Page 37 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Twenty-Nine

When Josie returns, Ben takes his cigarettes onto the deck without a word.

I figure he just needs to smoke one, so I eat lunch with Josie.

I didn’t think I was hungry until I took a bite, and then my body remembered that it hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

I might not be in the mood for food, but my brain needs the nourishment.

We finish, and Ben is still on the deck.

I excuse myself and slip out to find he isn’t even smoking. The unopened pack is on his knee as he stares out at the lake.

“Ben?” I say gently.

He yanks his gaze from the water. “Yeah?”

“It’s time to tell Josie.”

He grunts and makes no move to get up.

“Are you … helping with that?”

“You need help? I figured that’s what you were already doing.”

“I could use some backup.”

He exhales and fingers the cigarette package. Then he jerks his chin, which I interpret as a motion for me to move closer.

“If you need help, I will,” he says. “But it’ll be better coming from you.”

“Why? You and Josie get along.”

“Yeah, but.…” He exhales again. “It’s a small-town thing.

She’s always going to be a little kid to me, and I’m always going to be an older kid to her.

She’s careful around me, like she doesn’t want to embarrass herself.

A weird dynamic, but we’re used to it. With this, if I’m there, she’s going to censure her reaction and try to gauge mine. She’s more relaxed around you.”

I nod, leave him to his lake-gazing and his not-smoking, and head inside.

I start by telling Josie how I’d hear hoofbeats as a kid and my grandfather played along, and that I’ve been hearing them now and seeing prints in the sand. Then I tell her about seeing the horseman.

“Did you tell my father about this?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Why not? A headless horseman isn’t something someone can stage.”

“Isn’t it? It’s an obvious setup. My grandfather always said the horseman was from here, and I used to think I heard it. My cousin would know about both.”

“Okay but…” She shifts in her seat. “Could it be staged? Elaborately? Not to dismiss what you two saw…”

“But a staged monster half hidden in shadows makes a lot more sense than an actual monster?”

Her cheeks flush. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. That’s why we’re telling you. We want someone to say we’re exhausted and not thinking straight. So that’s the whole story. Then there’s this…”

I pull over the book and explain where Ben found it and what it seems to be. Then I read Josie those few pages about the horseman and the nekker. She sits back, clearly processing. Then she says, “I have questions.”

“Good,” I say. “Are you okay with me calling Ben in? Or would you rather talk to me alone?”

“Bring him in.”

Ben might have said he didn’t want to interfere with Josie processing the book, but I think that was at least fifty percent bullshit.

He’s the one who’s uncomfortable. He wanted to sit outside so he didn’t see the local deputy—who has always defended him against the sheriff—peering at him for signs of duplicity or drug use, wondering whether her dad had been right all along.

Now when I call him in, he drags his feet and slumps into a chair.

“How do we know this book is real?” Josie asks.

Ben’s shoulders tense. “That I didn’t write it, since I’m the one who found it?”

“I never said that, Ben. If someone wrote it recently, it’s a ridiculous amount of work to go through.” She hefts the book in one hand. “Anyone who’s been in a library knows this is really old. It’s not a school project where you scuff up a leather binding and smoke the pages to look yellowed.”

“But what if someone faked it a hundred years ago,” I say. “Like making a time capsule, except what you put in it is a prank. A false journal about Dutch folk magic, imagining someone in the future reading it and thinking it’s real.”

Josie leans forward. “Exactly. Is the folklore real? Have you looked it up?”

“Nekkers are a regional variation of something also known as a nix. It’s common Western folklore.

The horseman is a variation on the kelpie, and there’s an Icelandic form directly connected to the nix lore.

What they describe doesn’t match anything I’ve found elsewhere but…

” I shrug. “It’s folklore. There are as many variations as there are storytellers who use it. ”

“Okay, what if one of your ancestors pulled a prank using Dutch folklore? Or someone who hated your ancestors wrote this to accuse them of witchcraft? When were the Salem witch trials?”

“Late seventeenth century. Before the Paynes arrived in America.”

Ben shakes his head. “I understand where you’re going, Josie, but logically, it doesn’t make sense.”

She flushes, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I glare at him—wasn’t he the one worried about embarrassing her?

He continues, “What Sam and I saw last night seems to be explained by the book. That only works as a setup if the book is new. How would someone stage last night based on a book they couldn’t have read?”

“Because maybe they did read it,” she says. “Read it, put it back, and staged it.”

“And then we would just find it today?”

“But you didn’t ‘just happen’ to find it today, Ben. You found it a while ago. I’m not saying you set this up—”

“No,” he says. “Sam needs to work through all the possibilities, and that one actually makes sense. I find this book, which gives me the idea for the staging. Not sure how I’d afford something that elaborate, but forget that part. What do I stand to gain by scaring Sam off?”

“Revenge,” she says simply.

“Because her dad killed my brother. That has nothing to do with Sam, but okay, sure, let’s roll with that.” He turns to me. “You need to explore that possibility, Sam. Don’t ignore it because you feel bad suspecting me. But also … are we still sure your dad killed Austin?”

