What She Wanted (32 page)

The symbol beside Nike’s gown-covered feet matched many, but not all, of the headstones and markers in the Hale family’s resting grounds. Mom couldn’t explain the symbol. She said she hadn’t seen it, but she didn’t pay much attention to details the way I did. A family crest was her best guess. The explanation would’ve made more sense if every stone bore the symbol. The mark consumed my thoughts in middle school. I wrote a paper on it in eighth grade wherein I hypothesized the symbol stood for male superiority. My evidence: the symbol never appeared on a stone bearing a woman’s name. The theory had holes because the oldest stones were sometimes illegible, crumbled and a few were written in a script I didn’t recognize as English. Still, I made rubbings of two dozen stones to support my argument and earned an A on the paper, mostly for my enthusiasm. The smooth symbols never showed up in the rubbings.

A sprinkling of raindrops hit my face, jerking me back to reality. “Time to go home.”

We meandered through the darkness, light drizzle, and cold. Our last walk of the night was like that. I didn’t want woken in the wee hours because Chester didn’t pee when he was supposed to, so I took baby steps and he sniffed each blade of grass individually. My focus jumped to Hale Manor a thousand times. All the lights inside bothered me. Who were these people and what brought them here?

Back in my yard, I dared one last look behind me. Over the tops of the corn, a curtain slid shut in an upstairs window, leaving the silhouette of a person staring down at me. I imagined they stared, anyway. It was possible the person had their back to me, though it seemed less likely. The light behind them shone like a beacon in the night.

“Come on, Chester.” I ran the rest of the way to the front door and locked up, twisting the dead bolt for good measure.

Chester shook water over me and the floor before running through the rooms, sliding and rampaging the way he did when he was wet. I toweled up the mess, toweled down the dog, and hit the shower before homework and bed. I left my door open so Chester would sleep in my room and patrol the house while I slept. Falling asleep wasn’t easy with my head buzzing from questions and rumors. What kind of people would move to Hale Manor? Didn’t they know the home’s history? Didn’t it bother them?

By midnight, the rhythm of rain on our roof had washed the worries from my mind and lulled my anxious body to sleep.

I shot upright an hour later, gripping sheets to my chin and looking for Chester. “Did you hear that?” The soft green glow of numbers on my alarm clock teased a thought just outside my memory’s reach. One AM. I pressed a palm to my chest, certain my heart would break my ribs. “I heard a woman scream.”

Chester lifted his head, ears perked. “Woof.”

I stared out the darkened window toward the enormous home separated from me by one small field, and I patted my pillow until Chester curled up on it. I laid my head on him and gripped my phone to my chest, waiting impatiently for daylight.