We’d searched outside first. The fresh snow was powdery and we sank in up to our knees. It was almost impossible to walk around. We checked around the basement steps, but found nothing: including, thankfully, no human-sized, snow-covered masses.
I’d perked up briefly when Yana—wearing snowshoes she’d somehow come up with—went to check the garage, a separate building from the mansion. But she came back alone. Eventually we went back inside, then searched the house, just in case Poppy had come back and passed out somewhere. We checked every closet, every bathtub, behind every curtain. It had been strange searching rooms I’d never before gone into: extra bedrooms, decorated similarly to ours; another study, outlined in bookshelves.
Yana had offered to search the attic, a space that I hadn’t even considered. Taylor took the basement. Both came back grim, covered in dust and spiderwebs.
No Poppy.
Yana had radioed the police and they said they’d be here as soon as they could. Now Wren was crying anguished tears while the rest of us sat stone-faced, staring into our coffee cups. Taylor held a cookie halfway to her mouth, forgotten. Chitra had returned to the kitchen but Yana remained, standing by a window, peering out as if Poppy might suddenly appear. Roza stared into the fire, her eyes rimmed with red. She’d barely said a word the entire day. Keira was glaring at her through smudged lenses.
“This is your fault, you know.” Keira’s low voice broke the silence.
Roza’s eyes flicked to her.
“Keira.” Taylor sounded weary.
“No.” Keira’s eyes blazed. “I’m done keeping things in. I knew something was wrong here. And now look what’s happened.”
“It was an accident,” Roza said softly.
Keira shook her head. “If she hadn’t been drugged, she wouldn’t have wandered outside.”
“She might’ve.” The words popped out. Everyone turned to me. “I mean,” I went on, feeling slightly embarrassed, “I’m just thinking about that night she sleepwalked into the basement. Maybe she sleepwalked outside.”
“That’s right.” Taylor gazed at me thoughtfully. “You followed her into the basement that night. And…” She cocked her head. “Were you with her last night, too?”
“Yeah.” Everyone was now watching me, even Yana from the window.
“Where were you?” Keira asked.
“She said she had something to show me in the basement.” My stomach tightened. Their suspicious gazes made me feel anxious—guilty, even—like I’d done something wrong. Even though I knew, logically, that I hadn’t.
“What did she show you?” Taylor asked.
“Nothing.” I shrugged. “At least, I didn’t see anything. I just heard her moving boxes around, near the wall to the left.”
“You heard? Where were you?” Keira asked.
How could—or should—I explain the hallucination?
“I went in the other direction, to the other side of the basement.” I cleared my throat. “I thought someone was calling to me.”
“Someone was calling you?” Taylor asked. “Who?”
“No. I—I think I was just hallucinating.”
“When did you go back upstairs?” Keira asked. It was like she and Taylor were suddenly detectives, studying my every twitch and blink.
“I…” I faltered. If I admitted I couldn’t remember, what good would that do? It wasn’t like I’d pushed Poppy outside. I knew I wouldn’t do something like that, even while tripping. But would the others believe me? Would Wren?
“I fell asleep for a while on a couch,” I said. “Then I woke up and went to my room.”
“And was the door open?” Keira leaned forward. “You would’ve felt the cold, right?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it was open.”
“When are the police coming?” Wren asked suddenly, her voice flat.
“They’ll be here as soon as they can,” Taylor said soothingly. “The roads are closed, so they’re sending people on snowmobiles.”
“They’d better come soon,” Keira muttered.
The late-afternoon light was already shifting, turning orange as the sun sunk in the sky.
* * *
The minutes and then hours ticked by. Chitra brought out cold cuts and snacks around three, but no one ate. Yana and Roza went to radio the police again and came back with identical scowls.
“They’re not going to make it tonight.” Roza gripped the back of a chair.
“What?” Keira cried.
“They had to rescue a family whose generator stopped. They have a baby.” Roza’s knuckles were white. “They said they’d come tomorrow morning.”
“Baby trumps dead girl,” Taylor said.
Wren stared at her in horror. Keira dropped her head into her arms with a moan.
Panic rose, breaking through the icy numbness. I jumped up and realized everyone was staring at me.
“I need to go take a bath.” I held up a shaking hand as if for proof.
“I’ll come up with you.” Keira got to her feet. We left silently, walking side by side.
“Should we be doing something?” I burst out as we climbed the stairs. “I feel like we should be doing something. If she’s out there—”
“Alex…” Keira pressed her warm hand to my shoulder. I looked over to find tear tracks shining on her cheeks. “If she’s out there, she’s long gone.”
In my room, I climbed onto my bed, curled up into a fetal ball, and cried.
* * *
Eventually I got up and ran a hot bath. I lay comatose as rivulets of sweat ran down my face. I felt both exhausted and wide-awake. But it still hadn’t fully sunk in. Just hours earlier a very alive Poppy had been pulling me along, determined to show me something. What had she said?
She’s not who she claims to be.
Who on earth had she been talking about? Roza? Wren? Some figment of her imagination?
The questions felt solid, an iron bar I could cling to, to avoid dropping into a bottomless cavern of horror.
Maybe I could dig out a clue, something that would help.
So: Poppy had been tripping. People said outlandish things when they tripped. And, really, the only reason her words struck a sinister chord now was because she’d disappeared. Still, it was strange that she’d felt drawn to the basement, first sleepwalking, then on LSD.
Maybe it could’ve been any basement. Basements were symbolic. They held all the junk we didn’t want to look at.
And it hadn’t only been Poppy acting unusual. I’d not only imagined hearing Horace throwing a raucous party and Daphne fervently whispering in the basement—those hallucinations had been subtle enough. I’d also had what felt like very vivid sex with a demon.
Maybe it was this house. Maybe there was something here, some remnant from Daphne’s time.
Maybe, by writing about it, I was opening up a channel to it. Some dark energy that still vibrated in the walls.
After my bath, I sat at my desk, wrapped in a robe and staring into space. Supernatural forces. Was that really where my mind was going?
But why not? As I’d told Taylor, I’d experienced the supernatural firsthand. Maybe it was up to me to ask the question.