Page 53 of The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy

Snow fell in fat, picturesque flakes, fairy lights twinkled around the stage, and the hum of excitement and cheer that always attended the Owl Island, Maine, Holiday Fair electrified the town square.

Greta Russakoff stood in the center of it all and contemplated precisely how she would murder her entire family one by one.

It had begun as the Holiday Fair always did: Valentine Johnson, the mayor of Owl Island, turned on the lights that illuminated the town square and all the businesses that lined the four streets creating it.

She called the Holiday Fair to life amid cheers and whoops from a familiar crowd.

And then she called up the volunteers for their annual charity auction.

This year, the charity was the Owl Island Library, and the auction was for a dinner date at Francesca’s, Sue Romano’s Italian restaurant.

Only this time, after Valentine had called up the usual suspects, another name rang out.

“Our final volunteer is Greta Russakoff. Come on up!”

The smile of holiday cheer died on Greta’s lips, and for one tremulous moment, she thought she’d simply misheard. After all, there were six other Russakoffs in town. They stood all around her: her parents and her four sisters.

But that hope died the same death as her smile when she saw the faces of her mother and her eldest sister, Sadie, who were looking at her with twin expressions of satisfaction.

Her father was pointedly avoiding her eyes, as was her older sister, Tillie, the peacemaker. Her twin, Adelaide, blinked in horror at her but didn’t say anything. Her youngest sister Maggie’s mouth dropped open, and she mouthed Oh, shit , the words swallowed by the murmurs of the crowd.

“What,” Greta bit off between gritted teeth, looking between Sadie and her mother, “Did. You. Do?”

“Greta, are you here?” the mayor crooned into the microphone. “Remember, this is for charity.”

Valentine was beloved on Owl Island. She had increased tourism and revenue for small businesses, including the Russakoffs’.

Greta added the mayor to her kill list.

Her heart sank as people began to reach out and pat her on the back and smile.

“Go on, Greta!”

“Get it, Greta!”

“Greta, yeah!”

Could you murder an entire town?

“Go get ’em, kiddo,” Sadie trilled, and Greta wondered, not for the first time, why Sadie gloried in messing with her more than with anyone else.

You could just leave , Greta told herself. Just turn around and walk away. You’re an adult now, and this isn’t the damned hunger games. They can’t make you.

Greta squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. “I didn’t volunteer,” she said confidently and prepared to leave.

Only her words came out as a croak, and she didn’t leave.

She turned to Adelaide, looking for a rescue or help or…something. But while Addie looked horrified on her behalf, she just shrugged, an I-don’t-know-what-to-do gesture familiar from every awkward situation of their childhood.

“Dude,” Maggie said to Sadie. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Greta, go,” her mother hissed. “It’s for charity!” Nothing scandalized Nell Russakoff like a lack of performative generosity.

Owl Island was a small town. Leaving would mean answering questions for weeks. Which would mean offending people about the auction, a beloved town tradition. Which would mean even more talking to people who’d known her since she was a child and still treated her like she was one.

Greta gritted her teeth so hard she felt a headache threaten and walked stiffly to the stage, taking care not to meet anyone’s eyes lest she perish from mortification or reveal previously unknown Medusa-like powers.

She stood next to the other volunteers with what she hoped was dignity but would see in pictures later was the pose of someone who desperately needed to pee.

One by one, the volunteers were bid on.

Greta had attended this auction since she was old enough to remember, and since she was old enough to remember, it had been her least favorite part of the holiday festivities.

Still, she went every year because it was a family tradition and because she loved the rest of the Holiday Fair that first December weekend. The auction had even been the occasion of her coming out five years before.

She and Tillie had been in the booth their family ran every fair.

The handmade items they were selling changed with the whims of their mother’s crafting.

One year it had been quilted oven mitts, another it had been felted table decorations, and that year it had been knitted hats and mittens.

Tillie and Adelaide were the most enthusiastic crafters and usually made the bulk of the items alongside their mom.

Sadie liked to sell things but not make them.

