What can one say when faced with something so absurd?
The only thought going through my head is that Tom is right. He has gone insane.
“I know you think I’m lying,” he says. “That I’m spouting bullshit. I’d feel the same way if I hadn’t lived through it. But it’s true. I swear to you, Casey. All of it is true.”
I push past Tom, who no longer tries to stop me from approaching the bed. I stand at the foot of it, gripping the brass railing, and stare down at Katherine. The hint of a smile grows at my presence, blooming into a full-on grin that makes me queasy.
“If you’re not Katherine,” I say, “then who are you?”
“You know who I am.” Her voice has deepened slightly, changing into one that’s chillingly familiar. “It’s me—Len.”
A jolt of shock rushes through me, so fast and buzzing it feels like the bed frame has been electrified. I let go of it and, swaying slightly, stare at the person tied to the bed. A person who is definitely Katherine Royce. It’s the same coltish body, long hair, and billboard-ready smile.
Yet I seem to be the only person here who understands that fact, making me unsure who to be worried about more. Katherine, for making such an outlandish claim, or her husband, for believing it.
“I told you so,” Tom says.
From the bed, Katherine adds, “I know how weird this seems, Casey. And I know what you’re thinking.”
That’s not possible. I’ve just been told my husband, dead for more than a year, is inside the body of a woman I had thought was missing for days. No one else can fully comprehend the chaos of my thoughts.
At least now I understand all of Tom’s secrecy, not to mention his lies. He believed he couldn’t keep Katherine around, pretending everything was normal, when to him, nothing about the situation was normal. So he whisked her to the house next door, away from their glass palace and my prying eyes. He hid her cell phone, posted that sham picture on Instagram, tried as much as he could to keep what he believed to be the truth from getting out.
Because who would have believed him?
I sure as hell don’t.
The idea is more than crazy.
It’s batshit insane.
“This is real, Casey,” Tom says, easily reading my thoughts.
“I believe you think that.” My words are calm and careful—a clear indicator that I’ve made up my mind. Right now, Tom is the more dangerous of the two. “When did you start to think it was happening?”
“Not as early as I should have.” Tom looks askance at his wife’s form, as if he can’t bring himself to completely face her. “I knew something was wrong the day you fished her out of the lake. She was acting weird. Not quite herself.”
It’s exactly the way Katherine described what she thought was happening to her. The sudden weakness. The coughing fits. The fainting. It occurs to me that this could be a form of simultaneous delusion, with one of them influencing the other. Maybe Katherine’s symptoms prompted Tom to start thinking she was possessed, which in turn made Katherine believe it herself. Or vice versa.
“It just kept getting worse and worse,” Tom continues. “Until, one night, it was like Katherine was no longer there. She didn’t act like herself or sound like herself. She’d even started to move differently. I confronted her about it—”
“And I told him the truth,” Katherine says.
I don’t ask when this happened because I already know.
The night before Katherine disappeared.
If I close my eyes, I’ll be able to picture the scene with cinematic clarity. Tom pleading with Katherine as she stood by the window.
Who.
That’s the word I’d struggled to identify.
Who was she?
Len, apparently. An idea preposterous to everyone but the two other people in this basement. Stuck between them, their madness coming at me from both sides, I know I need to get them away from each other. Even though it’s clear Tom’s been feeding Katherine, he’s neglected everything else. A foul odor rises from the bed, indicating she hasn’t been bathed in days. An even worse smell wafts from a bucket in a corner of the basement.
“Tom,” I say, trying not to let my horror at the situation seep into my voice. “Could you leave us alone? Just for a minute?”
He finally looks at the bed and the person he thinks is someone other than his wife. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Casey.”
“I just want to talk to her,” I say.
Tom continues to hesitate, even though his entire body appears eager to leave. His legs are parted, as if gearing up for a sprint, and he leans slightly toward the basement stairs.