up from the table, and gathered their gravy-streaked plates.

In the kitchen, she ran the water for dishes, punting away Tom’s incessant requests to be part of the clean-up fun. “You cooked.”

“I most certainly did not,” he confirmed. “I got takeout, and against my better judgement. Look how much waste!”

“Oh, come on.” She chuckled. “We can recycle. Besides, don’t bash the only cooking I know how to do.”

When a heated exchange about the environmental impact of takeout died down, Mary was keen to shift the conversation away from her bad habits. Tom was a stellar conversationalist, yes, but he seemed reluctant to talk about himself. With the exception of the story about his family, they’d spent most of the dinner talking about her—her time in Toronto, her return to Providence, and her teaching at her alma mater.

“So,” she said, silverware clinking together, her hands submerged in the murky dishwater. “What does a civil litigator do all day?”

Tom grabbed the dishtowel off Mary’s shoulder and placed himself in front of the drainboard, poised for drying duty. “Depends,” he said. “It’s not as flashy as it is in the movies, that’s for sure. There’s a lot of research, interviews, negotiations, and drafting. In most cases, we’re litigating historic allegations, so the passage of time can complicate things. I often work on class actions, too, and they have their own quirks. The certification process, opt-outs, etcetera.”

“I also work with classes.” She winked.

He laughed. “My classes are far less hormonal, I’d imagine.”

“So, you’re like Erin Brockovich?”

“That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Tom laughed. “Sadly, I don’t take on the much-despised, multi-national conglomerates who knowingly poison groundwater and give entire towns cancer. I don’t think anyone’s making a movie about me anytime soon.”

“Who are you suing?”

“The Catholic Church.”

“Ah,” she said, setting a plate down in the drainboard as everything clicked into place. Tom’s brother’s death. His fateful return to Providence. Peter’s “he’s not a friend of this family” comment. Foreman men had been bankrolling the local Diocese for time immemorial, and the Disciples never looked fondly on litigation that challenged their interests. “So, you’re the flashy lawyer that’s got this God-fearing town up in arms.”

“The Priest Hunter.” Tom nodded, his eyes maniacal. “Well, according to the Houghton Chronicle. Another outlet tried to make The Clergy Catcher happen a few years back, but it kind of fizzled out. I really have to thank you, though, Mary: I’ve gotten a whole lot less coverage since you dug up that skull.”

“I do what I can,” she said with a half-curtsey.

When the dishes were done, they traded their flutes for wine glasses filled with merlot and moseyed on into the living room. Mary drew the curtains on either side of the picture window closed to the chime of the grandfather clock. Mindful of the time, she flicked on the television, hoping the national news broadcast would snuff out the moans, groans, and Morse code musings that would invariably filter down from upstairs. It was almost the witching hour, and, after what Ms. Morse had done the night before, Mary didn’t want any funny business.

Mary didn’t expect the news to sideline their conversation, but the segment grabbed hold of them, as if the words had a gravitational pull. Mary hadn’t watched The National in years, and yet there was something oddly comforting about it. It reminded her of sitting in this very room as a young girl, watching her grandmother knit in the chair beside the window, a candlestick flickering beside her, making her whisky glass glow gold.

“The trial of a 1998 murder case begins next week in Sault Ste. Marie,” went the familiar, timeless voice. “Police spent the better part of twenty years processing hundreds of tips and ruling out dozens of persons of interest. So, it came as a shock to all when, late last year, the police released a new composite image of the murder suspect produced by a DNA technology company based in the US. Using its proprietary service, which predicts appearance and ancestry from information gleaned from DNA samples, a new image of the suspect was created. Despite the sketch, most locals assumed that the perpetrator would never be caught—until the police announced that they had a suspect in custody.”

“Incredible,” Tom said in between sips of his wine.

“Where did they get the DNA from?” Mary pondered, picturing corporate minions shuffling through the trash of unsuspecting civilians, bagging up pop bottles, discarded straws, and reams of hair torn from hairbrushes.

“Those at-home genetic testing companies that map ancestry and assess for health concerns? Better read the fine print. Companies like that purchase DNA data from all the major databases. It’s insane the disclosure and alternate use folks are consenting to. And the whole criminal procedure part aside, that data has huge insurance implications. I’d never do one of those things. Not in a million years. The devil’s in the details.”

“Yeah.” Mary scoffed. “People are so dumb.”

Except Mary was “people.” She never read the fine print: not the terms and conditions for software updates on her phone or laptop, and surely not the at-home DNA test she did last year. Of course, she couldn’t tell Tom this, not after his impassioned commentary about personal privacy. Besides, even though the wine was flowing and he was flashing her the same gaze he had when they’d first met at the Mill Yard, there was a ghost pacing upstairs. Mary was presently occupying painfully familiar territory: thin ice. One wrong move, and whatever she had with Tom would be over, and she’d be plunged into the frigid, dark depths of isolation once more.

CHAPTER 10

STAY

It was the foghorn that finally roused Mary from sleep.

She reached over to her bedside table and silenced her alarm, dismissing the “GET UP YOU LAZY POS” notification that crossed the screen. In an almost-daze, she dragged her hands down over her face, dislodging the crusted bits in her eyes and the drool pooled in the corners of her mouth. While she hadn’t had enough wine to be crippled by a hangover, the tannins did a number on her mouth. The insides of her cheeks were raw, and her tongue felt fat. Far from ideal conditions for—

Mary’s thoughts of a morning make-out session evaporated. Tom’s side of the bed was fixed, and his pillow was fluffed and propped up. The only evidence he’d been there at all was a Post-it, leading Mary to believe she’d gone and joined the likes of Carrie Bradshaw. In a fit of rage, she snatched the small piece of yellow paper and raised it up to her face, bracing herself for whatever terse, recycled breakup phrasing he’d settled on. He was probably a “it’s not you, it’s me.” She could feel it in her bones.

HAD TO DASH.
RACCOONS UP TO NO GOOD?
TRIED TO CLEAN.
SEE YOU TONIGHT?
T.

Mary traced the final “?” with her finger, and the tension constricting her ribcage dissipated. Curious to see what the “raccoons” had gotten up to, she rolled off the bed, picked a balled-up T-shirt from the dusty floor, and exited the bedroom. A frigid draft whipped down the expansive hallway, where pieces of paper—slightly larger than confetti—were piled up in small oblong mounds. On the antique sideboard, where Tom had propped up the broom, was a New Testament carcass. Mary picked up the Bible’s mangled cover and tore through the remaining pages. It didn’t take her long to determine which books were spread out on the floor.

Peter.

Mark.

John.

“Ma’am!” Mary blared into the abyss, even though she knew Ms. Morse wouldn’t respond. “What’s with this? I said no more games!”

Mary waved the Bible back and forth like a maniac, opening doors and slamming them shut when the ghost failed to present herself. With all the obvious hiding places on the second and third floors exhausted—the spaces under beds, in closets, behind heavy drapes doused in dust—Mary admitted defeat. For now. She would figure out a way to make it clear that the Disciples were her problem. Whether they lived to write another book was in her hands, not some dead girl with an agenda. What was her agenda, anyway?

“We’re not done here!” Mary yelled, with the vigor of someone who called the shots. She didn’t, of course. Ms. Morse had made that abundantly clear the other night—suspended above her bed, blistered fingers wrapped around her head. But why the cryptic nevermore? Why tamper with the lock but remain silent during Peter and John’s Riot Act reading? Why was there no memory transfer on contact? None of it made sense. The dead were typically more forward, like women of a certain age on dating apps. These are my non-negotiables. Are you in? Or are you out? My biological clock is ticking.

In the silent hallway, Mary swept up Peter, Mark, and John and stowed them away in a trash bag. With the bag tied up, she returned to her bedroom. But instead of pulling on a pair of dress pants and a pilling sweater, she opted for a pair of leggings and a fleece.

Mary always ran when things got complicated, and there was nothing quite like a criminal investigation spanning a near-centenary to set a fire beneath her ass. And thanks to the “raccoons,” Tom had woken up at the crack of dawn. She still had a good few hours before homeroom, and there was no better way to start the day than with a brisk jaunt through her old stomping grounds.

In the kitchen, Mary plucked her grimy water bottle from her tote bag and stole a handful of cold French fries from the fridge. Standing in front of the sink, longing for some gravy, Mary looked over to the cookbook propped up in front of the microwave, open to her grandmother’s tried-and-true cupcake recipe. A wave of panic washed over her. She’d completely forgotten about her grand plans to bake Grandma Hannah’s favorite cupcakes as a birthday surprise, in hopes that the brown butter batter and dark chocolate icing would jog her decaying memory. Mary hadn’t baked anything in her life, but she was running out of ideas. She needed her grandmother to remember. Not just the letter, but everything.

The weight of this world was too much to bear alone.

Mary told herself she’d only run five kilometers, but that was five kilometers ago.

The rhythm of her feet pounding the forest floor calmed her frantic mind. She dodged discarded branches and patches of wet moss as she sped through the trees, drawing the crisp October air deeper into her belly. It was far too cold to sweat profusely, but there was a welcome dampness under her arms and on her forehead. She needed to let the toxins out—the tannins from the wine, the smell of rotting flesh and decaying bone that still lingered in her nose, and the intrusive thoughts that wouldn’t let her be.

A stitch in her side brought her to a dead stop in front of a towering pine. Pine needles littered the forest floor around its trunk, mixed with pinecones, damp moss, and small balls of rabbit shit. She put her hands on her hips and leaned back, gazing up toward the sky. A slight pink hue still lingered from the sunrise, painted across the blue with a gentle hand. Mary took another deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. She closed her eyes and let the forest draw her toward calm. She had to admit: it was restorative, being out here in the wilderness all—

But she wasn’t alone.

There was a boy standing in front her, leaning up against the narrow trunk of a rotting poplar. He had a bright yellow scarf looped around his neck and a red toque on his head. The front of his jacket was ripped to shreds. There was blood dripping from the gaping holes in his face where his eyes should’ve been. When he raised a hand in her direction, Mary stole a quick glance over her shoulder. It was a force of habit—a useless gesture. Who else could the ghost possibly be waving at? But when she turned back to face him, he’d already taken off through the trees, winding through the poplars, pines, and maples with inhuman speed, his scarf fanning out behind him.

Mary bolted after him, prancing over branches and puddles, the trees reaching out toward her, scraping at her cheeks. She was running so fast that she didn’t see the embankment until it was far too late. Suddenly, she was tumbling head over heels, over and over, like a hamster caught in a terrifying wheel. It felt like she’d been spinning for an eternity—yet in other ways, only an instant—when she came to a screeching halt, flopped up against a large boulder.

With her heart clamoring inside her chest, she carefully moved her fingers and toes, bracing for some sort of searing pain to radiate through her limbs. Whatever just happened was a thousand times worse than her run-in with Foreman House’s for-sale sign. But, miraculously, she seemed fine. After rotating her ankles and wrists, she stood up and started to wipe off the leaves and mud clinging to the tops of her thighs and her shins. With no sign of the boy, she turned to crawl back up the embankment.

“Stay.”

The voice was no more than a whisper. Distinctly female. Weirdly wholesome.

Panicked, Mary turned back toward where she’d landed in the earth.

“Look here,” the voice whispered again.

Where?

“Ms. Foreman?”

Mary jerked back. “Jessica,” she said, casually wiping more dirt off her body. “Why are you out here at this hour?”

Jessica looked down at her own body, a St. Joseph’s Cross Country Team pinnie on top of her sweater. Mary wanted to kick herself in the ass. Congratulations, Captain Obvious.

“Are you okay, Miss? I saw you take quite a fall.”

Mary thought back to what had prompted her tumble: the boy with holes where his eyes should’ve been. A reasonable person would’ve asked Jessica if she saw him, too, but Mary wasn’t reasonable. She knew that she was the only one who could see him. Even though she didn’t know why the ghost had presented himself to her—or who was behind the cryptic stay and look here—she had a sneaking suspicion that she’d soon find out.

When the familiar “ping” exited Jessica Stewart’s phone and “New Recording 3” flashed across the screen, a frog wedged itself in Mary’s throat.

The interview was consensual, but it felt oddly reminiscent of good-cop-bad-cop’s appearance at the Mill Yard and their thwarted attempt to get her talking. If only Tom could save her this time. Mary cleared her throat to dislodge the unwanted visitor and reached up to reposition the fabric bunched under her chin. She didn’t want Jessica to see the hickeys Tom had planted on her neck the night before.

“Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule? You took a real tumble. I think you should go see Sister Claudia.”

“I’m fine,” Mary said, folding her hands and placing them down on the table in front of her. What she really wanted to say was let’s get this over with, but she knew feigned enthusiasm was the safer bet. “I’m looking forward to this,” she lied, grateful that she’d only bargained away thirty minutes of her life.

Jessica shifted in her seat and opened her notebook. There was a series of questions scribbled down the page, but between Jessica’s chicken scratch and Mary’s inability to read upside-down, Mary couldn’t make out a single one. There was no way to get out ahead of Jessica’s asks. Mary had no choice but to let the pieces fall where they may.

“So, Ms. Foreman,” Jessica started, glancing down at her phone to make sure it was recording. She put a quick checkmark next to question one. “Let’s start with your return to Providence. Why did you come back?”

Mary clenched her fist in celebration. The first question wasn’t the red herring she’d feared, but rather the entry point she’d bet on. She couldn’t have Jessica knowing about her uncle’s distress call or Grandma Hannah’s letter, of course. She needed to weave her own narrative; leverage the fact that Foreman House was vacant and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Focusing on the house’s objective truths wasn’t a lie, per se. Besides, if Jessica wanted receipts, she could have the rubber mallet and respirator. She’d tried to resell them on Facebook Marketplace, but there were no takers.

“Well,” Mary said, leaning in, recalling the response she’d rehearsed in front of her bathroom mirror. “Foreman House has been sitting empty for some time. My uncle, Peter, asked me to come back to the North Shore and take care of it. The house needs a lot of upkeep, and he’s been so busy with his mayoral campaign and the family businesses. The nuances of those things are beyond me, of course,” Mary paused to pull at her sweater. She could feel it falling down her neck. “But I was between teaching jobs at the time, and my grandmother isn’t getting any younger, so I thought: why not?” Mary licked her lips and hoped the last five words of her response didn’t sound too forced. “It’s good to be back.”

“So, you came back to take care of Foreman House? Your return had nothing to do with your uncle’s campaign and the wrench your mother threw in it?”

Jessica checked off her second and third questions, and Mary shook her head. Luckily, she’d rehearsed this bit, too. “Nothing at all. I’m fiercely apolitical,” Mary said, ignoring the mention of her mother.

“Apolitical, eh? Your ex-fiancé and his family were major political donors in your former riding, and I have it on very good authority that while you refused to canvass door-to-door for your uncle, you were happy to do so on the streets of Toronto Centre. Why the political engagement there and not here? How can you be ‘apolitical’ about your hometown?”

The brown-nosing bitch had done her research. “The North Shore hasn’t been my home in a very long time.”

“But you’re trying to make this home again, no?”

Perhaps she already knew about the rubber mallet and the respirator. “I suppose so. I tried my hand at a few small projects, but I’m useless. Those influencers make it look so easy!”

“I’m not talking about renos, Ms. Foreman. I’m talking about you playing house with The Priest Hunter.”

Mary sat further upright. Jesus Christ. Had Jessica hired a PI? Mary knew how easy it was to do so. It’s what she’d done to try and locate her mother, time and time again. And, each time, no matter how highly placed, no matter how expensive, each private investigator came up empty. She’d considered trying once more after her mother’s podcast appearance, but she couldn’t bring herself to make the call. Deep down, she knew that if her mother was found, she could finally get the answers to the questions that had haunted her since she could form a sentence. Questions better left unasked. Unanswered. Besides, she couldn’t afford a PI anyway. “I beg your pardon?”

Jessica’s eyes went wide, the realization dawning on her that perhaps she’d crossed a line. “Let’s circle back to Foreman House,” she said, dramatically clearing her throat. “Your great-grandmother, Anne, lived there, correct? The one who buried the time capsule?”

Mary nodded.

“Can you tell me about her?”

Where to begin? While Anne had happily married Isaac Foreman shortly after her high school graduation, things got complicated after the birth of their first child. Anne started sleepwalking, self-harming, and hearing voices. She’d have outbursts at the market, the pharmacy, and the post office, leading the townspeople to believe she was losing her mind. When Anne put a knife to the mayor’s throat mid-Town Council meeting, Isaac decided to lock her up in Foreman House—the very house she’d implored the mayor to demolish before she drew the blade. Anne screamed for weeks on end, claiming she was possessed, until she finally broke free and tried to bury herself alive, wedging her frail, wounded body into a casket with a corpse set to be interred. When they found her, Isaac threatened to lock her up again and throw away the key. But Anne hurtled herself over Dean Lake Bridge instead.

But Mary wasn’t going to mention any of that. The time capsule had done enough damage to Anne’s already tarnished reputation. She needed to weave a new narrative arc, and it was going to start here. She hadn’t realized it before, but this interview was an opportunity—not just to get access to the Houghton Chronicle archives, but to show her great-grandmother in a new light.

“I never knew my great-grandmother,” Mary insisted, fiddling with her hands. “She died long before I was born. But she was a lovely woman.” Mary paused, considering how she could turn the existing lore on its head. “Lively, creative, felt everything so deeply. A bit claustrophobic, not a great sleeper, but who could blame her!”

“Interesting,” Jessica said, tapping her pen. “I’ve heard different things. That your great-grandmother was troubled. Everyone that I spoke to mentioned the boulders. So tragic.”

They weren’t boulders. Anne had tied cement blocks to her ankles before hurtling herself over the bridge. The note she’d left for her husband to find had explained why: witches float, but I don’t want to. But there was no use in correcting Jessica. It was clear from her nod to Anne’s suicide that she had no interest in exploring a new angle. Perhaps she was just like the keyboard warriors, taking to Reddit to malign her great-grandmother’s character by insinuating it was she who was responsible for putting someone’s head in a time capsule.

“Speaking of trouble: did you suspect that the time capsule would garner the media attention it has?”

Mary’s heart quickened. She needed to tread carefully. “The article in the Chronicle and the radio special on 94.1 FM were to be expected, I guess. But everything that’s happened since ...” Mary paused, calculating her next step. “All of that came as a complete surprise to me. Everyone, including me, thought the time capsule contained letters, not—”

“Human remains.”

“Yes.”

“I’m curious, then,” Jessica began, swirling her pen in her hand like a drummer spinning their drumstick. “You don’t appear to be someone who likes to be the center of attention. You have virtually no social media presence, and someone on Reddit commented that, and I’m quoting now, ‘Even when she was younger, she was an odd little recluse.’ So, why take a job at your alma mater when the time capsule was set to be unearthed? Human remains notwithstanding, surely you suspected you’d be at the center of it all. Especially in the wake of your mother’s appearance on Wicked Lives Lived …”

People were talking about her on Reddit? What could the keyboard warriors possibly want with her? Besides, this answer was a simple one. If Jessica had done her research, she’d know that Vice-Principal Crummey hadn’t decided to proceed with the time capsule’s extraction until after her offer letter had been signed and she was already en route North. “I—”

A “ding” from Jessica’s phone cut Mary off at the pass.

Jessica resumed the recording and profusely apologized for the interruption. “Please continue,” she begged.

“It’s no problem,” Mary insisted. “What I was about to say was: I think you may need to take a closer look at your timeline. While I can understand the desire to find some correlation, respectfully, my mother’s podcast interview has nothing to do with my return to Providence or the time capsule.”

“You’re certain?” Jessica derided, tilting her head as if she were mentally weighing the evidence. “The local police were investigating a slew of cold cases when your mother up and left. What if the remains found in the time capsule are—”

The recording paused again.

“What the—”

“Well,” Mary interrupted, reaching for the tote bag she’d hastily kicked beneath her feet. She had no interest in continuing the interview, and she was happy to take Jessica’s tech issues as a sign. Not only had Jessica crossed a line bringing up Tom, but this interview was feeling more like an interrogation by the minute. “I best be going.”

“But I’m not—”

“You were right,” Mary said, rubbing her shoulder. “I should see Sister Claudia. My upper body is just aching, and my head is killing me. I can barely remember anything I’ve said! If you’d like, you can send me the rest of your questions by email, and I can write up responses for you. There’s no use continuing if I’m concussed. It would undermine the process, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah,” Jessica said, tapping her phone screen. “You’re right. We should stop.”

“I’m sorry about this,” Mary lied, inching toward the door. “I need to get this sorted asap so I can jet to the Manor. It’s my grandmother’s birthday today, and I have a lot to do before my visit. I’m baking cupcakes. Lord help me!”

“My Nanna lives there, too.”

“Does she like it?”

“She says it’s too quiet and the ceilings are too low.”

“She’s not wrong.”

A silence fell between them.

“My Nanna told me that your grandmother can … see ghosts.”

Mary swallowed. “That’s silly.”

Jessica nodded. “My father said so, too. That it runs in your family. That all the women—”

Jessica snapped her head to the right and ran her hand over her shoulder, as if something she couldn’t see had touched her. Her eyes darted back and forth before they landed on Mary.

Mary knew that she could approach the issue one of two ways: be transparent or be defensive. But she’d spent the past almost half an hour exposing herself. She’d been transparent enough for one day. “You’re a smart girl, Jessica—the smartest student in your class. You know as well as I do that there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Jessica gazed down, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment. She cocked her head to one side when she found that her notebook, which Mary recalled she’d left opened on the desk, was now closed. Jessica shook her head, reached for the book, and stuffed it into her backpack. “I know. That’s what I told them! They mean well, but you know my dad. He’s like a dog with a bone. And my Nan …”

Mary smiled, told Jessica not to worry, and insisted there was no harm done. When she turned to leave, however, she refused to dwell on the fact that Noose—the ghost that’d paused Jessica’s recording and closed her notebook—was still lurking behind her, an insidious look on her collapsed face. Any other day, Mary would’ve considered intervening, but she’d used up her daily allotment of fucks to give. Besides, if something happened to Jessica Stewart, it would serve her right for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

By the time Mary pulled into the parking lot at Huron Manor, dusk was setting in over the North Shore. The sun hung just over the tree line, illuminating the tips of the towering evergreens. Still, the sun couldn’t penetrate the ominous darkness shrouding the Manor. Nothing of this earth could pierce that veil.

Mary barged through the front doors with a small white box in her hands. She’d stuck a bow to the top to zhuzh up the day-old grocery store cupcake. It wasn’t homemade, but it would have to do. Mary strode toward the empty reception desk and rang the bell next to the sign that read ring for service. But service didn’t come. Standing there clutching her box of baking shame, Mary debated whether she should wait or walk right on in. It was getting late. Visiting hours were almost—

A hand at the end of the hallway caught Mary’s attention. Extended out around the corner, its long, bony index finger coaxed her forward. The longer Mary stood there, frozen inside herself, the more animated the movement became. When the finger stopped, the sconces in the hall started seizing like strobe lights, until their frantic flickers gave way to total darkness. Praying for the generators to kick in, Mary whipped her phone out of her pocket and used the flashlight function to navigate down the hall. But when she turned the corner where the ghostly hand had been, she found the hall deserted.

“Hello,” she called out, her voice heavy with hesitation. “Reception?”

A crash echoed behind her, and Mary launched forward. She ran down the empty, twisting halls until she found herself in front of Room Four Hundred and Sixteen. Mary put her ear up toward the wooden door, expecting to hear a familiar voice emanating from the television. Pat Sajak. Alex Trebek. Maury Povich. The television reruns her grandmother listened to on loop. But there was nothing.

“Grandma Hannah?”

Mary gave the door a soft tap with her knuckles, and the silence gave way to muffled words and the pitter-patter of footsteps. When the door swung open to reveal two scrub-clad nursing staff members, Mary’s heartbeat quickened. Both nurses were wearing their most convincing smiles, but there was still a certain sadness in their eyes.

“Where’s my grandmother?”

“Mary,” called a familiar voice. “Is that Mary?”

Mary pushed her way inside. The television was off, and the armchair her grandmother usually inhabited at this time of day was decidedly empty. A panic button graced the coffee table, strung up on a piece of white ribbon. Next to it was a half-empty glass of water, marked with mauve lipstick rings, and a handful of hard candy wrappers tossed about. All the usual suspects, and yet …

“Mary?”

