Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

photo she took was so perfect that she didn’t need to adjust it at all. She just added a hint of grain so it looked like an old film still.

In the caption, she wrote:

I have something to confess to you all. You want to know my secrets? You’ll get them. You want to know about people getting ahead in this world who don’t deserve it? Because I’ve got stories to tell. Stay tuned.

She let out a long, slow sigh. When she posted it, she already felt like a weight was lifting off her chest.

As soon as she posted, her phone buzzed. It was Heather. Brilliant shot. Love the caption.

At least she was finally making her agent happy.

But the next text that came through made her blood run cold. It was from an anonymous number, and it read:

If you tell everyone what’s happening, you’ll end up like Arabella and Peter. Go to the police, and you’ll be the next one to stop breathing.

I’m watching you.

Thirty-Three

Ciara watched Michael as he drove—at a remarkably confident speed, considering he couldn’t park a car to save his life. They were on their way to Stella’s house, with a long list of questions about the night Peter went missing.

“Murder is bad luck,” Ciara mused aloud.

“Particularly for the person killed,” said Michael.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean… Look, there’s a lot about the world we don’t understand, right? And it seems like sometimes, horror has a way of lingering on a place. Take the Salem witch judge, John Hathorne. He scourged Quakers nearly to death. He hanged innocent people, drove them mad in prisons, made them turn on their own families. He pressed Giles Corey to death with rocks. And long after Hathorne died, the site of his home turned into one of the most brutal insane asylums in the country. It had to be shut down. Look at Waco, Texas. Site of an unspeakably sadistic lynching, then later all these people burned in the siege.”

Michael cleared his throat. “Or maybe Americans just do so many insane and violent things that they run out of space to come up with unique locations.”

“Not just America. In the eighteenth century, a middle-class weaver was stoned to death in East London by an angry mob. A century later, Jack the Ripper started killing prostitutes in the very same place.”

“It’s a city of millions of people. The Victorian era was rife with murders. This really doesn’t make any sense.” His voice was rising, which intrigued her. He was always so calm, so composed.

But his frustration was interesting.

“Poveglia island, near Venice. Quarantine for plague victims, then the site of unethical lobotomy experiments.”

“That’s one thing, Ciara. That one thing is a terrible hospital. Medicine was very bad in the past.”

Ciara smiled. “This really annoys you.”

“I’m not superstitious,” he said.

Ah. There it was. She didn’t believe that for a second. She’d seen the way he tapped his fingers, counting out the numbers. He was as superstitious as they came. He just didn’t want to be.

“Well, that’s good,” she said. “Because where you live is the worst place in Cambridge if you were superstitious.”

“Garden Street? I think you’ll find it’s the nicest according to Cambridge Magazine, June 2018. Very walkable.”

“Did they mention that the hill right behind your house was once Gallows Hill? They hanged witches there. And in the eighteenth century, a woman was burned at the stake, right about where you live on Garden Street—bottom of the hill. It used to be outside the Cambridge city boundaries. You know, where all the scary, un-Christian things dwelled. The demons and witches, the wild animals, the Wampanoag who gave them nightmares, the slaves they executed for trying to become free. All the terrifying wilderness outside the comfort of the city—that was right where you live. And it wasn’t enough to execute them; they had to royally screw up the burials, too. The woman’s accomplice was hanged a gibbet in Somerville for years. He was still there when Paul Revere rode by shouting about the British and freedom. And guess what she’d been accused of, that woman who was burned? Poisoning someone’s chocolate.”

Michael fell silent.

“The woman’s name was Phillis,” added Ciara, in an unsuccessful attempt to restore a sense of normalcy. “She was trying to escape slavery.”

He turned left onto a leafy road. “Okay. Why exactly do you have this endless catalogue of historical misery at your fingertips?”

“I like to know where terrible things have happened. Because tragic events can leave a sort of imprint on the world.”

“So you believe in hauntings.”

“No, not like hauntings.” She didn’t elaborate, because she didn’t really know how to explain what she meant. It was just a feeling that human tragedy left a sort of emotional stain on the landscape—that stones and wood and soil could soak up pain. Or evil, perhaps, if evil existed.

“What in your life inspired this theory?”

Now, instead of frustration, she could feel his curiosity, but she said, “Do not try to shrink me, Michael. I know what you’re doing. And here’s what I think. Peter died at Stella’s house, and now horror lingers there. And that makes it dangerous for everyone.”

In Stella’s kitchen, Ciara stared at her. Long blond hair, braided with dandelions, and a delicate crochet dress that reached her ankles. She had a small chin, large eyes. She looked younger than her age, her skin dewy. Ciara wondered if she always looked this sad, or if it was her friend’s death that had knocked the world out from under her feet.

Stella reminded Ciara so much of Jess that it made her chest ache. She wasn’t a spitting image, but they gave the same impression—fragile and witchy at the same time.

A chill rippled over Ciara’s body, and she felt a sense of dread hanging over the place. But more importantly, if Ciara’s twin had grown up and become rich—which she would have—she’d have had a kitchen just like this one. Exposed wooden beams on the ceiling with pots hanging from