She’s lived here like an animal.
I don’t know if I’ve ever truly felt pity for Paisley Horne, but it hits me in the seconds between when I first enter the room and when I spot her and Beck.
The remains of a broken lamp lie all around them. Paisley is on top of Beck with a knife against Beck’s throat. Evan’s gun is strewn off to the side, two bullet holes in the wall behind them. I can’t see a wound on Paisley or Beck. Blood sprinkles the carpet around them, but it’s the sparse pattern that offers me more relief than anything. If Paisley had delivered any final blow, Beck’s blood would be a pool they’d be swimming in.
I can’t let it become that.
“Paisley,” I say, stepping closer to them.
Paisley puts more pressure on the knife. “Don’t come any closer.”
I’m close enough to see the tears in her eyes.
“I won’t,” I say. “But you need to let Beck go. I know you don’t want to hurt her.”
“Don’t give her any ideas,” Beck mutters.
For a moment, the room sways. I go to another time, when Paisley holding Beck down like this would’ve meant something innocent. Sisters roughhousing. Does Beck have actual memories that mirror this? Is she thinking of that or is her survival instinct trumping all the humanization?
More importantly, is Paisley thinking of those memories?
“What happened?” I ask. “Pais, this is all—”
“I told you,” Paisley says through a strangled cry. “The witch did it. She got inside me and…”
Her hand trembles as the blade hovers over Beck’s throat.
I force myself to swallow the panic enough to ask the question. “Why did—’you—the witch want to kill Harlow and Opal?”
Paisley was never one to make rash decisions. When she saw girls break into physical fights—or even spit a particularly burning insult in public—she’d roll her eyes and say how uncivilized they were. Paisley didn’t confront people. Paisley prided herself on her levelheadedness.
My Paisley wouldn’t do this.
But I think about Beck and the glass trophy. She knew a Paisley who would do this.
Now our two versions of Paisley have become one—and that girl killed my friends.
“I needed to finish the ritual,” Paisley says. “Mom told me about a ceremony for reversing someone’s life fortune. I set everything up and just wanted to do it with my friends.” She sniffles. “I thought you’d even enjoy it. But then Harlow told me not to invite you, and I went along with it. I didn’t need you. But when we got to the site, they laughed. We needed everyone to participate, and they wouldn’t do it. Harlow pushed me and I pushed her back. I picked up a piece of wood and…”
My god.
I never saw the image of Harlow’s head when her body was found, but the visceral way Paisley continues to describe how she beat Harlow to death sinks into my bones.
“What about Opal? She wouldn’t laugh,” I say.
Paisley snorts. “When has Opal ever stood up for what she believed in? I had no choice. She would’ve told everyone what I did. I did the ceremony to reverse my fortune. If I had to intervene, that was that.”
Standing there, less than five feet from Paisley and Beck but unsure if I can reach Beck in time, I believe in the witch. The alternative is too painful to fathom.
“So what happened to your nails, then? Was there anyone besides you three in the woods?”
Paisley shakes her head. “I did what I had to do. Opal and Harlow were already dead. I knew everyone would blame me. They know how many people went in. I moved the bodies and burned the wood and buried the summoning circle. But then I realized I couldn’t leave. Not with the police here, when I’d be the most interesting person in the world to find. I found this watchtower that had food and took some, but I accidentally left my phone and jacket up there.” That must’ve been how Evan found them but not Paisley herself. “By the time I got to the motel, there was no going back. The motel didn’t care, so long as I paid. Harlow and Opal had it easy. It didn’t hurt them. What I did to myself hurt more.” She clenches her free hand. “It hurt so much more.”
She’s so much smarter than I ever gave her credit for. It’s a deeply uncomfortable, almost disgusting thought to have while she talks about her murders and how she covered them up, but it’s all I can think about. Is Paisley a psychopath? Or is the witch delusion her way of processing her overwhelming guilt over what she did in a moment of deep irrationality?
Does it even matter, when at the end of the day two innocent girls are dead because of her? That no one close to her saw what was wrong before Paisley did these awful things?
A tingling sensation flows around my body, somewhere between numbness and deep muscle activation. I’m waiting for the moment I can move, but as the seconds go by and I don’t see it, I fear I might collapse like a statue toppled over. I want more than anything to grab that gun and see if it’s empty or if it just got jammed when Paisley attacked Beck, but I have to go after Paisley now with whatever I have.