Mary followed the voice to her grandmother’s bedroom. There, kneeling at the foot of her grandmother’s bed, was Sister Claudia, a rosary wrapped around her frail hands. Mary didn’t need to venture further into the room to know what she’d find there. She could see her grandmother’s manicured feet flopped over to the side. She recognized the green sequined dress that fell around her calves. It was her favorite. Not only was it a longstanding tradition that she’d wear it each year on her birthday (a tradition the sweet nursing staff retained even though her grandmother had no recollection of the promise she’d made to herself), Mary knew it was her request to be buried in it. If I’m going to be tethered to these godforsaken shores, I’ll damn well sparkle for eternity.

“Mary,” Sister Claudia said again, more urgently now. “Come. Come pray.”

But Mary didn’t want to pray. There was no use in praying. Her prayers—for her mother’s return, for her grandmother’s health, for the quiet contentment that’d always evaded her—were never answered. No one was listening. Not now. Not ever.

Lingering in the doorway, swatting the nursing staff away, Mary was crying so hard she almost didn’t notice the crucifix above the door, dripping with black tar. But as quickly as the omen was there, it was gone again—leaving Mary to sit with the realization that she was cursed to be alone for evermore.

CHAPTER 11

THE APPLE DOESN’T FALL

The will reading was scheduled for the following Monday.

Mary had made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with the process, but Grandma Hannah’s eccentric lawyer was adamant her attendance was non-negotiable.

“Why me? Shouldn’t my mother be the one to—?”

“Despite our process server’s best efforts,” he’d said in a huff. “Your mother has fallen off the face of planet earth.”

“This is my problem because?”

“Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be, Ms. Foreman.”

“Difficult?” Mary asked, fuming. What did this clown know about difficult? If she opened a dictionary in search of the word, she’d find “being a Foreman woman” there. “I’ll tell you what’s difficult. Difficult is attending a will reading in my estranged mother’s stead so the Disciples can rub it in someone’s face that the boys were bequeathed everything. Again!”

The old man didn’t budge.

Now, sitting in The Green Room at the Providence arm of Foreman Family Funerals, on a hideous settee plucked straight out of Buckingham Palace, amid gawdy trinkets and thrift store artwork, Mary awaited the Disciples’ arrival. In the distance, she heard the faint creak of the front door, and then the stomp, stomp, stomp of dress shoes on freshly waxed floors. Peter turned the corner first, followed by Mark and John.

“Mary,” they said in unison.

Their excitement was palpable. The Disciples had waited years for this: when the speed bump finally kicked the bucket and it was full steam ahead on their plans for total North Shore domination. Under typical circumstances, there’d be no holds barred. But circumstances were not typical. The Disciples’ summoning her home had blown up in their faces, which meant they’d seize every opportunity to make her eat shit. But Mary didn’t care. Even though she was on the verge of homelessness and the brink of complete financial collapse, all she wanted was an acknowledgment that she was her grandmother’s surrogate daughter, that she’d lived with her in Foreman House for years, and that she’d loved her more than words could say. The Foreman family fortune wasn’t Grandma Hannah’s to give away, but Mary still hoped she’d left her something. Even if it was just a token. Whatever it was, she’d treasure it forever.

The balding lawyer held up the sealed manila envelope like a priest presenting the Eucharist to a church full of parishioners, all eager to receive Communion. After slicing the top with a letter opener, part of Mary was shocked to see him extract no more than a single page. She’d always thought wills to be long, complicated documents. But it made perfect sense: it didn’t take much to say that the Disciples got everything. The Foreman family was rooted in tradition. And if the past was one thing, it was patriarchal. So why did John look like he was going to throw up?

“Did you also bring the trust documentation?” John asked, breathless.

Mr. Lawless ignored his question completely, clutching the paper between his shaking hands. “I’m going to skip over the recitals, though you’re welcome to read them at your leisure,” he said, looking straight at John. “It is my wish that upon my death an open attendance funeral be held at Six Hundred and Fifteen Astles Road in the Town of Providence, the site of the original Foreman Family Funeral Home. My remains shall be placed in a casket which shall remain closed. I’ve chosen a premium hardwood casket—one with good color and a fine grain. Despite what certain individuals may say, I deserve more than pine. For absolute certainty, under no circumstances shall my remains be cremated. Menopause was hot enough. Funeral and burial arrangements will be facilitated by Barclay’s Funeral Home in the Greater City of Sudbury. Payment for funeral expenses has already been made. A budget has been allocated for florals. Chrysanthemums, obviously.

“It is my desire that I be interred in the plot next to my beloved spouse, Samuel Murice Lobb, predeceased, at the Holy Cross Cemetery located in the Town of Houghton. My sincere apologies to the Town of Clarksville for being otherwise omitted from my last will and testament. It is not personal. I hold all three of the towns comprising North Shore Township close to my heart and thank them for restoring my hope that good things can, in fact, come in threes. You have provided me with the fondest of memories. I will hold them close for as long as I can (unlike other things, which I’m happy to forget …). I’m looking at you, boys.

“I give all my property, including the property at Six Hundred and Fifteen Astles Road in the Town of Providence, Foreman Family Funeral Home Inc., and any and all its subsidiaries to my Trustee upon the following trusts: first, to pay my testamentary expenses; and second, to pay or transfer the residue of my estate to my only granddaughter, Mary Anne Foreman, if she survives me, for her own use absolutely.”

Mary’s entire world went off-kilter. The room was too big, and her shirt was too small, and her limbs felt like they were on fire. Her panicked gaze bounced between Mr. Lawless and the Disciples. Mary had no clue why any of this was happening, but she knew what it meant.

There was a target on her forehead, and Peter had impeccable aim.

“No, no, no!” screamed John, jumping up from his seat. “She has no power of appointment! Alistar’s trust reigns supreme!”

“Sit down,” Peter barked, pointing at John. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

John obeyed.

Peter turned back to Mr. Lawless, still standing at the front of the room, clutching the will. “Your services are no longer required, Mr. Lawless.” Peter sneered, twisting the rings on his right hand like he was preparing to throw a punch. “I suggest you take that worthless piece of paper and go on your merry way before I shove it down your fucking throat.”

Mr. Lawless placed the will in his briefcase and vanished, without so much as a glance in Mary’s direction. He must’ve seen the writing on the wall, too: there was a legal challenge looming and Mary would be lucky if she lived to see the litigation.

“Mary, Mary, quite—”

“Sir?”

Peter’s administrative assistant was standing in the doorway.

“Leave us.”

“It’s starting, sir. The press conference.”

Peter growled. “You,” he said, pointing at Mary. “I don’t want to hear a peep from you. The Foreman family trust has been in place for generations. If something is amiss with the trust documentation and that bitch could, in fact, will away my birthright, then that document is the product of duress, incapacity, or whatever other legal term John’s thinking of at this very moment. You won’t see a dime. Mark my words. For now, though, we will pause this discussion. We need to know the true extent of the PR nightmare you’ve brought upon this family.”

“I—”

“This way, dear,” whispered the assistant, ushering her down the hall.

When Mary and the Disciples piled into the staff room, the assistant cued up the local news. Centered on the screen was a wooden podium, perched in front of the Providence detachment of the provincial police force. Moments later, four officers poured out of the revolving front doors. One took center stage and the other three filed behind. One was holding a large black folio in his hands. He looked grim.

“My name is Detective Constable Clark Holden, First Class. While I work for the Providence detachment of the provincial police service, I also serve as lead investigator for the Major Crimes Unit, Northeastern Division. I am here today in that capacity to provide an update regarding the human remains discovered on the grounds of St. Joseph’s School for Girls in Houghton.

“As previously reported by way of a public news release, at approximately 11:43 a.m. on October fifteenth, a box thought to be a time capsule buried by the Class of 1928 was unearthed. Two items were found in the box: a skull and a rosary, with teeth in the place of prayer beads. It was initially assumed that the teeth strung up on the rosary belonged to the skull. However, further investigation and forensic analysis have determined otherwise.”

The reporters erupted. Questions were punted, speculations were tossed, and cameras flashed. But Holden was unfazed. He raised his hand as if he were directing traffic, and the media circus went quiet.

“Our team of employed and contracted analysts has been working around the clock, combing through dental records for both active and cold cases. Thus far, one match has been determined. Now, the North Shore public will undoubtedly be familiar with the unsolved murder of Cole Mitchell, a student at St. Jude’s School for Boys in Houghton.”

Mary’s heart quickened. Mary’s frantic mind returned to her recent encounter with Nathan, Cole’s father, at the Mill Yard—his fuck you, Foreman weighing heavily on her still.

“I appreciate that this is being broadcast publicly, and so a warning for those watching with young ones. I suggest you reconsider doing so. Viewer discretion is advised.” Holden paused for a few moments, giving viewers time to get the innocent out of earshot. “Now, the fact that Cole’s ‘mutilated’ body was discovered in the wooded area surrounding St. Jude’s is already a matter of public record. The nature of that mutilation, however, was never revealed. I can confirm today—more than twenty years after his untimely death—that Cole’s eyes had been removed from his face and that his teeth—both incisors and canines—had been pulled from his mouth. And now that the family has been notified, I can confirm that four of the teeth found on the rosary belong to Cole Mitchell.”

The reporters erupted again.

All Mary could focus on was Holden’s comment. Cole’s eyes …

“Again, I understand that this information is disturbing,” Holden said, his voice almost drowned out by their cries. “I also understand that the public is—and has every right to be—concerned. North Shore Township deserves answers, and I’m certain we’re on our way to getting some. But, for now, I am standing before you with a plea for assistance. Using DNA samples pulled from the time capsule, along with information garnered by our criminal behavioral analysts in their assessment of these crimes, a composite image of our principal person of interest has been developed by a DNA technology company in the US. This company’s proprietary service has been key in cracking several cold cases across Canada—most recently in Sault Ste. Marie—and we are hopeful that this image will generate new tips.”

As the camera panned to the aisle beside Holden, the grim-faced man approached. He pulled the composite sketch from the folio, and the crowd erupted once more.

Staring at the face staring back at her, Mary felt the ground fall out from beneath her feet. In an instant, her uncles’ concerns pivoted from the dismantling of their empire to the biggest scandal to rock the family since Isaac Foreman’s tar and feathering. While it was unlikely that anyone in the room could believe their eyes, there was no mistaking the person in the composite sketch. In the words of Tom Pearson, the resemblance was uncanny.

As chaos erupted around her, yelling and text chimes and the blare of phones, Mary uttered a single word, barely more than a whisper. The picture could’ve been any Foreman woman throughout the ages. Hell, it could’ve been her. But the only word Mary could scrounge up was the one that’d been sitting on the tip of her tongue for almost her entire life. The name of the only Foreman woman who’d formally stood trial. The one who’d been acquitted back then. The one who looked terribly guilty now. “Mom?”

Mary left the funeral home with a parting gift: a completely reasonable suggestion from Peter’s scorned assistant to finally change the locks on Foreman House, pronto. And so, on her way home from the will reading, reeling from the unexpected windfall and the press conference that changed everything, Mary dashed into Cutler’s Home Hardware.

Struggling to decipher the difference between passage, privacy, dummy, and entry, Mary crouched down to get a better look at the knobs lining the bottom row. As she compared two AAA-rated keyed doorknobs, the doorbell chimed. Wet boots squeaked against the tile floor, and smokers’ coughs and incessant chatter filled Mary’s ears.

“You gotta admit though,” said a man one aisle over. “That sketch looks a hell of a lot like Martha.”

“You mean Mary?”

“Yeah. The one hauled up in the funeral home.”

“Nah,” another said. “I think it looks more like her mother.”

“They look exactly the same.”

“I bet you they’re both in on it. When the cannibal had enough, she trained her daughter to finish what she started.”

“I knew the whole ‘leaving town’ thing was just a farce. Sarah’s probably been living in that haunted house this whole time. I bet the daughter never left either.”

“Well, you know what they say: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Mary flipped up the hood of her jacket and gathered up as many doorknobs as she could. She tiptoed up the aisle as the men continued chatting.

“I bet ya Nathan’s out there sharpening his pitchforks.”

“Peter, too. I knew those boys were tellin’ the truth all these years. He’ll be mayor now, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Some Death Conglomerate they’re running!”

“This is what happens when you shut the women out. They start their own enterprise.”

Certain the men were occupied by the plumbing tools and accessories in aisle four, Mary made a beeline for checkout and placed the doorknobs on the counter. She bit her bottom lip and diverted her gaze downward as the woman behind the cash register scanned her haphazardly selected doorknobs and plopped them into a plastic bag.

“Claire!” one of the men yelled from the aisle. “A little help here?”

“I’m with a customer,” she replied. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

After Mary inserted her credit card, Claire Taylor offered to scoot her out the back door. While Mary appreciated the gesture, she quickly declined. Even if Claire had the best intentions, Mary wasn’t leaving through any door other than the one she came in. Only guilty people used back doors. She was innocent. Whether or not her mother was, she couldn’t say. But she was going to get to the bottom of this.

Even if it was the last thing she ever did.

CHAPTER 12

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME

In the wake of the will reading, knee-deep in the rubble of her family’s almost-empire, Mary was left to tend to her grandmother’s funeral arrangements alone.

Grandma Hannah’s instructions bought her some much-needed time. A closed casket meant that decomp wasn’t in the driver’s seat. While embalming worked wonders, the restorative art was not infallible. At one point or another, the cosmetic façade would start to wear off: the skin would discolor, the cheeks would sink, and the expertly coiffed hair would fall. The petrified body would begin to look, well, dead (imagine!). An open casket funeral needed to be scheduled as soon after death as possible, but a closed casket? Mary had all the time in the world.

Despite that flexibility, Mary was still frantic, and Siobhan, the out-of-town undertaker, had done her very best to bring the ease. She’d taken care of the big-ticket items—the embalming, the casket, and the transportation to and from Foreman House—leaving Mary to decide on the lesser details like date, time, and crudité, not to mention evading Father Charles Seabrook’s calls. The priest had left countless voicemails in hopes of confirming whether the sacrilegious tale he’d heard was true: that, at her grandmother’s behest, her corpse would move from visitation to interment without so much as a gospel reading.

“No Mass?” he’d asked, incensed, once he’d finally gotten Mary on the line. “This cannot be.”

“It most certainly is.”

Father Seabrook let out a little cry, as if he were a six-year-old whose older brother had just revealed that Santa Claus wasn’t real. “But what about—”

“No.”

There would be no Mass, no vigil, no readings, and no prayers. There was no ambiguity in Grandma Hannah’s wishes: an agnostic funeral and burial. A celebration of her newfound freedom from her Foreman-family shackles. No pomp. No circumstance. No rosaries. Even the normal kind.

“Surely, she was not in her right mind when she provided those instructions.”

Mary didn’t owe him—or anyone, for that matter—an explanation. But, thankfully, her grandmother’s revised will pre-dated her diagnosis. By a longshot. It was a truth she would continue to grasp at for dear life.

“They’ll still sue,” Tom had said, much to her dismay. “I can’t speak to how the trust factors in, but they’ll likely argue either incapacity or duress.”

“This all sounds very expensive.”

“Your uncles have money.”

“Apparently not anymore,” Mary said.

“But they’ve been powers of attorney to this point, no?”

Mary shrugged.

“If they’ve had full control of the family’s funds to this point, then I’m sure they’ve been hiding money in shell corporations for a rainy day.”

Mary recalled one of her meetings with Peter’s campaign manager. John had interrupted thrice, droning on and on about numbered corporations in the Cayman Islands.

“And even if they didn’t have the funds to bankroll their vendetta,” Tom said, reaching for Mary’s shoulder. “They’re angry. Broke and angry can be a lethal combination.”

“Lethal?”

Tom shook his head, eyes wide. “A metaphor!”

But Mary suspected the emotion fueling her uncles’ actions wasn’t anger but fear: fear that if she took the helm, she’d be privy to records that would support her mother’s podcast claims. That it was the Disciples—not Sarah—who were up to no good. That the composite wasn’t proof of anything other than the fact that they had local law enforcement by the balls.

So now, standing in the seldom-used library room of Foreman House with Tom guarding the door like a bouncer at a club with no cover, Mary couldn’t help but find herself on edge. If the circumstances were different, it would’ve been the usual suspects in attendance: the Disciples and their entourages, the neighborhood wailers (who lived on stolen pieces of tragedy pie), a handful of folks of her grandmother’s vintage, and a few extended Foreman family members, outraged that the nearest airport was a two-hour drive away.

But circumstances weren’t different. A near-century-old time capsule buried by a Foreman containing human remains had been unearthed, a composite sketch of a suspected (distinctly female Foreman-looking) serial killer was plastered around town, and the Foreman family (and its business holdings) were in turmoil. Mary suspected the townspeople would be lined up in droves waiting to get a glimpse at the haunted ancestral home of a founding family on the brink of collapse. And, but for the words “open attendance” in her grandmother’s will, Mary could’ve gotten away with a private affair. Alas, she needed to honor her grandmother’s wishes. Still, she couldn’t help but believe that if Grandma Hannah had known that the vultures would be circling, she would’ve reconsidered.

“Maybe no one’s coming!” Mary shouted, fiddling with the hem of her bell sleeve.

Tom quickly abandoned his post at the front door. “It’s still early,” he replied, appearing in the arched doorway and motioning to the Anniversary Clock spinning on the mantel. “But, if no one shows,” he said, ducking toward the table holding the crustless sandwiches, crudité, and punch bowl (which, to Mary’s dismay, was alcohol-free), “more for me.” Tom popped a ranch-laden baby carrot into his mouth. “You’re really committed to that hat, aren’t you? It’s quite the look.”

Mary touched the fascinator on her head, repositioning the black netting that swooped down over the left side of her face. She’d found it in a box in her grandmother’s closet, amongst other headpieces and hats. It was her way of deterring folks from fixating on how her high cheekbones, large forehead, doe eyes, and thin upper lip matched the composite sketch.

“It’s not because of that stupid sketch, is it?”

Mary shook her head, not because Tom was wrong, but because she had no interest in talking about it.

“Mary,” Tom said, chomping on another carrot. “I’m not going to debate the likeness—to you or your mother. But that sketch could be anyone. There are a few thousand residents across North Shore Township, and there’s nothing unique about a heart-shaped face on a white woman. Who’s to say that person is even from here? No one with half a brain kills multiple people in a small town and stays there.”

Tom’s logic was sound, but Mary disagreed. Ever since the press release and the incident at the hardware store, she hadn’t so much as exited Foreman House. Despite Tom’s claims, every time she looked at the composite sketch, she saw her mother, which meant that others were bound to see her likeness in those pencil strokes. Her fascinator may have looked ridiculous, but she needed to do everything in her power to deter wandering eyes from staring for too long.

As Tom moved in for a piece of broccoli, there was a soft knock at the front door. “Shit,” he muttered, returning to his post.

Mary glanced back over her shoulder at her grandmother’s casket, sitting in front of the bay window. The stained-glass chrysanthemums projected small beams of colored light—yellow, green, and gold—and they danced on the gleaming mahogany like a kaleidoscope. She’d gazed out the window countless times over the years, but only now did she stop and appreciate the craftmanship—the way the petals looked almost supple against the rigid canes of grooved lead, soldered at the joints. Rumor had it that Alistar Foreman had built this and the many other stained-glass windows in the house with his own two hands. But Mary had her doubts. The longer she sat with her mother’s theories, the more she believed that Foreman men weren’t capable of building something beautiful and timeless. Everything they touched was like the corpses they embalmed. They all rotted away eventually.

The first few guests trickled in, wearing black, not because they were in mourning themselves, but because it was the appropriate thing to do. Mary didn’t recognize any of them. Still, they exchanged the usual pleasantries before the guests lingered awkwardly in the library, staring at the closed casket, profoundly disappointed. Perhaps they’d been vying for an opened version—exchanging bets as to whether they’d get a sighting of the deceased matriarch’s ghost.

“Hey!” Tom shouted.

Mary turned from the celery sticks to the ceremony-goer who’d slipped away from the rest of the group and was trying to sneak upstairs. “Excuse me,” she called out, slinking around the table, a napkin balled up in her clenched fist.

But Tom was already ahead of her, reaching for the woman’s forearm and insisting she had to leave. She fumbled over various excuses on her way out—looking for the bathroom, being overcome with emotion, needing air—but her motivations were clear. If she couldn’t get a good look at Grandma Hannah’s corpse, she wanted a better look at Foreman House. She and her posse left with neither, but not without letting Mary know that she’d get what was coming.

“Thank you for your kind words,” Mary said before flipping them the bird.

When they were gone, Tom had the good sense to cordon off the staircase before the next wave of marauding mourners descended. To his dismay, his rope gate kept falling. Mary told him not to worry, but he insisted on repositioning it, time and time again. Of course, he couldn’t see Ms. Morse standing on the steps, untying the rope and letting it fall from her bony hands with glee. Even though Mary knew Tom would admit defeat eventually, she needed to send the ghost the right message.

“How is everything going?”

Mary nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned to find Siobhan, and her heart rate returned to its resting rhythm. “Great,” Mary lied, taking a deep breath in.

“Quite the turnout,” Siobhan said, motioning toward the throngs of people standing in front of her grandmother’s casket, pointing around the room and gawking. It was as if they were in a museum, not a funeral visitation. “I thought you’d said you weren’t expecting many folks.”

“I was hoping for a smaller crowd,” Mary said, fussing with the netting draped over her face. “I should’ve known, though. The North Shore is full of nosy people.”

“Oh,” Siobhan said, surprised, inching closer to Mary so that her mouth was nearer to her ear. “These aren’t family or friends?”

“Nope,” Mary whispered. “The guy over there has a habit of bad-mouthing me in our local hardware store.”

“How strange,” Siobhan said, visibly unsettled. “The hearse will be arriving in about forty-five minutes. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to shorten the timeline?”

Mary shook her head. She could survive that long. She’d hidden a flask of vodka behind the punch bowl. A bit of liquid courage would do the trick.

“I’m going to duck out now, then. If you need me, I’m on my mobile.”

As Siobhan exited, a few familiar faces entered. Mary had never been excited to see Vice-Principal Crummey before, but perhaps there really was a first time for everything.

“Vice-Principal Crummey,” she said, grateful to no longer be surrounded by strangers. “Thank you for coming.”

“Mary,” Crummey began, fidgeting with his pocket square. “It’s Guy.”

“I can’t.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But it does make me feel quite old.”

“You don’t look a day over thirty-five.”

“It’s good to know the Botox isn’t in vain!”

Mr. Maldon, Mrs. Lefebvre, and a handful of other faculty members filed in after, picking at the carrots and staying as far away from the casket as they could. When they’d had their fill and expressed their condolences, they left, insisting that they had other commitments.

“I appreciate you all coming,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. “It means a lot.”

“I went ahead and arranged for coverage for you for the rest of the month, Mary,” Crummey said, sweat dancing on his brow. “You must be positively exhausted. Do as Jennette did and take some time away. Mourn. I know that Hannah was like a mother to you.”

But Mary didn’t need time away. She needed routine. Normalcy. A paycheck. Despite her grandmother’s will, she still hadn’t seen a dime. She likely wouldn’t for a long while. “I’m fine,” Mary insisted. “I planned on being back at work the day after tomorrow.”

“Mary,” Crummey continued, in a tone that suggested the matter wasn’t up for debate. “Why don’t we meet this coming Monday morning. 10:00 a.m. My office. We’ll talk more then.”

“Fine,” Mary said, accepting that this was not the time or place to make a scene. But what was there to talk about? Surely not the composite sketch. She’d had it up to here with everyone’s senseless conjecture. Even though the likeness was uncanny, Tom was right: that sketch could be anyone. The North Shore wasn’t known for its diversified gene pool. Where was Tom, anyway? She looked down at her watch. T-minus twenty minutes. Surely the worst was—

“I think you should leave,” she heard Tom say, his tone acerbic. She turned to find him down the hall, his body blocking the only way in.

“Ah,” Uncle Peter said. “The Priest Hunter. As I live and breathe.”

“Did you hear him? He thinks we should leave,” said John.

“Hysterical. If he knew what was best for him, he’d be the one leaving,” Mark added, his nose in his phone.

“If you know what’s best for you,” Mary derided, breathless from her dash to the front entrance. “You’ll turn around.”

Peter cackled. “All high and mighty now, aren’t we?”