Maggie would start one of whatever they were making that year and quickly lose interest. And their father concerned himself with all elements of display, providing snacks, and cheerleading, but didn’t have the dexterity for most crafts.

His attempts were generally hilarious, though, and every year, they had him try to make one and enshrined it on the shelf above the piano, which now held two decades of misshapen crafts.

In the family booth, Tillie had been showing Greta how to knit a hat for the third time, her attempts at mittens having proven hopeless, and Greta had sworn bitterly as the whole thing slid off her needles.

“Watch your language,” her old math teacher Mr. Sorensen had said as he walked past. “Men don’t bid on young ladies with potty mouths at the holiday auction.”

Greta, home for the holidays from her freshman year of college and high on the freedom of her first months away from her family, had snapped back, “Well, this young lady has no interest in men or being auctioned off to anyone, so that’ll work out great for all of us.”

Tillie and Greta’s father, who’d returned with hot cocoas in time to overhear the exchange, had turned to her with identical hazel eyes—her father’s wide and Tillie’s smiling. Tillie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Greta said, starting to shake with nerves. Her whole family—strike that, the whole town—would know in a matter of hours.

She shoved her woeful knitting at Sadie and got to her feet. As she walked past her father, he caught her shoulder and squeezed. When she looked up at him, he smiled and nodded just once. Then he let her walk away to be alone with her thoughts.

Now, she wished desperately for a similar exit strategy, but she was onstage in the middle of the town square with nearly the entire population of Owl Island staring at her.

Just as she was telling herself that it couldn’t get any worse, she caught sight of Tabitha Ryder. Greta winced.

Tabitha’s smooth blond bangs and elfin face were framed by the faux-fur-lined hood she had pulled up against the Maine winter. She held mittened hands with Jordan Laverty, who was handsome and too infuriatingly kind to loathe the way Greta would have liked.

Hey, at least Greta had a perfectly self-deprecating story to tell when the topic of first loves came up. Not everyone had confessed their love to their best friend and then puked on her shoes. (Although, Greta found out, more had than you might think.)

Tabitha’s blue eyes grew wide when she saw Greta onstage, and Greta braced herself for the utter carnage of her heart that would follow if Tabitha smirked at her pathetic misfortune.

But Tabitha didn’t smirk.

It was so much worse.

Tabitha, curse the kind soul that had made Greta love her in the first place, gave Greta a look of such pity that Greta felt her insides fold like a paper bag.

Gone was the urge to murder. Now, with Tabitha—beautiful, happy Tabitha—looking at her while holding the hand of her new love, Greta simply wished to disappear.

***

Greta allowed herself one hour of furious shower wall punching and postshower cringing at the memories of the day before she pulled a wool hat over her damp hair, stepped into her boots, zipped up her heavy coat, and stormed over to her parents’ house three streets over, where the whole family always gathered on holidays and Saturday afternoons.

Close was the word Greta always used to describe her relationship with her family.

Occasionally, as she got older, tight-knit .

But it wasn’t until her friend Ash had returned to Owl Island after leaving for a few years that someone had finally looked her dead in the face and said, “Dude. Your family isn’t just close.

It’s codependent. And weird,” he added under his breath as Greta squirmed.

And, okay, she’d always known her family did more things together than lots of people’s, but they had a whole thing going on, and usually it was great.

Her family was lovely and fun. Her sisters—especially Adelaide and Maggie—were her best friends (since Tabitha wasn’t in the picture anymore), and she loved having a built-in support network, no matter what happened.

But then there were moments like this. Moments when they were intrusive and possessive and infuriating and—

Greta took a deep breath before she opened the door, steeling herself not to give an inch.

She couldn’t give them a chance to explain, because there was no acceptable explanation.

She couldn’t hear them out, because no motivation could justify it.

She just had to storm in there, set her jaw, and start yelling.

It was the only way to be heard over six other people.

Tillie was just inside the door.