I jerk back. Of course I’ve been thinking it. But if I start down that road, aren’t I as deluded and desperate as my grandfather? My therapist kept me from even peeking in that direction.

Accept what he did.

Deal with what he did.

When I don’t answer, Ben’s voice drops. “I didn’t connect the dots when I read the book, but after last night? You said you don’t want to fight with me. Why is that?”

I glance toward the window. An image flashes back, my hand bleeding at the gate, blood seeping into the ground, the memory of my hand bleeding in the forest when I was young and I couldn’t remember how I cut it.

“Because you saw the truth before reading this book,” he says. “You sensed the connection, and now this book confirmed it. Someone—your grandfather, I presume—bonded you to these creatures. They protect you. You argued with your aunt. Was there any physical violence?”

“She grabbed me, and I fell,” I whisper.

“And then that camper fought with us and pushed you down.” He taps the book. “Physical violence against the bonded one brings the horseman, even if the one committing the violence is another Payne.”

I squeeze my hands into fists. Josie reaches over to lay her fingers on my arm.

Ben continues, “Your aunt didn’t know. She was raised in a family where you didn’t discipline kids with corporal punishment, which is normal enough.

It’s probably what your mom was told, too.

Not that she’d have spanked you otherwise, but it’d have been made very clear that wasn’t done in the Payne family. ”

I look up, meeting his eyes. “You think my father knew.”

He pulls back, as if at the mention of my dad. “I don’t know. But I’m guessing there’s a reason he might be really quick to bury a kid he found dead on the property.” He looks at me. “Do you know how Austin died?”

I shake my head. I’d never wanted to know.

“I was told he’d been beaten,” Ben says. “Badly beaten, with broken bones. You know what that also sounds like?” He taps the book. “Trampled by a horse. Like the camper on the beach.”

“So what are you saying?” I ask. “That the horseman killed Austin when he disappeared, and then my dad found the body, knew what happened, and buried him. Only I caught him and he panicked and…”

“Shot himself,” Josie whispers. “Oh, Sam.”

I straighten fast. “We don’t know that’s what happened.”

“But it fits,” Ben says. “Your dad came to my house and told my parents that Austin wasn’t welcome on your property.”

“Protecting him,” Josie says. “Your dad knew what would have happened.” She looks at me. “Austin hurt you, didn’t he? He must have, for the horseman to go after him.”

A memory flashes. I’m in the forest, running.

It’s getting dark and I shouldn’t be here, but I need to get away.

Someone is right behind me, and I have to get away.

I trip, and he falls onto my back, hands going around my throat, choking me, telling me this is all my fault, he’s in trouble and it’s my fault, he’s grounded and it’s my fault.

The wind is rising, and the sound of hoofbeats distracts him.

I bite his hand as hard as I can. He curses and pulls away. I scramble out from under him and run.

Him.

Someone.

I know why that was, even if my memory wants to haze over it.

Austin.

When I don’t answer, Ben says, “By mistake. Like your aunt. You guys were having a spat, and he showed up and you argued. He grabbed your arm or something like that. You guys were…” He shrugs.

“Having a little tween romance, and you broke up or whatever. That’s why you didn’t want him around. The horseman misinterpreted.”

“A little tween romance?” Josie says. “What the hell, Ben?”

I fight against folding in on myself, and I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“You know what I mean,” Ben says. “Austin had a crush. Maybe Sam reciprocated, maybe she didn’t, but the point—”

“Crush? Romance?” Josie sputters. “Seriously. What the hell, Ben. Is that what you tell yourself? How your family rewrote this?”

I want to tell her to stop, please stop, but I can’t speak, I can’t move.

“Austin stalked Sam,” she says. “Even I saw that. He wouldn’t leave her alone, and when she wasn’t interested, he…

” She swallows and looks at me. “I didn’t know about the rest, Sam, not until I saw the police file.

I just thought he was pestering you, and I tried to run interference, making sure he wasn’t alone with you, but I was a kid.

I didn’t really understand what was happening. I’m sorry.”

“Sam?”

I can feel Ben’s gaze on me, but I don’t look up.

“Is that true, Sam?” Ben says. “It’s not, right? I don’t know what the sheriff put in his report, but I saw that carving on the tree, with you and the flowers—”

“Knife,” I say. “That’s a knife.”

He shakes his head. “You’re holding flowers. Austin carved you—”

“He carved me with a knife through my heart, Ben,” I say, anger welling. “He told me what it was.”

“But—”

“But what? I’m lying?” I push back from the table.

“Making it up to justify what happened? Maybe you want to see your brother’s other artwork.

His other carvings. They’re a whole lot clearer.

How about the one with me hanging from a noose?

Or the one of me chopped into pieces and—” I slap my hands to my mouth as I see his expression.

“I didn’t mean—” I begin.

Then I scramble up and run from the cottage.