“This isn’t your house anymore,” Mary said.

“That’s debatable,” Peter replied. “Besides, need I remind you that this is an open service.”

Mark and John parroted the phrase, like schoolyard bullies.

“In and out then.” Mary snarled, feet planted wide in front of the Foreman family portraits. She could feel Isaac Foreman’s painted eyes burning two holes in her back.

“But I have so many respects to pay to mother dearest,” Peter said.

“Then start paying,” Mary said, low and slow, as if each word were its own sentence, her hands clenched at her sides.

Mary followed the Disciples into the library and watched as they knelt in front of their mother’s casket, muttering what Mary suspected was some sort of hex. Despite the way her body hummed, she found a shred of comfort in the fact that Grandma Hannah was safe from them now. Foreman men only had power over the living. Despite their line of work, the dead were her domain. And with the thought came a realization: maybe Grandma Hannah would present herself. Tell her all the truths she couldn’t recall when she was sick. Tell her why she sent the letter. What it meant. Mary had never hoped for a ghost encounter more in her life.

“Thank you for extending us that great courtesy, Mary.”

“Happy to help you close this chapter.”

“Oh, darling,” Peter said, his grin conveying a secret knowledge. “This is just the beginning.”

“Yes,” John said, piping up from behind his brother’s shoulder. “If you’ve never heard of restrictions on alienation, you will soon.”

“If you’ve never heard of public policy exceptions, you will soon, too,” Tom said, his chest puffed out.

Ignoring Tom and John’s attempt at cerebral combat entirely, Peter turned to leave. He stopped in front of the basement door and held up his hand, the rings on his fingers glistening in the light. “Remember what our dearly departed Hannah always said, Mary. Make sure this door stays locked! You never know what’s lurking down there, waiting to possess—”

In an instant, Mary’s body was pulsing with a rage that was not quite her own. It was as if she were watching herself from above: her hands, around her uncle’s neck; his body, suspended up against the basement door; his arms and legs spread out. A menacing cackle escaped her lips as her knuckles cracked and her bones snapped to create a perfect death-grip around her uncle’s airway.

“Help,” Peter gasped, his eyes bulging out of his head.

Peter flailed about until the sound of Tom’s voice snapped Mary from her trance. Back inside her body, she released her hold on Peter’s throat, and he cowered up on the floor in the fetal position. The smell of urine hung heavy around him as Mark and John pried him up and shuffled him out of the house, saying no more of his shame. Terrified by what they’d witnessed, the rest of the onlookers fled the house, too, leaving Mary and Tom alone.

“Are we going to pretend that didn’t just happen?” Tom asked, reaching for Mary’s forearm.

Mary needed to. Even though she knew the word for what she’d experienced—possession—she couldn’t bring herself to use it. All she could do was try her best to ignore the feeling of Ms. Morse inside her—her presence lingering in her veins like the smell of food on clothes.

“There’s no time,” Mary said, motioning toward the clock, her voice trembling. “The hearse will be here in a few—”

“Mary?”

Sister Claudia hobbled down the hallway, clutching a Bible in one hand and her cane in the other. With each stride, she appeared to become less steady, her cane sticking in the grooves of the weathered floor. Immediately, Mary was transported back to the last time she’d seen the old nun, sitting at the foot of Grandma Hannah’s bed, clutching her rosary. Mary shook her head to dislodge the memory as soon as the tar-laden crucifix crept in.

“Here,” Mary said, offering Sister Claudia her arm. “Let me help you.”

“You’re an angel,” she said, handing Mary her Bible and looping her arm into hers.

The Holy Book felt like a hot potato in Mary’s hands.

“Closed?” Sister Claudia asked, standing in front of the casket.

Mary nodded. “It’s what she wanted.”

Sister Claudia gasped, snatching her Bible from Mary. “And no Mass?”

“No Mass.”

Sister Claudia pursed her lips and set her Bible down next to the casket, right beside Hannah’s photo. Mary hadn’t spent much time looking at it. Only now did she realize how regal her grandmother looked, standing in the front yard of Foreman House, leaning up against the towering maple tree. Or was it? The tree’s trunk was so much straighter. It had to be somewhere else.

Sister Claudia rested her wrinkled hand atop the casket. The skin on her bony fingers was almost translucent. “This is not how I wanted to say my goodbyes.”

The sentiment struck Mary as odd. “I thought you weren’t close?”

“Pardon?”

“You said you didn’t know her very well. That you’d gone your separate ways,” Mary said, recalling the conversation they’d had after the time capsule ceremony, when Sister Claudia was nursing her back to health.

“That may be true. But that day …” Sister Claudia trailed off, reaching toward her collarbone. “She’d asked to see me. Specifically. I thought it was odd, considering her condition. Nevertheless, when I arrived at her room, she was perfectly lucid. She recalled our time at St. Joseph’s and the various points our paths had crossed over the years and for a moment …”

“What?”

“I’m old, Mary,” the nun said with a sigh. “I’ve watched nearly all my friends pass on and I thought, for a moment, that perhaps your grandmother could be a friend to me—that I could be one to her. That I could help her … remember. We’ve seen so much here on these shores over the years.” Tears welled in her eyes. “My own home seems like a strange land sometimes, with all you youngsters and your convictions and your cellphones. I just thought we could lend an ear to each other, is all.”

Mary felt herself relax. What she’d first read as skittishness was no more than profound sadness in disguise—an old woman woefully coming to terms with the fact that her time on this spinning space rock was coming to an end.

“It would’ve meant a lot to her that you came,” Mary said, even though she didn’t know if it was true.

Sister Claudia bowed her head and steepled her fingers in front of her smile.

“The hearse will be here any minute,” Mary said apologetically. While she didn’t want it to look like she was rushing the nun out, the fact remained that she was. She wanted to give the house a once-over before leaving, to be sure their attempts to keep folks in one room weren’t thwarted. She didn’t want to leave Tom alone to deal with any stowaways. Not after what’d happened with Peter.

“Not to worry, I’ll see myself out,” Sister Claudia said. “My condolences to you and your family, Mary.”

And then, as Sister Claudia hobbled out the house and down the drive, Mary could’ve sworn she heard screams from the third-floor corridor.

Without any of the religious pomp and circumstance, Grandma Hannah’s interment was decidedly anticlimactic. Mary watched with bated breath as the pallbearers—hired help, of course—heaved Grandma Hannah’s casket onto the lowering device. After repositioning it so that it was level on the two green straps, Siobhan gave a nod and the casket was lowered into its final resting place, leaving Mary to toss a handful of dirt into the hole to mark the end of the to-do.

Standing there, watching the earth escape between her fingers, Mary wished she wasn’t alone. Why had she insisted Tom stay behind? He’d wanted to be there, of course, to show his support. But she was adamant that she had to do this on her own. But now, staring at the gaping hole in the earth, the finality of the moment sending her into an unanticipated downward spiral, Mary wanted nothing more than Tom’s hand.

“Mary,” Siobhan said, walking around the casket, the skirt of her long black trench coat ballooning in the wind. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

Mary hoped that Siobhan couldn’t see the tears winding down her cheeks. She hadn’t cried all day; convinced it was because she’d cried herself dry. But what she’d mistaken for a drought was a flash freeze. With everything winding down, the thaw was inevitable. Mary wiped the tears away with one hand, still clutching a bit of dirt in the other. “Would it be okay to take a moment alone with her, please?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, pulling her leather gloves from her coat pockets. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be waiting in the car to drive you back.”

As soon as Siobhan turned away, Mary opened her one closed palm, letting the dirt rain down around her, before shifting her gaze to the headstone. In comparison to some of the large monuments erected around the cemetery, the small arched slab was tasteful. It was a deep grey marble with the name “Lobb” in the center. Just as her grandmother had wanted. Not a “Foreman” in sight.

Still, there was no denying that Hannah had died a Foreman. She’d assumed her husband’s surname for a short while, but, like all Foreman women, Hannah’s marriage was cursed from the start. Isaac Foreman refused to permit his only daughter to marry some bankrupt farmer’s son from Houghton—an heir to no more than a plot of barren land and a heaping pile of manure. Despite his naysay, rebellious Hannah had married Samuel Lobb in a secret ceremony anyway. In exchange for letting the pair live to see another day, Isaac demanded that their children bear the Foreman family name, quashing any stake Samuel could’ve hoped to have in the family’s holdings. Samuel didn’t have a chance to feel too bitter for too long, though. He died in a freak boating accident a few weeks after Mary’s mother, Sarah, was conceived, leaving Hannah to raise their four young children alone.

Mary had little connection to the Lobb side of her family tree. So little, in fact, that the names on the modest plot barely jogged her memory. Not Reuben or Muriel or Gregory or Lottie, and surely not—

Huh. “Siobhan,” Mary called over her shoulder. When Siobhan arrived back at the plot, Mary pointed down at one of the inscriptions. “Why wouldn’t there be a date of death?”

“Hm,” Siobhan started, pulling at her chin. “Given her date of birth, I’d say the only reasonable explanation is that it’s an omission. Whether it was inadvertent or intentional, I can’t say.”

“Why would it be purposely omitted?”

“Well, if someone is presumed dead but there’s no body, a family has to decide what they want: closure or hope.”

That was precisely how Mary had lived her entire life: oscillating between a desire for closure and wanting to keep hope alive. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, of course, but she understood the family’s choice. Even before the podcast interview, when she had all the evidence in the world to suggest her mother was never coming back, she wouldn’t have etched the date of her disappearance into marble. When faced with something so permanent, Mary would’ve opted for hope.

After relieving Siobhan of her duties a final time, Mary closed her eyes and bowed her head, rejecting the impulse to gather her hands in prayer. She didn’t do that sort of thing anymore. The last time she’d prayed, she was still at St. Joseph’s, compelled to do so by association. She knew enough now to know there wasn’t any utility in it. So why did she feel compelled to do so now?

“Take care of her, Sam.” Mary sighed, her hands firmly at her sides. “Reunited at long last.”

With pesky tears pooling in her eyes, Mary raised her gaze up toward the dense tree line. That’s when she saw him, standing in the shadows: the boy with the red toque, yellow scarf, and sunken face. She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again, hoping she was hallucinating. But to her dismay, the eyeless boy just stood there on a bed of pine needles, waving her on. She thought back to the Mill Yard confrontation. The first sighting. The press conference. I can now confirm that Cole’s eyes had been removed from his face and that his teeth—incisors and canines—had been pulled from his mouth.

Mary stole a panicked glance over her shoulder, the headlights of Siobhan’s car dancing in the mist. They really should be leaving. Darkness was creeping in, and if there was one place she didn’t want to be after dark, it was a cemetery, let alone one backing onto the same forest where she’d fallen. “Fuck me,” Mary muttered under her breath, trying not to think about the cryptic whispers of stay and look here.

Against her better judgment, Mary dashed through the cemetery, past a gaudy headstone more Grim Reaper than divine being. The boy was kinder this time, running at an average human pace instead of supernatural hyperdrive. Still, it didn’t take long for Mary to realize where they were going. Moments later, she found herself standing in front of the same boulder, her red toque and yellow scarf-wearing tour guide long gone. There was something here she was meant to find. Something that Cole’s ghost wanted her to see.

Mary cautiously shuffled the leaves about with the toe of her boot. Finding nothing but the nub of a pencil, barely long enough to write with, she crouched down to her hands and knees, digging through the berm, overturning rocks and rotting tree limbs. She’d nearly given up when she found it, poking out of the earth. At first, it looked almost like a discarded chicken wing. But then she saw a flash of gold. She reached for a stick and dug out the surrounding area. She didn’t stop until the finger became two, and then a full hand. Staring at the bones she’d unearthed, wondering if this was some sort of sick record for remains uncovered, Mary pulled out her phone and pounded at the keys with her shaking fingers. It took a few tries before she nailed the otherwise simple landing.

“Nine-one-one,” the operator droned, without so much as an ounce of urgency, which Mary found Alanis-Morissette-level ironic. “What’s your emergency?”

“I,” Mary said, panic welling in her chest. Her words escaped her. She knew she’d found a hand, but she didn’t know if it was attached to anything. “I’ve found … remains. In the forest. The one between St. Joseph’s and St. Jude’s in Houghton, parallel to the cemetery.”

“Do you have a sense of where you are? Coordinates?”

Mary asked the operator to hold on while she shuffled through a host of never-used apps. She located the compass, turned on location services, and read out the information it spat back at her.

“An officer has been dispatched to your location,” the operator said. “Please stay—”

But Mary didn’t want to. She knew how all of this looked. First the time capsule, and now this? She was swimming in circumstantial evidence. This was how true crime documentaries about wrongful convictions started: wrong place, wrong time.

“Can I have your name, please?”

Mary didn’t respond. When the gold band wrapped around the skeletal finger caught the light in just the right way, Mary’s reservations about staying put and providing her name vanished. Suddenly being locked up for a crime she didn’t commit was the least of her concerns.

Mary blinked and blinked, but no matter how many times she employed her factory reset, the unmistakable Foreman family heirloom remained, giving decades of suppressed grief permission to pour out of her like lava. Here she was, finally faced with the finality she’d craved—the one she’d wished for. Her mother was here. Close enough to touch, to fall into, and yet …

Mary fell to her knees on the damp ground, phone overturned, the muffled voice of the pleading dispatcher still coming through.

“No,” she whispered, not to the dispatcher’s question, but to herself, frantically digging in the dirt, hoping to find a shred of life to salvage instead of more cold, fractured bone. A worm curled up into the palm of her hand, and she split it in two, just like her heart. Where was the chest? If she could find the chest, she could do compressions. Yes, compressions. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Another thirty. Where was the chest? All she could find was an arm and a shoulder and a neck and a skull, just like the one in the time capsule.

When Siobhan finally found her, Mary had dug a hole deep enough to curl up into, to cradle herself in the arms she’d longed to be held in. Mary said the voice inside her head—the one from grainy home movies captured on Super 8 film; from the Marine Land gift shop before the hungry earth swallowed her whole; from every dream she’d ever had, and every birthday wish she’d ever made. When the authorities finally tore her from the tear-soaked earth, Mary tossed her head back and screamed at the sky, wondering how on earth these godforsaken shores could be so cruel. Was burying her grandmother’s bones not enough for one day? Did she really have to go and unearth her mother’s, too?

DAPHNE

1928

CHAPTER 13

ANY RELATION

Saint Gerard’s Home for Unwed Mothers was the color of sunshine.

But it wasn’t just the canary yellow bricks that captured Daphne’s attention. The entire lot, just short of two acres, looked like it’d been shot out the other side of a prism flooded with white light. The bright red mailbox at the end of the drive, its coordinating flag standing at attention; the shaggy orange tabby cat, lingering on the front stoop, licking its paw; the freshly trimmed lawn, bright and well-kept, without so much as a speck of sun damage. Neither the blue jays frolicking in the birdbath, their unified song coalescing into a crescendo, nor the violet pansies, dancing in the breeze, seemed to have a care in the world.

Daphne knew better than to be wooed by the home’s inviting façade. She’d let herself be taken by a home’s ostentatious powers before. Clutching her swollen belly, her unborn child kicking her internal organs with the same zeal she’d once had, she knew she’d never make that mistake again. Besides, when Father Bennett came knocking on their farmhouse door to say that she’d be “going away for a while,” sunshine and rainbows weren’t mentioned, nor did she assume they’d be part of the forecast. Despite her current predicament and the insults her father had spewed in her direction, she wasn’t stupid.

The world was simply disinterested in her brilliance.

As the car pulled into the drive, its exhaust obscuring her line of vision, a nun in a black habit zipped out the front door, and the rainbow shot back into the prism. In an instant, the lot was shrouded in shadows, and everything that was once technicolor morphed into shades of grey. It was the same darkness that’d descended upon her life after the impassioned moment she’d shared with Isaac Foreman in the grave digger’s shed. Despite what she’d dreamed of—what she’d worked for—a proposal did not follow. Nevermore, she thought, reflecting on the prolonged suffering she’d experienced at his hand. The misery that’d started soon after she failed to bleed and started retching and growing and—

“Miss Lobb?”

Daphne nodded, resisting the urge to wipe away the nervous sweat pooling above her brow. She didn’t want the nun to see her trembling hand. Removing herself from the car, the sun’s rays licked the back of her neck. Her body wished for wind and yet, the air held nothing—not even the faintest promise of a breeze. Even before she fell pregnant, she’d hated the North Shore’s humidity more than life itself. But now her hatred of the moisture-laden air had reached new heights. That and everything else.

“Follow me.”

As the driver extracted her tattered suitcase from the trunk, its leather peeling like the cracked skin around her nailbeds, Daphne followed the nun toward the house. While Daphne’s waddling in lockstep could be construed as acquiescence, her mind was back at Foreman House. With Isaac. His wretched father, Matthew. They’d both rejected her, and both their heads were on her chopping block as a result. Granted, there was still time for them to redeem themselves—for them to right their wrongs. The heir to House of Foreman was inside her. Surely, they’d come to realize what her child meant to them. Forgiveness was typically beyond her, but she could make an exception.

Hobbling over the threshold, Daphne was struck by the muted scent of bleach and lemons. She was instantly suspicious of the feigned freshness and wondered what stench the nuns were attempting to mask. She looked about, her gaze landing on the half-moon table in the entrance. Sitting atop a crocheted doily was a vase of daisies.

Oh, daisies, she thought. Those little flowers were a beacon, back when being with Isaac Foreman was but a dream. Daphne would sit in the paddock and pluck the white petals from the daises that ran rampant there, the sound of hooves thundering in the distance. He loves me, he loves me not. Even when the number of petals wasn’t onside, she’d just pretend. She wasn’t about to leave her fate up to the number of petals on a flower. She was cunning. Strong. Worthy of the Foreman name.

She’d find her way back.

Daphne examined the small foyer. Its walls were painted a light green, like a shamrock exposed to the sun for too long. She followed the tile floor up the twisting staircase. It reminded her of the one inside St. Joseph’s, twirling up, up, up like Jack’s bean stock, so high it could reach the clouds. At the school, there was always a nun hovering at the top, looking down with a discerning eye. She expected the same here, but perched on the top step was a girl. Her swollen ankles were stuffed into gleaming black shoes; her dress the color of weathered paper. The girl gave a mischievous wave with her left hand, her right one clutching a small leatherbound book and a pen.

No! She’d forgotten to bring her own journal. She could practically see it, perched on her cluttered dressing table, beside the lipstick she’d once smeared across her mirror as she practiced for the day when she’d finally kiss her beloved. Daphne sighed, abandoning thoughts of both the lipstick tube and her journal. It’s just as well, she thought. She couldn’t run the risk of one of the nuns reading her private thoughts and fears. She’d been down that winding road before.

“We will convene for prayers at half-past four, followed by dinner at half-past six. You can go upstairs and settle in in the meantime, Josephine.”

Daphne’s heart caught in her throat. “That’s not my name. It’s Daphne.”

“Not here, it’s not.” The nun snarled, spite in her eyes.

Daphne thought back to the intake pamphlet Father Bennett had provided—the thin sheet of paper she’d promptly burned in the woodstove. She recalled that the use of one’s “real” name was prohibited at the home, and that a new first name would be assigned upon arrival. But Josephine? Surely this was no coincidence. Did this nun know? How the now-headmistress tormented her, tried to convince her she was no one, and almost snuffed the fire from her soul? Why else would she insist on calling her such, with an evil twinkle in her eye? The sisters’ cruelty knew no bounds.

“I’d like another name,” Daphne insisted, her blood boiling.

Something else. Anything else.

“Josephine is perfect for you. Roles right off your tongue.”

Without a retort, a deflated Daphne retired to her bedroom. Her suitcase was sitting on a small bed beneath a window. Despite being far too small to accommodate a girl’s body—let alone a pregnant one—the window was adorned with bars, anyway. This place was a prison.

“What’s your name?”

Daphne stopped fiddling with the buckle on her suitcase and spun around. There, in the doorway, was the girl from the top of the stairs, still clutching her book with ink-stained hands.

“Daphne.”

“No, your real name.”

“That is my real name,” Daphne maligned. “However, according to the witch downstairs, you can call me … Jo.”

Daphne expected the girl to be unnerved by her tone, but the plump brunette didn’t cower. Instead, her thin lips curled up into a smile. It was like looking in a mirror. “She is a witch, isn’t she?”

Daphne smiled, unencumbered. She was still hot and incredibly bothered, but she felt more like herself in the girl’s presence. “They’re all cut from the same cloth,” she said aloud before thinking silently to herself just like you and me. She could barely believe that she’d found a friend in this hellish place. She hoped that Anne wouldn’t be mad. Any friendship she formed here would be no match for their bond. Besides, she’d be back soon enough. They’d pick up right where they left off. Just like always.

“I’m Francine,” the girl said, extending her ink-free hand. “Francine Berry.”

Daphne cocked her head. Anne’s last name was Berry. “Any relation to Dr. Berry? He practices in Providence.”

The look on Francine’s face said it all: this is why we don’t use our real names here. She gave a meek nod. “Distant,” she said, pulling at the tattered hem of her dress and rocking back and forth on her heels. “But my father would say still too close for comfort.”

Perhaps Dr. Berry was as disliked as Anne insisted. He was one of two physicians on the North Shore. Dismissive, painfully slow, and patronizing. Daphne had been scheduled to meet with Dr. Berry to assess how she was coming along but deferred to the nursing staff at the school instead. She knew that doctors were supposed to keep their patients’ secrets, but the picture Anne had painted of her father made Daphne question whether he could be trusted. She’d tell Anne everything one day, of course—once Isaac chose to course correct. The news wouldn’t bring shame, then. It’d be a cause for celebration.

Daphne looked about the small room. “How long have you been here?”

“Two months,” Francine said, clutching her belly.

“When are you due?”

“Any day now,” she said, a flicker of fear flashing in her eyes.

“Are you and the father … close?”

“I speak to him every day.”

Daphne’s eyes widened. Here she was, accepting the fact that she’d have no contact with the outside world while at St. Gerard’s. There was hope after all! “Do you exchange letters? Or is there a telephone?”

Francine shook her head. “Face to face.”

Daphne’s eyebrow inched upward. How was that possible? The girls weren’t allowed out of the house unsupervised—the pamphlet she’d used as kindling had made that perfectly clear. Was there a secret passageway like the one in Foreman House? Daphne’s heart thumped erratically inside her chest, and the baby started stirring in response. She hadn’t felt this way in what seemed like an eternity. Hopeful. “Please,” Daphne pleaded, her voice hushed. “Tell me. How do you see him?”

“In this very room,” Francine whispered, low and slow. “Right over there.” She pointed at the closet along the back wall, its pine doors slightly ajar.

Daphne’s curiosity was even higher now. “How?”

“He comes to me in my dreams. Just like the first time.”

“Who?”

“Him.”

Daphne stared at the closet doors. Above them was a crucifix. She can’t be serious … Then again, she was a Berry. According to Anne, the women in her family had certain … abilities. Anne never said exactly what, but she’d alluded to it: the fact that the dead weren’t beyond some pearly gates but here, among us, cursed to walk the North Shore forever. But that wasn’t what Francine was alleging. She was insinuating something else entirely … “Him?”

“Yes.” A stoic look washed over Francine’s face. She bowed her head, tapped her forehead, her chest, and then each shoulder in turn. She stood in silence for a moment and then began to pray. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is—”

Daphne couldn’t hold in her laughter. It spewed out of her, loud and boisterous.

For a moment, Francine looked horrified. Then, unable to hold up her Immaculate Conception Charade any longer, she erupted in a fit of callous laughter, too.

“You should’ve seen your face,” she said between snorts.

“For a moment,” Daphne replied. “You almost had me convinced.”

“It didn’t take you long to weed out the bull,” she said, walking closer and plopping herself down next to the suitcase on Daphne’s bed. “The last few girls bought it. Can you imagine!”

“Well,” Daphne said, returning to her suitcase. “They’re not the first.” Once she’d finally pried her suitcase open, Daphne puttered around the room under Francine’s direction, hanging her few dresses in the communal closet and placing her belongings in the sole drawer she’d been assigned.

“What’s this?” Francine asked, extracting Daphne’s mother’s rosary from a small black velvet pouch.

“Careful!”

“Oh,” Francine said, inspecting the rosary. “So you do believe?”

