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She held there usts that rustled the trees The wind s, so she must have been there, real in one way or another Her face was as pallid and indeterminately hued as her dress, and her eyes were et her attention "Hey"
Her eyes rolled to meet mine
She opened her mouth but did not yet speak Instead it see lungs and I was standing in the vacuum I knew my friends were only yards away but I did not hear their srowth No birds sang and no squirrels knocked winter nuts down into e across the rocks as the sky held the clouds above in place
My breath snagged in my throat and refused to leave my chest
Tears came to the woman’s eyes and dripped to the forest floor unchecked Her head swiveled slowly, looking past her left shoulder and then her right Her choked, thin voice cried out to the others
Willa, Luannaâ€"she’s over here
Two other wouely African features as the first, with hair bound into subht have been round once, but their skin was drawn back and their wide cheekbones made shelves that shadowed their hollos Their teeth were exaggerated by fleshy lips robbed of their firmness, and when they spoke to one another it was a terrible sight
There she is, his darling one
His pretty one
Oh, Mae, she’s returned to you She’s returned to us
Mae crouched low to exa eyes My baby, she said, reaching one scrawny arm to my face My baby Miabella
But when the back of her hand brushed my cheek, the horror of her dusty, dead breath broke the spell and my screams split the supernatural quiet that had descended over the mountainside I howled until my cries went hoarse, and the wo with a slow,into the crowded trees The last thing I saw before I shriekedback, slashed and stained with long, dark streaks that could have been nothing but blood
III
It should coular patron of the school counselor’s office Mr Schurew shorter every year His ears protruded north past the narrowing fringe, straining to listen even when his round blue eyes appeared impassive He alatched me with squinty concentration, like the face a cat ure out a bathroom faucet
"Why don’t you tell an our last session together "Mrs Patterson thinks they’re very good, but she wants to knohat they’re about"
I stared at my shoes "I already told her They’re about the sisters"
"Yes, the women who died You said someone killed them"
"Uh-huh"
His brown office chair squealed as he shifted his weight He leaned forward and pressed his palether "That’s a scary story to tell someone, don’t you think?"
"It’s for real It’s a for-real story I didn’t make it up"
"Where did you hear it? Did you see it on TV or in a ravated because I couldn’t make him understand "I didn’t hear it anywhere I just know it It’s in et into your head from somewhere Where did you pick them up?"
"Nowhere I came that way I was born with the story It happened to ers against each other, then reached for a pad of paper and a pen "I’ve got an idea Why don’t you tell , thenâ€"fro," I sulked He still didn’t believe me
"Then tell me the parts you do know I’d like to hear them"
I closed my eyes and saw flashes, frames of action disconnected and surreal A house like the one I’d sketched for Mrs Patterson, surrounded by swirling green-black water The slick jerkingoff a bank into a fetid pool of stagnant backwater