Three

Hemlock Island. The name refers to water hemlock, the deadliest plant in North America. It's not supposed to grow this far east, and certainly not on an island in the middle of Lake Superior. We suspect someone planted it here long ago. Kit bought the vacant island from a holding company that didn't even know about the hemlock. It was the locals who warned Kit about it, and he'd used that detail to lower the price, claiming the island was fairly teeming with a highly toxic plant and that's why no one ever built there.

Not true. There's a single patch of hemlock in a marshy area. Before the holding company bought the island, it'd been owned by our cleaner Nate's family, having been passed along through the generations, who only used it for tent camping. Then the holding company made Nate's great-grandparents an offer they couldn't refuse, put the land up for sale at double that price, and anyone who could afford it was turned off by the remoteness.

"It never sold because it was waiting for you." That's what Kit said the first time he brought me here, and… is it weird that even while I laughed, part of me felt as if he was right?

While Kit docks the boat, Jayla and Madison hang back, chatting, and I stride toward Hemlock House. She is a thing of beauty, in a way I never imagined a mere building could be. Scandinavian in design, sleek and minimal, blending into the scenery with thick wood beams and walls of windows that give amazing views from all sides.

I climb onto the massive front deck and punch in my door code. Once the whir sounds, I zip through to disarm the alarm. I stop myself at the last second and confirm the red light is on. Yes, the alarm was engaged. Everything is fine. The house is empty.

Why wouldn't it be?

I tell myself that I'm just thinking of the Abbases, in case they chartered another boat and returned to gather any forgotten belongings, but it's more than that. I'm unsettled, and it pisses me off because this is the one place where I can truly relax. Now I'm checking the lock and the alarm and then fighting the urge to go around to the other doors.

It's fine, Laney. Everything is fine.

No, it's not, and it hasn't been fine since Kit walked out and Anna died and—

Breathe, just breathe.

It will be fine, and part of that is becoming the parent Madison needs, which means getting my ass up these stairs to check that closet before she sees it.

I zoom up the sweeping open staircase, only to have the railing wiggle under my hand. I pause and give it a shake. It's loose, which means someone decided it'd be fun to slide down the curved banister again and that someone probably wasn't even a child and—

Stop.

I continue my flight up. The house has four bedrooms: a huge main and three smaller chambers. When Kit first showed me the architect's plans, he'd stumbled over himself to explain why there were so many bedrooms. One for Madison, when she came to visit, and one for Anna, if she visited with Madison, and if my parents came, too… See? We need four bedrooms. Same as if Jayla came and their parents came or any other combination of guests. It was a vacation house; you couldn't have too many bedrooms.

What he hadn't said was "children." It was too early in our marriage, which had happened so fast that we never had that conversation, and so he wasn't comfortable even joking that we needed rooms for future kids.

Good thing he hadn't, or it would be just one more thing for me to regret. Another shimmering dream of the future to mourn.

The green room—where the Abbases saw the blood—is right beside ours and also the smallest. I stop in the doorway and look at the closet. The door is shut but light shines around the edges.

I rub down the hairs on my neck. The closet lights come on automatically when the door is opened. They're also supposed to shut off automatically after five minutes, in case the closet door isn't closed properly. Our solar and battery array is amazing, but we still can't afford to waste electricity.

The automatic sensor must be broken. It's not the first time that's happened. Kit wanted the house to be state-of-the-art, and I love all the little touches, but each one is also another thing that can break.

I reach the closet and yank open the door. Something swoops from inside. I fall back with a yelp… as a thick woolen blanket crumples at my feet. I curse under my breath. Mrs. Abbas must have pulled it partly out.

I kick the blanket aside and open the door all the way to see the inside. When I do, my breath catches.

There's blood smeared down the inside of the door.

I fight a shudder as I make out fingerprints in the blood, whorls and ridges. I push the door open farther, and the light illuminates gouges. I lift my hand, and my fingers fit in the marks.

"Bat or rat?" a voice says, and I jump as Madison and Jayla walk in.

"Holy shit," Madison says, stopping with a squeak of her sneakers.

"Those are not from a trapped animal," Jayla says as she walks over.

Madison joins her and examines the blood smears. "The marks are human. I mean, staged, obviously." She glances at me. "Right?"

"Yes," I say as firmly as I can. I glance at Jayla, who nods, and I relax.

Madison does the same thing I did, placing her hand a half inch over the gouges. They fit her fingers, too. It really does look as if someone had been trapped in there, trying to claw her way out, someone like Madison—

No. That's my writer's imagination. No one was locked in my closet. For one thing, there's no lock.

What if someone braced a chair under the handle. What if—?

"That is one sick prank," Jayla says. "We'll find the bastard who did this, and I'll sue their ass for you… and strongly suggest court-ordered psychiatric counseling."

Madison nods, and they file from the room, the situation dismissed. I stand there, staring at the gouges. I put my own hand up to them again and imagine—

"Laney?" Madison says, peeking back around the hall door.

"Coming," I say, and hurry after them.

I've shown the others the site of the charred bones in the boathouse and the hex circle under the rug, along with photos from before Nate and I cleaned up. The last stop is the gazebo.

Jayla looks around. "This is new. Why did you put the gazebo here?"

The gazebo sits atop a windswept hill looking out over endless water, the distant land hidden by a light mist. The hill is topped with sparse trees, all stunted from the lack of soil and gnarled from the wind exposure.

"Uh, 'cause it's awesome," Madison says, lifting her face to the wind.

"It's dead-ass creepy, that's what it is."

"Like I said, awesome."

Jayla looks between me and Madison, and her eyes pop wide. "Wait! Are you two, like, related or something?"

I lift my middle finger.

"It's atmospheric," Kit says. "Very Laney."

"Dead-ass creepy?" Jayla says.

Kit's right. It's atmospheric. Jayla is also right. It's dead-ass creepy, which might be why I love it. I'm loving it a whole lot less right now, remembering what I'd found here. Two macabre wind chimes—raven feathers threaded through hollow bones, with human hair tied at the ends.

Jayla says something, and I'm turning to her when a whisper floats up from below. I follow the sound. The others don't notice when I step away from the group. They're busy discussing the grotesque wind chimes.

The wind has picked up in the last hour, rustling the trees and whipping Jayla's braids. The forest is below, and I shouldn't be able to hear anyone in it, but I swear I catch whispers on the wind.

I'm about to turn away when another sound slithers up, and this time, there is no mistaking what I hear. A single word.

Laney…

I wheel toward it.

"Do you hear that, too?" Madison says, and I audibly exhale in relief. I'm not losing it. Someone is out there.

"Oh, yeah," Jayla says. "That's a boat motor." She shades her eyes and squints toward the dock as I pick up the distant sound of a motor. "We are about to have visitors."