“Not at all,” Daphne said, before bringing her newfound friend up to speed on her wicked mother, her (un)timely death, and prying her treasured rosary from her cold, dead hands.

“Daphne.” Francine smirked, handing her the rosary with the utmost care. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

Francine Berry died the following Tuesday.

The sisters insisted it was some sort of hemorrhage, but Daphne wasn’t convinced. Francine wasn’t particularly well-regarded and, in confidence, had shared that her parents weren’t keen on her eventual return to Manitoulin Island. Either way, Francine left the home in a nondescript pine box, and her son in a wicker bassinet. Daphne watched out of her barred bedroom window as the wailing infant was loaded into a black car and driven off into the distance, his cries as distant a memory as his mother’s voice.

Without Francine, their shared room was shrouded in cacophonous silence. None of the other girls wanted to get too close, deciding to conflate Daphne’s arrival at the home with Francine’s death. “She’s like a black cat,” she’d overheard one girl whisper during afternoon prayers. “If you cross her path,” she continued, finishing by tracing her pointer finger across her neck, slouching her head to one side, and sticking her tongue out of her mouth. The other girls snickered, and even though a nun scolded her, Daphne could’ve sworn the sisters laughed, too.

Later that night, lying on her thin mattress, the springs digging into her spine bookended by her unborn child’s thrashing heels, Daphne dreamed of that stupid girl—the one who’d associated her with a black cat. The girl was dead now (of course), lying naked on the embalming table in the basement of Foreman House. Her neck was still raw where the blade had sliced into it, carving from one side to the other, slashing both jugulars. Daphne made another incision, hooked up the machines, and drained the girl’s body of its blood.

When she was done filling her up with formaldehyde, she disconnected the arterial tube and reached for the rest of her supplies. Despite the amount of cotton she’d stuffed in the girl’s mouth, she couldn’t even out her cheekbones. Before long, there was cotton all the way down the girl’s throat, ensuring she could never hurtle another insult toward her again. And then, instead of placing white powder on the girl’s face and trying her best to mask the scar on her neck, she reached for her scalpel again. She carved three deep, parallel lines on either side of the girl’s nose. When she was done with the whiskers, she cut a small upside-down triangle on the tip of her nose. She removed her ears and sewed a small dart in them with the same sutures she’d used to mend the gash in her neck, before affixing the now-pointed ears to the top of her head with medical glue.

Who’s the cat, now?

Daphne woke to find her mattress soaked, contractions falling over her body in waves. She felt like she was possessed by something; that, for the first time in her life, her body was not her own. She managed to extract herself from bed when the tide fell out, just before another wave came crashing down, salty like the sweat pooling above her lip. But there was no reprieve this time. She bowed over the edge of the bed, curled her fingers into the sheet, and screamed into the pillow she’d propped between her legs as she slept. When the wave finally passed, she tossed her head back and took a large gulp of stale air. Delirious, she saw a flicker of light in the small space between the warped wooden floor and the crooked door, and heard the hushed whispers of the nuns in the hallway. Various iterations of it’s too early.

Fear washed over Daphne’s body in the space between the waves. This fear had tentacles, and the tips tapped down her spine. The sensation coalesced at her tailbone, now crushed by the pain of it all. By the time the first nurse came in, she’d disassociated entirely. She was but a spectator, lingering by the communal closet, standing under the watchful eye of God. Isaac’s words popped into her head: my mother died in childbirth. Would she suffer the same horrible fate?

Daphne watched as her writhing, bloated body was shuffled to another room. There, the walls were sterile and white, the floor stained with what she assumed to be blood and bodily fluids. There was a wrought-iron crib in the corner waiting expectantly. No sooner was she on the table and her feet in cold, metal stirrups. Push, dear, the nuns chanted, their faces morphing into the face of Sister Josephine—angular and menacing and bleak. And push she did, until her head felt like it might explode, and her insides were raw and torn, and a baby was wailing.

Back inside herself, Daphne managed to catch a glimpse of her child before she was placed in the crib and whisked away, out the door. A girl. Her grey skin covered in mucus, her black eyes open for just a moment. She was screaming. She was strong. Deep inside, Daphne knew that this may be the last time she ever saw her daughter. Still, as the room closed in around her, she smiled, for she knew that even if her daughter didn’t one day inhabit Foreman House, with those eyes and those lungs and that fighting spirit, she’d be the reason for its fall.

CHAPTER 14

(N)EVERMORE

Daphne spent the first three weeks after returning from the Home for Unwed Mothers in bed, listening to the hum of the tractor, the call of the rooster, and the chorus of pounding hooves—the ones that left deep divots in the mud where rainwater pooled and mosquitoes spawned.

For most of the day, the farmhouse itself was silent, giving Daphne ample time to contemplate all the choices that’d brought her here. With her still-bloated body withering away in bed and her father in the fields from dawn till dusk, her cousin and his boring wife had descended on the farmhouse. Her cousin was meant to help her father, and his wife was meant to keep them all fed. In the afternoons, Daphne listened intently as Lottie shuffled around the kitchen, peeling potatoes to boil in the rusted stock pot and frying fatty pieces of pork belly on the wood stove while her son, Samuel, screamed bloody murder. Lottie cursed Samuel for crying, and Daphne wanted to torture her for being ungrateful. Did she realize what a privilege it was? To listen to those cries? To have the chance to mother?

Today was no exception. To the backdrop of Lottie’s terse voice and Samuel’s incessant screams, Daphne rose from bed and strode toward her vanity. Her journal was precisely where she’d left it, many moons ago. She hadn’t touched it since arriving home. She couldn’t find the right words to encapsulate her experience—her daughter being torn from her arms, moments after birth; being stitched up and shut away until she was summoned back home; being shuffled into the same car that’d dropped her off, now fundamentally changed, watching the canary bricks disappear in the rearview—

No, the voice inside her head demanded. The wallowing needed to end. She needed to get a hold of herself. She was the author of her own fate. She would win back her beloved and find their child and bring her—

Daphne spun on her heels to the sound of pebbles clamoring. Someone was outside her bedroom window, their face obscured by dusk and the mold and water damage that speckled the flimsy pane. The closer she got, though, the clearer the features of the pebble-throwing culprit became.

“Anne?”

Daphne hadn’t seen her best friend in months—not since she started to show, and her father shut her away to await further instructions from Father Bennett.

“That’s all I get?” she said, aghast. “Anne?”

All Daphne could muster was an apology. She hated herself for it. Still, apologizing seemed to be the only thing she could do with any degree of competence these days. She helped Anne up through the window and into her room.

“The sisters said you were sick,” Anne said, drawing Daphne into a hug. “Your father said you went to stay with an aunt, but you weren’t with Hazel and she refused to tell me anything. That woman never has nothing to say!”

Daphne broke away from Anne and pulled at the waist of her nightgown, hoping it was billowy enough to hide the evidence.

“You know what the girls are saying, right? That you—” Anne looked down at Daphne’s belly.

“Lies.”

The edges of Anne’s striking face softened. “Then what is it, Daph? You can tell me. We’re friends. Best friends.”

Daphne’s heartbeat quickened. She knew she had to offer something to her friend. But what? A reasonable explanation? The truth? The latter made Daphne shudder. There were so many truths, each one more unhinged than the last: what she’d suffered at Sister Josephine’s hands; the true cause of her mother’s untimely death; her secret relationship with Isaac Foreman; her daughter, torn from her arms against her will … the collective weight of her recent experiences was crippling, and she didn’t know how much longer she could bear it. Panicked, Daphne met Anne’s expectant gaze. Her sky-blue eyes were searching for something—the same thing Daphne’s had each time she looked in her vanity mirror since returning home. Where did you go, Daphne? Where did you go?

“I …”

“Daphne!” Lottie’s voice filtered down the hall. “Dinner!”

Anne sighed. “This conversation is not—”

A familiar look registered on Anne’s face and she stifled a gasp: wide eyes, a furrowed brow, lips in a firm line. Anne swallowed hard before gathering her golden hair behind her and threading it over one shoulder, where it fell in majestic waves. Despite how her gaze was glued to the back corner of the room a few moments before, she refused to look there now. Anne would never admit it—not directly, anyway—but Daphne knew what it meant. What she’d seen there. Or, should she say, who.

“It’s her, isn’t it,” Daphne said, certain her mother never left the farmhouse, clinging to it as she’d clung to the life that’d been snuffed out of her. She’d done Daphne the favor of dying, sure, but the favor of leaving her be? Not a chance. She wondered if her mother’s ghost was making a face, mocking her. Or was she pointing at her accusatorily with one index finger while tracing the other across her neck? Just like the girl at the Home for Unwed Mothers. “You can see her, can’t you?”

Anne shook her head with such a ferocity that Daphne wasn’t sure if it would remain attached. “I didn’t see anything,” she said, repeating it again and again, as if to convince herself that her curse was a switch she could shut off at her leisure. “I should go.”

Daphne watched Anne hop back out through the window and run. But instead of turning right toward the street, her friend rushed toward the barn. There, she met a shadow, long in the tooth like the horse standing by the bale of hay. Daphne squinted, trying to discern the blur that had intertwined their hand with Anne’s. But when the sunlight hit a pair of glasses, and the breeze caught a head of tousled hair, Daphne’s cold, dead heart caught in her throat. Then, much to her dismay, the breeze carried a familiar voice through the open window and into her ears. The sound of betrayal. The very worst kind.

Isaac?

Daphne returned to school the following week, painfully aware of how her kilt dug into the ream of stretched skin hanging from her abdomen.

She’d spent the better part of that morning standing in front of her vanity mirror, sucking in her gut and arching her back, chomping on the sides of her mouth with her teeth in hopes of reviving the angular cheekbones that were now a distant memory. She pulled her jet black hair off her face, ignoring how it fell out in clumps in her hairbrush and repeated her best attempt at a carefree, “Yes, I was away at my aunt’s” smile, all the while trying to punt away incessant thoughts of Anne and Isaac, their bodies intertwined under Foreman House’s slate roof, the ivy inching toward the windows to shield them from her watchful eye.

Every cell in her body viscerally rejected the image her subconscious conjured. Anne? Isaac? There was no way. Sweet, sweet Anne wouldn’t be caught dead within fifty feet of Foreman House. The last place she needed to make her bed was an interim home for the dead. Besides, there was no way Isaac could move forward so quickly. He loved her. He just needed to admit it to himself and to his father. He’d come to realize his mistake. He’d take her back. If Daphne Lobb was one thing, it was persuasive.

The operative word being was …

Daphne tuned out the demeaning inner voice. Striding up the gravel drive, the summer sun pummeling down on her heavy head, she tried to harness her resolve. But the voice crept back in instead, spewing more self-deprecating thoughts. Daphne surrendered to them. She knew the voice was right. Was. Past tense. Subsumed by the shadows cast by the school, Daphne accepted that she, too, was nothing but a shadow of her former self—her persuasive, cunning, devious self—and the life she’d led before was a phantom limb.

Her uncle was afflicted with the curse—him and countless others who’d lost parts of themselves in the war. Appendages left in the trenches among shrapnel, the decaying bodies of comrades, and rats twisting about in the tunnels, looking for scraps of stale biscuits. As she marched up the front steps, she thought of them marching onto the front, casings falling about, blowing the land to smithereens. She wasn’t heading into battle, sure, but she was in enemy territory, and, much like a soldier, her focus was singular.

Don’t let the enemy win.

Gossip was her enemy here. Anne’s letters alerted her to the sordid tales that’d festered in her absence. The letters never reached her at St. Gerard’s, of course. She found them when she’d returned home, resting on her bed, bound tight with kitchen twine. I’ve heard whispers, Anne wrote in her looping cursive. They say you’ve fallen to sin. That you’re pregnant. That the father is nowhere to be found. I keep telling them that you’re away with family, blaming it on your mother’s death (forgive me, I had to!). But they aren’t buying it. They say you’ve gone to the yellow house. But that can’t be … Even though the rumors were (partly) true, Daphne couldn’t let them stick. She had two choices: rewrite the narrative or risk the phantom limb of her former life haunting her forever.

“Daph!”

Daphne spun around to find Anne hurtling toward her. As soon as she closed the gap, Anne flung her arms around her and took her up in an embrace. She buried her face in the crook of Daphne’s neck and sighed.

“Ah! I’m so happy you’re back from your travels,” Anne exclaimed as they pulled apart, making every effort to ensure those in earshot could hear her. “I can’t wait to hear all about America.”

A smile crept across Daphne’s face. “The Statue of Liberty is spectacular,” she said, gazing toward the school’s tallest spire. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Tell me more,” Anne said, pulling Daphne up the front steps and down the hall, spewing random facts about New York and Vermont and Maine until she was breathless.

By the time they were safe in the silence of the third-floor bathroom, Daphne nearly collapsed in front of the sink. She clutched each side of the porcelain bowl and breathed deeply—despite the black mold she knew still lingered there, crawling up the walls behind the haphazard coat of fresh paint. It was an infestation she’d discovered the day before she was suspended for downing the Blood of Christ. She’d obsessed over the spores for a long while, writing about them ad nauseam in her journal. But they were the least of her concerns, now. All she needed in this moment was air. Her kilt felt like a corset. “Do you think they bought it?”

“How could they not?” Anne exclaimed. “You were terrific. I suspect we won’t hear much more of those rumors. Besides, with graduation on the horizon, the girls’ focus will soon be on other things.”

“I suppose,” Daphne said, hoping her friend was right.

“Speaking of which, did you bring it?”

Daphne fished the letter from her worn bookbag. “As instructed.”

“What did you write about?”

She’d written all about the future she longed for. One in Foreman House with Isaac and their daughter. A family. Purpose. Power. Influence. A new name. One that she was worthy of. One that was worthy of her. “I can’t tell you,” she said, shaking her head. “If I do, it won’t come true.”

“It’s not a birthday wish!”

“This is my future we’re talking about. You can never be too careful.”

“I never took you for the superstitious type.”

“I’m not,” Daphne said. “Just cautious.”

“Suit yourself,” Anne said, checking her reflection in the muggy mirror. “You’re still planning to meet me after class? I want to show you where we’re going to bury—”

Daphne gasped. Her body collapsed inward, as if her bones were unable to bear their own weight. The mark on Anne’s neck was red and raw. It looked like she’d been … attacked. “What is that?” Daphne asked, even though she already knew the answer. An untrained eye may have suspected violence, but a similar mark had graced her neck once before. Isaac.

“Nothing!” Anne yelled. She tore away and hiked her shirt collar up higher.

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

“I swear it.”

“Are you hurt?” Daphne asked, playing dumb.

“Nothing could be further from it,” Anne said, blushing.

“Did … a boy do that?”

Anne’s cheeks flushed a deeper crimson.

“Who?”

Anne shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We have more important things to tend to,” she said. “I must be going. I’m meeting Sister Helen to discuss our plans for the ceremony. Can you put the letter in my cubby? I’ve asked the other girls to leave their letters for the time capsule there.”

Daphne nodded, her thoughts twisting into something dark and vile, a jealous storm swelling deep in her gut.

“Make sure you …”

Daphne didn’t care enough to listen to Anne’s administrative reminders. Yes, she’d sealed the envelope. Yes, she’d written her name on the upper left-hand corner. Yes, she’d kept it to three pages, as all the letters wouldn’t fit inside the time capsule if they were too bulky. She didn’t have time to concern herself with such mundane details, not when there were more pressing matters to attend to: like her best friend and her beloved robbing her of the future she’d longed for, the same one she’d written about in the letter now crumpled up in her hands. For a moment, she wondered if she was losing her mind, if this was the postpartum psychosis dearly departed Francine had warned her about. But what if she wasn’t? What if her suspicions were correct?

As the anxiety took its vicious hold, Daphne started pacing. She was bouncing a curled knuckle against her lips when she noticed it: Anne’s bookbag. Daphne gave one quick glance over her shoulder before lunging toward it. Like a lion tearing into its kill, she thrust her hands inside and rummaged around for something. Something that would put her frantic mind at ease. Something that would prove that Anne and Isaac were not the lovers she suspected. But all there was in Anne’s bookbag were A+ papers. Nothing but hairpins and strands of golden hair and—

With a shaking hand, Daphne grasped the familiar notecard. The embossed double-F at the top reminded her of the frames hanging in the entrance of Foreman House. She racked her brain, trying to remember the last time she’d seen a notecard like this one. The moment hit her like a ton of bricks: sitting in front of Mr. Foreman’s gleaming desk, the issues of The Mortician’s Monthly fanned out in a perfect half-moon. The day she thought she’d sealed her fate. The day she told Foreman House that she’d be home soon.

Enraged, Daphne read the words with narrowed eyes a half-dozen times, looking at the ceiling after each pass to cleanse her palate, desperate for her mind to confirm her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Anne,

You’ve asked your classmates to envision their futures, but I need you to know mine.

I see you. I see us.

Always.

You’re the one I will love for evermore.

Isaac.

Isaac didn’t know what he was talking about. Anne didn’t know what was good for her. No matter. She’d deal with them the same way she had her mother.

Daphne thrust the notecard into her own bookbag and returned Anne’s to where she’d found it. Then she took her letter—the one she’d written about the future she envisioned for herself on the North Shore—and tore it into a million pieces, dropping the remains into one of the toilets and watching as they swirled away in the brackish water. When she’d flushed her future away, she let visions of a new one take hold: one where Foreman House was a rotting pile of rubble or a mound of smoldering ash; one where all those who’d betrayed her were dead and gone. But she wasn’t a cruel person. She’d give them both one more chance. Anne was her friend. Isaac was her soulmate. They’d come to understand their errors, in time.

“You forgot a letter, dearest,” Daphne whispered, crimson clouding her vision.

You’ll love her for nevermore.

MARY

2018

CHAPTER 15

PASSAGE

The foghorn roused Mary from sleep, but not even her phone’s most obnoxious alarm could pry her from bed.

She’d spent the better part of two days cocooned under her sheets, moss growing in her mouth and wafts of roadkill seeping from her pores, so why stop now? There was no point. She’d returned to Providence to answer her grandmother’s distress call—to save Foreman House—and she hadn’t even managed to save face. She’d lost so much before she’d arrived. Her home, her fiancé, her friends. Now, she’d lost the only maternal figure she’d known and the mother she never knew. To top it all off, she was still no closer to discovering the truth behind Grandma Hannah’s letter.

Mary silenced her phone and yanked her quilt up over her head. The state of her room was unbearable. The piles of laundry on the floor. The microwave dinner containers lingering at the foot of her bed. The empty liquor bottles on her bedside table, all mounting evidence of her downward spiral. In the hazy darkness, Mary fixated on the peculiar silence that’d fallen over Foreman House after Grandma Hannah’s visitation. There’d been no sighting of Ms. Morse—not so much as a single, errant knock—since she’d possessed Mary to strangle Peter. Ghostly silence was never a good sign, but there was no denying her family’s history.

Once a Foreman woman claimed possession, there was no going back.

“Ms. Morse?” Mary called out into the silence before rapping the same words in Morse code on her mahogany headboard. “We need to talk.”

Moments later, faint, repetitive ticking flooded her ears. But not from the ghost. Mary tossed the quilt back and gazed up and out the window, in the direction of the sounds. She sighed, the heavy burden of disappointment gnawing at her chest. The lone, optimistic sliver of herself had hoped it was small stones striking her window, thrown up into the air by one Tom Pearson, standing on the lawn with a boombox waiting to be thrust overhead. Alas, it was just a vine striking the frosted pane.

Who was she kidding? Rom-Com Tom? Surely, even perpetually punctual, ever-so-accommodating Tom Pearson would be dissuaded by recent events. What’d started as a mere shitstorm had now morphed into an extinction-level event. And even if by some miracle he wasn’t dissuaded—if he still believed the composite was a result of inbreeding—it was only a matter of time before he saw things for what they were.

With her mother now confirmed dead, Mary was the only person on God’s green earth who matched the composite sketch. While the timeline was still on her side, she suspected that nuance was lost on most people. Thank fuck her mother’s podcast interview had only aired a few weeks prior. The fact that Sarah Foreman was alive to tape the segment meant that it was entirely possible she was responsible for the crimes.

But all you found were bones …

True. But the hosts of Wicked Lives Lived were Instagram-verified, with their Twitter following in the tens of thousands. They would’ve done their due diligence before recording the episode. Besides, the person speaking into that microphone knew way too much about the Foreman family’s dirty laundry to be anyone other than Sarah Foreman herself. Her mother’s skeletal remains changed nothing. There had to be some reasonable explanation for the expedited decomposition. Soil temperature. Humidity. Insect activity. Acidic soil. Google would know.

Mary reached for her phone to investigate but succumbed to the gravitational pull of her unread text messages instead. Thanks to an ill-timed thumb spasm, she accidentally clicked on one of them. Knowing full well her read receipts were on (she couldn’t quite figure out how to turn them off), she decided to do the thing she’d sworn not to: read her would-have-been maid of honor’s godforsaken text.

Mary’s initial assessment of Angela McCavity turned out to be an enduring one: she had the personality of particleboard and could never let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Ange was perturbed by most things, but nothing more than personal income tax. Mary couldn’t quite discern why Andrew, Ange’s husband, was still with her. But when she found out that Ange’s father bankrolled the start-up of Andrew’s now-lucrative forensic odontology practice, everything fell into place. It wasn’t that Andrew wanted to be married to Ange. He couldn’t afford not to be.

Mary gazed down at the grey text bubble and resisted the urge to poke her eyeballs out. The chaotic text was quintessentially Ange.

Girl! Long time no talk. I’ve been meaning to msg since you left TO but it’s been so busy. We miss you. Break-ups are so hard. Anywho, I remember you talking about your hellhole town but THIS. THIS IS TOO MUCH. Do you need anything? I can’t believe you never mentioned your mother! And your gran. Ugh. Good grief. I’ll say a prayer for your whole fam tonight. I’ll get my book club in on it, too. They are prayer WARRIORS, let me tell you. One of them, bless her, recommended this great book on grief. I read it when we put Max down last year. RIP. He really was the best cat. I’ll send you the book. Flip me your address? I tried to figure it out on Google Maps Street View but for some reason all I can see is a tree. Looks like something’s wrong with it. Was there a storm? Last year we had that bomb cyclone. It did a real number on our maples. If you need a good arborist rec, let me know. I’ll do some digging. Oh, and, for the record, I told Andrew not to give the quote. But you know how he can be. Also: the Mathens lawyer may be reaching out. Dale’s fam is not pleased with all this publicity … Don’t shoot the messenger. Xx.

Mary tapped the link at the end of the message and was transported to a b-rate news article with the unsightly title, “Tooth Fairy Gone Rogue.” It didn’t take her long to spot the quote from Angela’s husband, Andrew McCavity, Dale’s roommate at dental school. Like her ex-fiancé, Andrew had made quite a name for himself identifying unknown remains, tracing bite marks, and examining and evaluating dental evidence in criminal justice cases. And lucky for them, Mary had (almost) single-handedly put forensic odontology on the map. She’d skimmed the article quickly but abandoned ship when she spotted the first in what appeared to be a long line of comments.

Friend of a friend says the prime suspect is the surprise heir to the Death Conglomerate. Her uncle (the heir apparent) is running for mayor but has been keeping a low profile. Nothing derails a campaign like murder, amirite? I bet you any money that she posed as her mother on WICKED LIVES LIVED to deflect. Apparently, they look mighty similar. And it turns out her ex is some fancy dentist that works with coroners and shit. Perhaps she got all the pro-tips she needed and then fucked right off (or around). I dunno, but I got a hunch … Her family is local royalty. Owns everything. Funeral homes. Commercial real estate. Construction companies. The whole thing screams mafia to me. Can you be mafia if you’re not Italian? I should ask my Nonna …

Dissolving into a fit of hot, angry tears, Mary chucked her phone to the foot of the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The commenter didn’t have a clue. Resisting the overwhelming urge to yell it from the rooftops, she whispered instead, “I didn’t fuck off. I didn’t fuck around.”

Dale did.

On the night everything turned sour, Mary had returned from an innocuous Whole Foods run to find her fiancé sitting at their bespoke dining table, surrounded by candles lit in the shape of a pentagram. He was dressed in black in front of a Ouija board with the Value Village tag still on. Mary thought she was hallucinating, but when her completely rational, overly educated fiancé grabbed her trembling hand and said “I know about what you can do,” she knew Dale’s ask was coming. She knew the jig was up.

