“Paisley, are you sure it wasn’t a man?” I ask.
She ignores me. “She gave us drinks to drug us into submission. She said sacrifices had to be made to cause the witch to manifest outside of the possession.”
She ignores me, just like she would’ve when everything was normal. For the first time on this trip, the anxiety and sadness in my gut changes to anger. For just a second. I can’t let the anger sizzle for any longer than that. Not when we thought Paisley was dead.
“She told us that we’d have to sacrifice a piece of ourselves and pulled out this horrible knife,” Paisley continues. “Harlow refused and—” Hernext words come out as a burst of air. “She killed Harlow and Opal. Once they were dead, they took fingers and ears and—god, I was so terrified. I told her to take whatever she wanted, just not to kill me.” She holds out her hands. “She took all my fingernails and told me to watch. But I ran. I found this tower, but she found me. I dropped my phone and it broke. I ran down the back roads with her chasing me. I ran and hid in the motel, but I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I had to hide. The motel owner was working that night, and I gave him Mom’s tennis bracelet.”
My mind swims. So shepaidto be here? Evan wasn’t holding her hostage? Did she even encounter Evan? When did he get her jacket and phone?
“…It was worth enough to stay until now,” Paisley continues. “I went back to the tower and stole some of the food, but there was no way to contact anyone. Besides—”
Beck’s face fills with rage as much as pain.
“Why the fuck didn’t you call Mom or Dad or the police?” Beck demands. “It was one person!”
But Paisley ignores her as she hugs herself. “We can’t go. I can’t even go outside. She’s waiting for me. Why do you think I haven’t left since everything happened? I can’t escape her.”
Why does she keep sayingshe? “Do you remember what the person who attacked you guys looked like?” I ask. “We encountered someone in the woods. But it was a man. He was one of the rangers here.”
The cold rushes over me.
Paisley’s here. Paisley has her fingernails ripped off and has holed herself up in a motel room for the past eight months, with very little food, living off whatever water comes out of the sinks. Paisley has been in here because she’sterrifiedof someone. Enough not to call anyone, either.
What if Evan wasn’t the only one killing? What if Evan was just an accomplice and the person who did the actual killing, the person Paisley’s so scared of, is someone else? Someone who hasn’t found Paisley these past eight months.
“Yes,” Paisley says, her word sinking deep into my bones. “It’s the witch.” Her breath comes out as a shudder. “I don’t know about a man. I know about a woman. She possesses people and it’s a real person who’s possessed.”
I lean forward. It’s not even cold in here, but my fingertips feel numb. “Who is it?”
“I’m trying to remember her name,” she says. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes.
“Ivy?” I offer. “The woman from the campsite?”
I don’t really think it was her, but who else could it be?
“No,” Paisley says. She pulls her gaze back up to meet mine. “We met her as soon as we arrived. She had dark hair and was kind of pretty and older than us. She worked at the visitors’ center and said she had a partner in the woods. A ranger, I guess.”
Natalie.
Thirty-Six
Natalie.
There’s been so much of this tragedy that hasn’t fallen into place: the idea that three girls could be murdered by anyone, especially strangers, when that’s so exceedingly rare a thing; the violence by which they died; the extreme lack of evidence; the silence among the townspeople; and finally the absolute insistence upon this witch story being some integral part of real life murders in a world without magic or monsters.
No, it all comes back to one of America’s other pastimes—killers who hide behind ordinary facades.
Of course it’s the park rangers. Who else would know the woods and have their pick of victims? And all that shit about Natalie not believing the witch story could easily be a ploy to keep people like me trusting her. Innocent face, helpful, able to be anywhere you want her to be. My stomach sinks just thinking of her sending us into the woods. Right to Evan. Beck and I were right to not trust him. Of course it was a two-person operation.
But there’s also a relief to it all. A knowledge that the killer—killers—finally have a face.
I sit on the bed. The world’s getting too heavy for me to keep my body up.
Beck holds Paisley secure, the two of them taking the bed opposite me to talk.
Paisley swallows hard. “You’re not gonna make me leave?”
Beck and I exchange a glance. Considering our killer is now extremely close, just busting out of here isn’t going to be the best move. “No,” I say. Not yet, anyway.
