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“What the fuck?” she whispered.
A quick inspection of the generator revealed that it was out of fuel, the gauge pointing to empty. Getting closer, she caught the unmistakable odor of gasoline. So, someone had cut the power, drained the fuel from the generator, plunging the house into darkness?
Why?
Would Liza have done it, to ruin the weekend?
No. Hannah knew her sister-in-law to be kind, respectful, unfailingly polite and considerate.
But, truly, how well did they really know each other? There was that uncrossable distance between them. And in the fog of war, enraged at Mako for who knows what, maybe Liza would be capable of sabotaging the weekend for all. Or, and this thought came unbidden—maybe it was Mako. To cover up whatever it was that had happened to Liza.
She found herself thinking of Libby again. She thought about the girl more often than she wanted to. It was a secret wound, a buried regret that surfaced in dreams during times of stress, could be brought back by the odor of beer, or certain songs.
“No,” she said out loud to no one. “That’s ridiculous.”
She stood a moment staring at the generator. There was literally nothing to be done. An electrician would be needed to fix that box. Maybe they could siphon some gas from one of the cars? She’d need help to do that—a tube, some kind of container to carry the gas.
The rain started to come down again.
No, the only smart thing was to get her husband and get home to their child. Whatever was going on, she had to get to that other cabin, to Mako and Bruce, and hopefully Liza.
But when she turned around to head that way, there was a slim form standing in the trees, just out of reach of her beam. Hannah felt like she’d been Tasered with fear, backed up toward the house.
“Who’s there?” she called.
But the form stayed silent and still, watching.
“Hey!” said Hannah, mustering her lifeguard voice, deep and authoritative. “Who are you?”
She moved closer, pointing the beam of light ahead of her like it was a sword.
But when she approached, there was nothing there. Just the dark and the trees. Her imagination. A trick of the night. One of the ghosts who roamed the property.
Relief flooded her body, making her legs feel weak. Ghosts were preferable to intruders.
And that was officially the last fucking straw.
Hannah was through with this place—ghosts and strange forms in the dark, storms and power outages. She and Bruce were leaving. She was going to find her husband, and they were out of here. Downed tree blocking the road? They’d move it themselves. Didn’t mothers have all kinds of superstrength when they were separated from their babies?
This weekend. She had known it was a mistake. Her place was with Gigi and Bruce. She was going to start putting them both first, always. They’d move out of Mako’s house; Bruce could stop working for her brother. They were their own family now.
Hannah almost didn’t feel the blow to the back of the head.
She just felt her head jerk unexplainably, then a radiating pain down her neck. She dropped to her knees, bringing a hand to her skull and pulling it back to find it black with blood. Confusion. Fear. Pain.
She fell to her knees into the muck, the night spinning.
Oh god. What happened? The edges of her vision started to blur as she fell sideways into the mud. She looked up and thought she saw the moon.
But it was a woman she didn’t recognize. She towered over Hannah, face pale and impassive, surrounded by a black hood.
“Sleep sweet, Mama,” said the stranger.
Gigi, thought Hannah.
Then the world disappeared.
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