21

EFFIE

May 1901
Shepherd, Iowa

EFFIE CURLED UP on the window seat, her back pressed comfortably against a pillow. Polly was still asleep, her mother was furious, her father indignant, and Nurse Carlisle avoided Effie as if she were a monster.

She allowed her tears to trail down her face. How could she assist in the urgency and desperation to help Anderson find his child and yet never leave Polly’s side, making sure she was safe? In times past, she would have reveled in being here. In this nostalgic position, soaking in the memories and wishing they would never end.

She pressed her forehead against the window, staring emptily into the flowers and trees at the edge of the lawn. Life would never be the same again. This room would always be marred by the last days of Polly’s life, shrouded in violence and suspicion. In a moment like this, she could almost pretend things were normal. Polly was merely taking a nap, not slowly dying.

She stiffened. Movement near the bushes captured Effie’s attention. It was midafternoon—no reason to be concerned about another intruder. But there also was no reason for anyone to be trespassing in their yard. The man did nothing to disguise himself either. He bent and picked up a leaf, then let it float back to the ground. His hat hid his face. He wore blue trousers and a buttoned-up shirt, but no jacket, no tie, no cuff links or jewelry of any sort that Effie could see.

The man ducked behind a tree, and Effie straightened. Alert. She glanced over at Polly. This wouldn’t do. She would never sleep tonight if she knew there was a stranger traipsing about their property. It might be common for 322 Predicament Avenue, but the only time someone had come unwelcome onto the lawn of the James manor, they had climbed the trellis and entered Polly’s room.

Effie hurried from Polly’s room, ducking into both brothers’ bedrooms. Neither Ezekiel nor Charles was there. Her mother was at a ladies’ event. Effie steeled herself. Father was away at work. Nurse Carlisle had gone home for a spell while Effie kept watch over Polly. The last thing Effie wanted to do was confront a trespasser, but she had to do something about his skulking in the bushes.

She wound her way down the stairs and through the back hall to the door that led to the driveway and back entrance. She moved onto the porch with hesitant steps. There. He wasn’t even hiding or skulking. The man merely seemed to be surveying the gardens at the edge of the property. She observed him for a minute and noticed he had a limp.

Effie pressed against the banister, grabbing ahold of it. She’d seen the man before. There was something familiar about him.

He lifted his face, and Effie knew instantly.

Floyd Opperman. Mabel Opperman’s son.

Everyone in Shepherd knew of Floyd, but most rarely saw him. Mabel was protective of him. Everyone in town had heard how Floyd had been kicked by a cow as a young boy and had never been the same since. People avoided him. They avoided Mabel too. No one spoke to either of them unless it was necessary. No one questioned the Oppermans because no one knew the Oppermans.

Effie felt a small shudder pass through her. The recollection of Mrs. Opperman’s cold eyes staring at her as she and Anderson had left her house lived deep in her memory. Something was not right about the Oppermans. Not with Mabel Opperman, and not with her property on Predicament Avenue. And Floyd?

He started ambling across the yard toward Effie. There was a strange look on his face she couldn’t interpret. As he drew closer, her heart thudded against her chest. His shirt had dark rust-colored stains on it, reminding her of the blood she’d seen at Predicament Avenue.

“What do you want, Floyd?” Effie asked, deciding to be direct. He had to be in his early forties. Folks said he was harmless, but no one was completely sure.

Floyd narrowed his eyes. He didn’t smile. He didn’t speak. The longer the silence went on, the more Effie trembled.

“Floyd?” she said, taking little solace in the barricade of the porch railing she stood behind. “Can I help you with something?”

He took another few steps closer, and Effie realized how large the man was, his bulky frame solid and sturdy-looking. He took another step.

Effie forced herself not to retreat into the house. There was no good reason to be frightened of him. His shirt wasn’t the only piece of clothing with the rust-colored stains. His pants had splotches on the thighs and knees that hadn’t been as noticeable before he’d drawn closer.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He was definitely limping. Yet she didn’t see any injury that would have created what appeared to be bloodstains on his clothes.

“Floyd, I—”

“You got to run, miss.” His voice was deep. His words held no emotion, neither urgency nor concern.

“Pardon me?” Effie dug her nails into the railing.

“Run.” He looked over his shoulder for a quick moment, and when he turned back to her, the ominous look in his eyes matched the one Effie had seen in his mother’s. There was a glint of malevolence. Of darkness. “Do you know how to run?” His question sliced through her like the blade of a killer silencing his victim. “If you do, then run.”

Frozen, Effie stared as Floyd turned and lumbered away, calmly bending over to pluck a dandelion and then stuff it in his pocket. As he did, the yellow blossom popped off its stem and landed in the grass, its face staring at Effie as though the blossom knew it was dead even before it hit the earth.

Floyd Opperman.

Yes. He would probably be a frequent visitor of his mother’s property on 322 Predicament Avenue. If Floyd had an attachment to it, then of course Mabel Opperman would be protective over the place.

