Page 69 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Talking to Ben and Sheriff Smits, I felt as if I had everything figured out. Yes, I saw someone who looked drowned—hence the photo. Maybe it was Gail under duress. Maybe it was a stranger. But there was a logical explanation either way.

There. Sorted. My terrifying experience may not have been a nightmare, but I didn’t actually see my aunt’s drowned corpse rising from Lake Ontario. Because of course I didn’t.

But what about the headless horseman?

The sound could have been faked. The hoofprints could have been faked. But I saw an actual horse and rider.

A dead horse and rider.

A drowned horse and headless rider.

That had to be more fakery, right?

Extremely elaborate fakery.

Even without our grandfather’s inheritance, Caleb has money. Uncle Mark runs some kind of boring but profitable business, where Caleb works. He could hire actors with movie-quality costumes to pull this off.

I have seen nothing I can’t explain.

Except Austin.

I shake that off.There’sthe sleepwalking nightmare. I have zero proof that I saw Austin, unlike the photo and hoofprints.

That part did not happen, and the rest is Caleb.

There. Everything neatly tied in a bow.

So why does my gut scream for me to get out of here as fast as I can? Screams that it makes no sense that I saw my aunt in a “costume” matching the one I “dreamed” for Austin. Screams that my aunt isn’t an unwilling actor in my cousin’s drama of cruelty. That she’s dead. Drowned. Dragged into the lake by—

By what? A headless horseman?

Stop this.

Just stop.

There’s an explanation for it all, and Gail is fine.

She’s fine.

Twenty

If asked, I’d have said there was no chance of me falling asleep after all that. But while I toss and turn, working it through, eventually the world goes dark and, the next thing I know, I’m waking to the sun blasting through my window, my bedside clock telling me it’s past noon.

I stumble into the living room to find Josie on the sofa, typing on her laptop. I wait for her to finish, but she must hear me and turns.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

“I figured you could use the sleep, so I let myself in.” She shuts the laptop. “There’s no news on your aunt. I knew that’d be your first question.”

I nod and look around, still groggy.

“Let me get you a tea,” she says, rising. “It’s just the two of us. Dad is off doing cop stuff. Ben is off doing… Ben stuff.”

I nod again, struggling to focus.

“Sit,” she says. “Mom sent sausage rolls for breakfast. We can plan our day afterward. For now, let’s get some food and caffeine into you.”