Page 46 of Conjure

“Do you think you deserve it?”

I shake my head as he slides his middle and ring finger into my mouth, dragging the pads over my tongue.

“I want to hear you say it.” Removing his digits, he grabs my throat.

“I don’t deserve to come,” I admit.

Something flashes in his eyes, and then he shoves me back and zips his dick away. “I’m driving you home. Don’t be late after school.” He walks out, leaving me alone with an ache in my chest.

I place my feet on the toilet seat and wrap my arms around my knees. Dominic is breaking me piece by piece. I want more despite the pain or the choked sob clawing its way up my throat.

Ineedmore.

Propping my chin on my knees, I stare at the sycamore leaf on the dirty floor.

A haunted whisper seeps through the walls.“Camryn...”

THIRTEEN

CAMRYN

With the flashlightstuffed in my back pocket, I lower the steps to the attic.

Staring up at the imposing hole, I wonder, not for the first time, if this is such a good idea after all, but then I grit my teeth and climb up. I need answers, and up there is where I discovered the damn doll.

My head pops through the hole, and I peer around. It’s too dark to see, so I reach behind me to retrieve the flashlight. Sweeping it across the room, I’m careful not to disturb the sea of sleeping bats overhead.

I climb up the rest of the way and kneel on the dirty floor. The flashlight flickers in my hand, so I slap it against my palm and then crawl forward on one hand, shining the light on the stacked crates in the corner. My spine shudders, and not just from the chilly air up here, but the sensation of being watched crawling over my skin.

I settle in front of the crates and place the flashlight beside me on the floor. Scanning the dark corners, I suppress the urge to take my flashlight and run. It’s just me here, no one else, or so I tell myself as I pull one of the crates closer to me.

A layer of dust coats the book on top, so I blow it off.

“Jesus…” I cough, wafting the air, waiting for the dust to settle before opening the first page.

I reach for the flashlight and scan the faded handwriting, turning the page. My initial excitement soon fades when I realize it’s a recipe collection.

After putting it back down, I reach for the next book, surprised to find old photographs glued to the pages—photographs of this house in its heyday before years of neglect took its toll.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have looked like with a fresh lick of paint and flowers in bloom outside. Nothing at all like the sorry affair it has become.

I turn the page and pause on a picture of Wilfred’s farm. Adjusting my clammy grip on the flashlight, I quickly glance around the attic, unable to shake the uneasy feeling that raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

Behind two mustached men, deep in discussion, sits a little girl in a tattered dress on the porch, with dark braids. She clutches a doll to her chest, but it’s her eyes that have ice slithering across my arms. They’re staring at me through time and space, dark pools of black that seem to grow larger the longer I look at the photograph.

I quickly shut the book and gulp down a breath. “The doll…” My brow pinches as I open the book and shine the light on the photograph.

Sure enough, it’s the same creepy doll that I found up here the other week. I flip to another page, and my gaze locks on a photograph of our house. A woman is barely visible through a gap in the curtains on the second floor.

It’s the same woman I had a vision of the first time I ventured into the woods.

I squint, trying to make out the grainy image.

I’m sure it’s her. It has to be. She has the same bun and severe expression.

I continue flicking through the photographs until I pause on two smiling faces beside the chicken coop in Wilfred’s yard. Two young men in mucky overalls. One of them is Wilfred in his younger days. But I can’t tear my gaze away from the guy to the right, nearest to the chicken coop.

With one arm slung over his friend’s shoulder, he holds the carcass of a dead hen, which dangles from his fingertips, headless and limp. A bloody axe is barely visible in the long tufts of grass and dandelions by their feet.