Mary’s first instinct was to run. She’d done that before: with Sean, the drummer who accidentally killed his cousin in a snowmobile crash; with Kyle, the miner whose twin brother died of cancer when they were kids. Both had made similar asks: for her to communicate with the dead. Their dead. She’d insisted that wasn’t how it worked—that she wasn’t some medium—but they didn’t buy it. When she “refused” to help them, Mary went from abilities to abomination faster than you could say a word with five syllables. And to think that not one of those jackasses could scrounge up the courage to break things off with her before fucking someone else. While Mary despised her curse above all things, infidelity was a close second. She knew a pattern when she saw one.

Still, unlike the ghosts of boyfriends past, she’d (almost) built a life with Dale. She’d committed to a future with him. Deep down, she knew why, of course. It wasn’t for the money. She couldn’t have cared less about their postal code or their heated driveway. The only thing she cared about was what drew her to him in the first place, the foundation upon which their relationship was built: a boring, predictable, blue-blooded last name representing a long line of boring, predictable, above-board dentists. No curses, criminal underbellies, or crime syndicates. Just cavities, crowns, and Crest.

Dale’s proposal was her chance: to rid herself of all ties to the Foreman family with someone who was none the wiser about the legacy she’d left behind in Providence. She should’ve known her family’s curse would continue to haunt her, though. Her and Dale’s demise was inevitable. Dale had pulled out a planchette, and poof. No Foreman woman had found a love she could keep. If an ability to see the dead was her curse, being alone was her destiny. No one, not even Tom Pearson, could change it.

Mary was mid-sigh when her phone started ringing. Despite Tom’s repeated asks, she hadn’t had the heart to change his contact’s name, nor did she have the heart to answer Bar Guy’s call now. But by his fourth attempt, she thought it best to put them both out of their misery. She knew they didn’t have a hope in hell. Besides, she’d had enough of hope. Despite her statements to the contrary, she’d hung on to the hope that her mother would make a triumphant return for decades. She’d learned her lesson. Hope was bullshit.

“Do you have any idea how many reporters are outside your house?”

Mary debated hanging up.

“Mary?”

The last time she’d counted, there were two.

“The street is full of vans. It’s like an infestation.”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea why.”

“What do you mean you haven’t the fog—”

“It’s called sarcasm, Tom.”

“So you’ve seen the news then?”

She most certainly had. “I’ve caught some of it.”

“It looks like they’re here bulking up their B-roll bank and getting some—”

“Is this why you called? To remind me that I’m a prisoner in my own home?” Mary asked, exasperated, her entire body rejecting the word prisoner.

“Of course not,” Tom replied, his voice laced with hurt. “I wanted to … um … I …”

If he wanted to break things off, he could send a text like the rest of them or, better yet, find solace between someone else’s legs just like Dale had—the unforgivable act that led her to pack up her things, haul up in a crumbling motel, and evade his calls and texts until they morphed into cancelled wedding plans. Goodbye, Banff. “If you want to break things off, Tom, just say it.”

“Huh?”

Mary sighed, sinking deeper into her mattress. “I really have to go—"

“No!”

“Goodbye, Tom.” Mary gulped, holding back tears.

“Mary! Do not hang up this phone,” Tom insisted, his voice urgent. “I’m—”

“You’re what? Sorry it didn’t work out?”

“I’m stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Yes.”

“Stuck where?”

“Your shed.”

“Excuse me?”

“The garden shed,” Tom said, before a crash-bang came through the phone, followed by a coughing fit. “Christ,” he muttered. “A terracotta pot just tried to kill me.”

“Why are you in the shed?”

“I needed—I mean, I wanted—to see you,” Tom replied. “I accounted for something of a presence but this.” He paused. “This is more than I bargained for.”

Against her better judgment, Mary felt her bare feet hit the floor. Before she could tell herself otherwise, she was down the stairs, filling the eerie silence that’d descended on Foreman House with its standard chorus of creaks and moans and groans. “I’m coming.”

“No.”

“You want to stay in the shed?”

“You’ll get accosted. The CBC is here, Mary! You can’t possibly go outside.”

“Who said anything about going outside?”

Constructing a home large enough to accommodate their budding funeral business was his ailing father’s idea, but the tunnel was Alistar Foreman’s.

He’d advocated for its construction back when the renderings for Foreman House were nearly finished. To say it’d thrown a wrench in things was an understatement, but Alistar’s father was captivated by his argument for keeping business distinct from pleasure (shared roof notwithstanding, of course). They couldn’t possibly have a body transported through the front door while the family was in the dining room, breaking bread. No. The bodies would be transported directly to the basement embalming suite from the shed at the end of the laneway.

To ensure the secret passage would remain so, the basement access point was camouflaged by the same bricks that made up the foundation—until a rapid spring thaw in the early aughts. The passage flooded, leaving a film of mold around the secret door. John insisted they fix it, said it was insulting to Alistar’s memory to have the passage stick out like a sore thumb. Peter told him not to worry about it, but Mark agreed to have new bricks laid. To John’s delight, the door became secret once more.

Mary hadn’t used the passage in ages—so long, in fact, that she could barely locate it in the dreary darkness of the basement. After Foreman Family Funerals relocated to three commercially zoned premises in Providence, Houghton, and Clarksville—each with its own casket lift—the tunnel Grandma Hannah nicknamed the “Highway to Hell” became nothing more than a convenient way to sneak out of the house. But now, standing in the library, her hair full of dust and grime and the feeling of insects crawling down her back, Mary was reminded why she didn’t frequent the passage. There were no skulls down there, but it felt crypt-like. Full of spiders. Unbearably quiet. But the only thing quieter than the tunnel itself was Tom.

There were countless junctures on their journey from shed to house where Mary had expected him to ask questions—to probe deeper as to what, where, and why. But Tom hadn’t made a peep in the tunnel; hadn’t gawked at the raven remains in the basement, either. The look on his face when she’d found him in the garden shed had said it all: he had enough on his mind. But if probing Foreman family lore wasn’t on his list of things to do, what was? And what in God’s name was in that folder?

In the library, on Alistar Foreman’s weathered mahogany desk, beneath the dim glow of a vintage banker lamp, and amid long-redundant Encyclopedia Britannicas, Tom finally fanned out the unmarked folder’s contents. He touched his pointer finger to his lips and flicked the top corner of each page, separating them into piles that, in the moment, made little sense to Mary. But when she spotted pages from the Houghton Chronicle, excitement bubbled up in her chest.

“So,” Tom began, setting the empty folder aside. A lock of his wavy hair fell loose and hung down in front of his forehead. Mary resisted the urge to reach up and push it back. “Have you ever heard of Sister Josephine?”

The missing nun from the Houghton Chronicle article. The name she’d found written beneath a hangman on the inside flap of her great-grandmother’s journal. Mary recalled the first entry. The one about Anne’s suspension for downing the blood of Christ. The black mold infestation she discovered in the third-floor bathroom, spreading like a cloud of doom. The men in hazmat suits descending on St. Joseph’s to rid the school of its plague. The final, menacing paragraph, still seared into Mary’s memory.

Perhaps that’s why Sister Josephine was hovering in the doorway, grasping her rosary like a lifeline—her Hail Marys punctuated by the pulse of a water hammer. She slithered away into the dimly lit hallway, and I proceeded to lock myself in the furthest stall and sob until all I could hear was my heart beating in my head instead of her voice, hurtling insult after insult until I wanted to—that nun will curse the day she chose to torment me. I was no one then, but someday … I’ll be someone. I’ve planted the seed. I’ve nurtured it. And soon, I’ll watch it grow.

“I have, yes.”

“You have?” Tom asked, incredulous.

“My great-grandmother wrote about her in her journal.”

“Favorably?”

Mary considered her response. “I don’t think she was a fan.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“She went missing just before the time capsule was buried.”

“I know.”

“How?” Tom asked, shoulders slumping.

By the time Mary had finished recounting her discovery in the basement of Foreman House and walking Tom through the lone page from the Houghton Chronicle and the bulletin from Father Bennett, Tom seemed reinvigorated, rummaging through his papers, muttering yes and interesting over and over like a mad scientist.

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed, thrusting a thin piece of paper at Mary. “Father Bennett told the Diocese a different story.”

Mary skimmed the page. Sure enough, there was no mention of Sister Josephine’s pilgrimage, only talk of potential administrative leave. “Where did you find this?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Tom said, which Mary assumed was lawyer speak for I can’t tell you. “There was an allegation made against Sister Josephine that same year. About poor treatment of a student.”

Mary thought back to the journal entry. “Does it mention the student’s name?”

Tom shook his head. “The name is redacted, but see here,” he said, pointing to an investigative summary. “She was a member of the Class of 1928.”

Anne.

Mary reached for the document and held it up closer to her face. She appreciated that it was a summary, but there wasn’t much of anything. No specificity. No probing. No more than four sentences. Surely, a complaint against the school’s headmistress deserved more attention. Anne wouldn’t have used the word “torment” lightly. “Are all summaries this … brief?”

“In my experience, yes,” Tom began, taking a sip of the glass of water Mary had retrieved for him. “But, I suspect the brevity had something to do with this,” Tom turned over the paper in Mary’s hand. “See here: ‘investigation closed because subject no longer in Parish jurisdiction.’”

“But that’s not what Father Bennett told the parishioners.”

“Bennett’s not the one who signed off on this.”

“Who did?” Mary asked.

“Um,” Tom started, scanning the document for a signatory. “M.A.F.”

Mary only knew one M.A.F. “Matthew Alistar Foreman?”

Tom shook his head. “Why would a Foreman be involved with an investigation like this?”

“Probably for the same reason Peter told me not to associate with The Priest Hunter.”

“And yet—”

In the dim light of the library, Tom inched closer to Mary until the smell of musty paper mixed with Irish Spring. For a moment, she thought of pulling him toward her, but then she saw it. “Ah!” Mary dove into the stack of papers in front of them, marveling at the missing page to the Houghton Chronicle article that she’d traded her privacy for the chance to find. How on earth had he found it? She’d spent an inordinate amount of time searching the paper’s online database to no avail. “How did you find this?”

“Boolean operators,” he confirmed, but Mary wasn’t listening. She was too busy watching the lock of hair dance on his forehead again. “How else could you possibly eliminate inappropriate hits that you would’ve had to discard anyway?”

But Mary didn’t care about Booleans. The only thing she could focus on was all the things she wanted to do to him. Perhaps he could sense it too because his face flushed a deep red. With a smug look, he turned back to his stack of papers, reaching for them as if they were a source of comfort—as if ink on paper was something he’d always understood. Tom cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair, the lock that’d been bouncing around his forehead now hidden amongst the others. “I haven’t gone through these yet. I was hoping we could do it together?”

Despite her panic earlier in the day, Mary was beginning to accept the possibility that she was wrong about Tom Pearson. She couldn’t understand why, but here was a gainfully employed, perfectly respectable man who knew about her family’s history and, for one reason or another, wasn’t running for the hills. Perhaps this is what she’d needed all along.

To find someone who was haunted, too.

“Sure,” Mary replied, a genuine smile spreading across her face. “I’d like that.”

Mary and Tom spent the next whirlwind hour scanning the documents for the missing puzzle pieces: references to either Sister Josephine or the redacted student’s name. Mary hadn’t done such painstaking, detail-oriented work since undergrad, and it was showing. Her bulging eyes, bloodshot and dry, ached. She could barely see straight. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She thought she caught glimpses of her great-grandmother’s name, but nothing. The faded ink and smudged typewritten letters didn’t make things any easier. Is that an “a” or an “o”?

In the documents, Mary came across a rendering of St. Joseph’s School for Girls. She recognized the floorplan, though the uses of the spaces had long changed over the years. A series of circles was drawn over what was once the nuns’ quarters—the rooms that now held faculty offices, though many of them remained empty. A final one was drawn over the boiler room.

“Why would this be in here?” Mary asked, holding up the rendering.

“Part of the investigation, perhaps,” Tom said, running a hand over his chin. He pointed to the circles. “Those rooms are faculty offices now, right?” he asked.

Mary nodded. “Most of them, yes.”

“Rumor has it they’re haunted,” Tom replied, with complete nonchalance. “A nun hung herself down there.”

“You don’t say,” Mary whispered, trying not to think of Noose. She could feel her body tense up. This was how it always started: some casual comment about a ghost or a haunting. Mary could feel it in the air. Tom’s ask was coming. Who was she kidding? All of this—him showing up at Foreman House, the investigative assistance, the willingness to see past what she was accused of having done—was all for naught. Tom was moments away from proving he was just like the rest of them, which meant that she was on the precipice of being disappointed and alone.

“Or maybe it’s just the raccoons,” he said with a wink.

“You never know with those trash pandas,” Mary replied, the library closing in around her.

A long pause fell between them before Tom inched closer to her and took her hand in his. “There are no raccoons upstairs, are there?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mary said, averting his gaze.

“I know what I saw,” Tom said, recounting what had occurred at her grandmother’s visitation. Her uncle hitting the wall with a force that was almost inhuman. His body, suspended in the air, like a butterfly tacked up in a science center display case. Mary’s dilated pupils overtaking her irises. Each and every cell in her body no longer her own. “You were possessed.”

“I was not,” Mary insisted, even though there was no denying what had happened to her. “The dead can’t possess people, Tom! The dead are … well … they’re dead.”

“The dead are very much alive,” Tom said, smacking the investigative summary down on the table. “I know that much.”

“No, you don’t,” Mary said, dread pulsating through her veins. “You can’t. You couldn’t.”

“I want to,” he said, reaching for her. “You can trust me.”

It was always the same with these men. Why had she thought what she had with Tom could possibly be any different? Why had she let him in? Why had she come back to these shores? What did she think she could possibly accomplish by answering her grandmother’s call?

Make it right …

Mary laughed aloud, a deep, menacing cackle, and Tom stepped backward. There was far too much water under this bridge. The only thing to do was cut her losses and run. She wouldn’t let herself get hurt again. “You need to go.”

“What?”

“I said: you need to go,” she replied, as if she were reprimanding one of her students.

Perhaps it was the teacher voice—its pitch and pace—or the way the temperature in the room fell ten degrees, but Tom appeared to get the message. He didn’t bother gathering up his papers; he just tipped his proverbial hat to her and walked out the front door of Foreman House, a chorus of journalistic cries and flashing cameras in his wake.

“This. Is. The National.”

Mary slugged back the last few ounces of wine and slammed the bottle on the side table. As the room spun around her, she wiped at her mouth and sank further into her seat. Over the course of the evening, the La-Z-Boy in the living room had become her life raft. Its puffed seat, broad back, and plush armrests were the only supports she had. There was no one left to turn to. Grandma Hannah was buried six feet under, her mother was a pile of bones in a morgue somewhere, and her budding romance with Tom—not to mention the friendship she’d found in him—was gone. The only person she had to call was a criminal defense lawyer she couldn’t afford.

“We’re back on the North Shore of Lake Huron this evening in Houghton, Ontario. The town’s centennial celebrations are on pause, while investigators work around the clock to identify human remains found inside a time capsule buried in 1928. We are on location in the neighboring town of Providence, as residents grapple with this recent discovery, longstanding questions, and a derailed mayoral campaign.”

The screen cut to the local marina, where a familiar brunette was standing on the docks, recounting the facts as the public knew them to be. Mid-recitation, the screen cut again. This time, photos of the deceased appeared on screen. All smiling. All oblivious to the fate that would befall them. When the deceased faded out, and the dreaded composite sketch took center screen, Mary inched toward the television, her world still spinning. In a drunken daze, she ran her fingers down across the staticky screen.

“Who are you?”

Sadistic laughter erupted behind her. Mary spun around, nearly falling flat on her face in the process. There, standing in front of her recliner, was something—someone—covered in a white sheet with slits for eyes. Mary recalled when she’d worn a costume just like it: the fateful Halloween night she’d come to know of her family’s powers.

She’d arrived back at Foreman House with an impressive haul and dumped her candy onto the floor of this very room. She’d asked Grandma Hannah what it would be like to be a ghost, and she responded in a way that led young Mary to believe she was a bit too familiar with the subject. Soon after, Grandma Hannah told her the fate that would befall her one day: that a ghost would present itself to her and that it would ask for something. She told Mary to be careful about what she did, and for whom. She had a great power, yes, but she had an even bigger responsibility.

And then, as if the ghost could read her mind, it started tapping its foot on the ground.

With great …

Certain the ghost was making a mockery of her, Mary erupted. But her rage was no match for her opponent. In an instant, the ghost slid into Mary’s cells and shot her body up through the ceiling, narrowly missing the joists, leaving her lying limp on the second floor. Covered in broken plaster and wood chips, Mary peeled herself from the ground in a fit of coughing spurts. She looked down into the wreckage, the house’s ancient plumbing and wiring laid bare. Too drunk to feel the true extent of her injuries, Mary hobbled toward her bedroom, following the pieces of plaster, wood, and insulation that served as a breadcrumb trail.

“Oh, fuck off,” Mary whispered, entering the room.

Ms. Morse was sitting on the floor in front of Mary’s childhood Ouija board, arms outstretched in a deranged welcome. Mary hadn’t used the board in years, not since the night before she was made to leave Providence behind—the night she decided it was time to see if there was any credence to Grandma Hannah’s claims about Foreman House.

To see if she could finally summon the spirit who lived there.

“Who are you?” teenaged Mary had asked, running the planchette across the weathered board. Your worst nightmare, the board had spelled out in return, among trembling candlestick flames and dramatic whooshes of cold air, despite no windows being opened. That had been the extent of the ghost’s participation then. But it seemed she was up for round two, now.

So, in her drunken stupor, Mary asked the same question. Perhaps the ghost would be more forthcoming. After all, it had appeared to her and inserted itself into her body, compelled her to do her bidding. Clearly, the ghost wanted something that only she could provide. And so, sitting across from the ghost, Mary ran the planchette over the letters, trying not to puke.

“Who are you?” Mary asked aloud after she’d stopped spelling out her question.

With the flick of the ghost’s finger, the planchette moved. The pace was so lightning fast that Mary struggled to keep up—her brain’s synapses firing only as fast as her drunkenness would permit. But there was no denying it. The ghost had put the question back to her.

“Who am I?”

The planchette moved again, zipping back and forth across the board.

A snoop.

“A snoop? What did I snoop in?”

There were no finger flicks this time. Instead, in the same hollow, otherworldly voice the ghost had screamed nevermore, she hissed, “My journal.”

CHAPTER 16

ETERNAL HOPE

My journal .

As soon as the ghost dropped her bomb, she’d vanished into thin air, and with her went Mary’s ability to stomach her alcohol. Bowing in front of the porcelain giant, she pondered whether the entire episode was the product of too little food, too much red wine, or too many shots of tequila. But as much as she wanted to blame her latest round of torturous possession on a drunken stupor, she knew it’d been real. She had the bruises to prove it.

Mary let herself down onto the cold tile floor and pulled at the hem of her tattered sleep shirt. Moving the thread between her fingers, she was struck by a memory: one from before Grandma Hannah’s mind started to betray her. Grandma Hannah was sitting in her favorite rocking chair, a colander on her lap, containing yarn and extra crochet hooks. She fed the different colors through the holes meant for water, pulling on them as she hummed.

“Have I ever told you about tethers?”

“Tethers?” Mary asked, glancing up from her book.

“Yes,” Grandma Hannah said, pausing to remind herself of the pattern. Single, triple, single, triple before setting down her work in progress and grabbing at one of the other colors in the colander. “I have a theory,” she began, pulling the string toward her until it was taut. “Ghosts are tethered. They can only exist within a small radius of the place they died.”

“Why do you think that?”

“When we touch ghosts, we get a glimpse into their final moments. Of all the memories that’ve been transferred to me, they’ve always been of the same space where the ghost presented itself.”

Mary set her book down beside her, considering Grandma Hannah’s theory. “Maybe they choose to stay.”

“Why would anyone stay in a place that caused them pain?”

Grandma Hannah’s words echoed in Mary’s mind long after the warm light of her memory had been replaced by the shadowy darkness of her reality. Mary had long assumed Ms. Morse was the spirit of someone who’d been embalmed in Foreman House. In its prime, the funeral home saw half a dozen bodies each week, at minimum. But, of every person that’d been embalmed in Foreman House, why would Ms. Morse be the only one to stay? Better yet, why would her journals be in the attic? Foreman men were fierce proponents of keeping business distinct from pleasure, unless … her mother’s remarks on the podcast crept into her mind. I know how it sounds: The Sopranos by way of Six Feet Under. But can you blame them? Six feet under truly is the best place to hide evidence of things untoward.

What if Grandma Hannah was right? If ghosts were tethered, then Ms. Morse wasn’t in Foreman House because she wanted to be. She was here because this is where she died. Instinctively, Mary reached for the letter on the table—the one she’d removed from the glovebox the previous day.

You need to break the tether. You need to make it right. You can save our home, Mary. You can free your mother from the chains of suspicion that continue to bind her, just as you can free me from the weight of carrying this on my own. I know you can. You’re the only one left.

You have the power. You always have.

Foreman House needs you.

Your mother needs you.

I need you …

Mary hadn’t done much of anything. The only breaks in her investigation were because of Tom: sweet, punctual, accommodating Tom. Yet, despite his chiseled jaw and washboard abs, his gainful employment, and the lightness he brought to her otherwise dark, dreary existence, she’d driven him away. Perhaps she was wrong to think his intentions were nefarious. Perhaps the (many) therapists she’d had over the years were on to something: she pushed people away before they could leave her, as her mother had. She’d never dealt with her abandonment constructively; instead, she’d let it fester until it’d overtaken every corner of her life, just like the black mold infestation referenced in the journal she’d found in the attic. The one she’d had no right to read.

It was a mistake to read it, and she’d add that to the long list of mistakes she’d made since coming home. She couldn’t apologize to Ms. Morse, but she could … Walking through the main floor, looking for her phone, Mary considered what she’d say to Tom in the unlikely event he picked up. A mere I’m sorry seemed to pale in comparison to the lofty gesture he deserved. What could she say other than that? Because she was deeply sorry. With her phone pressed against her ear, she relished in the first ring. She hadn’t been blocked. That was a start. But then, to her surprise, a muffled ringtone erupted somewhere in the distance.

Mary followed the ringing to the basement door. She put her ear up toward it, and a banging on the opposite side of the locked door made her heart leap out of her chest.

“Mary?” a muffled voice asked. “It’s me.”

Mary fumbled with the locks. When she finally pried the door open, she found Tom Pearson, holding another slew of files in his capable hands.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, incredulous.

“I’m here to help. Unless … you’d prefer to continue alone.”

She shook her head. After last night, alone was the very last thing she wanted to be. “But why?”

“Because I want to.”

“Even after I—”

“It was a foolish line of questioning on my part. You had every right to suspect the worst of me. I want to prove to you that’s not who I am.”

“I know it’s not.”

“I know you know.”

“I was so … awful to you.”

“It’s okay, Mary. I’ve spent most of my life pushing people away, too.”

Hot tears welled in Mary’s eyes. For the first time since Grandma Hannah’s mind wandered away, she felt seen. Heard. Important. “I’m so sorry, Tom.”

“You’re not going to have any money left if you keep this up!”

Mary let out a chuckle—a genuine, unencumbered laugh. Despite her raging hangover, she felt light, airy even. She wished she could bottle up this feeling and save it for the next time she decided to self-sabotage. If she had bothered to brush her teeth this morning, she would’ve grabbed his face until their lips were touching and their limbs were tangled up. He didn’t seem deterred, though, because he set his files down on a nearby table and drew her close. When their lips met, Mary decided: this is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Back in the library, after collecting his files from the table near the basement door, Tom showed Mary his latest discovery. One that changed everything.

“Her name!”

Mary clutched the piece of paper in her hands—the piece of paper that confirmed the name of the complainant who made the allegations against Sister Josephine the year before graduation. Staring at the name, she half-expected the letters to rearrange themselves. “It’s not possible,” Mary muttered, her jaw on the floor.

“Do you know her? Daphne Lobb?”

“Maybe,” she said, before bringing Tom up to speed on a relatively unknown offshoot of the Foreman family tree. Her grandfather’s surname. Her grandmother being forbidden to take it. The Lobb family plot, where Hannah was recently laid to rest. Daphne’s decidedly absent date of death.

“Interesting,” Tom said, scratching at his chin.

