Adora
Six Years Old
On the Night of the Full Wolf Moon
The Sullivan Cottage
January 7, 2004
Hushed whispers twisted like ribbons and slid across wooden floors throughout the cottage.
“For crying out loud, talk to me,” Dad pleaded. I’d never heard the hurt so deeply threaded in his voice before, but I could tell he was trying to keep his voice low so we wouldn’t hear. “Please just talk to me, Marcy. I don’t want to do this.”
Momma never said a word.
The front door screeched when it opened, and the floorboards groaned under Sacred Sea feet. There must have been at least three of them in the cottage. Maybe four or five, I couldn’t tell.
“What are they doing down there?” Fable was scared, clutching her stuffed unicorn close to her chest. The faint glow from the kerosene lamp sitting on the floor between the three of us touched her soft, freckled cheeks. “Are they going to take Momma? I don’t want them to take Momma.”
“Shh … No one’s taking Momma. We can’t leave Weeping Hollow, remember? We’re all safe here together,” I whispered with a bright smile. “They’re just here to make her feel better. Remember Are You Afraid of the Dark, the game we used to play? The one where we’d hide and seek—”
Fable nodded, two hopeful eyes now. “With flashlights!”
“That’s all. Momma’s going to have fun, you’ll see. Now, try to keep quiet. I can’t hear what they’re saying down there.”
Ivy leaned in. “You and your stories.”
The air was thick with all three of us huddled on the other side of my bedroom door, but it was cold. So cold. I was wearing Momma’s pretty red dress—the one with thin straps and silky fabric. With my back against the wall, I covered my bare feet with the skirt of it. I had to get closer to the hushed voices slipping under the door from the other side. But I still couldn’t make anything out.
I climbed to my knees and reached for the door handle. The brass knob was like ice under my fingers, and the hinges creaked when I opened the door.
Ivy gasped. “Don’t, Adora. They’ll hear you,” she whispered frantically. “It’s safer here.”
“I need to know what’s happening.” I opened my bedroom door a little more, just enough to slip through. Then I stood and carefully walked to the stairs.
Ivy crept behind me. She could never let me walk into the unknown alone.
The wooden spindles at the top of the stairs were cold in my fists, and I stuck my head between them.
For a moment, I thought I heard Momma’s voice telling me that if you pop your head between the spindles, it will get stuck there forever. But Momma’s voice was nothing but a memory.
Below, Mr. Pruitt, Mrs. Cantini, and Dad formed a circle by the front door, speaking low. Our high priest was here, and the seriousness of what was to come on this night sent a chill crawling up my spine. I shivered when Dad stepped to the side, revealing a young boy standing in the middle of them, but I couldn’t see his face. I wanted to see his face and know who he was.
Dad’s eyes were red, sockets swollen like his tears had punched him repeatedly. “She never said why,” he cried. “She’s never done anything crazy like this before.”
“This doesn’t seem like Marcy at all,” Mrs. Cantini muttered. “With all the secrets of Weeping Hollow, this is one I cannot explain. I’ll need more time.” She laid a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “We will figure this out, Ronan. I swear to you, we will figure this out and make sure your girls are safe in the meantime.”
They talked for a moment longer while the boy stayed quiet and hidden.
Then Dad shook his head, and they all walked out of view.
Fable cried out for us in a whisper.
Ivy pinched my arm. “Fable’s scared. Let’s go back.”
“Who is that boy?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get a good look. Let’s just go back.”
“No.” I had to know who he was and what they were doing here.
“Adora …” Ivy pressed her entire body against my back to whisper in my ear, “there’s a reason they don’t want us to see whatever they’re about to do.”
“If you’re too scared, then just go back to my room. I’m staying.”
I heard Ivy’s footfalls descend. She’d left me to comfort Fable.
I waited until the silence stretched out and the voices came again. The slow seconds waiting at the top of the stairs with Momma’s pretty red dress puddled at my feet ticked by and by.
After they settled in the living room, I inched down the steps.
Slow, careful. Unheard and unseen.
The cool shadows at the bottom of the staircase hid me, and I stayed on the last step, craning my neck to see into the living room.
The women of Sacred Sea circled Momma, each holding a black candle and whispering an incantation I’d never heard before.
Momma sat in her rocking chair by the window, her long black hair curtaining her face. She seemed so small in her chair, and though her feet barely touched the floor, the chair rocked as she stared out into the midnight ocean. Hard and fast and with phantom ferocity. A pounding like a heartbeat. The chair rocked so hard that the floorboards came up beneath it.