“Are you mad? You’re mad. Okay, listen, I can talk to Mom. I think Sadie told her you’d think it was funny, and—”

“ Sadie told her that?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly. I just think—”

“Duuuude,” Maggie said, skipping down the stairs. “You looked like you were about to turn into a flock of crows and peck out everyone’s eyes up there! Did you see Sadie yet? I bet—”

But she fell silent as their mother walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron.

“Hi, honey,” her mom said with a smile.

“That’s what you have to say to me after earlier?” Greta demanded.

“Well, what do you want me to say? That I’m happy my daughter stood up in front of the whole town and glared at everyone?”

“I glared because you and Sadie put me in a position where I’d have to do something I hate or publicly offend the whole town. What, did you think I’d be, like, excited about it?”

“Don’t be such a baby, Grotto. It was just a joke,” Sadie said as she walked in from the kitchen. She took a loud, crunching bite of an apple and cuffed Greta on the shoulder.

“It’s not a joke!” Greta seethed with a deep, trembling kind of anger that made her voice come out thin and reedy.

“That’s what shitty incels and rapey frat boys say when they realize whoever they’re talking to isn’t going to let them say horrible things.

Don’t tell me it’s a joke to put your sister on a fucking auction block for someone to buy the right to a dinner date. ”

“Pshh, it’s for fun. It’s a holiday tradition,” Sadie said.

“Fun for who ? Not for me, certainly. And I’m not going out with Nicholas Martens.”

“What do you mean?” their mother broke in, frowning. “You can’t not go. It’s for charity.”

Greta spluttered.

“And you’re cool with this,” she said to Sadie finally. “I know we fuck around, but you actually think that I should go on a date with a man who bought time with me. Come on.”

“Not like you’ve got any other dates,” Sadie muttered. “Whatever, take the free dinner. Nicholas isn’t that bad.” She waved her hand in dismissal.

Greta took a step toward her. Sadie was only two inches taller than Greta but around ninth grade had decided that she would never lower her chin, so she seemed even taller.

“Fuck you,” Greta said. “I know you don’t think this is cool. You would never do it to anyone but me.”

Something flickered in Sadie’s eyes, but she just sniffed and the moment was past.

“Now, girls,” their mother said. “Stop this. Greta, I’m sorry you’re upset. We just thought it might be nice if you gave someone a chance who you ordinarily wouldn’t look at twice.”

Greta goggled.

“Someone I ordinarily wouldn’t…do you mean, like, a guy ?”

Nell shrugged. “Love is love, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Greta said. “It is. And if I happen to fall in love with a man, then fine. I mean, I probably won’t, because I’m a lesbian .

But you don’t get to throw those words around like a flotation device to redeem you from doing something shitty.

You knew I would hate that. You knew I would’ve hated it even if it was all women who were bidding on me! I can’t believe you!”

Unlike with Sadie, where all strong feeling eventually got expressed as anger, with her mother Greta finally felt tears threaten.

It was a betrayal, plain and simple, and while the sisters all messed with one another from time to time, the thought that her mother either honestly didn’t know her well enough to understand how much this would upset her or, worse, didn’t care was enough to make her cry.

Their argument had brought her father to the living room as well. Always the last to engage, he looked at Greta with sympathy, but she’d long ago stopped thinking of him as an ally. What use was someone who agreed with you if they weren’t ever willing to risk discomfort to say so?

Tillie started to chime in with her typical placations, but Greta was done arguing. She wanted her mother to admit what she’d done—even Sadie had done that—and then she wanted to get the hell out of this house.

“Did you seriously not get that I would hate that?” she asked her mother point-blank.

Nell Russakoff’s face was the picture of aghast innocence.

“Darling, no. I would never do anything to upset you. I just thought maybe a little push… You can’t want to stay single forever. And it’s not as if there are many other lesbians on Owl Island…”

But Greta knew. The slight flick of her mother’s gaze to the left told Greta that Nell had been perfectly aware how Greta would respond.

“Okay, cool. Great,” she said sarcastically. “A push. Well, that sounds great to me. Yup, a push actually sounds like exactly what I need. The hell away from here.”

And without another word, she turned on her heel and walked back into the snow.