Mary surveyed the document again, noting how it appeared to be an application form for St. Gerard’s Home for Unwed Mothers. There was a stamp on the bottom right-hand corner of the page—two doves, each a mirror image of the other, with a rosary binding their slender legs. She recognized it; same with the name listed as an emergency contact. In haste, Mary ran into the kitchen, scooped the periodicals up into her arms, and ran back into the library.

“What are those?” Tom asked, his eyes wide with intrigue.

“I found them in the basement the night before the time capsule was unearthed.”

“That was quite the night, wasn’t it?” Tom asked, his eyes flashing.

Mary’s cheeks burned hotter than the surface of the sun.

Tom reached for the periodicals and leafed through them, handling them with the care of an archivist. “These are fascinating,” he said, pointing to the same advertisements that’d captured her attention when she’d first flipped through them. But Mary quickly directed his focus to the cover page, marked with the same name on the application form: Hazel Jones of Houghton. “Why would someone named as an emergency contact on an application form for a home for unwed mothers have a slew of periodicals stashed in Foreman House? And why would they be interested in this shit in the first place?”

“I have no idea.” Mary shrugged. “The subject matter is a bit niche.” Letting her mind wander from the advertisements in The Hearse and The Mortician’s Monthly, Mary thought back to St. Gerard’s. “What is a home for unwed mothers, anyway?”

“Well,” Tom said, his focus never diverting from the pile of papers on his lap, “historically, it was quite common for unmarried, pregnant women to be sent to maternity homes without their consent. They were shut away. Restrained during childbirth. Banned from even looking at their newborn babies. Forced to sign adoption papers against their will.”

Mary couldn’t find a word to encapsulate the horror Tom had described. She’d grown up without a mother—one who abandoned her willingly. Why impose that trauma on a child when the mother didn’t want to leave at all? She decided to settle on a terse “terrible” and pushed her feelings deeper inside her chest. She’d revealed enough for one day.

“You’ll be unsurprised to know that the infants were either adopted by good Catholic families—whatever that means—or sent to orphanages to be raised by nuns. I’ve long wondered how many of those children ended up entering the seminary or the convent but, as you’d suspect, those figures aren’t publicly—” Tom froze, the blood draining from his face until he looked as though he’d seen a ghost.

“What is it?”

“Here,” Tom said, pointing to a particular spot on the paper in his hands with the same ferocity a pirate would locate an X. “It’s a psych evaluation. Daphne was put on watch after she tried to harm a fellow housemate, and when the housemate was interviewed, she said that the altercation began after she dismissed Daphne’s claims that the father of her unborn child was Isaac Foreman.”

The various discoveries converged in Mary’s mind like a four-lane pileup. The journal. The ghost. The raven. The time capsule. She barely had time to compute what her mind had deduced before Tom muttered aloud, “I wonder what happened to Daphne.”

A thunderous roar erupted from somewhere beneath them, and Foreman House began to seize, bits of plaster raining down around them. Black mold crawled up the walls. A loud crack rang out from just beyond the open window as the mammoth maple tree extended even further away from the house. Mary half-expected a fault line to appear in the floor, and the tectonic plates to pull apart like they had in her nightmare before the time capsule ceremony. But as quickly as the seismic event descended on them, normalcy returned.

“What the hell was that?” Tom sputtered.

“I have no—”

In the silence, Mary’s phone erupted. Could Vice-Principal Crummey really be calling to postpone their meeting again? It’d already been rescheduled three times. She intended to give a pleasant “hello,” but Mr. Crummey wouldn’t let her get a word in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, even though Mary suspected he wasn’t. “I’m afraid I need to cancel our meeting.”

“Cancel? Can’t we postpone for—”

“No,” he said, his voice heavy. With regret? Or annoyance? She couldn’t quite tell. “You’ve been placed on indefinite administrative leave.”

“Indefinite administrative leave?” Mary parroted with emphasis, watching Tom’s eyes widen with each blasphemous word.

Crummey cleared his throat. “You’re also barred from setting foot on school property. Your keycard has been deactivated, and the personal items in your classroom and your cubby in the faculty lounge will be boxed up and shipped out to you as soon as possible.”

Tom tore a pen from his pocket and scribbled something down on the back of one of the papers lining the floor. He held it up in front of her, and she read the words aloud, like a script.

“I’m entitled to know the reason for my—”

“Mary.” Crummey sighed. “When Mark told me that continued funding was contingent on you being hired, I was hopeful that the past would stay there. The whole thing was quite cumbersome, might I add. The union was not pleased about the reclassification, but your uncle has done so much for St. Joseph’s, and … well … you know we need the funding. I desperately wanted to believe that all the salacious conjecture about your family was just that. But current events have proven otherwise, and the composite was the final straw. I have concerned parents calling. The trustees are beside themselves. I appreciate that recent events have been difficult for you, but you can’t possibly be surprised. Do you have a television? Do you have the internet?”

Yes, Mary watched the news. She knew what folks were saying about her online. But that wasn’t her focus. This was the first time that Mary had heard any of this. She’d assumed that Mark being her uncle had given her a competitive edge, but this? She was sure that Crummey wanted her there. Why would he not? She was a good teacher. “What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Nothing’s been proven—”

“Yet, Mary. Nothing’s been proven yet,” Crummey said, before terminating the call.

“He thinks I did it,” Mary gasped out, her heart pounding in her head. The panic swirling in her chest was unbearable. “They all think I did it.”

“But you didn’t,” Tom asserted, grabbing her shoulders and locking eyes with her. “You didn’t.”

“But how are we going to prove—” Mid-thought, Mary sped out of the library and up the winding staircase. In her bedroom, she scoured the room for the journals she’d hidden there—the key to unlocking the mystery and solidifying Daphne Lobb’s connection to all of this. Based on the two entries she’d read in the first journal, Daphne was an open book. And there were several more where that came from, with envelopes and small relics poking out of the pages. But before Mary could so much as dive into her closet, a crackling fire pulled her from her trance.

“No!” Mary screamed, falling to her knees in front of the fireplace.

There were remnants of the journals in the coals. Curled pages, bits of melted text still visible. A fractured spine. Small slivers of leatherbound cover, cracked like Grandma Hannah’s hands at the end. Mary could feel herself imploding, her ribcage caving in on itself just as she’d feared the supporting beams of Foreman House would moments before. In her rage, her mind started wandering again, combing through the threads that tied everything together, like Cat’s Cradle. Like the tether Grandma Hannah summoned her to break.

“The only thing that ghost wanted from me,” Mary muttered into the silence, staring into the flames, “was for me to fail.”

Before the tears could start falling, Tom appeared in the doorway, a look of grave concern painted across his face. “We have company.”

Tweedledee and Tweedledum were clearly enjoying themselves.

Held hostage in the back of their police cruiser, Mary couldn’t help but notice the twinkle in their eyes as they gazed back at her in the rearview mirror; how they handled the curves en route like Formula One hairpin turns. Tom was adamant that she not go with them, muttering something about investigative detention. But Mary had ulterior motives. If she didn’t go with them now—if she waited for Sylvia—she wouldn’t know what they thought they had on her.

You’re coming with us voluntarily, they’d parroted, one after another, walking her out to the cruiser as the reporters looked on. But their facial expressions said otherwise. Perhaps they were looking down their noses at her, now, too. She couldn’t see them, of course, but she’d watched enough police procedurals on television to know that it wasn’t a mirror she was staring into.

The air in Interrogation Room C was thick as molasses. It reminded her of the locker room in the local arena, the one that reeked of desperation and failed potential. Reaching for the paper cup she’d so graciously been provided, she took a sip and swished the tepid water around in her mouth. Just as she was about to swallow, something went pitter-patter in the ducts. She was just about to stand up to get a closer look through the grate on the wall when Holden burst through the door, chest puffed out and clipboard in hand.

“Ms. Foreman,” he said, clearing his throat and pulling out the aluminum chair from the table. The screech of the legs against the cold tile floor drowned out the sounds from the vent. “Thank you for making yourself available.”

So that’s what I did, Mary thought, recalling how she’d been escorted out of Foreman House amid a media circus, cameras flashing and reporters hollering. Even though she looked like a deer in the headlights, she knew what the internet trolls would say about her, dissecting her body language to support their claims that she was guilty. “Anything for the local PD.”

“Shall we get started?” Holden asked, extracting several photos from a sleeve behind his clipboard. He turned the photos around, laying them face down on the table in a grid-like pattern. “Do these mean anything to you?”

Mary shook her head. “Should they?”

Holden rhymed off a laundry list of surnames like they were a soliloquy he’d spent the better part of his life rehearsing. They were vaguely familiar, but so were most names on the North Shore. But when Holden provided additional details—the florist who disappeared without a trace, the monument maker found bludgeoned to death, the casket maker found dead in his workshop—Mary gulped.

“These are the latest cold cases we’ve tied to the time capsule.”

“That DNA company really came through for you, eh?”

Holden stared at her, speechless.

“What? It’s not like you’ve kept that tidbit particularly close to your chest. You wouldn’t shut up about the DNA at the presser.”

Holden cleared his throat. “Well, let me share something with you that we didn’t tell the public.”

“I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“We used a certain familial DNA profile to create the composite sketch.”

“I failed ninth grade biology,” Mary said. “You’ll need to tell me more than that.”

Holden shifted in his seat. “There are these things called markers. I can input sets of markers from a Y-DNA profile into databases and return a list of matches. Surnames of families with whom an individual could share a common ancestor.”

“And?”

“Aren’t you curious to know which surnames were connected to the DNA?”

“Let me take a wild guess: Foreman?”

“I said surnames.”

“I’ve run out of guesses.”

“Lobb.”

Mary felt like she was going to throw up.

“And.” Holden paused, the look on his face eerily reminiscent of Poirot or Miss Marple just before all the pieces fell into place. “The genetic profile is female.”

Mary scoffed. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? Detective Constable Holden, First Class. Finally able to do what your predecessors couldn’t. Need I remind you: my mother was acquitted. She fled for her safety.”

“I’m glad you brought that up,” Holden said. “It’s quite the narrative, isn’t it: Sarah Foreman, driven out of town by a corrupt local police force, giving her brothers free rein to build their Death Conglomerate. It’s no wonder the podcast had the reach it did. Top 10 on Apple Podcasts. Spotify, too. The most downloads Wicked Lives Lived saw in its lifetime, as I understand it.”

“It was quite …” Mary started, trying to find the right word. “Engrossing.”

“You were engrossed?”

Mary could feel her left eye start twitching. “Just like any other listener.”

“But you weren’t just any other listener. Sarah Foreman was your mother, and you were still in utero when it happened.”

“I never knew her,” Mary insisted, her voice thick with unrequited love.

“Then how did you manage to concoct such a convincing performance?”

Mary’s face scrunched up. “What are you getting at?”

“We know it was you, Mary.”

“It was my mother.”

“Your mother is dead.”

“She’s dead now. She was alive when they recorded the podcast.”

“Forensics beg to differ,” Holden said, extracting another page from behind his clipboard.

Mary skimmed the page, and her stomach fell into her pelvis. Despite her mind’s desire to rearrange the text into something more palatable, there was no denying the truth staring back at her; the truth she’d rejected ever since she’d curled up into her mother’s remains.

“As you can see here,” Holden started, pointing to a line of fine print at the bottom of the document. “Based on the state of decomposition and the surrounding area, Sarah Foreman’s body was disposed of approximately thirty years prior to extraction.”

“But that would mean—” Mary struggled to speak, the room closing in around her. No. It wasn’t possible. If her body had been rotting in the ground for thirty years, it could only mean one thing: her mother hadn’t abandoned her. She’d never left the North Shore at all. She couldn’t be the mastermind behind all the cold cases, either. “She didn’t abandon me. She’s … innocent.”

“We’re still working out the timeline.”

“Is there anything you’re not working out?”

“There’s one thing we know for certain: the only living female with Foreman and Lobb ancestry is you.”

Thanks to her and Tom’s discoveries, Mary knew this wasn’t true. But she couldn’t share it with Detective Constable Holden. Not here. Not yet.

“But those murders,” Mary continued. “The florist, the monument maker, the casket maker. Those murders were committed long before I could drive!”

“Not Cole Mitchell. That one was pretty close, no?”

Mary’s bottom lip started to tremble.

“Besides,” Holden continued. “Our DNA evidence came from the time capsule—not the crime scenes. Is that how you managed to put the shovel at exactly the right spot? Because you’d dug up the time capsule before?”

Mary shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

“If crazy means correct, then so be it,” Holden said, inching closer to her. “I think you were hellbent on continuing your mother’s legacy, and that your uncles were easy scapegoats. The whole Death Conglomerate thing was just a deflection. Your uncles are crooks, sure, but they’re not murderers. Of course, you wanted to convince us otherwise with your whole Wicked Lives Lived bit. But your uncles are in the funeral business, Mary. You and your mother, on the other hand, what was it that she said on the podcast? Foremans don’t just bury the dead …”

“They bury the living, too,” Mary mumbled aloud before she could stop herself.

“It’s quite the catchphrase.”

Mary shook her head. “You’ve got it all twisted.”

But Mary was all twisted, too. Her stomach was in knots, and her gut was spasming, and she wished that she’d listened to Tom. She regretted wanting—no, needing—to know what the police had. She never suspected they’d have this: evidence that her entire life was built on a lie. The lie that her mother had run away and never looked back. Mary thought back to all the ghosts she’d encountered on the North Shore over the years. Had her mother been there? Watching her? It was too much to think about. Too much to compute. Too—

“What are you doing interviewing my client without me present?”

Sylvia had swapped her athleisure for a black suit with a subtle pinstripe. Her dark hair was swept up into a low bun, and her cheekbones were as severe as her gaze. Mary felt like she had whiplash from how quickly Sylvia managed to extract her from Interrogation Room C, relishing as Holden deflated like a week-old helium balloon.

“Best not leave town,” Tweedledee said, leaning up against the vending machine where a lone bag of Doritos was stuck in purgatory.

“I hear a warrant’s not too far behind,” added Tweedledum.

“Ignore them,” Sylvia said, her voice as even-keeled as her step.

When they turned toward the backdoor, Mary could feel her anxiety rise. “What about—”

“There’s a reporter out front,” Sylvia whispered before grabbing Mary’s forearm. “I need you to listen carefully, Mary.” She thrust her briefcase into the crook of her arm. “For whatever reason, the police seem to be closing in on you as the principal person of interest. In the event they do lay charges, we will need to discuss my retainer.”

“Retainer?”

“I’m not accepting Legal Aid certificates. Though I’m not sure you’d qualify.”

How could she not qualify? She was still digging herself out of a mountain of debt—student, credit card, and non-refundable elopement deposits. Surely, Sylvia’s retainer couldn’t be that much. She was a well-known, well-respected criminal defense lawyer, but this wasn’t Toronto. This was North Shore Township. So, when Sylvia confirmed that her retainer would be a cool half-a-mill, Mary thought she was having an out-of-body experience. “A half what now?”

“It’s industry standard for a murder charge, Mary. Do you have any assets you can leverage? Were you not set to inherit your grandmother’s estate?”

All Mary could muster was a shrug. Grandma Hannah’s wishes were perfectly clear, yes, but the windfall was still tied up with the lawyers. Executors. Trustees. Etcetera. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was days away from being served with a statement of claim from the Disciples arguing that the family trust should trump Hannah’s wishes. They’d thrown around some choice words in the wake of the will-reading. Duress. Undue Influence. Fraud. Lack of provision this and that. She’d started Googling but promptly stopped. She knew arming herself with legal jargon wouldn’t do any good. If she’d learned one thing from her email exchanges with Dale about their cohabitation agreement, it was that if she was going to get fucked, she’d rather not know how. “There’s been a bit of a mix-up.”

“I see,” Sylvia said, running a hand over her chin. “Well, I can always try to connect you with a colleague who has lower rates, or perhaps someone with space for a pro bono file. Of course, we hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Mary let her head fall back until her neck cracked, the sound reminding her of her fractured life. “We live in eternal hope.”

CHAPTER 17

YOUR MOTHER WAS RIGHT

Mary didn’t have a hope in hell.

Driving down Highway 17, white knuckling at ten and two, her hopelessness had her in a chokehold. Is this how her mother had felt, as she was led out of Foreman House in handcuffs? Where did she find the courage to commit to proving her innocence, even when faced with a mountain of evidence to the contrary? “If only I could ask,” Mary mumbled, turning off the radio.

She needed to focus. If she couldn’t prove her innocence, she needed reasonable doubt. Thanks to Tom, she had it in spades. Daphne Lobb. The child stolen from her arms at the Home for Unwed Mothers. Proof that Foreman-Lobb ancestry didn’t stop with her. But how could she prove it? She needed more evidence. If only she could go back in time and save those journals from their fate. The entries were one thing, but there were other items stuffed between the pages. Pieces of fabric. Newspaper clippings. Photos.

Photos …

Mary revved her rust bucket’s engine, flying past the Riverview turnoff and further down the winding two-lane highway. In a matter of moments, Mary was sitting in the deserted parking lot at St. Joseph’s School for Girls, against Vice-Principal Crummey’s specific instructions. Her keycard had been deactivated, but access wasn’t an issue. As if she were expecting her, Noose met her at the door and ushered her in. The motion-activated tube lights running down the ceiling cast an eerie glow in the hazy darkness. Striding down the main hall, losing Noose somewhere around the faulty lounge, Mary descended into the bowels of the school. Daphne Lobb and the allegations she’d levied against Sister Josephine may have been struck from the record, but Mary knew there was one place she’d be. It was Mary’s chance for clarity: to put a name to the sunken face suspended above her bed.

Striding down the hallway, hundreds of discerning eyes burning holes into her body, Mary was struck by something. No one—not one single girl—was smiling. Recalling her own graduation photo, Mary, too, was stone-faced. Perhaps all the photographers throughout the ages had given the girls the same prompts. Melancholic. Gloomy. Despondent. Or perhaps their time at St. Joseph’s had taken the same toll.

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven …”

Standing in front of the composite for the Class of 1928, it didn’t take Mary long to locate her great-grandmother. She was the only one whose lips were curled up into something vaguely resembling a smile. It was as if Anne was the only girl privy to a secret: that things would get better beyond these haunted halls. But a woman who drowned herself couldn’t have been smiling for long.

“C, D, E …” Mary muttered, scanning the composite for L.

When her eyes met Daphne’s, Mary gasped—not because Daphne Lobb was Ms. Morse, but because there was an uncanny resemblance. Not to Mary and her mother, but someone else entirely.

Mary ran down the hall, struggling to extract her phone from her purse. She recalled Grandma Hannah’s funeral; how Daphne’s ghost wailed when a certain someone disappeared down the road, hunchbacked with her Bible in hand. She recalled Tom’s history lesson about Homes for Unwed Mothers; how the infants were either adopted by good Catholic families or sent to orphanages to be raised by nuns. I’ve long wondered how many of those children ended up entering the seminary or the convent …

“It’s you,” Mary whispered, standing in front of a familiar faculty member in her mother’s class composite. Thin lips stuck in sternness. Jet black hair peeking out from beneath her habit. “Of course, it’s you.” Mary hit one of Bar Guy’s entries in her call history. “Pick up,” she pleaded, holding her phone tight against the side of her head. “Pick—"

“Mary? Where are you?” Tom gasped.

Mary opened her mouth to reply, but then there was a hollow thud against her skull, and everything went black.

The room was terribly small. Much longer than it was wide, but still small enough to feel claustrophobic. Its oblong shape and wood-paneled walls reminded Mary of the coffins she used to hide inside as a child, not because she wanted to, but because it drove Grandma Hannah mad. The contrarian streak still ran strong within her, which was why she squirmed about despite her arms and feet being bound up; why she tried to speak even though her words were muffled by the tape stuck over her lips. When her head fell back in frustration, she noticed the foam panels on the ceiling, like the kind you’d find in a music studio. Except Mary wasn’t stupid enough to think the panels amplified acoustics. The room was soundproof.

Without warning, one of the wooden panels opened, and a familiar nun shuffled in. For the first time, Mary wondered whether the waddle was for dramatic effect. If she’d managed to subdue Mary and drag her unconscious ass in here, it was likely that Sister Claudia wasn’t as frail as she led on.

“Mary,” Sister Claudia sighed, exasperated. “Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

Mary tried to reply, but it was no use.

“I’ll take off the tape,” she said, inching closer. “But I have a touch of a headache. There’s no use in screaming. No one can hear you.”

“You have a headache?” Mary shrieked, her words a muffled mess. The back of her skull throbbed from being struck. She was definitely concussed.

“Volume,” Sister Claudia warned again before yanking the tape off Mary’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Mary muttered, her face burning. “Where are we?”

“At the school, of course,” Sister Claudia said, puttering about in the back corner of the room, flicking on two monitors to reveal CCTV footage of St. Joseph’s—the front entrance, the faulty lounge, and the hallway where the class composites hung. Vice-Principal Crummey once said that Sister Claudia was his eyes and ears. Was this the reason? “Behind the boiler room.”

Mary recalled the rendering Tom had found. The one with the boiler room circled. Was this why? “Did you make this?”

“Of course not.” Sister Claudia laughed. “I have many talents, dearest. Construction is not one.”

“But murder is?”

Sister Claudia gasped. “Take that back.”

“Why? If anything, it’s an insult to me. We’re related.”

“I wondered how long it would take you to put two and two together,” Sister Claudia said, taking a seat on the metal chair next to the monitors.

“Have you always known?” Mary asked. The clock was ticking. She needed answers. “Who your parents were?”

Sister Claudia shook her head. “I spent most of my life believing my mother abandoned me. I suppose we have that in common, too. It wasn’t until after your mother’s trial that Hannah told me.”

Mary couldn’t hide her shock. “My grandmother? She’s the reason you know?”

“Hannah wasn’t content with the acquittal. She was desperate to clear your mother’s name once and for all. Convinced the truth was somewhere in Foreman House, she turned the place upside down. That’s when she found them: my mother’s journals. She assumed they were Anne’s at first, but when she started piecing things together, the haunting intensified. Daphne didn’t want the truth to be discovered. Hannah confided in me because she thought I could change Daphne’s mind; that I could convince her to give up her vendetta against the Foremans and help the family—her spirit—find peace.”

“And peace didn’t appeal to you? Don’t nuns love that shit? Are you even a real nun?”

“Peace was impossible,” Sister Claudia continued, seething. “I read the journals. Each and every word. About the abuse she suffered at Sister Josephine’s hands. About Anne and Isaac and that wretched yellow house—” She paused to wipe a tear from her face. “My mother was right. It should’ve been her in that house. Us. If we couldn’t have it, then why should you?”

“But I don’t want it,” Mary said, even though part of her desperately did. “You can have it.”

“It’s not yours to give away, Mary,” Sister Claudia said, eyes narrowed. “The will means nothing. Those boys will take it from you. Just like they took your mother’s life.”

Mary’s jaw struck the floor. She’d been so preoccupied with the fact of her mother’s death she hadn’t let herself wonder why. How. Who. “What are you talking about?”

“Surely, you know. You’ve always known. Just like me. Just like everyone who refused to put one of Peter’s campaign signs on their front lawn. Your uncles have always had a proclivity for the deranged. Even when they were students at St. Jude’s, they showed signs. Especially Mark. The rumor he failed out of funeral directing school? Blasphemous. He was expelled! For stealing cadavers’ teeth. Other body parts, too. Peter paid the school a handsome sum in exchange for their silence, of course, but Mark never could kick the habit. This room is his. It’s where he hides all his mementos. Cole’s eyes are just over there, in that pickle jar. The mason jar with the red top? The ear? That’s Lucille. What a mayor she was. Peter will pale in comparison. Deep down, I think he knows.”

Bile burned at the back of Mary’s throat. “Why haven’t you gone to the police?”

“If I had done that, what would I do with you?”

“Me?”

“Honestly, Mary. The issue isn’t them or you. It’s all of you. The entire Foreman family line. Your uncles being locked up would mean nothing if you, too, walked free.”

“I’m innocent!” Mary yelled like her life depended on it.

“You most certainly are not,” Sister Claudia said, springing from her seat. “You impersonated your dead mother on a popular podcast to evade suspicion. You aided and abetted your uncles’ crimes. Your DNA is all over that time capsule.”

“I most certainly—” Mary started, pausing as the pieces fell together. “Wait. The podcast. Was that you?”