His warning to run? He had seen Polly—maybe Effie too—the night of the woman screaming. The night Effie’s world tilted off its already precarious axis and threatened to plunge into the unknown. He had probably been the one to attack her in Polly’s room!

The bloodstains—if that was what they truly were—on his clothes? They could be Isabelle’s. He would know where he’d taken her body. He would know what had happened to—

“Baby Cora!” Effie breathed.

“What’s that?” Her brother Charles came from behind her, causing Effie to yelp and twirl in fright.

Collecting herself, Effie reached for Charles and pulled him into a quick uncustomary hug.

Charles’s eyes widened, and he drew away from her. “What is wrong with you?”

“Charles, I need you to watch Polly.”

“Where’re you going?” Charles called after Effie as she raced down the steps, trying not to trip over her dress that tangled about her feet. She was wearing house slippers, and she didn’t even care.

“I’ll be back!” She waved her hand over her shoulder as she ran in the direction where Floyd had disappeared.

This was what Anderson would do were he here, she was sure of it. And there was no time to try to find help or to reason through the dangers involved. If the baby was still alive, Floyd Opperman might lead her right to Cora. Images of returning the baby girl to her father flashed through Effie’s mind.

Effie ducked under branches as she pushed her way into the woods. Floyd hadn’t taken the main walk or gone by way of the cobblestone street. Instead, he had gone into the woods, and now Effie struggled to find his path. She knew the direction he was headed. Knew it was at least a mile away through the woods if he was going to Predicament Avenue. Her feet sank into a mud puddle hidden by dead leaves still wet from the spring rains. The mud seeped into her shoes, and she could feel the moisture hit her toes. Branches clawed at her hair, pulling it from its simple yet tidy roll and leaving it to trail down her back and tangle.

She was out of breath and filthy by the time she caught sight of Predicament Avenue through the trees. She hadn’t seen Floyd once, and as she pushed her way through the brambles, she debated the wisdom of her actions in chasing after him. But every question was answered by the recollection of the man who had broken into Polly’s room, and by the knowledge that, somewhere, Anderson’s baby girl was without her father and now most likely without the woman who, for better or worse, had been her caregiver.

Effie stumbled against a tree, palming its bark as she caught sight of the gravestones through the trees. The old cemetery. Though it was mostly forgotten now, the place remained a bold statement, reminding Effie of death’s shroud, one that was moment by moment lowering over her.

Isabelle Addington, Anderson’s wife, Laura, Polly, now maybe baby Cora too?

Effie pushed forward. She stretched out her arm to hold back a branch covered in thorns and green buds promising to be wild roses—a bush that should exemplify beauty, but instead infected the woods around them, an invader that was uncontrollable.

Not unlike death.

When Effie reached the clearing, she ducked down behind a tall grave marker that tapered into a cross at its top. It was covered in moss, the side facing her boasting the name of a child no more than two years old who had died during the war. The year 1863 was not so long ago. Less than fifty years. This child would have been the age of her own mother. Life had not been a friend to this young one.

She turned her attention to the house that loomed ahead. The sky was growing gray, and Effie’s heart increased its rapid beating as she heard distant thunder. Only an hour before she had been perched in the sun in Polly’s room, listening to her sister’s labored breathing, pretending today was normal, pleasant. Now she was covered in dirt, her feet wet from trudging through the woods, and crouching at the headstone of a dead child while praying desperately to save another.

Movement on the back porch of 322 Predicament snagged Effie’s peripheral vision and she crouched lower behind the marker, knowing full well if someone was looking toward her, she was not fully hidden. But Floyd didn’t look in her direction. Instead, he crossed the porch and reached up to the lion’s head door knocker, the one Polly had kissed the first night Effie had stepped foot on the property.

He lifted it and knocked three times as though there was someone inside to answer. No one did. Effie studied the windows in the farmhouse that sagged as if exhausted after years of abuse and neglect. From the burden of watching people with no family or home come and go through its doors, peer out its windows, and then disappear. Carrying on with their travels? The people of Shepherd always assumed so. But what if they hadn’t? What if Isabelle Addington wasn’t the first to have met her demise here? What if the stains of blood were from more than one victim?

Effie watched as Floyd sank onto the top step of the porch, a smile stretching across his face. A wicked smile.

He looked in her direction then, and his fingers lifted in greeting. “Hello, Effie,” he called.

Effie scrambled to her feet.

Before she could do anything, the air was cut off in her throat as hands from behind gripped her neck. Fingers dug into the hollow of her throat, squeezing. Effie clawed at the fingers. A woman’s hands. It was a woman’s form she fell back against, and a woman’s laugh she heard as she faded into oblivion. Her eyes tried to focus, growing blurry. She stared toward the attic window of 322 Predicament Avenue. As she lost consciousness, she thought she saw a woman’s face in the attic window, hand pounding against the glass, silent in its aggression. Ghostly. As she slipped into the darkness of her mind, Effie knew she was the only one who saw the face of dead Isabelle Addington, screaming from the grave.

And now Effie would join her.