Dad cupped his mouth, then moved his hand over his eyes.
He doesn’t want to see, I thought. Dad didn’t want to see, and neither did I. Still, despite the horrid sight before us, I couldn’t escape this spot. Much like Dad, I was trapped here. Unlike Dad, I couldn’t lift my arm to cover my eyes.
Mr. Pruitt stood beside Dad, squeezing his shoulder in a comforting way.
Ivy was gone. I had no one to squeeze mine.
I gripped a wooden spindle in my fist until my fingers lost their feeling, watching Momma’s chair beat the floor as the hushed incantation painted the room. The window burst open, a wind rushing in, but they didn’t stop. Momma rocked harder, the witches chanted louder, and the cold wind howled past my ears.
Seconds passed slowly, lulling and weaving into the night.
Then the women of Sacred Sea halted their spell, causing them all to take a step back at the same time, a force snatching them up by invisible puppet threads.
The boy standing before Momma in the middle of the circle turned his head and looked right at me. His hazel eyes glowed like lightning had struck them, and a dry gulp stuck in my throat.
Kane Pruitt, my mind echoed.
The boy there’d been whispers about. The one who’d been trapped inside the Pruitt house, having not stepped out until this night.
I palmed my mouth to quiet both my breathing and screaming. What did you do to her? I wanted to shout at him. What did you do to my momma? But all the words froze inside my head, building sharp ice sculptures of fear.
He flashed me a cynical smile.
One that was much crazier than Momma’s. By far.
Kane turned his back on me, and they left our home through the back door. Not a word. Not a word at all.
After Mr. Pruitt and Mrs. Cantini exchanged farewells, Dad poured a drink and sank into the tufted twill chaise beside the rocking chair.
For a while, he stared at Momma. Her rocks were rhythmic this time. A soft beating on the hardwood. Dad watched her through bloodshot eyes. He didn’t speak a word. He just stared until exhaustion stole him, and he snored into a slumber.
I waited a while, and when all was quiet, I stepped out of the shadows.
That was when the rocking chair came to a stop.
Momma’s head turned ninety degrees until her empty blue eyes pierced me, pinning me to the wall among the happy family photographs.
The imprisoned smiles of yesteryears swayed above my head. Gilded silver-leaf frames became a whispered whoosh, whoosh in my ears, like one may fall and crash to the floor at any given second.
Momma’s black hair, usually tucked behind her ears, fell flat against her pale cheeks. She doesn’t look like Momma. I shook my head. She doesn’t look like Momma at all.
“You’re wearing my dress again,” she said to me in a strange voice I’d only heard once before. Accusingly. It was the first time she’d spoken all night.
Her fingers flexed around the arms of the rocking chair. “Come to me.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t move, I couldn’t. The bottom of the dress was long and piled over my curled toes, trapping me here and not wanting me to go, either.
I twisted my fingers in front of me.
But she was my mother, and I had no reason to be afraid.
“Come, Adora,” she said again, more familiar this time. “Come here and let me tell you a tale.”
I took an uneasy step closer.
And another.
I passed Dad, whose snoring caught in his throat, until I was standing in front of Momma.
She was looking right at me. An unwavering look.
Like staring at a portrait. And the picture staring back.
With a hesitant hand, I leaned forward and tucked her hair behind her ear. She didn’t move when I did it. Not a flinch. I fell back on my heels and looked at her—really looked at her this time. She seemed pretty now, like the same momma I’d always known. The momma I knew from the photographs in the hallway. The momma who’d sung in the morning and swum with me in the sea. The same momma who’d tucked me in at night and told me stories of mermaids and handsome pirates.
But there was something different about her.
The light was missing in her eyes.
I crawled into her lap.
“My sunbeam, look at me,” Momma whispered, stroking my hair while the burnt scent of incense—notes of petals and hints of disturbed earth—still floated in the cottage. I turned, and Momma took off the chain around her neck and slipped it around mine. Attached was an empty antique setting.
Momma always wears this necklace.
It was special to her, and she gave it to me.
Then she wrapped me in her arms, and we looked out the window together as she started the story. “This tale, unlike all the other tales I’ve told you before, begins with a boy—a lost boy whose name is still a mystery. And right now, as this tale begins, he is an outsider among the trees …”