“Well, technically speaking, it was a hired voice actor.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Actually, I suppose ‘actor’ is a bit of a stretch. She’s one of the staff at the Manor. Lovely girl—great administrative assistant—but I caught her stealing narcotics. She was happy to do this in exchange for me staying tight-lipped about the whole thing. She even helped me swap the minestrone for the entrails. It was quite the operation. I thought the maggots were a nice touch, don’t you?”

Mary thought back to the fundraising dinner: to the soup bowl filled with organs; to the deep and acrid stench that filled her nose; to the word murderer piped out in letters that were black like tar. Her stomach churned at the thought of that godforsaken feather. She’d had enough of the raven for a thousand lifetimes. “So, it was all you?”

“Not everything, no. I orchestrated the podcast appearance and threw the wrench into the fundraising dinner, but I can only take credit for a portion of the time capsule. We can thank Foreman men for procuring the skull and the teeth, but the rosary? Me again!”

Mary’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“It was an ode.”

“A what now?”

“An ode,” Sister Claudia insisted, as if she were talking about a mixed tape or a poem. “In my early days as an orphan, I had but one possession: a rosary. I’d always dreamt that my mother had left it for me, a truth I confirmed when I read her diaries years later. When I was a young girl, the pearls started breaking off. It may sound … morbid, but as I lost my baby teeth, I collected them, intending to use them as replacement beads. I couldn’t, of course, but I held on to that idea for years. And then, as fate would have it, I was presented with the perfect opportunity. And the fact that you were engaged to a dentist, well, what is it the kids say these days? Ah yes. Chef’s kiss!”

“That’s really fucked up,” Mary said.

“It would be in your best interest to watch your tongue, dearest.”

“So,” Mary said, processing the information she’d garnered. “That’s it then. You’ll turn my uncles in and make sure I’m implicated in all this.”

“Your mother, too.”

“But she’s dead! They killed her!”

“There’s no evidence of that,” Sister Claudia said. “She has her teeth. I suppose Mark had no interest in keeping a piece of his sister close. He never liked her, you know. I don’t blame him.”

Mary couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re … evil.”

“Ha! You don’t know anything about me. But I’ll have you know this: once you and your uncles are rotting in prison or six feet under—I really don’t care which—North Shore Township will have no choice but to finally rid Foreman House of its historic site status and burn it to the ground. So, what’ll it be, Mary? I can turn you in to law enforcement now, say you attacked me when I found your … well … whatever this room is. Or I can leave you here to rot. I don’t think your uncle will be back anytime soon; certainly not after I turn that pickle jar over to Detective Constable Holden,” Claudia said, reaching for her crowbar.

Accepting that defeat was imminent, Mary braced for impact. But before Sister Claudia could so much as raise the hunk of metal, the CCTV feed erupted in a fit of static. The cabinets and drawers in the boiler room were thrust open, and their contents tossed around erratically. Sister Claudia yelped, abandoned the crowbar, and sprinted toward the door. But just before it opened, The Raider lunged toward her. Powerless against an invisible enemy, Sister Claudia screamed out, striking the air to defend herself. But, in her old age, she was no match. Mary watched in awe as Noose took the rope from her own neck and used it on the nun—not enough to kill, but certainly enough to subdue. And just before the ghosts disappeared with the nun’s limp body, The Raider whispered, “Your mother was right. She always said I’d find a door.”

DAPHNE

1928

CHAPTER 18

OUR DOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN

When Daphne accompanied her father to settle her mother’s funeral invoice, Mr. Foreman had made it a point to say that their door was always open. So now, standing on the dimly lit threshold of Foreman House, thunder bellowing across the North Channel, Daphne was positively perturbed to find it closed.

It was just before dinnertime, and the house was lit from within. Earlier, she’d watched intently as the cook plucked tufts of fresh herbs from the thriving garden—basil, dill, sage, and thyme. Through open windows, she’d caught wind of the cook’s plans to braise lamb. It would pair nicely with the wine they’d selected, along with the zucchini and green beans from the market. Oh, and who could forget the cheesecake for dessert? Surely, with a menu like that, they were expecting her. A rack of lamb was fit for the woman of the house—a position that, despite Isaac’s love letter to Anne, remained vacant.

Remained for the taking.

With her presence entirely unacknowledged, Daphne retreated to the garden shed. She suspected she was one of the few outsiders who knew of the secret passage—the one used to transport bodies to and from Foreman House. She’d used it a few times after Isaac had his way with her, before she was sent away to give birth to their secret shame. She’d snuck into Foreman House under the veil of darkness to transform his unrequited love into something he’d happily announce. She’d tried to manipulate his thoughts by whispering in his ear as he slept; by leaving tokens of her affection about his room. A raven brooch she’d stolen from a local flea market. A bundle of clovers, tied with a lock of her hair. The handkerchief he’d handed her under the tree that fateful day, doused in her perfume. Still, despite her very best efforts, he wouldn’t acknowledge her existence—even now with their daughter roaming the North Shore. But she refused to give up. She had faith that the tables would turn. Soon, she would take her rightful place at the head of the dinner table, sipping wine and feasting on lamb with a fresh herb crust and—

“When is she set to arrive?”

Hidden behind an embalming table, Daphne’s heart started pounding. Had she missed an invitation? Perhaps her attempts at subverting Isaac’s subconscious were successful.

“Any moment now, Father.”

“You’re certain that she’s the one?”

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”

“Splendid. Impeccable lineage. The daughter of the North Shore’s most accomplished physician.”

Daphne’s heart stopped.

“I agree.”

“So sad about the rumors, though.”

“What rumors?”

“Oh, just silly things. There’s no use discussing them. I’m confident the only foresight Anne has is the kind to confirm she’d been quite happy being your wife.”

As the floor fell out from beneath Daphne’s feet, a soft voice floated down into the basement. “The Berrys are here, Mr. Foreman.”

“We shall be up momentarily.”

Mr. Foreman reached for his son’s shoulder and squeezed it. “I hope she likes lamb.”

And like lamb she did. Lingering in the second-floor corridor, eavesdropping on Anne and her father rant and rave about the supple, moist meat—the charred bits around the bones and the herb crust—Daphne hiked the cloth bag she’d brought with her further up her shoulder.

When she couldn’t bear to listen to Anne’s diatribe any longer—when she’d heard enough of graduation and the time capsule and Anne’s future in House of Foreman—Daphne retreated to the attic. Accepting now that defeat was imminent, she needed to pivot. If she couldn’t reside in Foreman House, she would leave a piece of her soul inside it. Evidence that she had been here. Evidence of the truth that bound her and Isaac together for eternity. Besides, she knew what the Foremans were capable of. She’d heard the rumors. Relished in them. It’s one of the reasons why she was so hellbent on being one of them. She wasn’t stupid.

She needed an insurance policy.

She chose an old cedar chest adorned with the family’s crest in which to hide her secrets. By the time she’d arranged the journals and closed the lid, the Berrys had polished off their dessert and their wine. Daphne watched them leave through the attic window, waving at them as they disappeared into the darkness. As the Foremans retreated to the basement, Daphne descended into the dining room and scoured the table for the sole wine glass marked with lipstick. When she located Anne’s place setting, she snatched a bone from her plate and tore at the charred, crusted remnants until the bare bone glistened. She debated slipping it into her waistband in case she needed something to defend herself later, but decided on a knife instead.

“What are you doing here?”

Daphne let the knife’s handle slip through her fingers, her waistband holding it tight against her person. “I heard you were having lamb. It’s my favorite,” she said, turning to face Isaac, still licking bits of herbs from her lips.

“You can’t be here. You have no right.”

“The lady of this house has every right to be here.”

“You’re insane.”

“You’re a liar.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You told me you’d love me for evermore …”

“You misheard me.”

“I did not. You said you would, and I believed you. You know what you did. What I was forced to do. You cannot deny me—our child—our inheritance.”

“I have no child.”

Daphne cried out like she’d been struck, her daughter’s wails flooding her ears. “You do. Someday, everyone will know. About what you did. About what those nuns did. About the future I envision for our daughter—for us—on these very shores!”

“No one will know. No one would believe you, anyway.”

“Oh, they will. You may have tried to bury this, but the townspeople will dig up the truth eventually.”

Daphne could see Isaac putting the pieces together. “You wrote about me in your letter? The one you’ll put in the time capsule?”

Daphne nodded. “Not just there, though. I wrote about you in my journals, too. And those, well,” she said, thinking of the attic. “Those I hid right under your perfect little nose.” Daphne crept forward until she was close enough to feel Isaac’s angry breath on her face. “She has it, you know. Our daughter. She has your nose.”

Without warning, Isaac’s hands were around Daphne’s neck. She tried to draw a sudden breath, but she wasn’t fast enough. Her shoes were off the ground and her eyes were rolling back into her skull and her entire body was thrashing about. And then, as if part of a tease, Isaac released her, but only for a moment before the nearest candelabra on the table met her skull with a force that wasn’t human. As if from another dimension, Daphne watched her limp body fall, her arms spread out like a raven’s wings. Blood pooled around her head and her hair fanned out around her, black like ink. In a fit of rage, separated from her earthly form, she lunged forward. But as quickly as she leapt out, she fell back beside her body, stuck to the ground like the mice her father set traps for in the barn, their little paws glued fast, fated to starve stagnant, watching the world turn.

The blackmail started the day they shoved Daphne’s body into someone else’s coffin.

While Daphne quickly came to understand this was common Foreman practice, she wished they would’ve chosen the person with whom she’d rot more thoughtfully—allowed her to have a say, even. Alas, her spirit was still stuck to the dining room floor when they came for her rigid body with a hacksaw, bleach, and tattered scraps of cloth. By this time, she’d been staring at the ceiling mural for so long that the cotton-ball clouds had started to move, morphing into phrases that made her feel even more stupid for thinking she had a hope in hell of swaying Isaac Foreman. How could she have been so naive? To think that he could be a man of life instead of death.

As she fixated on her failures, one of the bare-bottomed angels painted on the ceiling winked at her, as if he knew her secret shame. Delirious, Daphne wasn’t sure if her dead ears were playing tricks on her when the familiar voice floated into the room, like the smell of roses on a summer breeze. But there was no mistaking her tone, the way her tongue twisted around her hurried words.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Mr. Foreman said.

“I would,” replied Sister Josephine.

“After all I did to bury the allegations against you, you come into my house and—”

“Oh, stop being dramatic. Those allegations were baseless. I am but a pious woman committed to excellence. I have high standards for my girls, yes, but I am not cruel. I would never touch—”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“You’ve misheard, then.”

Mr. Foreman snarled. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” Sister Josephine said, as if her desire was as obvious as nightfall.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I would’ve thought the decision was simple. Preserving the good Foreman name is priceless, no? Nothing puts a wrench in things like a bastard child. Besides, Father Bennett agreed—”

“He didn’t.”

“He most certainly did.”

“We won’t be able to pay a lump sum,” Mr. Foreman said.

“Installments won’t work for me. I have a ticket to buy.”

“Why is that?”

“I have an itch for a change in scenery.”

“Fine.”

“Splendid,” Sister Josephine replied, pilfering one of Mr. Foreman’s favorite words. “You can come by my office to provide payment. Tomorrow evening?”

“I will be there.”

Sister Josephine appeared satisfied when leaving Foreman House, but Daphne knew a lie when she saw one. If the nun were anyone else, she may have tried to warn her in the hours that followed—when she finally found the strength to lift herself from the floor. But after everything she’d suffered at the nun’s hands, Daphne couldn’t have cared less about the fate that would befall Sister Josephine at the hands of House of Foreman.

She deserved it.

So, when Isaac Foreman returned the following evening with Sister Josephine’s body in a bag, Daphne took it as a sign: there was still hope. Unbeknownst to him, he’d avenged her—despite what his father had done to bury the truth she’d brought forward. Of cruelty. Torment. Abuse. And so, that night, after he’d washed the nun’s blood from his hands, Daphne crawled into bed with him and caressed him as he slept. In between his snores, she whispered in his ear, over and over again until her demands had their own echo in the silence of the night.

“Cut off her head like she cut me down. Cut her body into dozens of pieces, one for each time she told me I was nothing. Because I am someone, dearest. I am yours. You’ll see.”

When the police appeared at Foreman House, Daphne was certain they’d come looking for her. But it wasn’t her name on their lips. It was Sister Josephine’s.

Mr. Foreman took them to his office, invited them to sit in the same tufted chairs Daphne and her father once sat in. Were the officers as captivated by Mr. Foreman as she’d once been? Did they, too, marvel at the way he made them feel?

“She left on a pilgrimage,” Mr. Foreman said, taking a sip of his tea. “She was so committed to her work, Sister Josephine, to disseminating the Word of our Lord. I’m sure Father Bennett would know more. He told me that, in the weeks leading up to her leaving, she’d confided in him about her desire to—how did he put it? Oh yes: “walk in the shoes of our Lord and Savior.” He was supposed to drop her off at the train, but the poor man fell ill. Wicked cough. I told him to rest up, that I was happy to bring her. Last I saw her, she was in the capable hands of Canadian National Railway.”

“Yes,” said one of the officers, closing his notebook. “We spoke with Father Bennett earlier today. He sounded dreadful.”

“If only we could be young forever.” Mr. Foreman smiled, leaning back further in his chair.

If only, Daphne thought, hiding in the shadowy corner of the office. Even though she could move throughout the house now, she still felt immobile. Being dead had taken much from her, but nothing more so than her proclivity for manipulation—her deep-seated desire to scheme. She was tired. Being dead ate at all the parts of her she loved most. The parts that had once given her life.

“Very well then, Mr. Foreman,” the other officer said, standing up from his seat. “I think we have all that we need. Thank you for taking the time, and for the hospitality.”

“Of course,” he said. “Our door is always open.”

Lies! Daphne wanted to scream it aloud, but she couldn’t. Oh, how she wished things were different. She’d do it all over, if she could.

“Are they gone?” Isaac peeked around the corner, panic washing over his chiseled face.

Mr. Foreman nodded. “For now. They may be back, though. Father Bennett stuck to the script, but there’s the issue of her sleeping quarters being … how did the newspaper put it? In a state of disarray.”

Isaac looked as though he might vomit. “I thought it would make it look like she was packing. That she was in a hurry.”

“To leave on a trip that she’d been planning for weeks?”

“The pilgrimage was your idea.”

“Silence!” Mr. Foreman screamed.

Isaac obeyed.

“You’ll get better,” Mr. Foreman said, as if he were talking about practicing an organized sport. “We all learn from our mistakes.”

Isaac gulped. “But what are we going to do? About the nun? There’s still the time capsule to deal with. That letter …”

“All in good time, son. There’s no shortage of caskets here. The nun will get the same treatment as that girl. As for the time capsule, we’ll wait until just before the snow falls. Then we will destroy that letter once and for all.”

Isaac shook his head. “I have a better idea. We’re taking something out of the time capsule, no? It would only be right to put something back in.”

“The nun? She won’t fit.”

“Not all of her.”

The grin that graced Mr. Foreman’s face sent a chill down Daphne’s dead spine. “Splen—”

A knock at the door cut Mr. Foreman’s thought short.

“It’s the police, isn’t it? They know—”

“Do not say a word.”

When Mr. Foreman returned to the office, it wasn’t the police he ushered in.

“Aunt Hazel,” Daphne whispered under her breath. Why had she come? She wasn’t safe here.

“I’m so sorry to barge in like this, Mr. Foreman.”

“Ah, it’s no trouble at all. What can we do for you Ms.—”

“Jones. Hazel Jones.”

“What can we do for you, Ms. Jones?”

Aunt Hazel reached into her satchel and pulled out a large stack of periodicals. “I was hoping you’d be able to give these a good home.”

Mr. Foreman cleared his throat. “Wherever did you get these?”

“I was cleaning my cupboards and stumbled upon them. I think my niece, Daphne, subscribed to them in my name. She was very interested in funeral directing, you see. Her father would’ve had an aneurysm if he saw these.”

“I bet.”

“I’m not sure if you recall meeting her. Her father, too. You interred her mother a while back.” Aunt Hazel turned to Isaac. “Perhaps you had occasion to meet her at a school function? You attend St. Jude’s, no?”

“I—” Isaac started, and Mr. Foreman shot him a death stare.

“No one’s heard from her,” Aunt Hazel said, running her hands over her blouse. She’s gone missing.”

“That’s terrible.”

Aunt Hazel shifted back and forth, visibly uncomfortable. “I thought … she might have reached out to you?”

“Why would that be?” Mr. Foreman asked before Isaac could fumble again.

Aunt Hazel smiled meekly, inching backward. Could she sense something? “No matter. She’ll come home soon, I’m sure.”

“I will say a prayer for your beloved niece’s safe return,” Mr. Foreman said, grasping Aunt Hazel’s forearm.

“You’ve been so kind,” Aunt Hazel said before declining their offer of tea. “It really is true, what they say?”

The Foremans nodded in unison.

And when the murderous bastards parroted, “our door is always open,” Daphne Lobb made the completely reasonable decision that if they so much as touched a hair on Aunt Hazel’s head, she’d kill them both.

She’d kill them all.

MARY

2018

CHAPTER 19

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE

Even though dread and antiseptic still clung to her tired skin and tangled hair, the only thing Mary could smell now was freedom. It carried in through the automatic double doors, barely visible up the hallway, along with the faint sound of sirens and pulses of blitzing red and blue light. At small rural hospitals like the one in Clarksville, there were no designated ambulance bays. Trauma gurneys were wheeled in right through the front door, just like Mary had been a mere seventy-two hours prior, her skull throbbing thanks to Sister Claudia and her crowbar.

“Good day to be going home, eh?”

Mary nodded, even though it was more complicated than that. Yes, she was happy to be leaving her hospital room behind. Despite everyone’s best efforts to make it hospitable—the “Get Well Soon” balloons courtesy of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the flowers from Sylvia, and the mason jar filled with quarters from Tom (a visual representation of how sorry he was for not being there in her time of great need, or so his text message had said)—she was ready to go. But she had unfinished business at Foreman House. Certain threats had been neutralized—the Disciples, Sister Claudia—but Mary wasn’t concerned with those behind bars or out on their own recognizance. The only remaining threat was a dead girl with an agenda. The only person—dead or alive—who could fill the gaps in Sister Claudia’s story and solve the mystery of Grandma Hannah’s letter.

“Is there someone here to pick you up?” The chatty volunteer followed the green arrows on the speckled hospital floor marked EXIT.

Mary nodded, looking down at the tote bag perched on her lap. “The Charge Nurse said they were out front.” Outside, Mary scanned the roundabout. “They’re over there,” she said, letting her soles hit the sidewalk. “Thank you for the ride out.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Foreman.”

Mary turned back toward the volunteer, relishing in his genuine smile; in the sentiment he offered without sarcasm or resentment. Grandma Hannah had always said that news travelled fast on these shores. And unlike her mother before her, Mary wouldn’t have to face the townspeople’s collective suspicion in the wake of an acquittal. Unlike her mother, she was free. And this freedom had a smell: pine and the promise of winter.

Striding toward the idling Mercedes, exhaust billowing into the atmosphere, Mary wondered if she’d made the wrong choice in accepting Sylvia Kilbourn’s pick-up offer in favor of Tom’s. While Mary wanted nothing more than to see him, she knew there was no way in hell he’d let her venture into Foreman House alone—especially not after the inexplicable seismic event he’d witnessed. Sylvia, on the other hand, seemed happy to believe in the raccoons.

“That’s quite the shiner,” Sylvia said.

Mary didn’t need the dinky mirror on the back of the sun visor to know what Sylvia was referring to. When Sister Claudia struck her the first time, she must’ve fallen into a doorknob or something else bulbous and immobile. Growing up, she’d longed for a black eye—one that she could point to and say, “but you should see the other guy.” Now was her chance.

Sylvia groaned at Mary’s words, a half-smile gracing her usual stone face. “It’s good to see you, Mary,” Sylvia said, pulling out of the hospital and onto the main drag. “You gave us quite a scare. What a terrible ordeal.”

“Nah,” Mary said, downplaying her experience. Even though she’d rejected the hospital social worker’s attempts at assistance, she knew she’d be processing what’d happened in her uncle’s secret lair for a long while. Her mind flitted back to the panicked call she’d placed to Tom before she lost consciousness; the sorry jar he’d left in her hospital room. What had he thought when the call cut out? He probably thought you were dead.

“Have you heard from Tom?” Mary asked, trying to sound casual.

“Should I have?” Sylvia smirked.

“Just curious.”

“He’s a good guy, you know.”

“I know.”

“Just making sure.”

Sylvia was largely silent for the rest of the drive, choosing to listen to The Moose 94.1 FM instead. Just as Providence came into view, the Queen of Country Pop graced Mary’s ears again. A different song this time.

Sylvia chuckled. “We have come a long way.”

But they really had. The first time they’d met, Mary was staring down the gun of a criminal prosecution. Instead, she now had the one thing her mother never got. Freedom. The real kind. The kind that meant a name as clear as one’s own conscience. Actual innocence. It felt wonderful. “And you’re closing this chapter with another acquittal to add to your list.”

“You weren’t acquitted. You weren’t even charged!”

“It’s a shame I wasn’t,” Mary said facetiously. “I would’ve loved to see you take Holden on.”

“Someday, I’m sure. Patience is a virtue, Mary.”

As Foreman House came into view, Sylvia’s words rang in Mary’s ears. Patience is a virtue, Mary. Grandma Hannah had said the same thing many times. But Mary was a contrarian. She didn’t have patience. She’d been patient enough. She wanted answers, and there was only one person who could give them to her.

The first thing Mary noticed was the painting.

Crossing the threshold, the gold filigree frame caught the retreating light of day—the last sunrays setting over the North Channel in a sky of melding jeweled hues. For a moment, Mary was certain her eyes were playing tricks on her. And yet there it was: a new addition to Foreman House’s main entrance. A rendering eerily reminiscent of the composite sketch that’d graced news networks nationwide. But this one was painted in a black, sticky substance that Mary was almost certain was tar. The same substance covered each of the existing paintings. A dramatic X drawn across each man of House of Foreman. Alistar. Matthew. Isaac. Luke. Peter. Mark. John. It reminded Mary of a scene from a police procedural on television—when photos of a killer’s victims were tacked to a pegboard; clues and crime scene photos linked with arrows, question marks, and twine. Each of these men was a monster, yes, but each of them was someone’s victim, too.

“It was you,” Mary muttered aloud to no one. “Wasn’t it?”

Two hands grasped Mary’s shoulders, spun her around, and threw her up against the portrait wall.

“Daphne,” Mary said, looking down at the ghost’s pallid arms. Were those her veins, pulsating beneath her skin? She was breathtaking—the way her pupils subsumed her eyes, her tangled black hair, cascading down her narrow shoulders, her skin grey like storm clouds. “What do you want?”

“I want you to know,” Daphne spat.

Daphne’s memories flooded through Mary in tumultuous waves: her returning to Foreman House to confront Isaac about his relationship with Anne, but not before hiding her journals and the duplicate letter she’d written as a form of insurance; Isaac murdering her in a fit of rage and her ghost being privy to the sordid events that followed; Sister Josephine’s attempts to blackmail Matthew Foreman for the irresponsible actions of his only son; Matthew insisting his son finish what he started; the genesis of the pilgrimage cover story; and the first time capsule extraction, only for them to destroy Daphne’s letter and plant Sister Josephine’s head inside.

As the transfer continued, Mary felt her cells changing at a level that was nearly molecular. She was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Here, in the present, watching the black mold crawl up the walls of Foreman House, engulfing the portraits like an oil slick. She was in the bathroom at St. Joseph’s School for Girls, hovering over Daphne Lobb as she sobbed, a water hammer pulsating in the background. Or perhaps it was her heartbeat, somewhere decades past, as she watched Daphne possess Anne, Luke, and Sarah. Or was it the pulse of the waves as she inhabited Anne’s body, only to hurtle her over a bridge? Or Luke’s pounding heart as she launched him down the stairs, snapping his neck? Or the tick-tock of the grandfather clock reverberating through the floor of Foreman House, as she compelled Sarah to poison her grandfather, disembowel his corpse, and consume enough intestinal tract to ensure a conviction. Or the knocks she left for Mary—their little game—not unlike the games she played with every woman the Disciples tried to bring into the fold; the way she terrorized them and made it so there’d never be another Foreman family heir.

Moving through space and time, Mary grasped at various objects to steady herself: an herb-crusted rack of lamb; a handful of dirt, peppered on the top of a casket; a rosary, with brittle plastic pearls for prayer beads. Words and phrases echoed around her: nevermore, Beathan, I’ll be home soon, until she watched one Hazel Jones hobble down the steps of Foreman House, clutching an empty tote that once held familiar issues of The Hearse and The Mortician’s Monthly, as Daphne stood inside and screamed. Only to watch in horror when, weeks later, after asking too many questions, Isaac tossed Hazel’s limp body into a casket meant for someone else.

Mary came to a screeching halt on the warped parquet floor, curled up in the fetal position, her ears full of screams and her veins pulsating with Daphne’s rage.

“It was you,” Mary said quietly, even though, deep down, she’d already known. “You killed them. Isaac. Anne. Luke. You drove all my would-be aunts away. You … you framed my mother,” she stammered, tears welling in her eyes.

“They deserved their deaths, and those men didn’t deserve to be parents. If I couldn’t be, then why should they? And your mother,” Daphne paused, her fingers curling into fists. “She deserved it, too.”

Mary’s chest tightened. “What did she ever do to you?”

“She refused.”

“Refused to what?”

“To help me. To help me destroy this house.”

“But your tether?”

“Pardon?”

“Your spirit can’t survive without this house. You’re tethered to it …”

“Ha! There’s no tether. I could walk to Houghton if I wanted to. I stay here because there are people to possess and familial lines to destroy. I stay here because this house is mine.”

Mary shook her head. “That’s not what my grandmother said. She said I needed to break the tether …”

“Ah yes. What else did she say? That you can save this house? Free your mother from the chains of suspicion that continue to bind her? Free her from the mental weight of carrying this on her own? How did she put it now. Hmm. I remember. Mary. You’re the only one left. You have the power. You always have. Foreman House needs you. Your mother needs you.” And then, as if the tangled web she’d spent her entire afterlife weaving was meant to culminate in three simple words, Daphne whispered, in a way that was almost erotic, “I need you.”

“The letter,” Mary said, flustered. “That was you?”

Daphne smirked. “Who else would it be? As I’ve always said.” Daphne paused to begin her typical knocks. “Welcome home.”

But was it? She’d grown up in these walls, sure, but this was the site of decades of pain, of haunting, of women hauled up with the ghost of what could’ve been. Mary knew Daphne wouldn’t rest until House of Foreman was nothing but a memory. It made sense why Daphne had chosen her: she’d spent the better part of her life running from her namesake and these shores. Perhaps this was how it needed to be. Perhaps this was how Foreman House was always destined to fall: at the hands of someone who couldn’t have cared less what it stood for. Especially now. Everything—everyone—that had ever made this house a home was gone.

Mary found the can of gasoline in the garden shed. She couldn’t risk the wandering eyes of neighbors seeing her carry it back toward the house, so she took the secret passage instead. In the house, Mary lugged the can up the basement stairs, watching the fuel glug out, covering the walls and floor and bric-a-brac that hadn’t moved in time immemorial. Before hauling her suitcase to her car, Mary handed Daphne a flaming match and told her to let it all burn.

Mary debated whether to watch. Part of her didn’t want to—the same part of her that wanted to accept Dale’s marriage proposal, even though he never made her feel the way she’d always wanted to. She’d spent so long despising her inheritance that she’d wanted to rid herself of it, as if she were a snake shedding a layer of skin. But she owed it to Grandma Hannah. To her mother. To herself. Foreman House was her inheritance. Her birthright. So, standing at the dead end of Riverview, looking out at the North Channel, its waters angry and black like Daphne’s eyes, Mary watched it fall. And, oddly enough, as the flames grew toward the sky and Daphne screamed with glee, Mary could’ve sworn the mammoth maple started standing just a little bit straighter.

Epilogue

2019

On the morning of opening statements, Mary attended a different opening.

Even though Lucille’s Cafe was the hippest thing to grace the North Shore with its presence in recent memory—with its chalkboard menu and macrame hangers suspended from the tin ceiling like stars in the night sky—Mary was one of the only people who’d been lured in by the promise of a free latte.

“Mary!” Jennette beamed, fiddling with her apron. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see you, either,” she said, wondering why Jennette wasn’t at the courthouse. She knew the Mitchells were there. They’d given an interview that morning. Hell, the rest of the town was there, too. Those who couldn’t fit in Courtroom A were camped out on the lawn.

“Being there won’t bring her back,” Jennette said, her tone solemn. “But here,” she said, motioning to the heaps of baked goods behind the counter. “She feels close.”

“I know what you mean.”

When her latte was ready, Mary sat down in front of the bay window and reached into her tote bag. Inside was a copy of the Houghton Chronicle, containing the local paper debut of now-graduated Jessica Stewart titled “Hail Mary.” The piece was the culmination of her reporting on the time capsule and its aftermath—a scathing commentary on the institutions and corruption that afforded blind protection to the perpetrators of abuse, both past and present. To Mary’s delight, the quote she’d given made an appearance. “You know what they say: you can never dig a grave too deep, and you can never keep a secret for too long.”

Mary was just about to take the first sip of her drink when her phone pinged.

Just wrapping up. 5 min?

Mary left the coffee shop with her latte in hand. Driving down the highway, she made the reluctant turn onto Riverview. She hadn’t been back this way in months, and while she’d wanted to keep it that way, Tom’s car was in the shop, and he’d said the client meeting was important. Passing the lot where Foreman House once stood, Mary didn’t permit her gaze to linger. Still, she looked long enough to see the maple, now standing straight as an arrow, its warped and fractured bark the only evidence that it was once crooked. Grandma Hannah was right. Everything had a way of righting its course eventually.

Mary was early, so she reached for her phone to pop on an audiobook. But she’d barely made it through the opening credits when Tom appeared at the passenger side door, his cheeks flushed and eyes glassy.

“Everything okay?”

He nodded. “Allergies.”

“Tom,” she said emphatically. “We don’t do this.”

He sat in silence.

“You didn’t come for a client meeting, did you?” Mary asked, even though she already knew the answer. His work on the North Shore had wrapped up. She knew he’d come for another reason—one that he was reluctant to share.

“This was my childhood home,” he whispered. “I’ve been so inspired by all you’ve done recently to make peace with your past, so I reached out to the current owners to ask if I could take a peek inside.”

“Ah,” Mary said, taking this as the reason for his cagey behavior as of late. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not quite,” he said. “Maybe some other time.”

Mary turned off the ignition.

“What are you doing?”

“The latte went right through me,” she lied. “Do you think they’ll let me use their bathroom?”

“I don’t see why not. They were perfectly nice.”

Moments later, Mary was inside the home that once belonged to Tom’s parents—the home where his brother died. She wondered if the current occupants knew. Even if it hadn’t been disclosed as part of the purchase and sale, Mary was hard-pressed to believe they didn’t. Secrets were never secrets for long in a place like Providence. Lingering upstairs, searching for the bathroom, Mary found the boy peering out from the furthest bedroom. He had red hair and a face full of freckles. He looked a lot like Tom. She could see the imprint on his neck—half burn, half bruise—from where he’d hung himself from the garage rafters, the note he’d written with a red marker that smelled like cherries still peeking out from the front pocket of his jeans.

Mary approached slowly, knowing that the ghost could disappear at any time. But she took his presence as a sign: he wanted something from her as much as she wanted something from him. Perhaps they both wanted the same thing: closure for the boy who never got it; the man now sitting in the car outside. Mary reached out her hand and let Trevor grasp it. It was then that the memories transferred. Not just of those final, fateful moments in the garage, but of those just before. Trevor standing in front of his brother’s bed, whispering in his ear: I won’t be gone. Not really. And then, the same three words that Mary had whispered in Tom’s ear countless times. I love you.

Back in the car, after dodging the unsuspecting couple’s offer to join them for lunch, Mary grasped Tom’s hand in hers. A year ago, she would’ve never dreamed of doing such a thing: of being a conduit between the living and the dead. But she knew that Tom loved her for who she was—not for what she could do—and she loved him enough to set aside her fears and lean in. Lean into who she was.

Tom could barely muster up a measly thank you, but Mary didn’t need him to say anything. The look on his face, the air about him, said it all. As Mary pulled the car out of the driveway, Tom pressed his lips together, as if to try to contain his emotions. He’d been wearing the same look when she’d stood across from him in Courtroom A, clutching a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and wearing the same white suit Grandma Hannah wore when she’d married Samuel Lobb in secret.

“Are you alright?” Tom asked, even though she felt like she should be asking him that.

Mary opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She didn’t have the words for how she felt, yet. Whizzing down Highway 17, past the rotting, paint-chipped sign that read WELCOME TO PROVIDENCE, a foreign feeling swelled somewhere deep inside her chest. But, as the tree line parted and the North Channel came into view, with its sprawling sand dunes and dark waters stretching out through space and time, a word emerged: peace. It was the very thing Hannah had wanted for Daphne; the very thing that Mary was hard-pressed to believe she’d ever find. She’d searched for it everywhere—in her work, in men with other surnames, and in mundanity that never suited her. And yet she’d found it here, on the North Shore of Lake Huron, in the crumbling mansion that was once the source of all her family’s pain. Perhaps she was wrong about this place. There was some sort of providence to be found here, after all. For here she was, Mary Foreman: the last in a long line of deeply misunderstood women, finally at peace with her inheritance. Her power.

For even though she could see the dead, she could still go on living.

THE END

Acknowledgments

They say it takes a village. They are right.

To Alexandria Brown, Tina Beier, Ashley Detweiler, and the team at Rising Action Publishing: thank you for bringing this book into the world. Thank you for your keen editorial eye, your unwavering enthusiasm, and all your exclamation points. Thank you also to Katrina Escudero, Claire Sullivan, and the team at Simon & Schuster Distribution. It’s been a pleasure working with you all.

To Hollay Ghadery and the team at River Street Writing: thank you for championing Canadian literature and for helping me get this book into the hands of as many readers as possible. I’m so happy we got the chance to work together.

To Marymount Academy: thank you for being nothing like St. Joseph’s School for Girls; for being bright and safe and inspired. Special thanks to teachers Tracey Adams, Dan Bartolucci, Kim Fahner, and Jenni Preen. I write today because you convinced teenaged me that I could. I will carry that with me forever. To my professors at Laurentian University and UNB Law: thank you for teaching me to read widely and think critically. Special thanks to Susan Glover, Rosanna Langer, and Nicole O’Byrne for their generosity and guidance. I’m so happy we’re still in touch.

To my writing community: you know who you are. From those I’ve met at conferences, to every writing group I’ve been a part of, to the Deb Ball Class of 2026, thank you for being a part of my path to publication. You are extraordinary humans, and I am humbled to be in your company. A special thanks to the brilliant authors who lent blurbs to Hail Mary. I hope I can return the favour one day.

To Robert Rotenberg, Sam Wiebe, and Andrew F. Sullivan: thank you for your mentorship. I would’ve thrown in the towel long ago if not for you. To De Elizabeth, Lauren Griffey, and Maeeda (M.T.) Khan: I don’t know what I would do without you. Truly. Thank you for your encouragement, your brilliance, and for always lending a listening ear. I hope you never stop writing.

To my extended family, my friends, and colleagues past and present: thank you for listening to me rant and rave, for reading my early work, and for being so supportive. You made me feel seen. To Candace Taillefer: thank you for always being there for me and my family. The Ursos love you.

To my brother, Matthew: I’m sorry I had to lend your name to Matthew Foreman. This book demanded Biblical names. Alas. I’m so happy I got to grow up with you. Thank you for making life more fun and for bringing the wonderful Rachel into our family. We needed another avid reader in our midst.

To my parents: words are not enough. Thank you for telling stories and for encouraging me to be brave. I love you always.

Justin: thank you for being you and for being supportive of my creative pursuits. I love you and the life we’ve built together.

To you, dear reader: this book came from losing my father, Brian Urso, to pancreatic cancer in 2022. When he was diagnosed in late 2017, I came home under circumstances I couldn’t have imagined. Suddenly, my favourite place felt heavy and wrong and haunted by a life I knew was gone. If that resonates with you—if you saw your own grief, anger, and disbelief in these pages—I hope you find a way to keep on living. Mary did. So can we.

Finally, to the town of Blind River, Ontario (the “real” Providence): thank you for being my home away from home, even if I didn’t always see it that way. Thank you for Sellers Park, 94.1 Moose FM, the Curling Club, the Riverside, and the countless other places that found their way into my fictional North Shore Township. If you live in Ontario and consider Barrie “north,” I encourage you to keep heading in that general direction. Stop in Sudbury—see the Big Nickel—then head toward Sault Ste. Marie. The North Shore of Lake Huron is brilliant in person. I’d recommend August or September. Listen to Shania Twain en route. Marvel at all our province has to offer. We’re so lucky to live in Canada.

About the Author

Elizabeth Urso is a graduate of Laurentian University, the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law, and the Humber School for Writers. Born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario, she now lives wherever her partner—a member of the Canadian Armed Forces—is posted, along with their dog Harriet (the Spy).

Photo Credit: Amanda Thirkill Photography

Now Take a Sneak Peek of Elizabeth Urso’s Next Novel,

Confession

Prologue

ON OR ABOUT
JULY 15, 1992
3:37 AM

The man watched the girl for quite some time, safely out of sight in the shadows tucked between two towering pines.

Her hair fanned out like fire in her wake as she ran down the sandy shore, dodging pieces of driftwood turned silver by the sun. A sharp turn, an exaggerated leap, and an almost-pirouette. Despite his eyes’ tendency to wander, his gaze never wavered. She was mesmerizing.

She reached down into the water, pulled out a stone, and skipped it across the channel once, twice, and three times. The Blood Moon kissed the top of her head, and his world went silent for a moment. Gone were the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore and the distant yip of a coyote. He could hear nothing but the sound of his own pulse.

Time passed slowly.

When her back was toward him, he slinked from the shadows. Three wooden posts protruding from the water loomed in front of her—relics of a time when the channel was used to float timber beams into the industrial part of town. Certain the posts had her attention, he fished the leather glove from the back pocket of his jeans. He slipped his hand inside, reached into his jacket pocket, and grabbed for his pistol, pulling its familiar weight into his palm.

A cool breeze struck him as he neared the water, fragrant with the smell of pine and the promise of rain. He drew a deep breath and held it, awaiting the cue of the cattails swaying in the shallows—their stalks reminiscent of a conductor’s baton. With the sound of a full orchestra ascending in his ears, he slowly released his breath and began to whistle. The first note to escape his cracked lips was an ominous low G.

The girl spun around. Her shoulders shot up by her ears and her arms glued themselves to her sides. The man flashed her his brightest smile, and her body slowly relaxed. He cut through the breeze with a quick wave, and she returned his greeting with her own. It was much less enthusiastic than he’d hoped for, though. It irked him.

He was no more than a few feet from her when a piece of driftwood snapped beneath his foot. The splintering sound broke through his high F, destroying the cadence. The space between his lips narrowed suddenly. The interlude was over.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, breathless.

An angry gust of wind shot down the shoreline with the striking force of a timpani. She reached for the ribbon of hair that had blown across her forehead in the breeze and he drew a sudden breath. A vision of the finale flashed in his mind: her arms and legs spread out like a starfish, her brain spilling out of her skull like ground beef, her blood, spattered across his lips. He could almost taste it.

“No, my dear,” he said. “You’re not in trouble.”

She stared up at him with wide, evergreen eyes. “Will you tell on me?”

“Not if you make me a promise.”

“What promise?”

He stared fondly at the dusting of freckles over her small nose, her slender neck, and the fluttering hem of her tattered tank top. “Promise me that you’ll never come to these shores alone again.”

“But I wasn’t,” she insisted. “I wasn’t alone.”

“Who was out here with you?”

“Daniel.”

“Really?”

“He gave me something. Wanna see?”

He nodded.

The girl reached into the front pocket of her shorts, outstretched her hand, and revealed a small wooden carving. A turtle.

“Whoa! Daniel gave that to you?” he asked, making a concerted effort to appear surprised.

“Yes,” she said with a smile, her dimples deep like craters.

“How kind of him.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said, rocking back and forth on her heels, leaving deep divots in the sand. She shoved the carving back inside her pocket for safekeeping before jerking back at a sharp sound from the woods. The coyote was closing in.

“I should be going home,” she said, visibly unsettled. Her face turned ashen as her eyes narrowed focus on the threat. The man followed her gaze over his left shoulder and out into the dense forest behind him. He could sense it: the hair on the nape of her neck, lifting; her desire to flee. He couldn’t let that happen. If she projected her fear of the forest onto him—if it morphed into suspicion—all of this would’ve been for not.

“Don’t go yet! I want to show you something—” he began, pausing momentarily to tighten his grip around his pistol, still hidden inside his jacket. The trigger taunted him beneath his index finger. “Do you see that, over there?” He pointed out across the channel toward Battle Point.

She turned away from him with a smile. What did she expect to see? A canoe? A loon? It didn’t matter now. He tore his pistol from his jacket pocket and raised it toward her head in one swift motion.

“I don’t see anything,” she whined.

Strands of her hair slowly began to wrap around the barrel in the breeze.

“Look closer. See there, just off the point.”

“But I—”

He pulled the trigger and let his hand follow the recoil. A thick spray of blood spattered across his face. He stood perfectly still for what seemed like a long time, basking in the moon’s crimson glow until the caw of a crow circling overhead snapped him out of his trance. He lunged forward, slid the pistol back inside his jacket, and reached over his hip for his other glove. Once it was secure, he squatted down, flipped her over, and took her in once more: her eyes, still open; the hem of her tattered tank top, now still; bits of brain, pouring from her skull.

He stroked the girl’s sunken cheek fondly, smearing her blood across her face. With his pulse pounding, he pulled the knife from the pocket of his jeans and ran his index finger across the blade, humming. Low G to middle G—the same song the splintering driftwood had so rudely interrupted. It wasn’t long before the wind chimed in. The trees and the reeds and the cattails, too. As he approached the high F, he lowered the knife to her thigh and hovered the tip of the gut-hook over her glistening skin. Then, in the midst of the crescendo, he started to carve.

March 4, 1992

There’s a key to this town.

It hangs behind Lucille Bard’s desk like a trophy fish, above the credenza her porcelain mallard ducks call home. It’s big and brass and has “KEY TO PROVIDENCE” etched on a gaudy gold placard beneath it. Each time an election rolls around, Lucille beats the key like a dead horse. The townspeople gobble it up, convinced Lucille somehow earned the Key to Providence instead of inheriting it from her predecessor. It’s no wonder she mentions it whenever the opportunity presents itself: I hold the Key to Providence. Little does she know she’s not the only one …

The gaping holes on the key’s blade remind me of the reason kids call Tommy Pearson “Beaver Boy”—a name he likes just about as much as he did TP (short for Toilet Paper). I suspect that’s why Tommy told God he’d rather be “Wolf Man.” Burly and strong and full of facial hair like the older boys he tries to fit in with. For your information, Notebook #86, the operative word in that sentence is tries. Regardless, I think Tommy is perfect just the way he is. He wouldn’t be on my list if he wasn’t. He has kind eyes and even though there’s a space between his two front teeth, his smile lights up his entire face like the July fireworks light up the North Shore and—

FOCUS, CHARLOTTE. We’re not talking about Tommy’s firework smile. We’re talking about Lucille. Yes. Our mayor who, every morning before sitting down at her gleaming mahogany desk to “make the North Shore a better place” (another dead horse around election time), strokes the key’s bow like it’s her dog’s head. Lucille’s dog’s name is Jessop, and his golden ears cascade down the sides of his face like little waterfalls. You’d think that with ears like that he’d be a good listener like me. But he’s deaf. And blind. And his nose is out of commission. That’s why I haven’t had to retire the key I cut for Lucille Bard’s house like they retired number four for Bobby Orr.

Lucille is always going on and on about how Jessop isn’t like most dogs, and while I’d tend to agree with her, we’re not necessarily aligned on the why. Jessop isn’t unique because he’s particularly well-behaved, or agile, or because he can play dead. The only reason Jessop is special is because he’s ANCIENT, like a fossil or a long-lost city. Jessop will be fourteen years old (just like me!) next month and he’s senile (which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means “behaving in a strange or confused way, and unable to remember things, because you are old”). Jessop is fourteen in people years, but in dog years he’s … um …

14

x 07

+98

= 98

98! No wonder the pink pads on his feet are rough like sandpaper, his ribcage looks like an accordion, and his teeth are yellow and rotten like Mr. Cutler’s were before he got fake ones. There aren’t dentures for dogs though, so Lucille poaches chicken breasts for Jessop every Monday morning to last throughout the week. You know what that means, Notebook #86? It means that Lucille Bard’s dog eats better than I do.

She’s talking about him, now: Jessop and his poor old soul. Apparently, the vet says his days are “numbered.” I wonder how many days you need to have left before someone says your days are numbered. Aren’t all days numbered? If I live to be 98 like Jessop, that means I’ll have exactly … um …

365

x098

+ 2920

+ 32850

= 35770

35,770 days! How many notebooks can one person fill up in that amount of time?

That’s what Lucille’s talking about now: time. She’s begging God for more of it, waterworks and all. Lucille Bard should’ve been an actress, because she can practically cry on cue. The townspeople love it almost as much as they hate city folk, but I suspect Father Andrew may be the exception because Lucille’s crocodile tears sure aren’t swaying him. I can see him, through the small hole in the back of the confessional, glancing at his Timex like he has somewhere else to be. He’s clicking his jaw and tapping the toe of his shoe like he does when he’s annoyed. I wonder what God thinks about that. Do priests have performance reviews like my mother does at Mr. Cutler’s hardware store?

“You cannot change God’s will,” Father Andrew says, his voice like a singsong.

I was certain he’d pick something different. Typically, he doesn’t use the same phrase more than twice on the same day, but he’s used that one four times already: once for Mr. Nesbit (the dairy farmer), once for Denise Burgess (one of the Ladies Who Lunch) and TWICE for Cassandra Bowen (the police chief’s wife). “You cannot change God’s will” is Father Andrew’s fourth most-used phrase, behind:

“It’s alright, my child”

“Thanks be to God”

“We are all sinners”

Father Andrew using one of those four phrases in confession is as likely as absolution itself (because if you weren’t going to be forgiven, why would you come to confession at all?).

If I had a penny for each time I’d heard him say any one of those phrases, I’d be eating chicken breasts for dinner every day like Jessop. But I don’t. Our fridge is empty, and so is the pantry—so empty that even the cockroaches moved out. The liquor cabinet is stocked, though: vodka, rye, bourbon, gin. I’m not sure where liquor names come from (maybe they have Latin roots like we’re learning about in school?), but I know this: vodka makes my mother angry, rye makes her sleepy, bourbon makes her dance in circles around the living room, and gin … gin makes her scream.

Oh, if only I were lucky. Then maybe our fridge would be stocked, and our pantry would be overflowing with cookies and cakes and canned goods, and my belly wouldn’t always be yelling at me. But I’m not lucky. That much is for certain. But if I’m not lucky, then what am I? Hmm. What is Charlotte? This is a doozie … Ah! I know:

C – cunning

H – habitual

A – articulate

R – resourceful

L – lonely loyal

O – observant

T – tactful

T – tolerant

E – earnest

Ugh. If only there was an “I”. See! I told Ms. Adams that these stupid acrostic poems don’t work. She told me to “keep an open mind,” and I did. I mean, I am. MY MIND IS OPEN. But there’s no “I” and that’s the letter I need! That’s the only thing I really am: invisible. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here, eavesdropping on Lucille Bard and Father Andrew like God does. I’d be deep in the throes of Seven Minutes in Heaven, swapping saliva with Tommy Pearson—our bodies tangled up in a damp, dark cold-room, among rotting sweet potatoes with spikey purple tendrils, science experiment preserves, and reams of long-forgotten elbow macaroni, with lust in the air and Sprite on our tongues. But invisible girls like me don’t get to swap saliva with gap-toothed boys with firework smiles that light up the North Shore. The closest an invisible girl like me gets to Seven Minutes in Heaven is spending four-hundred-and-twenty seconds listening to someone like Lucille Bard try to weasel their way in.

But, then again, that’s how this whole thing started.